A Quotation, Because It's Nearly Christmas.

Stravinsky; courtesy of Pablo Picasso.

I did not and indeed could not, count on any immediate success for this work. It is devoid of all the elements which infallibly appeal to the ordinary listener and to which he is accustomed. It would be futile to look in it for any passionate impulse or dynamic brilliance.

It is an austere ritual which is unfolded in terms of short litanies between different groups of homogeneous instruments.

I fully anticipated that the cantilene of clarinets and flutes, frequently taking up again their liturgical dialogue and softly chanting it, did not offer [the public] sufficient attraction.

Stravinsky writing about Symphonies of Wind Instruments; Chronicle of My Life pp.156-7 (quoted in Stravinsky by Roman Vlad pg. 80)

For US readers, Chronicle of My Life and Stravinsky by Roman Vlad Complement.Inversion.Etc store links (UK store links above.)

Yet More Free Stuff!!. Webern's Complete Works dir. by Robert Craft.

Anton Webern: Trying to look composed after falling over in the grass, probably.

Just spotted a useful tweet from Ubuweb which links to The High Pony Tail blog where you can find 'Webern: The Complete Music recorded under the direction of Robert Craft.'

Recorded in 1957 apparently and released by Columbia as a 4-LP set (out of print and never released on CD.)

Here's the link to an updated post featuring a processed mp3 version of the album and a link to the original post with an unmeddled with version in lossless flac format.

I haven't had a chance to peruse the other content on The High Pony Tail but from the post titles in the sidebar it looks like there is some good stuff available (not sure of the legality of it though, this Craft recording seems ok but I haven't looked at the rest.)

TinyURL for this post: http://tinyurl.com/yghlmnu