Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Suite No.2 for small orchestra

Marche
Valse
Polka
Galop

Although born in Russia, Stravinsky spent almost his entire musical career in France and the USA, exiled from his Soviet-ruled motherland. Nonetheless, every note of his hugely influential output is coloured by his Russian roots and his musical training under Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. His colourful woodwind writing derives from these masters, his exhilarating rhythms from Russian folk dance, while his fresh rough-cut harmonies are wholly his own. Even when, as in this suite, he emulates western musical forms, the overall effect is as bright, freshly-hewn and vivid s a Russian doll or ikon. This suite, orchestrated in 1925 from earlier piano pieces, has four movements. It gives a new sound to the forms of 19th Century salon music, but the overwhelming flavours are unmistakably of Russia, the 20th Century, and, above all, Stravinsky.

R.G. Bratby, 1995


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