happy B-day to da Stravinzky

SteinwayModelD · June 17, 2009, 7:17am

give it up, Tiz da mofo’z birthday today

randomly found tiz mugzhot ov him on da internet

tiz wuz taken becuz da Igor re-harmonized da ‘star spangled banner’ wif a major seventh-chord, which was illegal back den

quite a mofo move dere, and fo what itz worth, da Bozton PD had pretty good cultural background~

jredmond · June 17, 2009, 8:22am

urban legend… had nothing to do with the star spangled banner, it’s actually because he was lazy and simply let his visa expire

jredmond · June 17, 2009, 8:23am

btw rezpec his birfday

nicco · June 17, 2009, 8:34am

respec da google

google.com

jre58591 · June 17, 2009, 8:57am

haha really? i thought it was really because of a boston law. that doesnt make it as funny anymore. i prefer the urban legend.

iamcanadian · June 17, 2009, 9:10am

Everything I’ve read indicates that he was indeed arrested for his Star-Spangled Banner and charged with ‘tampering with National Property’.

I’ve seen this in books and on the web and it seems unlikely that it is false.

jredmond · June 17, 2009, 4:41pm

perhaps you should consult Richard Taruskin’s “Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions” which basically makes all other scholarship on Stravinsky obsolete. I remember Taruskin opening an undergrad lecture on the Rite at Berkeley with a handout of this photo, which the undergrads loved. He then proceeded to tell the “fake”, and then real, stories regarding it.

jredmond · June 17, 2009, 4:44pm

apparently it’s mentioned in other sources too… here is a little post David Rakowski made on the Sequenza21 webpage

According to the 2006 biography of Stravinsky by Stephen Walsh, Stravinsky’s arrest for harmonizing the national anthem is fiction. According to Walsh, what happened is that after 2 performances of the piece in Boston, a police officer showed up in Stravinsky’s dressing room before the 3rd performance and told him there was a Massachusetts law prohibiting performances of the national anthem in “embellished” form. So it was omitted from that night’s concert. There was no arrest. Turns out the law referenced by the cop actually forbade playing the anthem as “dance music, as an exit march, or as part of a medley of any kind”.

If I remember my reading of the book right, the “Boston Police” photo usually used to illustrate Stravinsky’s arrest was taken in order for him to renew his visa (the incident is from 1942; the Boston Police photo is dated 1940).

Rob · June 17, 2009, 5:41pm

ahahahah tru rezpec tha DIEZEL birth

jre58591 · June 17, 2009, 7:15pm

jredmond:

apparently it’s mentioned in other sources too… here is a little post David Rakowski made on the Sequenza21 webpage

According to the 2006 biography of Stravinsky by Stephen Walsh, Stravinsky’s arrest for harmonizing the national anthem is fiction. According to Walsh, what happened is that after 2 performances of the piece in Boston, a police officer showed up in Stravinsky’s dressing room before the 3rd performance and told him there was a Massachusetts law prohibiting performances of the national anthem in “embellished” form. So it was omitted from that night’s concert. There was no arrest. Turns out the law referenced by the cop actually forbade playing the anthem as “dance music, as an exit march, or as part of a medley of any kind”.

If I remember my reading of the book right, the “Boston Police” photo usually used to illustrate Stravinsky’s arrest was taken in order for him to renew his visa (the incident is from 1942; the Boston Police photo is dated 1940).

thanks for that info. there are some stravinsky scholars i know that would love to see this information, such as the taruskin book, for i know some of them have been teaching the star spangled banner legend in classes.

btw, david rakowski is a pretty cool composer. i saw 4 of his etudes performed this sunday. that mofo has written like 90. soon he will pass up sorabji. and theyre pretty varied.

jredmond · June 17, 2009, 11:29pm

yeah, some of his pieces are really nice. I’m leaving Cornell for Brandeis next year and I’ll be studying with Rakowski as my advisor for 2 years there. I’m happy about it

Jackson · June 18, 2009, 5:44am

stravinsky… da fire birdie

its really his birthday today?

jredmond · June 18, 2009, 7:54am

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_stravinsky

rodge · June 18, 2009, 11:55am

A bit late, but here’s his own arrangement of happy birthday:
mediafire.com/?wjiuizzdzzz