The Second Exile: France and America, 1934 - 1971

Stravinsky (Volume 2)

The second and concluding volume of Stephen Walsh's authoritative and acclaimed biography of Igor Stravinsky.

Huge...Precise and sensitive, sensible in sorting through some tricky issues and - not least - quite beautifully written

A masterly biography, both broad and deep

One of the finest music biographies of our age

Whether taken on its own or with the first volume, this is a magnificent work of biography... A stunning achievement

Walsh's scrupulousness (also evident in this volume's predecessor) in contextualising and considering quotes, hearsays and other evidence reveals a more complete, complex picture... But what emerges most powerfully is a penetrating vision of a creative mind, of how it made its decisions and adopted its stances, of how, often, it didn't quite understand itself

Walsh's eloquence, clarity and grasp of the composer's cultural milieu mean that this book is always gripping

Stephen Walsh is a critic and musicologist who has written extensively on Stravinsky. He is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Wales College in Cardiff.

In 1934, Igor Stravinsky was fifty-two, a Russian expatriate living in Paris and already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation. Stravinsky: The Second Exile follows him through the remainder of his long life, which he would spend largely in the United States. These are the years during which he would compose such masterworks as The Rake's Progress and Symphony in C, and achieve a new level of fame as a conductor and concert pianist in his own right. 
 
In this second and final volume of Stephen Walsh's acclaimed biography, the author traces and illuminates Stravinsky's increasingly complex and often agonised family life and his crucially important relationship with his associate Robert Craft. 
 
As a musicologist and critic, Walsh is able to speak with authority and wit not only about Stravinsky's life, but also about his work, expertly following the composer's musical journey from the neoclassicism of his late French and early American periods, through his early essays in serial technique, and on finally to the astonishing complexities of this protean genius's final works. 
 
Based on exhaustive research, Stephen Walsh uncovers new and controversial material, making this the second volume of the most definitive biography of the most significant and influential composer of the twentieth century.

Stephen Walsh

A Creative Spring: Russia and France 1882 – 1934

In addition to being a great composer, Igor Stravinsky was one of the most fascinating personalities of his time. His life spanned an amazing range of events and places - pre-revolutionary Russia, Europe in the years between the wars, and the United States between 1941 and his death in 1971. 
 
Such masterworks as The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring and many others fixed his reputation as a leading composer; his friendships - and often enmities - with most of his great intellectual contemporaries were famous. His personal life, which involved a double life between his official family and his mistress, was seldom placid. Touchy, unpredictable, witty and unfailingly brilliant, he is an ideal subject for a deeply informed and sophisticated biography. 
 
The first volume of this definitive biography covers Stravinsky's life and work from his birth in 1882 through to 1934, with special focus on his Russian roots and his struggles to make his way in Switzerland and France. It draws upon a great deal of new material, including unpublished archival sources, to illuminate the genius of both the music and Stravinsky the man.

Stravinsky (Volume 1)

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