Description: Simply Stravinsky explores the life and work of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), one of the most important and influential composers of the twentieth century, whose innovative musical compositions challenged convention, divided critics, and occasionally caused a riot.
Brief description: Pieter van den Toorn is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught from 1990 to 2016. He is the author of The Music of Igor Stravinsky (1983), Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring (1987), Music, Politics, and the Academy (1995), and with John McGinness, Stravinsky and the Russian Period (2012). Professor van den Toorn is a former student of the French musician and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, for many years one of Stravinsky's closest colleagues and associates.
Review Quotes:
"This is a short book but a teeming one, boiling over with the insights that have accrued over forty years and more, ever since Pieter van den Toorn set the musicological world on its ear with his revelations about Stravinsky's creative methods, deduced from an unprecedentedly close and fruitful examination of the published scores. Since then he has been at the manuscripts as well, and has made even further-reaching observations about Stravinsky's epochal rhythmic innovations. All of this he now places at the disposal of musicians and general readers, laid out with a chronology of the composer's life and times-a great gift to us all and a fitting crown to a most distinguished scholarly career."
-Richard Taruskin, author of Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions
"A readable and comprehensible study by one of our leading Stravinsky theorists. Pieter van den Toorn has the gift of guiding the reader gently and agreeably through some quite intricate matters while painting a lucid overall picture."
-Stephen Walsh, author of Stravinsky: A Creative Spring: Russia and France, 1882-1934
"Pieter van den Toorn brings fresh insights to the life and work of one of the twentieth century's most written-about composers. He has devoted his entire career to examining how Stravinsky's music 'works' and now shares that deep understanding with a wide readership. The great strength of this book is the way it tells the life through the music, eschewing much of the quotidian tittle-tattle to focus on the essentials of the music's harmonic and rhythmic organization. It certainly made me return to familiar music with new ears."
-Jonathan Cross, Professor of Musicology, University of Oxford
"Pieter is among the foremost Stravinsky scholars in the world. His new book Simply Stravinsky is a synthesis of musical analysis, history, and criticism. What is remarkable about this book is that it presents a sophisticated account of Stravinsky's musical achievements accessible to a broad audience. And even more impressive is that it not only provides readers with a stimulating account of Stravinsky's works within their rich intellectual and cultural context, but also opens their ears to the joy and wonders of the music itself."
-David Bernstein, Professor of Music, Mills College
"Stravinsky was both grounded in tradition and a breaker of tradition, and Pieter van den Toorn's insightful book shows us both sides of him. There's a great deal to learn here of Stravinsky's methods of composition, which remained consistent in spite of the radical changes of direction and style throughout his career, which are explained in fascinating detail. It's no wonder that Stravinsky is so many composers' favorite composer!"
-Colin Matthews, English composer and Prince Consort Professor of Music and Fellow of the Royal College of Music