1 Musical Confessions
2 Hours of Music as Art
3 The composer's creative imagination
4 The Roles of Dionysus and Apollo
5 Innovations in Russian Music
6 Differences between performance and interpretation
Epilogue

Masters of Our Time (George Seferis)
Note
Author's chronology
Translator's Note

Aristotle's Poetics for tragedy, Stravinsky's Poetics for music

Stravinsky's "Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring" are both works that came out in an era marked by great changes.
These changes confused many, but they eventually succeeded in pushing out the existing ones and establishing themselves as a 'masterpiece'.
In particular, the premiere of "The Rite of Spring" was a chaotic scene due to its groundbreaking music, and the historical scene was well documented in the film "Chanel and Stravinsky."
Ironically, however, Stravinsky, known as an unconventional composer, emphasizes tradition in his creations.

Brahms followed Beethoven's tradition without borrowing a single thing from Beethoven's wardrobe.
“We restore tradition in order to create something new.” Tradition ensures the continuity of creation.
─Igor Stravinsky, from The Poetics of Music

The role of the creator is to sift through the elements he has received.
The more art is controlled, restricted, and laborious, the more free it becomes.
─Igor Stravinsky, from The Poetics of Music

Even if unconditional freedom makes me anxious, I can escape from it because I can always appeal directly to concrete things.
─Igor Stravinsky, from The Poetics of Music

Stravinsky's poetics emphasizes "taming the Dionysian elements before intoxicating them with inspiration."
Stravinsky also says that the purpose of music is ultimately to “help man to unite with his neighbors and with all existence, and to reach spiritual communion with them.”

Still, I know there is more music inside me.
I have to give it up.
You can't live a life where you just receive.
─Igor Stravinsky, from The Poetics of Music

The world of music from a senior master, as told directly by the master himself.

『The Poetics of Music』 is a very rare text in which the composer and conductor Stravinsky himself tells the world of music by masters of music.
The part where Stravinsky compares Wagner and Verdi is particularly interesting.

I would argue that there is more genuine creativity and substance in the arias from Verdi's "La Femme" than in the rhetoric and rage of the Ring trilogy.
Wagner's operas display constant exaggeration.
Verdi's works are filled with a humble yet aristocratic creativity.
─Igor Stravinsky, from The Poetics of Music

If you want to fully enjoy the conquests of your boldness, you must desire that your boldness operate in unclouded light.
To denounce all the plagiarism that seeks to usurp the place of boldness is to elevate boldness.
Unnecessary exaggeration ruins any material.
─Igor Stravinsky, from The Poetics of Music

Stravinsky especially praises Mozart and Haydn as masters who created another tradition by creating miracles with their own originality on top of tradition.
Meanwhile, Stravinsky began studying composition under Rimsky-Korsakov, but he admired Tchaikovsky, whom his teacher most disliked, throughout his life.
Stravinsky also speaks of the tension between the composer's intention and the performer's interpretation.
For example, the composer criticizes Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" as "arrogance" and "greed" to mobilize hundreds of performers today when the work was intended for a choir of only thirty-five.


A "humanities classic" that creates new value together with readers.

Classics must be constantly rediscovered.
Minumsa seeks to create new values ​​based on tradition together with its readers.
Liberal arts classics, encompassing literature, art, philosophy, and history, open new windows to our thinking.
By listening to the works and concerns of masters, we aim to open up a world of rich interpretation and infinite possibilities.