CHAPTER 8 Pathos Is Banned
Stravinsky and Neoclassicism
Richard Taruskin
On the evening of 18 October 1923, Aaron Copland, an American then finishing up a two-year stint as a composition student in Paris and about to turn twenty-three, happened in on a concert at which the latest work by Igor Stravinsky was to have its premiere. For thirteen years, since the unveiling of the Firebird ballet, and especially since the scandalous opening night of The Rite of Spring in 1913, Stravinsky’s name had been synonymous with “savage” Russian (read: semi-Asiatic) maximalism at its most exotic, obstreperous, even orgiastic. It had been only four months since the first performance of a new ballet, Svadebka (“The peasant wedding,” presented in Paris as Les noces villageoises), seemingly a starker, lither version of The Rite, in which the dancers were accompanied by vocal soloists and a chorus singing, sometimes shouting, fierce or bawdy ritual songs whose texts had been collected by folklorists, accompanied by a clangorous “orchestra” consisting of nothing but four pianos and a monster assemblage of percussion.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 8 Pathos Is Banned." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 May. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-chapter-008.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 8 Pathos Is Banned. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-chapter-008.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 8 Pathos Is Banned." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-chapter-008.xml
