neonrider13 said:I’m telling you right now—I mean it—Igor Stravinsky is hands down the greatest artist of the 20th century. Period! 🙂
Not even close. ☕
Stravinsky was nothing but a total snob—just some spoiled rich kid who didn't even bother finishing school. I mean, seriously, how can anyone call him the greatest erudite of his era when he had zero formal training? It’s ridiculous. 😕
His parents were basically traitors—they bolted from Russia right before the revolution without looking back. They actually had to pay Rimsky-Korsakov to give their kid private lessons because, honestly, he was barely scraping by after finishing some basic music school. I’m not saying Stravinsky didn't churn out some absolute legends before WWI—like *The Firebird* or *The Rite of Spring*—but pretty soon after that, he pivoted to this eclectic, neoclassical style rooted in that old 18th-century Russian tradition. Right before WWII, he fled to the USA, which at the time was absolutely starving for any kind of avant-garde stuff coming out of Europe. But even then, up until he passed in 1971, he never truly left the same mark on the country as the native Americans—guys like Aaron Copland, Raymond Scott, and John Cage.
Anyway, back to Stravinsky—when he was visiting the music biennial in New York back in the early 60s, he absolutely loved the hype. He actually enjoyed rubbing elbows with the local political bigwigs, which is a total 180 from how John Cage acted during his visits in '61 and '63. Cage couldn't stand those stuffy dinners with politicians; instead, he’d just hang out with the local artists—guys like Jevšovar, Vaništ, Knifer, and the composer Kelemen (along with his brother, who was running the Museum of Contemporary Art at the time)—hitting up local galleries by day and tearing it up at private apartment parties by night. I remember the late Jevšovar telling me how awkward it felt leading Cage through the SC Gallery (yeah, that same spot where bands like Shellac play now) just to check out one of Jevšovar's shows. Apparently, some vandal had scrawled "idiocy" right across one of the paintings, but Cage didn't even bat an eye—he just looked at it and told him the piece finally made sense because of it. 😍
Stravinsky didn't give a damn about any of this back then—he spent fifty years coasting on the fame he snagged at the start of his career. Honestly? He was totally anti-modern, acting in complete contradiction to his own claim that "music is a total art." On the flip side, you’ve got Cage—who actually studied under Arnold Schoenberg—and he’s a way more significant avant-garde figure of the 20th century than Stravinsky ever was. Cage took his circle of students and friends—this whole Fluxus crowd like Le Monte Young, John Cale, Nam June Paik (who jumped over from Stockhausen’s class), and Yoko Ono—and built an artistic core that basically birthed everything. We're talking massive influences on classical music, rock, film, theater, performance, and visual arts—stuff that's still indirectly baked into about 90% of all art being produced today.
Look, neonrider13—no offense intended—but this whole thread of yours about Stravinsky is starting to give me those same vibes I get from steelviper6 talking about Elton John or Rokov1983 going on about Doris Dragović. 😳
