Stravinsky's genius for the stage is here represented by two very different works. Oedipus Rex (1927) is the fruit of a collaboration with Jean Cocteau, in which the Sophocles tragedy is pared down to make an opera-oratorio of overwhelming impact. Judith Weir analyses how this is achieved: the Latin text has an immediacy which is sometimes even comic, and the vibrant rhythms are reminiscent of the Italian operatic tradition - explored by David Nice in his analysis of the score. The libretto of The Rake's Progress (1951) by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman is one of the greatest English opera texts. In a survey of the composition period, Roger Savage examines the contributions of the different collaborators.Contents: The Person of Fate and the Fate of the Person: 'Oedipus Rex', David Nice; 'Oedipus Rex': A Personal View, Judith Weir; On an Oratorio, Jean Cocteau; Oedipus Rex: Libretto by Jean Cocteau, translated into Latin by Jean Danielou; Oedipus Rex: English translation of the narration by e. e. cummings and of the Latin text by Deryck Cooke; Making a Libretto: Three Collaborations over 'The Rake's Progress', Roger Savage; The New and the Classical in 'The Rake's Progress', Brian Trowell; The Rake's Progress: Libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman

The Rake's Progress is Stravinsky's biggest work and one of the few great operas written since the 1920s, rare too for the unusual quality of its libretto, by Auden and Kallman. Its importance is undisputed, but so too are the problems it raises: problems of both performance and understanding, caused by the irony with which it is so thoroughly permeated. In aspects of style and operatic convention it looks back to the eighteenth century, and in particular to the operas of Mozart and da Ponte, while making references also to other periods, to operas from Monteverdi to Verdi. Yet at the same time it is wholly a work of the twentieth-century, and indeed it is centrally concerned with the impossibility of return, artistic, psychological or actual, as well as with the nature and limitation of human free will. The Rake's Progress is not one of unbridled dissipation but rather, more interestingly, one of attachment to naive notions of freedom and choice, and his tragedy is that he can never go back.

A definitive source study of the stage works of Harrison Birtwistle, one of Britain's foremost living composers.

Of Russian, French, and later American nationality, Stravinsky's musical styles are startlingly diverse, reflecting his life and era; from Tsarist Russia, to 1920s France and post-war USA. His early years in Russia saw him launch his international career, with Dyagilve's Ballets Russes in Paris and the premieres of The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. Between 1920-1939 Stravinsky lived and worked in France, producing his great neo-classical compositions, reactivating the modes and manners of the eighteenth century. This stylistic inclination eventually gave way to a highly individual use of serial techniques in his last years, when he took up residence in the United States. This biography of Igor Stravinsky is one in a new series of composer biographies, derived and adapted from the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. These newly written biographies bring the best of the book-length pieces in The New Grove to a wider audience. Each title provides fresh new insights into the life and works of a major composer, derived from the most recent scholarship. In addition to a detailed and informative view of the subject's life and works, written by an expert in the field, each book includes comprehensive, tabular work-lists and a fully revised and updated bibliography.