In 1934, Stravinsky was fifty-two, a Russian expatriate living in Paris and already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation. "Stravinsky: The Second Exile" follows Stravinsky through the remainder of his long life, which he would spend largely in the United States. These are the years during which he would compose such masterworks as "The Rake's Progress" and "Symphony in C", and achieve a new level of fame as a conductor and concert pianist in his own right. In this second and final volume of Stephen Walsh's comprehensive biography, the author traces and illuminates Stravinsky's increasingly complex and often agonized family life and his crucially important relationship with his associate Robert Craft. As a musicologist and critic, Walsh is able to speak with authority and wit not only about Stravinsky's life, but also about his work, expertly following the composer's musical journey from the neoclassicism of his late French and early American periods, through his early essays in serial technique, and on finally to the astonishing complexities of this protean genius's final works.
Based on exhaustive research, Stephen Walsh uncovers new and controversial material, making this the second volume of the most definitive biography of the most significant and influential composer of the twentieth century.
- ISBN10 0224060783
- ISBN13 9780224060783
- Publish Date 6 July 2006 (first published 7 December 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 August 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 736
- Language English