Stravinsky, Picasso, and Cubism

Part of TŌN’s Sight & Sound series

In the hit series Sight & Sound, conductor and music historian Leon Botstein explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. A discussion is accompanied by on-screen artworks and musical excerpts performed by The Orchestra Now, followed by a full performance and audience Q&A.

Igor Stravinsky fled the Russian Revolution and ultimately settled in Paris in the 1920s. He formed close friendships with contemporary visual artists, including Pablo Picasso, a founder of Cubism. Cubism sought to deconstruct the familiar and reassemble reality through a disciplined formal approach to painting and sculpture. Cubism inspired Stravinsky to develop a new approach to the construction of musical forms, relying in part on familiar models from the past. One of the earliest of his “neo-classic” masterpieces was this concerto. Stravinsky loved to perform it himself and believed that the piano, a percussive instrument, worked well with the sound of wind instruments.