Igor Stravinsky Essay -- Music

Igor StravinskyIn the passage by Igor Stravinsky, he uses not only comparison and credit line, but to a fault language to persuade his point of view about the managing directors of the time and their extreme egotism. Stravinsky believes that conductors exploit the harmony for their own personal gain, so rather, he looks on them in a negative light. To show his aggravation and irritation, Stravinsky uses the rhetorical device of comparison and contrast to convey his opinion of conductors. He comp ars the great conductors to great actors in that they are unable to play anything but themselves. Moreover, being unable to adapt, they have to adapt the work to themselves, not themselves to the work, which is obviously offending to a notable composer such(prenominal) as Stravinsky. In addition, he attributes the egocentric view of the conductors to the attention of the man who make more of the conductors gestures and appearance than the music quality. The public is then compared to t he reviewers and critics, who also habitually fall into the trap of describing a conductors appearance rather than the management he makes the music sound. Furthermore, Stravinsky goes on to say, for a public that is incapable of listening, the conductor will tell them what to feel through his gestures. He notes that these people, the conductors, have a high incidence of ego disease which grows like a the lie of a tropical weed under pandering public illustrating that the conductors perform for and are inspired by th...