Igor Stravinsky Essay

The Horrible "Great" Conductors Composer Igor Stravinsky has written a passage that discusses orchestra conductors. Stravinsky uses language and rhetorical devices to express his point of view. Through the tropes, the exigence, and the audience he shows how horrible "great" conductors really are.

Stravinsky uses tropes to enhance his argument against conductors. The language he uses is very harsh. In a few places, he goes beyond his arguments into simple criticisms and attacks the conductors. "The conductor is encouraged to impose a purely egotistical, false, and arbitrary authority, and that he is accorded a position out of all proportion to his real value in the musical, as opposed to the music-business, community," he says in one of such places. It is obvious that Stravinsky holds a personal grudge against the conductors. Being a composer, he must have come across them many times. He says, "Conducting, like politics, rarely attracts original minds." Stravinsky uses the word "original" in a different way than it is normally used. "Original" is usually thought of as meaning first, or new. Stravinsky uses "original" to convey the meaning smart and coming up with resourceful ideas. Stravinsky says that, more or less, almost all conductors are stupid. The whole passage is more of an insult to all conductors, rather than an informative text. Secondly, Stravinsky uses comparisons to politicians in order condemn the conductors. "Conducting, like politics, rarely attracts original minds "¦ His first skill has to be power politics," he says in the first paragraph. Politicians are always thought to be corrupt, dishonest, and sinister. Furthermore, Stravinsky fails to note exactly how a conductor is similar to a politician. In another quote, he compares the effect of the public on the conductor's ego to the effect the sun has on a tropical weed. This argument is based more on emotion than logic. In spite of that, it manages to convince the reader that