A Babylonian Tower: Marc Hollander's Favourite Music | Page 7 of 14 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

6. Igor StravinskyL’Histoire Du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale)

That stands for my interest in contemporary classical music. I listened to stuff like Beethoven when I was 12 or 13, which was bombastic and huge but then I got really interested really in Bartok and Debussy, Ravel, Olivier Messiaen and Stravinsky of course and I’m still listening to a lot of stuff like that. I recently discovered a French composer called Lili Boulanger.

But back to Stravinsky – it’s something he wrote during World War I, it was for a travelling theatre so he reduced the orchestra to the minimum, the highest sounding wind instruments and the lowest sounding trumpets and trombone, and a violin, double-bass and percussion so it’s like a reduction of an orchestra. It has a lot of influence of folk music, it’s something with Bartok as well. It sounds simple but it’s dissonant in a subtle way, and in-between tonalities. I have a fondness for modernist music of the 20s and 30s. Dissonance but not complete atonality or abstraction.

PreviousNext Record

Don’t Miss The Quietus Digest

Start each weekend with our free email newsletter.

Help Support The Quietus in 2025

If you’ve read something you love on our site today, please consider becoming a tQ subscriber – our journalism is mostly funded this way. We’ve got some bonus perks waiting for you too.

Subscribe Now