Review of Maureen Carr, After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) (Oxford, 2014)

[2] In the introductory chapter, Carr explores influential movements in various art forms prominent in 1914 St. Petersburg. These movements aimed to reject the past, with a shared focus on the aesthetics of futurism and formalism. Carr's argument clarifies how those artistic manifestos relate to each other and to the development of Neoclassicism. Several concepts presented here are valuable to investigate because they are directly connected to Stravinsky's Neoclassicism.(4) In literature, Viktor Shklovsky promoted futurism in poetry through his essay on "The Resurrection of the Word" (1914) (8), which led to the idea of "defamiliarization" appearing in "Art as Technique" (1917) (23). The notion of "defamiliarization" plays a crucial role in Stravinsky's departure from his "Russian" pieces.(5) For example, the abrupt fragments and multiple ostinati seen in earlier works from the Russian period become more prominent, evolving into discrete strata and blocks. Aspects of Stravinsky's formal design provide another example of "defamiliarization." Although the composer models the sonata form of eighteenth-century music, Carr reveals that, in works such as the Piano Sonata, he gives new meaning to the form through defamiliarizing the archetype of the formal structure (271).