Igor Stravinsky’s “Illegal” Arrangement of “The Star Spangled Banner” (1944)

1939, Igor Stravinsky Before settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he first arrived in New York and moved to the United States, where he first arrived in New York, where he delivered it. Lectures by Charles Elliot Norton At Harvard, a grade of 1939-40. While living in Boston, the composer conducted the Boston Symphony, and on one occasion, on a famous occasion he decided to do his own arrangement of “Star Spangled Banner.” The date was January 1944. And he, of course, mentioned America’s role in World War II.

As you can imagine, I’ve seen that Stravinsky’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not entirely conventional and added code that prevails in the arrangement. And the Boston police warned Stravinsky, claiming that Stravinsky had laws against tampering with the national anthem, rather than an accurate organization with avant-garde sensibility. (They misunderstood the law.) In a grumpy mood, Stravinsky pulled it out of the bill.

You can listen to Stravinsky’s “Star Spangled Banner” above. London Symphony Orchestraand is done by Michael Tilson Thomas. The YouTube video features apocryphal mug shots from Stravinsky. Despite the myths created around this event, Stravinsky was not arrested.

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