Stravinsky: Suite from the Firebird

Suite from the "Firebird" (1919)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Many of the very greatest composers have revealed their genius at an early age; Igor Stravinsky was not among that number. Growing up surrounded by music and learning, the son of a celebrated singer at the Maryiinsky Opera in Saint Petersburg, Stravinsky received a thorough musical training as a boy, but only began to show a serious interest in composition around the age of twenty. Friendship with the youngest son of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov led to a meeting with the composer, who became an unofficial tutor and advisor, even something of a father figure to the young man. In his early twenties Stravinsky composed a series of bland and well-crafted works which showed little sign of his eventual gifts, among them a piano sonata and a Symphony in E-flat, which reflected the influence of Tchaikovsky and Borodin. But in his mid-twenties he began to undergo a remarkable transformation. Not long before Rimsky's death in 1908 Stravinsky showed him sketches for a projected opera, The Nightingale," and the “Scherzo Fantastique,” perhaps the most important of the early compositions. Soon after, in early 1909, the Scherzo was heard at its premiere by the man who would become the key figure in the Stravinsky's career, Sergei Diaghilev. In that same year Diaghilev launched the first of what would become his annual "Russian seasons" in Paris, presenting classical ballet productions, as well as an ambitious repertoire of Russian operas, all of which were utterly unknown in the West. The operas dazzled the Parisian audiences with their colorful Oriental exoticism---but lost money. While the initial ballet evenings astonished the public with the superior gifts of Russian dancers, in style and subject-matter they remained close to the familiar styles of French classical ballet. Diaghilev realized that he needed to develop a repertory of distinctively RUSSlAN ballet, bringing together virtuoso dance and the sort of vivid textures and rhythms of Russian music which made such a powerful impression in the opera performances. (From a distance of 90 years it is difficult to comprehend that such a style of ballet hardly existed at the time. Apart from Tchaikovsky, whose musical idiom was fairly familiar to western audiences, hardly any first-rate Russian composers wrote for the ballet before Stravinsky. In a blunt and scathing letter Rimsky-Korsakov himself laid out good reasons why he would NEVER be caught dead writing a ballet, among them: "it is a degenerate art...the best thing ballet has to offer dances, are boring...there is no need for good music in ballet...ballet music is usually performed in a sloppy, perfunctory way..." ! (Sadly, Rimsky died too soon to see his own imprecations swept aside by the work of his protégé. Determined to produce a distinctive RUSSIAN ballet for his 1910 season in Paris, Diaghilev proposed a new ballet based on Russian folk tales, the FIREBIRD, which would be a feast for eye and ear, a spectacle unlike any other ever seen in Paris. The music was originally to have been composed by Diaghilev's staff conductor, Nikolai Tcherepnin, who quickly withdrew from the project. Then, after a period of squabbling, no fewer than three other composers were offered the commission---all refused. One of the familiar myths about the originas of the “Firebird” has it that Anatol Liadov, a respected composer of the older generation, was offered the commission, but as usual worked in a lackadaisical manner. The truth is that only when four or five composers shunned the commission was Stravinsky selected for the job, proceeding to compose the 45-minute score in little more than four months, in time for the hugely successful premiere in Paris on 24^th June, 1910. As was said of Lord Byron, Stravinsky "awoke to find himself famous." A year PETRUSHKA appeared, and in 1912 LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS was composed, although not performed until 1913. Thus, turning away from Tchaikovsky's classicism (much as Stravinsky himself revered that musical idiom), genuine "Russian" ballet came into being with The FIREBIRD drawing upon unique Russian musical traditions, and in the process establishing the international supremacy of Russian dance. With Paris (and the world at large) conquered by the dancers of Diaghilev's BALLETS RUSSES, the world of ballet underwent a seismic transformation not again witnessed until the remarkable achievement of George Balanchine in bringing the traditions of ballet to New York a quarter century later.

Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite

Pulcinella Suite

Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)

Without a doubt the supreme influence upon Igor Stravinsky was his twenty year association with Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, a period extending from the Firebird Ballet (1909-10) to Apollo (1928). Diaghilev had a unique gift for discovering discovering remarkable creative figures, and fostering stimulating collaborative relationships among composers, choreographers and graphic artists which would have an impact in the world of music and dance through much of the 20^th century. Following the sensational 1913 premiere of Sacre du Printemps which revealed the 30 year-old Stravinsky as the most significant figure of of his generation there was excited speculation regarding what would be the next stage in these exciting developments. But there was not to be a 1914 season. With the outbreak of World War I the theatres of Paris were closed, and Stravinsky retreated to Switzerland with his family. Cut off from the lavish resources of the Ballets Russes, and working within wartime restrictions, Stravinsky composed a number of small-scale works, notably the Histoire du Soldat (which was performed by the Princeton Chamber Symphony in the 1990 season). With the end of the war Stravinsky returned to Paris, a city which overnight became a place of exile for Russian artists cut off from their homeland by the Bolshevik Revolution. While Paris had been home for the Stravinsky and the Diaghilev company for a number of years, their spiritual roots were in a Russia which few of them would ever see again. (Only in 1962 would Stravinsky was to return his motherland, now the Soviet Union.)

In 1919 Diaghilev approached Stravinsky with a proposal for a new work for Paris which initially struck the composer as “quite mad”: to prepare an orchestral arrangement of a miscellany of pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi (1710-1736) for a ballet in an 18^th century COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE setting. (There had been several recent successful ballets of a similar nature, such as Respighi’s BOUTIQUE FANTASQUE (on music of Rossini), and Tommasini’s GOOD-HUMOURED LADIES (on music of Scarlatti.) Diaghilev offered the inviting prospect of working with Picasso (scenery and costumes) and Massine (choreography), as well as the promise of some ready cash---Stravinsky, as usual, was in debt. Oddly, what might be described as “high-class hackwork” became a labour of love, and in hindsight can be viewed as a turning point in Stravinsky’s career, marking the first step in the development of his “Neo-Classic” style. Stravinsky laid out a work in 18 short movements for a chamber orchestra of 33 players, in a striking contrast to the colossal orchestra required for SACRE DU PRINTEMPS. It calls for winds (without clarinets), brass, timpani, three solo singers, and a body of strings strings divided into CONCERTINO and RIPIENO in the manner of the 18^th century CONCERTO GROSSO.

Pergolesi’s melodies and bass-lines are retained, as well as the basic 18^th century harmonic language and rhythmic figures. But similar to Picasso’s use of the work of earlier painters (such as Velasquez) as a springboard for fresh and original artistic experiments, Stravinsky relishes the opportunity to rummage through the stock ingredients of 18^th century Italian music, almost as if encountering them for the first time. The listener is teased by phrase patterns in which beats are unexpectedly cut out, others added; unremarkable melodies take on a piquant tang with touches of dissonance; basic tonic and dominant chords bump into each other with amusing results, while new lines of counterpoint are threaded through the musical texture. Stravinsky seems to strip music down to its nuts and bolts, putting everything again according to his own pleasure---not for nothing did he once describe himself in a passport application as an “inventor of music”! The warmth and affection with which this is accomplished makes PULCINELLA perhaps Stravinsky’s most loveable composition. As White put it, “Stravinsky speaks of his relationship to Pergolesi and his music in terms suitable to a love affair. This was no rape, but a seduction, carefully planned, successfully carried out, and vastly enjoyed---at least by Stravinsky!”

The1920 premiere was a huge success, delighting (and baffling) an audience which had come prepared for another musical onslaught in the manner of SACRE DU PRINTEMPS by this unexpected shift in the composer’s style. They could not know (and even Stravinsky himself might not have understood at the time) that the composer, now estranged from his native country, was beginning to forge a unique relationship to the Western European musical tradition from which Russian musicians had been largely excluded. As Stravinsky said, “PULCINELLA was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course---the first of many love affairs in that direction---but it was a look in the mirror, too.” Thus began the “Neo-Classic” period in Stravinsky’s career, spanning thirty years, extending into the music composed during his first ten years as a resident in California, as was exemplified by the DANSES CONCERTANTES, heard in the December Princeton Chamber Symphony concert.)

A concert suite drawn from the complete PULCINELLA ballet was first performed by Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony on 22 December, 1922. The movements are as follows:

1. SINFONIA (Overture) – a solid, forthright introductory piece in G Major, somewhat pompous and theatrical in manner.

2. SERENATA – originally written for voice, solo oboe and solo violin now do the singing
over a rustling string accompaniment, with murmuring flute. Wistful and tender in mood,
the essence of the Italian operatic idiom.

3. SCHERZINO. Three movements in one: a brilliantly-coloured C Major section, frisky and cheerful in mood, giving way to a scurrying section in A Major, with
breathless passage work in the strings, and a concluding section in F Major, somewhat pastoral in tone, shyly skipping away in the closing bars.

4. TARANTELLA. This most Italianate of the movements is coloured by the sound of open strings and strumming PIZZICATO figures, with cross-rhythms and breathless forward momentum.

5. TOCCATA. A brief, fanfare-like movement bringing the brass to the fore, with humourous bangs on unexpected beats and an atmosphere of amiable pomposity.

6. GAVOTTA (with 2 variations). This movement provides an interlude of quiet coolness, with the instrumentation limited to winds and brass (mostly horns). The first variation is scored for an octet of winds and brass, the second featuring a dialogue between flute and horn against the rustic clucking of bassoons.

7. VIVO. One of the great examples of musical buffoonery, this uproarious movement features an unlikely duet between solo trombone and solo string bass, with rhythmic teasing and a a touch of mock pathos.

8. MINUETTO. An oddly march-like, mysterious little movement, most “unminuetlike” in character. The trombone once again has a moment of CANTABILE, the music gradually pressing forward in increasing sonority to move directly into the FINALE.

9. FINALE. The principal melodic phrase is as hackneyed a string of nine notes as can be imagined, which sports and gambols onward with exhilarating rhythmic twists and ostinato patterns. Unlikely echoes of the “Danse Sacrale” from SACRE DU PRINTEMPS sneak in along the way, the solo trumpet wheeling forward to a cadential slam-dunk.

Stravinsky: Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra

Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra

Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)

In only four years (1910-1913) Igor Stravinsky rocketted from near-obscurity to international fame with his three landmark ballet scores composed for Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet. The sensational Paris premiere of le sacre du printemps (1913) aroused expectations for even more dazzling and challenging works from the thirty year-old composer. But the outbreak of the Great War closed the theatres, Diaghilev’s dancers were dispersed, and Stravinsky took his family to wait out the war in Switzerland. With large-scale works out of the question, Stravinsky composed a number of small-scale theatre pieces, including Renard (1916) and Histoire du soldat (1918), as well as many brief, compressed compositions, marking a drastic stylistic change, one which had begun even before the onset of the war.

Among the miniature works written during Stravinsky’s sojourn in Switzerland were two collections of pieces for piano duet: Three Easy Pieces (1915) and Five Easy Pieces (1917). The first collection bore dedications to Alfredo Casella, Erik Satie and Serge Diaghilev, who was encouraged to take part in an impromptu sight-reading with the composer. “On reaching the Polka [dedicated to Diaghilev] I told him that in composing it I had thought of him as a circus ring-master in evening dress and top-hat, cracking his whip and urging on a ride on horseback. At first he was put out, not quite knowing whether he ought to be offended or not; but we had a good laugh over it together in the end.” The second set of piano duets was written for Stravinsky’s children, with easy parts for the right hand. Both sets were first publicly performed in 1919 with the composer in unlikely partnership with Jose Iturbi!

At various times between 1917 and 1925 Stravinsky orchestrated the complete set of eight pieces to form his two Suites for Small Orchestra, each containing four movements. These little works are splendid

“light music” by a composer who took great delight in composing witty and graceful little musical “entertainments” without in any way compromising his artistic standards.

The Second Suite for Small Orchestra is scored for winds in pairs (except for a single oboe), single brass (but for two trumpets), percussion, piano and strings.

The opening Marche is a perky, parodistic little piece, with snappy tin-soldier fanfares and a vaguely bitonal harmonic background. As usual with Stravinsky’s orchestration everything is crystal clear, a breezy little horn solo being particular noteworthy.

The Waltz brings an affectionate recollection of Petrushka, with its harmony based upon a pair of

oom-pah pah chords, with music-box melodic patterns in the upper winds. A marvel of economy, the scoring is pared down to piccolo, flute, oboe, 2 clarinets (supplying the oompah figures), bassoon, and a trumpet that gets to play exactly 32 notes in the whole movement!

The Polka (the movement dedicated to Diaghilev) is a wonderful “pre-echo” of the cheeky, satirical music which young Dmitri Shostakovich used to composed before the Stalinist roof fell in on him: here a saucy little trumpet tune bounces around with blithe aplomb, over another Stravinskian oompah accompaniment. This time (in a nightmare of bar-counting) the cellos and basses repeat a two-note pattern 49 times, then must be alert to jump off for the final bar!

The concluding Gallop may be a fond recollection of Offenbach – or perhaps another echo of Petrushka in its romping high spirits – or another pre-echo, perhaps of Pulcinella’s more madcap moments – or even a glance ahead to the world of Aaron Copland’s Music Theater - ! There are ostinato patterns aplenty (once again, a fine test of bar-counting in the lower instruments), quirky riffs in winds and brass, even a middle “Trio” section (in all but name) with a trumpet/tuba duet.

Stravinsky: Danses Concertantes

Danses Concertantes [1942]

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

First, some thoughts on Stravinsky’s “Neo-Classicism.” If it is true that “style is the man,” then perhaps more than anything else our perception of a composer’s work and judgments as to its artistic merit may be defined by considerations of musical style. What often complicates the assessment of a composer’s accomplishments is the way in which his style develops, grows and changes over the years. Even Schubert, in a composing career of barely fifteen years, shows remarkable evolution from the earlier works to the last. Sometimes we need the perspective of time: Louis Spohr, a contemporary of Beethoven, and no fool, found Beethoven’s late works to be disorderly, reflecting a decline in creative power. Our own century has seen endless squabbles about the matters of stylistic “consistency,” famously so in the case of Arnold Schoenberg, who some still see as perversely abandoning his sumptuous early manner to embrace an unlovable, austere atonal style. As for Igor Stravinsky, it is often forgotten that he too appeared to have gone off the rails after the First World War, turning away from the dazzling dramatic manner of the early ballets to move into a world of sweet-and-sour tonality. Even as late as the 1960s Stravinsky was sometimes regarded as a sort of play actor, with a change of musical style always at the ready, rather in the manner of fashion design. Schoenberg himself had composed a cruel little choral “Satire” (1925) to his own text:

Why who could be drumming away there?/If it isn’t little Modernsky!

He’s had his pigails cut./Looks pretty good!

What authentic false hair!/Like a peruke!

Quite (as little Modernsky conceives of him)/Quite the Papa Bach!

Ironically, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, the polar figures of music before 1950, who were often attacked as destructive “revolutionaries,” actually sought to establish solid links to musical tradition in their own ways: Schoenberg’s atonality as a logical outcome of post-Wagnerian chromaticism, Stravinsky’s

“Neo-Classicism”crafting a renewal of tonal language and musical forms of Western European tradition.

The impulse to look back and learn from the music of an earlier age can be found long before the 20^th century. An example can be found in Mozart, whose music shows a decisive stylistic change brought about through his encounter with the works of J. S. Bach. Verdi counseled young composers to study the past as a means of approaching the future; and there is a marked “Neo-Classic” streak running through the work of Brahms. The work of early 20^th century composers such as Mahler, Reger, Busoni and Ravel, as well as later figures as diverse as Vaughan Williams, Bloch, Hindemith and Prokofiev show a pronounced fascination with earlier musical styles. For many of these musicians the past was a breath of fresh air, an escape from the smothering after-effects of late Romanticism. In the case of Stravinsky, there was a unique personal factor: after 1917 it was clear that he would be indefinitely cut off from the Russian roots which had so powerfully informed his great early ballets. It is important to recognise that Stravinsky was something of an “outsider,” coming from a country which had always been on the margin of European culture, untouched by the Renaissance, and whose musical traditions went back only to the 1830s. Making his home in Paris, the young emigre quite naturally sought to create for himself a bond with the heritage of Western European culture. This process began with a bit of high-class hackwork: preparing the ballet PULCINELLA based on the music of the early 18^th century composer Pergolesi. Not content to prepare an “arrangement” of the original pieces, Stravinsky strips them down to their basic components, then proceeds to reassemble them according to his own fancy. The listener has the impression that Stravinsky is rediscovering anew the most conventional 18^th century scales, harmonies and rhythmic patterns, juggling and recombining them with freshness and intuition. At first these activities might have seemed to be mere clever diversions. But when the composer took on the subject of Sophocles’ OEDIPUS REX (1927), a pinnacle of western culture, it became clear that a remarkable new artistic path was being explored. Stravinsky seemed refreshed and stimulated by 18^th century stylistic models, working with a clarity of structure and highly refined tonal vocabulary which displayed an elegance and focussed energy in marked contrast with the explosive rhythmic spontaneity, and vivid dissonant harmonic language of his earlier works. For those with sharp ears, however, Stravinsky’s music retained its rhythmic ingenuity and inventive instrumental coloration; in subtle ways textures and melodic elements even preserved links with their Russian roots.

The decade of the 1930s was framed by a pair of large-scale works which summed up the essence of Stravinsky’s Neo-Classicism: the Symphony of Psalms (1930) – the Symphony in C (1940). The latter work brought Stravinsky and his wife to America, which became their home after the Nazi invasion of France. Stravinsky was no strange to America, and found himself quite welcome. He had already become known as a conductor of his own music, and had a nose for publicity---that he was good “copy,” can be seen by a leafing through old copies of LIFE magazine of the 1940s. But there were always money problems---due to the failure of the Russian government to join the International Copyright Union, Stravinsky never earned a penny from his sensationally successful early ballets! With ballet just beginning to win a place in American society, and the starchy conservatism of American musical life, Stravinsky seemed doomed to be a celebrated, little-played composer. Although living in Hollywood, the movie industry took little notice of him, apart from Walt Disney’s use of “Sacre du printemps” in FANTASIA---no royalties needed to be paid! There were some commissions, often quite bizarre in nature, including the SCENES DE BALLET, commissioned by Billy Rose for performance on Broadway; the Ebony Concerto, written for Woody Herman and his band; the SCHERZO A LA RUSSE, composed for Paul Whiteman’s Band, and zaniest of all, the CIRCUS POLKA (“for a Young Elephant”) written for Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, which had 425 performances by “Fifty Elephants and Fifty Beautiful Girls.” (The dancing pachyderms were dressed in tutus…)

Just as the First World War period had seemed to cramp Stravinsky’s creative output, the decade of the 1940s produced only two major works: the Symphony in 3 Movements (1945) and the ballet ORPHEUS (1947). However there were several works for chamber orchestra which, though little noted at the time, stand out for their wit, elegance and zestful musical imagination, notably the Danses Concertantes, completed in 1942.

The Danse Concertantes was conceived in the form of an “abstract ballet,” with each movement bearing a title drawn from the tradition of classical ballet, but without a specific subject. The composer’s plan may well have been influenced by the limited possibilities for producing a new ballet at a time when American was going to war. Though it has since been choreographed on occasion, the work has always been regarded as a concert piece. (Interestingly, two more ballets would appear, reflecting the rapid maturing of the American dance world: ORPHEUS (1947), a narrative work, and AGON (1957) an “abstract” work which stands as one of Stravinsky’s finest late works. Both were created in close collaboration with George Balanchine.)

The composition uses an orchestra of 26 players: 4 single winds, four brass, timpani and 15 strings. There are five movements:

1.) Marche: a jaunty introductory piece, whose springy B-flat major tonality at first teases us with hints of Bach’s 6^th Brandenburg Concerto (also written in B-flat), soon settling into an easy-going swagger which brings to mind the boulevardier manner of Francis Poulenc---who, of course, learned a few things from Stravinsky himself. (Even a tasty suggestion of American pop music creeps in early on…)

2.) Pas d’Action: a short movement at first reminiscent of the finale of the recently completed
Symphony in C. It is filled with the rhythmic suppleness and elegant wit which have always been characteristic of Stravinsky, but here with a leanness of texture, finely-wrought and subtle in instrumental colour.

3.) Theme varie: The work’s longest movement opens with a theme in G Minor set out in a clear, cool, open orchestral texture surprisingly akin to the textures found in some of the music of Aaron Copland---who, needless to say, was another composer who learned a great deal from the example of Stravinsky. The music soon shifts of G Major, with an extended lyrical passage for strings which echoes the gentle expressiveness of the earlier ballet, APOLLO MUSAGETE. There are four variations, rising from G to A-flat, to A, eventually to B-flat. In the first variation pattering repeated notes and quicker tempo bring a more urgent feeling to the music, followed by a yet quicker tempo in the second variation; the third variation finds the winds in dialogue over a restlessly moving bass, soon moving into the home key of B-flat for a boisterous, striding fourth variation, which proceeds without pause to the next movement.

4.) Pas de Deux: the most distinctly “choreographic” section of the work, this stylish and
dignified movement comprises five sections, opening in F Major with a murmuring dialogue in the winds, followed by a quickening of tempo (a hint of Schubert’s “Marche Militaire” in the brass), a flute cadenza which ushers in a central episode in A-flat, marked by renewed rhythmic activity, then gliding into B-flat for another glint of the Schubert tune, and a return to the lyrical opening F Major section.

5.) Marche: in the manner of an “Entrada” movement from an 18^th century suite, the music which had led our imaginary dancers onto the stage in the opening of the work now returns in abridged form to round out the proceedings, ushering the performers off the stage.

[The following was a revision - ed.]

a reworked opening of the Stravinsky article might make it possible to include a bit of the bitch lines from that Schoenberg text about “little Modernsky”… So here is a possible rewritten opening of the article. This can segue right in with the existing text beginning with the

In 1942 found the two most powerful creative forces in 20^th century music lived a few miles from each other in Hollywood, California. What a study in contrasts: Igor Stravinsky completing his Danses Concertantes, a tightly-coiled “Neo-Classic” recycling of traditional tonality and musical vocabulary – Arnold Schoenberg composing his deeply expressive Piano Concerto, in which musical traditions seemed quite transformed through the twelve-tone method. Not only was there a great stylistic gulf between these near-neighbors, they deliberately avoided meeting each other. But then Stravinsky probably could not forgive Schoenberg’s mocking choral “Satire” (1925): “…If it isn’t little Modernsky! He’s had his pigtails cut---what authentic false hair! Quite the Papa Bach!” (Those who recall the Princeton Chamber Symphony performance of Schoenberg’s reworking of a Handel Concerto Grosso a few years ago might think that he should have known better.) An artistic reconciliation between these two quarrelsome figures finally did take place, but only after Schoenberg’s death in 1951, with Stravinsky gradually adopting the 12-tone technique and moulding it to his own personal ends.

In fact, seeking artistic renewal from the past was actually nothing new. This impulse can be found in a wide range of composers, from Mozart and Brahms, to Mahler, Ravel, Vaughan Williams and Ligeti. For many 20^th century composers the past was a breath of fresh air, an escape from the smothering after-effects of late Romanticism.

----resume main article beginning with “In the case of Stravinsky, there was a unique personal factor….”