MHL 603 – TOPIC 1 – STRAVINSKY – 3: LATE WORKS / SERIAL PERIOD

1. Review Stravinsky’s circumstances – 1952-1971

Living in LA

Extremely famous but worried about being old-fashioned

Relationship with Robert Craft from 1949 – Craft promoted Renaissance music and serialism, especially Webern – autobiographical projects

Relationship with George Balanchine at NY City Ballet

Last major work was Requiem Canticles (1966)

Moved to NY in 1969

2. Stravinsky’s “conversion” to serialism

Stravinsky’s motives obscure in adopting 12-tone and serial procedures – Craft anecdote about creative crisis in 1952 after Rake was successful but non-interesting to young composers

Influence of Robert Craft was evidently important – Death of Schoenberg said to be important – Stravinsky studied Webern much more than Schoenberg

Septet (1953) was Stravinsky’s first serial work – but NB it isn’t 12-tone – It uses various smaller and larger sets and treats them serially – i.e. with the techniques that Schoenberg and Webern had developed for 12-tone composition – e.g. canon, inversion, retrograde, etc. – Note that these are not techniques we encountered in earlier Stravinsky works

Several pieces are characterized by Straus as “diatonic serialism” – Also non-diatonic serialism with fewer than 12 notes in the “row” – Also pieces where some movements are diatonic, some non-diationic

First 12-tone serialism comes in 2 movements of the Canticum Sacrum (1956) – Threni (1958) is first all 12-tone piece

Compare Schoenberg’s motives – Schoenberg was interested in “emacipating dissonance”; he explicitly used the 12-tone method as a substitute for functional harmony – Stravinsky had already pretty much emacipated dissonance, and found ways of structuring pieces - Stravinsky was interested in melodic, harmonic and contrapuntal possibilities of non-tonal music

12-tone techniques can be seen as an extension of Stravinsky’s “neoclassical” aesthetic that music shouldn’t try to “express” anything – 12-tone music is less likely to carry any suggestions or baggage – It’s “about” forms, timbres, counterpoint, etc.

3. Agon (1957)

Like Orpheus it was a joint project with George Balanchine at NY City Ballet - Name means a "contest" (as in antAGONism) –– Balanchine believed that dance shouldn’t tell a story – Dance should be “about” dance – This corresponds to Stravinsky’s neoclassical aesthetic

Titles are French 17th-century court dances – Balanchine got them from Mersenne’s Treatise - No story line – Balanchine characteristically choreographed abstract ideas, not stories - Music is "about" the dance, particularly about the "contest" of male vs. female dancers (compare Rite!)

Boulez characterized Agon as a journey through music history from tonality to serialism and back -- Begins in C - Tonality gets more and more problematic – Becomes 12-tone about 1/2-way through - original material emerges again at end

Overall shape: The more dancers, the more tonal, the fewer dancers, the more 12-tone – Climax is pas de deux: 2 dancers, completely 12-tone – Also brass tends to go with male dancers, woodwind with female (in general) – No story! It’s about dance: possible movements, combinations, gestures, etc

Coda to Galliarde (p.40) - HANDOUT - This is first 12-tone movement – Similar textures - But it mixes 12-tone and tonal techniques – some instruments are mostly tonal (violin, trumpet), some are mostly atonal (piano, trombones, flutes) – We’ll return to 12-tone techniques in next unit – PLAY CD