Joan Tower

Petroushskates (1980)

Joan Tower composed Petroushskates for the Da Capo Chamber Players, a New York based ensemble in which she played the piano. Here is a program note she wrote for the first performance:

The title Petroushskates combines two ideas that are related to this piece. One refers to Stravinsky’s Petroushka and the opening Shrovetide Fair scene which is very similar to the opening of my piece. The celebratory character and the busy colorful atmosphere of this fair provides one of the images for this piece. The other is associated with ice skating and the basic kind of flowing motion that is inherent to that sport. While watching the figure skating event at the recent winter Olympics, I became fascinated with the way the curving, twirling, and jumping figure are woven around a singular continuous flowing action. Combining these two ideas creates a kind of carnival on ice – a possible subtitle for this piece.

Tower’s note is somewhat ingenuous. It’s not just that the beginning of the piece alludes to the beginning of Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1911): the entire piece is an homage to Stravinsky. The Shrovetide Fair music comes back over and over again, as does the “Petrushka chord” (superimposed major chords a tritone apart). Other bits and pieces from Stravinsky are heard as well. The clarinet and flute arpeggios in measures 55-61 come from The Soldier’s Tale; the driving rhythm in mm.112 ff. comes from the Symphony in Three Movements. Other passages allude to Stravinskian textures, mixed meters, scorings, and octotonic scales. Petroushskates refers not just to Petrushka but the whole body of Stravinsky’s work and his influence on the music of the 20^th century.