MHL 603

STRAVINSKY – RUSSIAN PERIOD

(F-11)

1. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Biography outline

Grew up in St. Petersburg and family estate at Ustilug (in Ukraine near Polish border

Father was opera singer – Stravinsky privately trained, disciple of Rimsky-Korsakov (d. 1908) – member of circle of young, “progressive,” nationalist composers around Rimsky – early works performed in Russia

Firebird commission from Diaghilev, 1910 – other Paris ballets (see below) – Back and forth from France to Russia – participated in musical life of both – (Thanks to Taruskin for showing us how much Stravinsky was still involved in Russian musical life up until the Revolution)

War and Revolution, 1914-1918 – Stravinsky already living in Switzerland because of wife’s health – Very opposed to Bolshevik Revolution (1918) – Lost family fortune and artistic contacts

European years, 1919-1938 - resided mainly in France – Associates were now modernist European musicians, artists, authors - supported self and family by composing, conducting, performing – Involved in a great variety of productions: ballets, theater pieces, concert pieces, piano music, chamber music – A couple tours of US and South America

American years, 1939-1971 – Went to US because of onset of WW II – lectures at Harvard in 1939 (Poetics of Music) – To Hollywood in 1941 – Associated mainly with other exiles, also with Robert Craft from 1949 – Diverse projects (e.g. Fantasia, Ebony Concerto, ballets, tours, Rake's Progress) – Back and forth to Europe in 60s

Periodization of works

1) Russian period (1906-1920) - Most works have to do with Russia and Russian folklore – Nightingale (1909/1914), 3 ballets for Paris: Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), Rite (1913); Les Noces (1919)

2) Neoclassical period (1918-1953) - Characterized by anti-romantic aesthetic, borrowings from earlier music - many famous works: Octet (1920), Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1921), Apollo (1927), Symphony of Psalms (1930), Symphony in 3 Movements (1945), Orpheus (1947), Rake's Progress (1951) – Taruskin emphasizes that S continued to use many techniques of Russian period (e.g. octatonic scale), but this may be overblown – Stravinsky tried hard to make his music sound new and different

3) 12-tone period (1954-1971) - Adopted Schönberg's 12-tone techniques – Works: Canticum Sacrum (1956), Agon (1957), Threni (Lamentations) (1958) – What were motivations? Influence of Craft, Death of Schoenberg (1951), desire to reinvent self as modernist (Craft anecdote) – Again uses earlier techniques (e.g. rhythmic displacement, scorings)

Stravinsky as autobiographer – Very concerned about reception: how people understood him and his works – Spoke and wrote a lot about his music and his life – e.g. “What I wanted to express in the Rite” (1913) “Some ideas about my Octuor” (1924), Chronique de ma vie (1935), Poetics of Music (1939), Conversations (with Craft) (1959), Dialogues etc. with Craft – Notoriously untrustworthy – e.g. denies importance of Russian folklore, takes credit for collaborators’ ideas, etc. – Desire to manipulate reception and reputation

2. Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes

Firebird, Petrushka, Rite were all written for them – So were several later Stravinsky ballets: Pulcinella (1920), Renard (1922), Les Noces (1923), Apollo (1928)

SERGEI DIAGHILEV (1872-1929) -- D. was a producer, not a musician or a dancer – essentially a dilettante - worked in Royal ballet in St. Petersburg

Moved to Paris in 1909, imported most of his dancers from Russia – His operation was called the Ballets Russes – 1909 season included ballets on Russian music: Prince Igor (Borodin), Sheherazade (Rimsky) – D. commissioned a lot of new music from both Russian and Western composers, e.g. Stravinsky, Debussy (Afternoon, Jeux), Prokofiev (Scythian Suite), de Falla (3-cornered hat), Poulenc (Les Biches), Satie (Parade), Ravel (La Valse, but rejected by Diaghilev)

What did D. offer Paris? -- dance technique, novelty, exoticism (Russian fad in France), new music, new ballets, modernism, occasional scandal – I'll post some pictures on the website

Stravinsky's first 3 ballets all for Diaghilev

Firebird - 1910 - his great triumph at age 28

Petrushka - 1911

Rite of Spring – 1913

Later projects with Diaghilev: Nightingale (1914), Pulcinella (1920), Mavra (1922), Renard (1922), The Wedding (1923), Oedipus rex (1927) and Apollo (1928).

3. Petrushka (1911)

Collaboration of several people

Music: Stravinsky;

Choreography: Michel Fokine;

Scenario and scenery: Alexandre Benois

Dancer: Vaslav Nijinsky

Producer: Sergei Diaghilev

Russian setting – St. Petersburg fair in bygone times (1830s) (Shrovetide = Carnival = mardi gras), puppet show, magic puppets that come to life: Petrushka, Ballerina, Blackamoor

Elements taken from Russian folklore: Setting, characters, scenery, tunes, modes – To Russians these elements were nostalgic – To Parisians and other western Europeans they were exotic, i.e. “representation of one culture for consumption by another”

Stravinsky took tunes from published collections – Some of these were obscure, some were very familiar - HANDOUT - Stravinsky often takes only a motif or a suggestion, not an entire tune

Tunes given exotic harmonizations to give feeling of exotic, far-off Russian world - compare Firebird, where "eastern" elements were given more romantic harmonizations - juxtapositions and dissonances make the materials sound strange and exotic – Octatonic harmonizations – i.e. harmonizing passage with chords formed from octatonic collection – But note Tymoczko critique: these are just overlapped collections or non-diatonic scales which add up to most (but usually not all) notes of octatonic collection – e.g. Petrushka chord (C-E-G vs. F#-A#-C# = C-C#-E-F#-G-A#)

Stravinsky also some tunes from non-Russian sources -"Elle avait une jambe en bois" by Emile Spencer was still under copyright and Diaghilev had to pay royalties – Also 2 Austrian waltz tunes by Joseph Lanner – Non-Russian materials make the ballet sound “popular” as well as folkloric – These usually get diatonic harmonizations

PLAY DVD from 2/ 7:30 or so (RN 51, 30 in edition 1) – Skip to track 3 (magician) through dance of puppets - This is recreation of original Fokine choreography, original sets and costumes - Note exotic elements in music, costumes, and choreography - Note how music and dance tell story together as in classic ballet

Given that the materials are so traditional, why does Petrushka seem “modern”? – Because it’s an exotic tradition, because traditional elements are disassembled, distorted, and juxtaposed, because of the combination of tragedy and banality

(if time) play 2^nd tableau – Petrushka is locked in his room by the magician and despairs of his life – Ballerina enters, then leaves – In contrast to 1^st tableau, this presents individual pathos . . . but these are puppets, not people! – Play track 4 (15:40) – Nureyev dances Petrushka

Petrushka was a huge success – People found the score dissonant and challenging but the best “modern” music, particularly as combined with the story and dance (2^nd half of Hamm reading, not assigned) – But not successful in Russia - Russian press found Petrushka banal – Because not exotic? Because nostalgic rather than nationalistic?

4. Rite of Spring (NAWM 145)

Premiere MAY 29, 1913 in Paris – Know this date

Producer: Diaghilev,

Music: Stravinsky

Scenario and scenery: Nicholas Roerich

Choreography: Vaslav Nijinsky - He didn't dance in Rite; although he did dance other ballets on the same program

Scandal -- withdrawn after 2nd performance -- 2 performances in London got same reception – Diaghilev’s "leaks" to the press before the performance were calculated to create a scandal - Nijinsky's unusual choreography was as much responsible for the scandal as the music

Stravinsky’s score was immensely influential musically, from first performance on - Perhaps the most famous piece of the century

Why? - Aggressively modern, yet primitive and vital - Same combination that brough Picasso, Gaugin and other artists success in same period.

Ballet was much less successful – All critics rejected – When piece was revived as ballet in 1920, it was re-choreographed by Massine

We hear the Rite now almost exclusively as a concert piece - We need to remember that it was a ballet and that the elements of dance, staging and scenery were very important

Stravinsky and Roerich were working on Rite already in 1911, set aside in favor of Petrushka – In the 1911 Rite sketches, Stravinsky planned to use the puppets' jolly "danse russe" in Rite

Similarities to Petrushka:

Russian theme - Ritual dance in prehistoric Russia - It was probably Roerich who first thought up the idea

Russian melodic material - cribbed again from printed collections – Stravinsky worked over the melodies in his sketchbook, making them less folkloric, more "primitive" - HANDOUT

Differences from Petrushka:

Russian elements are interpreted as "primitive" rather than as "exotic" or "nostalgic" - Instead of being quaint and touching, the ballet is "mythic" - Ballet is ritual to bring back spring and renew the fertility of the earth - Part 1 is warm-up - basically unsuccessful rites - Part 2 is sacrifice of virgin, which brings about spring

Costumes and scenes - scenes are semi-abstract, emphasizing nature rather than Russian village life - costumes based on American Indians rather than Russian peasants

Dance - Nijinsky's choreography was self-consciously radical - rejected gestures, movements, configurations of traditional ballet - Aimed at elemental, archetypal human situations and emotions - Rejected leaps, upward gestures, solo dancing, expressive gestures – Replaced these with: downward movement, stamping, group choreography instead of individual (rival tribes, men vs. women), stylized gesture

Melodies - Procedures aren't fundamentally different from Petrushka, but more emphasis on rhythm and repetition -– melodies from folklore collections are sliced and diced and re-combined – We can see this process in his sketchbooks – Stravinsky uses rhythms, ornaments and dissonance to make them seem “primitive” instead of “exotic” – PLAY beginning

Harmonies – extremely (purposely) dissonant – Again the fashion has been to understand them as being derived from the octatonic scale – but again they can just as well be understood as overlapping chords from different scales – Chord "progressions" are minimal, very often parallel, long passages over pedal, little counterpoint

Rhythms – Repetitious but not periodic – i.e. rhythmic groupings don’t repeat predictably – Stravinsky disturbs periodic rhythms by unexpected accents and by changing time signatures – These non-periodic rhythms were new with Rite and became very characteristic of Stravinsky from then on (and big influence on other composers)

PLAY video – Background of video – This was a re-creation by the Joffrey Ballet of the original choreography which had been lost – A couple of the original dancers were still alive in the 1970s (esp. Mary Rambert)

Dance of the adolescents – DVD 6 (29:50)

Sacrificial Dance – DVD 10 (46:00)