MHL 603 – TOPIC 1 – STRAVINSKY - 3

SERIAL PERIOD

(F-08)

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

[Review Orpheus before going on to 12-tone music]

2. Orpheus (1947)

Composed for George Balanchine at New York City Ballet – Balanchine had been one of Diaghilev’s choreographers, and Stravinsky had worked with him on Apollo (1928) – Balanchine and Stravinsky hooked up again in the US and collaborated on four ballets ("Jeu de Cartes," "Circus Polka," Orpheus, and Agon) – Balanchine also choreographed many pieces that Stravinsky had composed for other occasions

Tells a story, like Petrushka, but it is a very familiar story, so the music and dance don’t have to narrate – Instead they “represent” the story – More abstract

Scenario - Scene one: Orpheus grieves for Euridice, the Angel of Death takes pity on Orpheus and leads him to the underworld

Scene 2 – The Furies bar Orpheus’s path, Orpheus charms them with his song (interrupted by the tormented souls), Euridice is restored to Orpheus, he is blindfolded, O and E are led toward earth (pas de deux), Orpheus looks back, E falls dead, O is torn to pieces by the Bacchantes (connection a little vague here)

Scene 3 – Apotheosis: Apollo takes Orpheus and his lyre to heaven

Representation of classical antiquity

costumes, scenery (Isamu Noguchi)

musical modes – suggested, not consistent

“classical” dance – (sorry, I don’t have video)

Emotion – Craft points out that Stravinsky marks several passages “espressivo” a marking he hadn’t used since Firebird – Does this contradict his neoclassical aesthetic?

PLAY – Orpheus’s song, - HANDOUT

Key = F minor – Why cadence in Eb (RN 84)

Symbolism of harp – Remember prologue and apotheosis – Oboes represent voice, power of song

Interlude – stratification, contrasting harmonies – strings represent tortured souls

Pas d’action – alternating textures and timbres but is this stratification? – Harmonies are totally elusive

3. 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.

4. 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

Pas de 4 (p.1) (No handout) –(DVD 0 :31) - Listen for:

Insistence on C tonality

Steady 8th rhythm, shifting signatures

Octatonic scales

These are features we encountered before in Stravinsky

Trumpet lick from Rite of Spring

PLAY DVD – Watch for relation of dance and music

Double Pas-de-Quatre – HANDOUT - (DVD 2 :15)

Main section is very similar harmonically and in gesture to Orpheus (e.g. Pas des Furies)

But middle section adopts mannerisms of Webern – not-12-tone, but not diationic either – DVD 3:00

Galliarde – HANDOUT - canon between harp (leader) and mandolin (follower) – harmonized by C-major like chords in strings – Note the big repeated sections, so the listener can get his (her) mind around the harmonies, the timbres, and the counterpoint – PLAY CD

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