Igor Stravinsky

• Biography
• The Firebird Suite
• Petrushka
• The Rite of Spring
• The Nightingale
• The Soldier’s Tale
• Pulcinella
• Symphony of Psalms
• Violin Concerto in D
• Symphony in Three Movements
• The Rake’s Progress

Biography

Another outstanding musician from the twentieth century, Stravinsky has been one of the most innovative composers to have emerged in the last hundred years.

He was born into a very musical family, his father being a highly successful bass-baritone in the Imperial Opera company.

Although he was encouraged in music as a boy and showed considerable talent, his parents refused to allow him to pursue a musical career and forced him into studying criminal law and legal philosophy at the University of St Petersburg.

It did not take long, however, for Igor Stravinsky to make his own mind up and decide that he was going to be a composer.

He organised private lessons in composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, who had also been Prokofiev’s tutor, and when his father died a few years later young Igor went all out to make his mark as a major figure in the world of music.

His early orchestral work Fireworks was heard by Diaghilev, who was planning a series of Russian operas and ballets to be staged in Paris in 1909.

Diaghilev was so impressed with Stravinsky’s work that he commissioned him to write The Firebird, a ballet based on a Russian fairy tale.

This association with Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet Company continued, with Stravinsky writing Petrushka the following year, followed by the controversial The Rite of Spring in 1913.

The first performance of The Rite of Spring caused a riot: the audience was so shocked at the nature of the music and its subject – ritual sacrifice in primeval times – that they ended up shouting and screaming so loudly that the dancers could no longer hear the orchestra playing.

It is an extraordinary piece of writing for the orchestra that has a profound effect on audiences in the concert hall to this day, and there are sections from within this two-part work that have been the source of inspiration for numerous composers ever since, from both the classical field and the world of music for movies.

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Stravinsky decided to remain in exile and not return to his homeland.

The first work that he wrote following this decision was the marvellous music/theatre piece The Soldier’s Tale, scored for a chamber ensemble and including parts for a dancer and narrators.

Stravinsky made a resolution to include no references to his native land in this music, and it was not until Diaghilev made contact again that Stravinsky had any connection with anything to do with Russia.

He composed the music for another ballet entitled Pulcinella and this also avoided any Russian stylistic references, being based as a neo-classical piece of music on Western-European traditions.

Later that same year, 1920, the family moved from Switzerland to France and Stravinsky also developed a side-line career as both a pianist and a conductor.

The next twenty years were very busy for him, writing and touring.

Sadly, in 1938, his daughter died of consumption, while both his wife and his mother lasted only one more year, succumbing to the same complaint.

The following year Stravinsky decided to leave France in search of a new life.

He went to the United States and took up a post at Harvard University, where he gave a set of six lectures on the Poetics of Music.

He was very happy in America and in 1940 was joined by Vera de Bosset, a lady with whom he had fallen in love some eighteen years earlier.

They married and lived in Hollywood, where Stravinsky was inspired to write two of his finest works, The Symphony in C and the Symphony in Three Movements.

A few years later, in 1948, having signed a new publishing agreement with Boosey and Hawkes, Stravinsky was commissioned to write an opera, The Rake’s Progress.

This took no less than three years to complete and was first performed in Venice in 1951 to great critical acclaim.

His music from this period then took a turn away from the style that everyone had come to expect of him.

He had been introduced to the works of the writers from the Second Viennese School and, having an interest in Webern’s music in particular, started writing pieces using his own version of serialistic techniques.

In his last years Stravinsky was a much admired conductor and appeared with many of the leading international symphony orchestras.

He also made recordings of many of his works, which are still available in the catalogues and are well worth exploring.

A bout of ill health followed and Stravinsky died in New York in 1971, aged eighty-nine, and was buried in Venice.

The Firebird Suite

1909, Ballet

‘The Firebird’ is one of Stravinsky’s most popular ballets and also one of his most magical works. The music accompanies a ballet of a fairy story based on a combination of Russian legends dealing with the characters of a young prince, a firebird, a fairy and a green-taloned monster called Kashchei.

In the story, the prince is walking through a forest at night when he sees the magical Firebird plucking golden fruit from a silver tree. She tries to hide but the prince grabs her. Begging to be released, she offers the prince one of her golden plumes as a pledge to come to his aid should he ever need it, and the prince is so moved to pity that he lets her go.

When day breaks the prince finds himself in the park of an old castle, though he does not know that he is in the castle of the Kashchei. Twelve beautiful girls come out to play with golden apples and it is clear that they are princesses, but the prince is particularly captivated by a thirteenth. Unable to hide any longer, he leaps out of the shadows, and the girls begin to dance.

As it gets lighter they go back into the castle, but the prince is so in love that he wrenches open the gates and runs in. He is captured by the monster but he summons the Firebird, who throws his captors into a wild dance. She then takes the prince to a buried casket, which contains a huge egg that houses the monster’s soul. This he crashes to the ground, killing the monster, and all the evil things disappear into darkness.

There is general rejoicing and the prince marries the thirteenth princess.

The suite is divided into five sections and follows the story-line perfectly. They are:

1. Introduction; Kashchei’s Enchanted Garden, Dance of the Firebird

2. The Supplication of the Firebird

3. The Princesses’ Game with the Golden Apples

4. The Princesses’ Khorovod (dance)

5. Infernal Dance of King Kashchei

Interestingly, Stravinsky’s writing became much harsher after this lush work, and he would often refer to ‘The Firebird’ as ‘that great audience lollipop’.

Petrushka

Petrushka: ‘Peasant with Bear’

1911, Ballet

‘Petrushka’ is the second of Stravinsky’s three great ballets and was composed almost directly after ‘The Firebird’, yet is a marked contrast to it. In ‘The Firebird’ we can hear how Stravinsky could use the orchestra to weave musical colour into a rich tapestry – almost a reminder that he was once a pupil of the great Rimsky-Korsakov. With ‘Petrushka’, however, we are met with harsh, grating sounds. Grotesque action from the dancers is matched by grotesque music.

During 1910, while staying by Lake Geneva, Stravinsky had a day-dream of a puppet who, having come to life, was deliberately annoying an orchestra by crashing about on a piano while the orchestra was fighting back with loud trumpet blasts. He could not think what to do with this idea, until

‘One day I jumped for joy. I had indeed found my title – “Petrushka” – the unhappy hero of every fair in all countries.’

Later, when Serge Diaghilev came to stay with him, the two artists decided that a ballet could easily come of the music in Stravinsky’s head. In the composer’s words:

‘While he [Diaghilev] remained in Switzerland, we worked out together the general lines of the subject and the plot in accordance with the ideas I suggested. We settled the scene of the action: the fair, with its crowd, its booths, the little traditional theatre, the character of the magician, with all his tricks, and the coming to life of the dolls – Petrushka, his rival and the dancer – and their love tragedy, which ends with Petrushka’s death.’

The popular European tale of the puppet makes perfect ballet material and, in Stravinsky’s version, is in four parts.

The ballet opens with a fair-ground scene with the orchestra giving the atmosphere of a bustling crowd until a wizard begins a puppet show with three puppets: Petrushka, the beautiful Ballerina and the evil Blackamoor. They perform a wild Russian dance.

In the next scene we see Petrushka locked in a cell, trying to escape, while trombones scream out his frustration. At one point his beloved Ballerina enters, but she is not interested in him and leaves.

The third scene is set in the Blackamoor’s rooms, where he is wooing the Ballerina. Petrushka jealously leaps in, only to be chased away.

In the final section we return to the fair where, before the curtain of the puppet theatre goes up, we see the Blackamoor kill Petrushka with a scimitar. A policeman arrives, but the wizard shows everyone that the puppet was only made of sawdust. However, as the wizard is taking Petrushka away, the puppet’s spirit appears above the theatre, terrifying the wizard away into the darkness.

The Rite of Spring

1913, Orchestral

Music has never been the same since May 1913, when Stravinsky’s ballet ‘The Rite of Spring’ exploded on the stage in Paris. It caused a riot in the audience: there were whistles, catcalls, arguments and insults; people punched each other, and for years afterwards the young Stravinsky treasured the ripped collar of his shirt as a precious relic of that battle.

According to the American poet and critic Carl Van Vechten:

‘It was war over art for the rest of the evening and the orchestra played on unheard, except occasionally when a slight lull occurred.’

In fact things had got so out of hand that a young man who had stood up behind Van Vechten became so excited that he was beating his fists on the writer’s head. Van Vechten went on to say:

‘My emotion was so great that I didn’t feel the blows for some time. They were perfectly synchronised with the music. When I did, I turned round. His apology was sincere. We had both been carried beyond ourselves.’

The reason for all this chaos was not due to the ballet, but to the music, which was very new, exciting and crazed, with clashing chords, clashing keys, clashing rhythms and a generally overpowering orchestra that could neither be fought nor ignored.

The first idea for the work came into Stravinsky’s mind when he was finishing his ballet ‘The Firebird’. In his imagination he saw ‘a solemn pagan rite: wise elders seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to the god of spring,’

The ballet is divided into two parts, the first being ‘The Adoration of the Earth’, where, among other events, we witness the arrival of the wise men. Much of this part is wild and exciting, with frantic chords bursting from the orchestra, filling the air with tension and breathlessness.

Part Two is ‘The Sacrifice’, which deals with the events leading up to and including the dance itself, divided into sections such as ‘Glorification of the Chosen One’ and ‘Ritual of the Ancestors’. The music moves through some very strange time signatures and is similar to the first section with its violence and chaos. The last scene, ‘Ritual Dance of the Chosen One’, is rhythmically the most complex yet not the loudest.

Overall, this is one of the most ground-breaking works ever written.

The Nightingale

1914, Opera

This opera is a gorgeously exotic version of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy-tale about a Chinese emperor who falls in love with a nightingale. The music has many mock-Chinese effects and the setting is almost like a pantomime.

The Soldier’s Tale

1917, Orchestral

Drawing on a set of Russian folk tales dealing with the devil, Stravinsky had come across a story that took his fancy, and, with a friend, decided to set about staging it. However, he was hampered by the times he was living in, for post-World War One Europe was slowly rebuilding itself and money was short. Stravinsky hit upon the idea of putting together a small touring company that would be inexpensive yet efficient. The cast was limited to four: a Soldier, a Devil, a Princess and a Narrator, and the set was kept to an absolute minimum. The actual orchestra was made up of only seven members, with an emphasis on percussion.

Stravinsky arranged the work as follows:

1. The Soldier’s March: We hear fragments of a march describing the trek of a soldier going off for a fortnight’s leave. At one point he sits down by a river and begins to play a violin.

2. The Soldier’s Violin: While the soldier is playing, the devil comes in disguise and offers to exchange the violin for a magic book. For three days the soldier teaches the devil the violin, while the devil shows the soldier how to use the magic book. But the three days were really three years, and his fiancée has married another. The book brings him no happiness, so he goes off and comes to a land where the King’s daughter is ill; whoever cures her can have her hand in marriage.

3. Royal March: The devil is already at the palace and he and the soldier have a game of cards. The soldier deliberately loses all his material wealth, thus depriving the devil of his power. The soldier takes the violin and starts to play.

4. Little Concert: The devil collapses and the soldier goes to the princess’s room.

5. Three Dances – Tango, Waltz and Ragtime: The soldier cures the princess with his playing and she falls into his arms. At this point the devil enters and tries to take the violin, but the soldier begins playing again.

6. The Devil’s Dance: The devil finds himself unable to stop dancing and he continues wildly until he collapses. The princess drags the devil away while he swears revenge.

7. Chorale: The princess persuades the soldier that they should visit his childhood home, even though he has been warned not to. As he crosses the frontier, the devil appears with the violin and begins to play.

8. The Devil’s Triumphal March: The soldier hangs his head and follows the devil off-stage. The violin fades away and the percussion goes on alone.

Pulcinella

1919, Ballet

One spring afternoon in 1919, Stravinsky and Serge Diaghilev, the ballet producer, were walking together in the Place de la Concorde in Paris when Diaghilev suggested that the composer look at some eighteenth-century music by Pergolesi with a view to orchestrating it for a ballet. From this point there began a love affair between Stravinsky and the eighteenth century which lasted over thirty years. The composer was in a dilemma, however, for at the time he was known as a nationalistic composer producing Russian music for the Russian people, yet here he was harking back to the pre-Revolutionary Russia which the new regime was desperately trying to forget.

Flying in the face of all his critics, as he usually did anyway, Stravinsky pursued his ideas and chose twenty excerpts from Pergolesi and arranged them for a chamber orchestra, with three singers for the operatic sections. He then wrote out the libretto for the ballet based on the legendary hero Pulcinella.

‘All the local girls are in love with Pulcinella, but the young men to whom they are betrothed are mad with jealousy and plot to kill him. The minute they think they’ve succeeded, they borrow costumes resembling Pulcinella’s to present themselves to their sweethearts in disguise. But Pulcinella – cunning fellow! – had changed places with a double who pretended to succumb to their blows. The real Pulcinella, disguised as a magician, now resuscitates his double. At the very moment when the four young men, thinking they are rid of their rival, come to claim their sweethearts, Pulcinella appears and arranges all the marriages. He himself weds Pimpinella . . .’

From the twenty sections of his ballet, Stravinsky arranged an eight-movement suite that was performed with the same orchestral forces, with the voices replaced by suitable instruments.

Symphony of Psalms

1930, Orchestral, Choral

Stravinsky was a devout Christian, and this is one of his most deeply felt and personal scores, setting texts from Psalms 38, 39 and 150. Many listeners have likened this music to the stillness and devotion of Russian religious paintings.

Violin Concerto in D

1931, Concerti, Orchestral

Stravinsky adopted a strange form for this concerto, using a Toccata, Aria I, Aria II and Capriccio structure rather than a more traditional one. He wrote the first two movements in Nice and the rest in the Isère Valley.

Symphony in Three Movements

1943, Symphonies, Orchestral

Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, this symphony combines the violence of Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ with a certain neoclassical feel. Though only loosely based on a symphonic structure, it is still referred to as a symphony, and the music itself is based on Stravinsky’s visual impressions, personal experiences and strong emotional reactions to the events of the Second World War.

The Rake’s Progress

1951, Opera

Written as a musical homage to Mozart, one of Stravinsky’s heroes, this opera is the story of a young man who falls into the hands of the devil and is saved from eternal suffering and torture only by the devotion and love of his betrothed.