Igor Stravinsky: Style and Period - Essay Example

IGOR STRAVINSKY Early years Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky (June 17, 1882 - April 6, 1971) was a Russian-French-American composer of modern ical music. Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum (now Lomonosov), near St. Petersburg, Russia. Brought up in an apartment in St. Petersburg and dominated by his father and elder brother, Stravinsky's early childhood was a mix of experience that hinted little at the cosmopolitan artist he was to become. Though his father was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Stravinsky originally studied to be a lawyer. Composition came later. In 1902, at the age of 20, Stravinsky became the pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, probably the leading Russian composer of the time. Stravinsky left Russia for the first time in 1910, going to Paris to attend the premiere of his ballet L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird) (Craft 20). During his stay in the city, he composed three major works for the Ballets Russes-L'oiseau de feu, Petrushka (1911), and Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913). Eventually Stravinsky's music was noticed by Serge Diaghilev, the director of the Ballets Russes in Paris. He commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet for his theater; so in 1911, Stravinsky traveled to Paris. That ballet ended up being the famous L'Oiseau de Feu. However, because of World War I and the October Revolution in Russia he moved to Switzerland in 1914. Style and period Stravinsky's career largely falls into three distinct stylistic periods. Most of his compositions can be placed in one of the three. The Primitive, or Russian, Period The first of Stravinsky's major stylistic periods (excluding some early minor works) was inaugurated by the three ballets he composed for Diaghilev. The ballets have several shared characteristics: they are scored for extremely large orchestras; they use Russian folk themes and motifs; and they bear the mark of Rimsky-Korsakov's imaginative scoring and instrumentation. The first of the ballets, L'oiseau de feu, is notable for its unusual introduction (triplets in the low basses) and sweeping orchestration. Petrushka, too, is distinctively scored and the first of Stravinsky's ballets to draw on folk mythology. But it is the third ballet, The Rite of Spring that is generally considered the apotheosis of Stravinsky's "Russian Period" (Hill 45-46). Other pieces from this period include: Renard (1916), Histoire du soldat (A Soldier's Tale) (1918), and Les Noces (The Wedding) (1923). The Neo-Classical Period The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style, slightly overlapping the first, is marked by two works: Pulcinella 1920 and the Octet (1923) for wind instruments. Both of these works feature what was to become a hallmark of this period; that is, Stravinsky's return, or "looking back", to the classical music of Mozart and Bach and their contemporaries. This "neo-classical" style involved the abandonment of the large orchestras demanded by the ballets. In these new works, written roughly between 1920 and 1950, Stravinsky turns largely to wind instruments, the piano, and choral and chamber works. Some larger works from this period are the three symphonies: the Symphonie des Psaumes (Symphony of Psalms) (1930), Symphony in C (1940) and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). The pinnacle of this period is the opera The Rake's Progress completed in 1951. This opera, written to a libretto by Auden and based on the etchings of Hogarth, encapsulates everything that Stravinsky had perfected in the previous 20 years of his neo-classic period. The music is direct but quirky; it borrows from classic tonal harmony but also interjects surprising dissonances; it features Stravinsky's trademark off-rhythms; and it harkens back to the operas and themes of Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart. The Serialist, or Twelve Tone Period Stravinsky first began to dabble in the twelve tone technique in smaller vocal works such as the Cantata (1952), Three Songs from Shakespeare (1953) and In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), as if he were testing the system. He later began expanding his use of the technique in works often based on biblical texts, such as Threni (1958), A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer (1961), and The Flood (1962). An important transitional work of this period in Stravinsky's work, was a return to the ballet: Agon, a work for twelve dancers written from 1954 to 1957. Some numbers of Agon recollect the "white-note" tonality of the neo-classic period, while others (the Bransle Gay, e.g.) display his unique re-interpretation of serial method. The ballet is thus a sort of miniature encyclopedia of Stravinsky, containing many of the signatures to be found throughout his compositions, whether primitivist, neo-classic, or serial: rhythmic quirkiness and experimentation, harmonic ingenuity, and a deft ear for masterful orchestration. Indeed, these characteristics are what make Stravinsky's output so unique when compared with the work of contemporaneous serial composers. Contemporaries Stravinsky was a pupil of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the most remarkable Russian composers ever. He was thus greatly influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov's style in his early years. There were other composers in the early 20th century who collected and augmented their native folk music and used these themes in their work. Two notable examples are Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly. Yet in Le Sacre du Printemps we see Stravinsky again innovating in his use of folk themes. He strips these themes to their most basic outline, melody alone, and often contorts them beyond recognition with additive notes, inversions, diminutions, and other techniques. The late 19th century and early 20th century was a time ripe with orchestral innovation. Composers such as Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler were well regarded for their skill at writing for the medium. They, in turn, were influenced by the expansion of the traditional classical orchestra by Richard Wagner through his use of large forces and unusual instruments. It must also be noted that composers such as Anton Weber, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg were also exploring some of these orchestral and instrumental techniques in the early 20th century. Yet their influence on succeeding generations of composers was equalled if not exceeded by that of Stravinsky. Musical Literature Opera/Theater Le rossignol (The Nightingale) (1914) Burleske for 4 Pantomimes and Chamber Orchestra (1916) Mavra (1922) Oedipus Rex (1927) Persephone for speaker, soloists, chorus and orchestra (1933) Babel (1944) The Rake's Progress (1951) Orchestral works Le chant du rossignol (Song of the Nightingale) (1917) Quatre etudes for orchestra (1918) Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) Suite from Pulcinella for orchestra (1920) Suite No.2 for chamber orchestra (1921) Suite No.1 for chamber orchestra (1925) Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1925) Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1929) Concerto in D for violin and orchestra (1931) Divertimento for orchestra (Suite from Le Baiser du Fee, 1934) Preludium for jazz band (1937) Circus Polka for orchestra (1942) Danses Concertantes for chamber orchestra (1942) Four Norwegian Moods for orchestra (1942) Ode for orchestra (1943) Scherzo a la Russe for orchestra (1944) Symphony in Three Movements (1945) Ebony Concerto for clarinet and jazz band (1945) Concerto in D for string orchestra (1946) Tango for chamber orchestra (1940/1953) Ballets L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird) for orchestra (1910) Petrushka for orchestra (1911) Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) for orchestra (1913) Renard (1916) Histoire du Soldat for chamber group and 3 speakers (1918) Pulcinella for chamber orchestra and soloists (1920) Les Noces for 4 pianos, percussion, choir and soloists (1923) Apollon Musagete for string orchestra (1928) Le baiser de la fee (The Fairy's Kiss) for orchestra (1928) Jeu de cartes for orchestra (1936) Scenes de Ballet for orchestra (1944) Orpheus for chamber orchestra (1947) Agon for chamber orchestra (1957) Role in music history Stravinsky's work embraced multiple compositional styles, revolutionized orchestration, spanned several genres, practically reinvented ballet form and incorporated multiple cultures, languages and literatures. As a consequence, his influence on composers both during his lifetime and after his death was, and remains, considerable. Stravinsky began re-thinking his use of the motif and ostinato as early as The Firebird ballet, but his use of these elements reached its full flowering in The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky's use of motivic development was unique in the way he permutated his motifs. In the "Rite of Spring" he introduces additive permutations, that is, subtracting or adding a note to a motif without regard to changes in meter. Such techniques foreshadowed by several decades the minimalist works of composers such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Stravinsky was the greatest, if not the first, practitioner of the "neoclassic" style, a style that would be later adopted by composers as diverse as Darius Milhaud and Aaron Copland. Stravinsky used the now very postmodern technique of direct musical quotation and pastiche as early as 1920 in his work Pulcinella. Here he uses the music of Pergolesi as source material, sometimes directly quoting it and other times simply reinventing it, to create a new and refreshing work. He used the same technique in the ballet The Fairy's Kiss of 1928. Another notable innovation that can be partially attributed to Stravinsky is the exploitation of the extreme ranges of instruments. The most famous passage is the opening of the Rite of Spring where Stravinsky uses the extreme reaches of the bassoon to simulate the symbolic "awakening" of a spring morning (Slonimsky 79). What I chose for listening One of the most famous pieces by Stravinsky is an aforementioned Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring). Here, the composer draws on the brutalism of pagan Russia, reflecting these sentiments in roughly-drawn, stinging motifs that appear throughout the work. There are several famous passages in the work, but two are of particular note: the opening theme played on a bassoon with notes at the very top of its register, almost out of range; and the thumping, off kilter eighth-note motif played by strings and accented by French horns on off-rhythms. Another remarkable Stravinsky's work is a ballet Petrushka. It's also my personal favorite. It was premiered at the Paris Theatre du Chatelet on 13 June 1911 in Paris. While the production was generally a success, more than a few observers were taken aback by music that was brittle, caustic, and at times, even grotesque. The work is characterized by the so-called "Petrushka chord," a recurring polytonic device based on two major triads a tritone apart (C major and F-sharp major) played at the same time and heralding the appearance of the main character. It has been suggested that this is another application of one of Stravinksky's favorite devices, the diminished or octatonic scale, as both the C major and F# major triads are obtainable from a single permutation of that scale. Bibliography 1. Craft, Robert. Stravinsky: Glimpses of a Life. St Martins Press, 1993. 2. Hill, Peter. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. Cambridge University Press, 2000. 3. Slonimsky, Nicolas. Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1953. Read More