Hubert Laws, "Rite of Spring"

hl

Igor Stravinsky, "Canticum Sacrum" & "Symphony of Psalms"

Canticum Sacrum



Symphony of Psalms

Stravinsky in Bayreuth

Two recent Wagner stories had me thinking of poor Stravinsky's experience at Bayreuth. The first was Justin Davidson's story in New York, with its great opening line:

Here’s a timely operatic plot: When the mortgage on an oversize dream house proves unaffordable, the owner has no choice but to raise more cash by plundering little people, triggering a tsunami of greed that eventually results in global calamity.

He quotes a Wagnerite who says the music is 'addictive', and another who described feeling 'dead drunk' after her first Die Walküre.

Davidson admits to his own confliction over Wagner's music, which I had in mind when I read Roger Bourland's post about suffering through Walküre in intense physical pain. Roger also admits to an ambivalence about Wagner, and cites a friend who echoed the notion that Wagner is addictive. Roger's experience just struck me as a dead ringer for the passage in Stravinsky's autobiography where he describes his experience at Bayreuth:

From Paris I went as usual to oustiloug for the summer, and there I quietly continued my work on the Sacre. I was roused from that peaceful existence by an invitation from Diaghileff to join him at Bayreuth to hear Parsifal on the stage. The proposal was tempting, and I accepted it with pleasure. On the way I stopped at Nuremberg for twenty-four hours and visited the museum. Next day my dear, portly friend met me at the Bayreuth station and told me that we were in danger of having to sleep in the open, as all the hotels were filled to overflowing. We managed, however, with great difficulty, to find two servants' rooms. The performance that I saw there would not tempt me today, even if I were offered a room gratis. The very atmosphere of the theatre, its design and its setting, seemed lugubrious. It was like a crematorium, and a very old-fashioned one at that, and one expected to see the gentleman in black who had been entrusted with the task of singing the praises of the departed. The order to devote oneself to contemplation was given by a blast of trumpets. I sat humble and motionless, but at the end of a quarter of an hour I could bear it no more. My limbs were numb and I had to change my position. Crack! Now I had done it! My chair had made a noise which drew down on me the furious scowls of a hundred pairs of eyes. Once more I withdrew into myself, but I could think of only one thing, and that was the end of the act which would put an end to my martyrdom. At last the intermission arrived, and I was rewarded by two sausages and a glass of beer. But hardly had I had time to light a cigarette when the trumpet blast sounded again, demanding another period of contemplation. Another act to be got through, when all my thoughts were concentrated on my cigarette, of which I had had barely a whiff. I managed to bear the second act. Then there were more sausages, more beer, another trumpet blast, another period of contemplation, another act - finis!

I do not want to discuss the music of Parsifal or the music of Wagner in general. At this date it is too remote from me. What I find revolting in the whole affair is the putting a work of art on the same level as the sacred and symbolic ritual which constitutes a religious service. And, indeed, is not all this comedy of Bayreuth, with its ridiculous formalities, simply an unconscious aping of a religious rite?

For the record, count me down as a total sucker for Wagner: hook, line and sinker.

Igor Stravinsky, "Three Pieces

2. Drei Stucke fur Klarinette solo (1918) [4'00]
Alain Damiens, Klarinette

Igor Stravinsky, "Octet"

1. Octet for Wind Instruments (1923/ 1952)
I. Sinfonia: Lento -Allegro moderato
11. Tema con Variazioni: Andantino - attacca:
111. Finale: Tempo giusto [14'55]

Boston Symphony Chamber Players
Doriot Dwyer, Flute
Harold Wright, Clarinet
Sherman Walt, Bassoon
Matthew Ruggiero, Bassoon
Armando Ghitalla, Trumpet
Andre Come, Trumpet
William Gibson, Trombone
Gordon Hallberg, Bass Trombone

Stravinsky began his Octet for wind instruments (flute, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets and trombones, one tenor and one bass) at the end of 1922 when he was in Biarritz, finishing it in Paris the following spring. In his "Dialogues and a Diary", he writes that it was prompted by a dream, in which he saw himself in a small room surrounded by a small group of instrumentalists playing some attractive music, which he did not recognise though he strained to hear it. There is some discrepancy with his account in "Chroniques de ma vie" where he said that he began to write the music down without knowing what the sound medium would be. The first movement in any event was written first and is in sonata form; the second began life as a waltz but Stravinsky quickly realised that it would be ideal for a set of variations, the first time he had employed this particular form. Stravinsky himself conducted the first performance at a Koussevitzky concert at the Paris Opera House (Cocteau, who was present, described Stravinsky's conducting as reminiscent of 'an astronomer engaged in working out a magnificent instrumental calculation in figures of silver'. Stravinsky subsequently revised the score in 1952 but the changes he made were trivial in character. -- Robert Layton

Igor Stravinsky, "Concertino for Twelve Instruments"

-- Liner Notes --

5. Concertino for Twelve Instruments (1952)

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

Joseph Silverstein, Violin
Jules Eskin, Cello
Doriot Dwyer, Flute
Ralph Gomberg, Oboe
Laurence Thorstenberg, English Horn
Harold Wright, Clarinet
Sherman Walt, Bassoon
Matthew Ruggiero, Bassoon
Armando Ghitalla, Trumpet
Rolf Smedvig, Trumpet
William Gibson, Trombone
Gordon Hallberg, Bass Trombone

The same year, in 166, Stravinsky arranged his Concertino forstring quartet for twelve instruments - flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets, two trombones, violin, and cello -and in this form it received its first performance in Los Angeles the same year. Orignally the Concertino was written for the Flonzaley Quartet and occupied the composer during the summer of 1920. It is a single-movement work, written in a free sonata allegro with a concertante part for the first violin. When transcribing it Stravlnsky took the opportunitv of rearringing it, and making other minor adjistments, but the concertante violin part remains as before. -- Robert Layton

Igor Stravinsky, "Concertino for String Quartet"

-- Liner Notes --

3. Concertino fur Streichquartett (1920) [6'33]

Ensemble Intercontemporain

Although we know that Stravinsky regularly composed at the piano, the scoring of his music never sounds at all secondary, and he delighted throughout his life in setting himself new problems of instrumentation. The works recorded here all demonstrate this, not least the earliest of them, the Three Pieces for solo clarinet (1918), where the severest problem is that of creating music which is pure melody, without harmonic support or contrapuntal interest. There is, however, no sign of compositional strain in these lively pieces, echoing the tangy style of Histoire du soldat and designed as a thank-offering to the man who had made the production of that work possible, the Swiss patron Werner Reinhart.

Interest is again centred on a solo line in the Concertino for string quartet, which Stravinsky described as being 'in the form of a free sonata allegro with a definitely concertante part for the first violin'. The piece was written in the summer of 1920 in Brittany and was the composer's first work alter Pulcinella, so standing at the threshold of his neoclassical period while also recalling the biting violin part of Histoire du soldat.

Igor Stravinsky, "Symphonies of Wind Instruments"

-- Liner Notes --

STRAVINSKY:
SYMPHONIES OF WIND INSTRUMENTS . . . .8:37

FREDERICK FENNELL, conductor
EASTMAN WIND ENSEMBLE

By coupling Paul Hindemith's Symphony in B flat (1951), and Arnold Schoenberg's Variations, Op. 43a (1943) with Igor Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920-revised 1947), it is possible to present three divergent concepts of the wind ensemble medium by composers of the first rank. As with others in this series by Mercury and the Eastman School of Music, this disc is representative of the important compositions from the musical literature for the wind band and the symphonic wind ensemble. Our recordings in the field of symphonic repertory have included representative scores by American and British composers. Much of the best in the areas of field music and military marches by outstanding creators of these little masterpieces likewise has been both British and American in origin.

This far from accidental emphasis upon Anglo-American repertory has come about mostly because the music of quality which it represents has been or is becoming the basic repertory of our country's vast wind band activity. The interest, understanding, and sympathy of the composers thus represented is only now beginning to reward those long-patient and devoted souls to whom the wind medium is a happy and exciting form of musical life. This interest, however, is by no means confined to Englishmen and Americans. We are all the more pleased, therefore, to present on this disc three provocative scores by men who descend creatively from origins other than Anglo-American.

It is too obvious, perhaps, but it is likewise undeniably true, that the present and future state of musical literature for all mediums of performance is sustained by the continuing interest of composers. The fabrication of an instrumental ensemble, however, is the end result of the combined skills and interests of instrumental designer-manufacturers and performers; but this joint industry waits upon the composer for the full realization of their work. i Without the composer, all instrumental apparatus is relegated to vain wish and unfulfilled desire, conditions in which those agglomerations of wind and percussion instruments called bands have languished for over a century. In the final analysis it will be the composer who will decide the future of the wind band. This has been the history of those vast and great musical treasures which dwell in health in the mansions of the orchestra, the opera - house, and the chamber music hall - treasures bountifully stored up for all to whom life without music would be toil without reward.

A medium of musical performance may vary with time. It may even perish as did the noble family of lutes, leaving a beautiful literature in their passing. When those various flat- and round-backed precursors of today's string family gave way to Salo's violin, it was the designers and builders working with the performers who eventually relegated their previous medieval masterpieces to the museum. But this was achieved only after the composer realized in the violins the presence of a more versatile, powerful and beautiful imitation of the human voice.

There is an appreciable comparison (provided one does not make it with the orchestra) in the development of the wind band. In this instance it may seem that the judgment of the composer, however, has been harsh and prejudiced. It may also be that, in his infinite wisdom, his rejection of it as an ensemble for his serious consideration has forced those men of honest purpose who conduct and otherwise devote themselves toward its acceptance to probe ever more deeply into themselves and the medium to discover why this should be. If this is the real truth of the matter, and if those who are associated with the wind medium might have begun to purge themselves of charlatanism and artistic iniquities - then,.perhaps, the silent treatment dealt to the band by great creators In the past century has made a proper effect. But if this is true - as I firmly believe it to be - then our present gains in performance and education have been achieved at great price; that price includes no music for the wind band by such influential 20th century instrumental composers as Richard Strauss, Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Bartbk, and Mahler - recalling but a few that come quickly and painfully to mind. The reasons why they wrote nothing for the massed wind ensemble (if they ever really thought of it at all) lie locked with them in the silence of peace. One can only conjecture. But luckily for us, Hindemith, Schoenberg and Stravinsky did compose works for the wind ensemble, and it is their fine compositions which make up the music on this disc.

Igor Stravinsky's (1882-1971) Symphonies of Wind Instruments is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century music. Written in the recoil of his instrumental usage from the heights of Rite of Spring, its modest instrumentation of 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 B-flat clarinets, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba represents what we have chosen to call a symphonic wind ensemble. The Symphonies written in memory of Claude Debussy, were designed for performance by the wind section of any symphony orchestra. Serge Koussevitzky first performed them in this fashion at a London concert on June 10, 1921. Stravinsky describes them as "an austere ritual, which is unfolded in terms of short litanies between different groups of homogenous instruments." These are the sounds of genius, so classically balanced that to remove one bar or to add another would seriously impair their relationship. Like Mozart's magical Serenade No. 10 in B Flat (K. 361), from which it is "descended," it reveals again that composers with a true perception of the wind instruments as a sonority for performance by themselves may be as rare as the true genius himself.

Igor Stravinsky, "Ragtime"

-- Liner Notes --
3. Ragtime for Eleven Instruments (1918)

Boston Symphony Chamber Players
Joseph Silverstein, Violin
Max Hobart, Max Hobart
Burton Fine, Viola
Henry Portnoi, Bass
Doriot Dwyer, Flute
Harold Wright, Clarinet
Charles Kavaloski, Horn
Armando Ghitalla, Trumpet
William Gibson, Trombone
Everett Firth, Percussion
Myron Romanul, Cimbalom

Production and Recording Supervision:Thomas Mowrey
Coordinating Pladucer: Franz-Christian Wulff
Recording Engineer: Hans-Peter Schweigmann
Cover-Photo: Speidel, Hamburg
1975 Polydor International GmbH
1975 Karl Heinz Wocker, Robert Layton
Printed in Germany by Neef, Wittingen

"Ragtime" is scored for eleven instruments including the cimbalom. Stravinsky wrote it in Morges in 1918, completing the score at the time that the armistice was being concluded at the end of the 1914-18 war. He later made a piano arrangement of it but the first performance was conducted by the late Arthur Bliss at the Aeolian Hall London, in 1920. As Eric Walter White puts it, the idea motivating the work was to produce some kind of "composite portrait" of the new type of popular dance music that had just emerged in the States, bringing it into the concert hall as In the past composers had done for the minuet, waltz and other dance forms. -- Robert Layton

Igor Stravinsky, "Suite Italienne"

-- LINER NOTES --

SIDE ONE
Suite Italienne (from "Pulcinella" after Pergolesi)
band 4-Introduzione-Serenata

SIDE TWO
band 1-Suite Italienne (cont.)
Tarantella-Gavotta con due Variazioni-Scherzino-Minuetto e Finale

In 1931 Stravinsky was introduced to a young violinist, Samuel Dushkin, and was asked to write something for him. He declined at first on the grounds that he was unsure of his ability to exploit to the full the potential of the violin as a virtuoso instrument. However, the friendly advice of Hindemith and the encouragement of his publisher persuaded him to set aside his scruples, and the outcome was the Violin Concerto which received its first performance in Berlin in October 1931, with Dushkin as soloist and the composer conducting.

Work on the concerto brought with it a close and fruitful friendship between composer and performer, and during the 1932-33 and 1933-34 seasons they were engaged for recital tours throughout Europe. Stravinsky was anxious to have something of his own for them to play at these concerts, but as he explains in his early autobiography Chronicles Of My Life, the combination of piano and strings had so far given him little pleasure. He felt that the percussive sound of the one blended badly with the plucked and bowed sounds of the other, and after long consideration he felt that only by reducing the number of instruments involved to the minimum was he likely to solve the problem.

The recitals offered Stravinsky the immediate impulse to come to terms with the aesthetic problems involved in writing for violin and piano, though, typically, these pragmatic considerations had to be qualified, and to some extent justified, by a statement of artistic aims. At the time, Stravinsky tells us, he had been reading a book about Petrarch by one of his friends, Charles-Albert Cingria, and a passage in it relating to lyricism assumed particular significance for him. In his opinion lyrical expression, which was not the same thing as 'a facility for lyricism', was a matter of craftsmanship and composition~something that had to be learned and practised....

The Suite Italienne is now more commonly heard in the cello version made by Piatagorsky. Like the Divertimento, it is an arrangement of movements from a ballet, this time Pulcinella, originally produced in 1920. In 1925 Stravinsky prepared a violin and piano version of some of this music under the title Suite for violin and piano, after themes, fragments and pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi. The present Suite, with the same title as the cello version but a slight variation in the items included, was prepared in 1933.

Unlike the Divertimento, the arrangement of the Pulcinella music differs considerably from the original, at times almost to the extent of recomposing the music. There are six movements in all. The first four and the last are the same as those of the 1925 suite and equate to numbers l,2, 12, 15, 17 and 18 of the original ballet where, incidentally, the Serenata is a tenor solo which originated as an aria in Pergolesi's opera Il Flaminio. The additional movement, Scherzino, is not to be confused with No. 3 of the ballet, but is in fact another tenor solo (No. 10(c)) which in the original is sung to words set to part of the Overture to Pergolesi's Lo Frate 'nnamorato. Inevitably this transcription has neither the vigour nor the colour of the orchestral original, but it makes a useful, lively and not too difficult addition to the violinist's repertoire. -- Kenneth Dommett, 1976

Recording Producer: SUVI RAJ GRUBB
Recording Engineer: NEVILLE BOYLING
1976 EMI Records Ltd.

Igor Stravinsky, "Suite Italienne"

-- Liner Notes --

Laszlo Mezo, the cellist, has a special place among the younger generation of Hungarian instrumentalists. Despite his youth, the bare facts of his career so far throw light on his exceptional abilities. He studied at the Bekestarhos Music School, the Budapest Bartok Bela Conservatory and the Academy of Music. Throughout his studies, he was a pupil of the great Hungarian cello teacher, Antal Friss. (His chamber music teacher was Andras Mihaly.) While still a student, he won a certificate of merit at the 1957 Casals competition in Paris and won second prize at the Dvorak Contest in Prague, in 1961. He graduated in 1962 and in the same year, won fourth prize in the heavily contested Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition. In 1963, the first prize at the Budapest Casals competition was divided among Laszlo Mezo, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Mihail Homitser.

Laszlo Mezo continued his studies in the United Slates on a Ford Foundation scholarship in 1965/66. Two of his greatest teachers are Pablo Casals and Gregor Piatigorsky. During this time, he also attended the world famous Juilliard School of Music and participated in the Marlboro Festival in Vermont. Mr. Mezo has a number of foreign tours behind him which took him to the Soviet Union, the German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Finland, stc.

Laszlo Mezo's considerable acclaim can be attributed to his beautiful tone, brilliant technique which knows no difficulties unfailing musicality and primarily, his irresistible rhythmic drive all of which make him at home in every style.

This record contains two solo pieces played by Laszlo Mezo - the Solo Sonata by Paul Hindemith written in 1923 and which represented a dramatic turning point in the composer's career when Hindemith settled finally on contrapuntal construction, and second. the Solo Suite Op. 72 by Benjamin Britten - a piece dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovitch. In the nine or rather ten movement composition, a "canto" recurring four times divides the various character sections. Besides the solo selections, Stravinsky's "Italian Suite" a!so features on this record. Stravinsky transcribed the light-hearted, charming chamber music piece for cello and piano from the "Pulcinella" ballet music in 1933.

Lorant Szucs the piano accompanist in the "Italian Suite" is also a young musician. and is in the front ranks of Hungarian instrumentalists both as a soloist and an ideal accompanist. -- Peter Varnai

"boring conversation anyway - Dimitri, we're going to have company!"

JoDru's post made me think about how it's no surprise that John Williams is very much the "big-orchestra jock." I'm sure I'm not the only person to hear Strauss, Mahler, and Stravinsky's Rite in the music of John Williams.

So much so, in fact, that sometimes I swear I remember Debussy's nymphs or Stravinsky's ballet dancers making an appearance in one of the earlier versions of Lucas's redos of the original trillogy.

I'm pretty sure Cocteau convinced Lucas to CG in some shots of Vaslav Nijinsky bickering with one of the Jawas. I saw it in one of the rereleased dvds.

Anyway, the recent post made glaringly obvious to me Williams's ode to Shostakovich. It is so natural now, especially in regard to the Eisenstein connections.

According to the director's commentary on this same dvd, the name of the big Star Destroyer command ship that Vader rode on was "Potemkin."

Shotakovich - Symphony for Strings, Op. 110a-Allegro Molto (attacca)
Shostakovich - Symphony for Strings op 110a Largo






jodru:
Boy, does that ever beggar a post! But first, the movie...

Dumb syllables

In the opening paragraphs of his autobiography, Igor Stravinsky vividly describes his earliest memory of sound, acknowledging that is rather odd. He encountered a mute peasant in the woods, who sat on a stump and entertained some children:

He was dumb, but he had a way of clicking his tongue very noisily...[his] song was composed of two syllables, the only ones he could pronounce. They were devoid of any meaning, but he made them alternate with incredible dexterity in a very rapid tempo. He used to accompany this clucking in the following way: pressing the palm of his right hand under his left armpit, he would work his left arm with a rapid movement, making it press on the right hand. From beneath the red shirt,he extracted a succession of sounds which were somewhat dubious but very rhythmic, and which might be euphemistically described as resounding kisses.

This vignette was what instantly came to my mind upon hearing Maria Tanase's "Bun II Vinul Ghiurghiuliu", sent to me by our Romanian correspondent. She explains the meaning of the song:

"Bun ii vinul ghiurghiuliu" is a party song. We call it a good song for a glass of wine, as the title says. It's tough to translate it [because] many terms are archaic. A rough translation for that could be "Good is the red wine", but "ghiurghiuliu" means a rose red, a bit of a light red. This song is originally from Moldavia. It's about the pleasure [of] drinking wine and how someone can't stop from drinking it. "Good is the red wine, when it's picked later in autumn/I swore I won't drink, but I can't resist/Good is the wine, I like it very much/I don't know what I would do with the vineyard" and it goes on about how the grapes are so wonderful and that the wine goes to your head.

The Unanswered Question

With so many vital and persistent questions looming over the American mind, "Will Condoleeza Rice be more competent as Secretary of State than she was as National Security Advisor?", "Will we declare victory yet another time in Fallujah only to have the brutal battle continue for another week?", "Will abortions and gay marriage really define our cultural barriers?", and so on, there's a certain solace in knowing that our angst, at least, is constant. Our questions are no more troubling than the last batch...or more important, for that matter.

Which leads me to the inevitable: a quickie from the one true American musical voice, Charles Ives. Whatever branch of American music you want to investigate, you will find that it is embedded in music that he created in off-peak hours and kept buried in drawers. While Petrouchka was canonized as the invention of polytonality, an Ives score contains the first use of it more than a year earlier. Forty years before Pierre Schaeffer could even envision musique concrete, Ives had mastered the collage format in heaps of compositions.

So too with all the mind-numbing proto-blogospheric compositions which would plague contemporary music after WWII, Ives has them all beat with the simplest expression of existential angst in the Western canon. The formula is straightforward:

The string chorale = "The Silence of the Druids - Who Know, See, and Hear Nothing"
The trumpet = "The Perennial Question of Existence"
The winds = Humanity's ceaseless attempts to answer the unanswerable question

The Unanswered Question (1906)