The Pennsylvania State University. The Graduate School. School of Music ACTIVE STASIS: REPETITION AND THE FAÇADE OF DISCONTINUITY IN

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1 The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School School of Music ACTIVE STASIS: REPETITION AND THE FAÇADE OF DISCONTINUITY IN STRAVINSKY S HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (191) A Thesis in Music Theory by Richard Desinord 016 Richard Desinord Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts May 016 1

2 The thesis of Richard Desinord was reviewed and aroved* by the following: Maureen A Carr Distinguished Professor of Music Thesis Advisor Eric J McKee Professor of Music Marica A Tacconi Professor of Music Graduate Officer and Associate Director of the School of Music *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii

3 ABSTRACT Igor Stravinsky s (1-1971) early works are often deicted as reetitive and regressive with regard to its thematic develoment and formal structure His enchant for mosaic-like constructs that rely on the recurrence of unchanged blocks of sound and their subsequent juxtaositions defined his ractice and enabled Stravinsky to seek out new ways of comosing In the music of other comosers reetition was largely reliant uon differences in successive aearances that rovided a sense of growth and direction from beginning to end Stravinsky instead often deended on the recurrence of unchanged fragments and their interactions with other reetitive atterns across larger sans of his works This thesis focuses on the use of reetition as an agent of rogress in order to disel lingering myths of the discontinuous elements in Stravinsky s Histoire du soldat (191) Following the work of Peter van den Toorn and Gretchen Horlacher, I examine reetition and block form as both static entities and embryonic figures, and the roles they lay in musical develoment Through my analysis and my introduction of a new theory of shifting blocks, I ultimately offer an alternate reading of his comositional rocess, arguing that Stravinsky s use of reetition contributes to narrative, develoment and form iii

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Musical Examles and Figures v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chater 1: Affects and Effects of Reetition 7 Chater : Reetition as an Agent of Continuity 1 Chater : Connections to the Story and Other Stravinsky Works 6 Conclusion 6 Selected Bibliograhy 9 iv

5 List of Musical Examles Figures Examle 11: Stravinsky, Airs by a Stream, Histoire Analysis of reetitions and motivic gestures 16-1 Examle 1: Stravinsky, Three Pieces, mvt 1, mm 1-1 Examle 1 Airs, mm Examle 1: Beethoven, O 1, No, mvt 1, mm Examle 15: Airs and Beethoven: o 1, no thematic comarison 1 Examle 16: Airs, oening, mm 1-11 Examle 17: Airs, closing, mm -107 Examle 1: Stravinsky, Lento, Les cinq doigts (191) 9 Examle 19, Grand Chorale, Histoire mm Examle 110, Symhonies of Wind Instruments, mm 11-1 Figure 11: Blocks of Airs (transcribed to concert itch) 15 Figure 1: Horlacher s list of ordered succession in multile iterations 0 Figure 1 Static shift through the first movement of Three Pieces between the first and second violin arts 6 Figure 1: Static shift in Airs between the 16 th notes of the violin and and bass ostinato v

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to thank my first college theory rofessors during my undergraduate years at Howard University: Dr Anthony Randolh, Dr Chinyerem Ohia, and Dr Paul Schultz for exosing me to advanced music theory scholarshi A huge thank you is in store for my advisor, Dr Maureen Carr Her oenness and boundless knowledge on all things Stravinsky enabled me to exand my research beyond the original scoe Thank you to Dr Eric McKee for heling me think outside of the music theory box and for exosing me to different styles of writing Also, a thank you is in order to Dr Charles Youmans for his critiques on my initial ideas that led to the concetion of this thesis Thank you to the all of the Penn State music theory and musicology rofessors for creating an atmoshere that made me want to be better from the moment I arrived at the School of Music Bach had Mendelssohn, Mahler had Bernstein, and I had my rofessors While I wouldn t dare comare my abilities to the classical music giants, I use the comarison because of how my rofessors were able to luck me from obscurity and become my chamions Thank you to the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities for selecting me as one of their Sring 015 graduate student residents The residency and funding rovided me an invaluable oortunity to get a head start on my thesis I reserve my deeest gratitude for my mother and father Their encouragement and countless sacrifices throughout my childhood set the stage for my all of my success vi

7 INTRODUCTION Many of Stravinsky s works are characterized by the use of reetitive atterns as art of their motivic network His aroach to motivic reetition differed from his musical forbearers, eers, and successors, and was an integral art of Stravinsky s concet of musical develoment In the music of other comosers motivic reetition was largely contingent uon rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic variances in successive aearances Such variances rovide a sense of growth and develoment, and a dynamic trajectory from beginning to end Contrarily, much of Stravinsky s music often relied on the recurrence of unchanged fragments and their simultaneous interactions with other reetitive atterns across larger sans of his works 1 At first glance Stravinsky s motivic reiterations might exude an air of assivity, containing no significant shifts in momentum that would suggest develoment of the reeated figures Pierre Boulez criticizes this aarent immobility in a discussion of Stravinsky s comositional language, saying that Stravinsky s comositional style has a less marked feeling of develoment This may be considered a weakness and so it 1 Peter C van den Toorn and John McGuiness offer an insightful analysis into the use of fixed material where they consider the influence of the relatively unchanged oening section of Stravinsky s Symhonies of Wind Instruments (190) as a medium to connect larger areas of the iece, see Peter C van den Toorn and John McGuiness, Stravinsky and the Russian Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 01), 5-5 This tye of reetition as it relates to Stravinsky s sketches are examined through Three Pieces for String Quartet, Three Easy Pieces, and Pribaoutki (all from 191) in Maureen Carr, After the Rite (New York: Oxford University Press, 01), -6 1

8 is Boulez s categorization of Stravinsky s secious failure to dislay similar levels of organization and coherent dynamic trajectory echoes the sentiments of the comoser s detractors that make claims of his music s toror However, closer examination often exoses a greater sense of continuity and interconnection among the seemingly fragile systems of multile levels of reetitive atterns Where traditional theoretical alications have failed, more recent methods of analysis have articulated a network of interrelated atterns and shaes that reveal a unifying force of structural intent within Stravinsky s oeuvre Most notable are aroaches centered on the reetitive nature of the material within segments of the music, or, blocks Pieter Cvan den Toorn defines block structure as a framework [in which] two or more blocks of relatively heterogeneous content are reeatedly, and often abrutly juxtaosed My exloration into this comositional technique focuses on the comoser s Histoire du soldat While much has been written about Stravinsky s use of reetition and block form, the role of block form in Histoire has seldom been exlored, and to the extent that this feature has been noted, it has not been investigated over larger areas of the iece Pierre Boulez, Stravinsky Remains, in Stocktackings from an Arenticeshi, trans Stehen Walsh (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 57 Theodore Adorno, Philosohy of Modern Music (New York: The Seabury Press, 197), Adorno likens Stravinsky s music to schizohrenia and catatonia, and allegorizes his reetitions as Sisyhean endeavors Pieter C van den Toorn, Stravinsky and The Rite of Sring (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 197), 97

9 as a whole 5 Through allusion and the intersersing of motives from other movements within the work, Stravinsky is able to envelo the ostensibly disconnected elements of the comosition into a larger consciousness of overall develoment Through shifting juxtaositions of material, a reeated motive can assume multile functions without the constraint of relacing or diminishing its original concetion Although he eschews traditional techniques of harmonic and thematic develoment laid bare by his musical antecedents, Stravinsky s formal structures exhibit an ambiguous facility with regard to form in that his reetitions contribute to larger, structural growth In her theory of ordered succession, Gretchen Horlacher exands on the nature of Stravinsky s reetitions where she advances the concet of block form, viewing motives and thematic recurrences both as a fixed whole and as an emerging shae 6 Through the use of block form and reetition in Histoire du soldat (191), Stravinsky is able to build cohesion between sections of the comosition This aer will also exlore Histoire s connections to other works, both by Stravinsky and other comosers, and the influence these ieces may have had on the comositional rocess during its comletion Of articular imortance is the link 5 Carr, After the Rite, -6 Maureen Carr s block analysis of anticiatory gestures found in the Devil s Dance of Histoire is used to reference similarities with the block form structure of a section in Renard; Marianne Kielian-Gilbert also traces the bordering techniques through restatements of motives at the beginning and end of the The Soldier s March of Histoire in The Rhythms of Form: Corresondence and Analogy in Stravinsky s Designs, Music Theory Sectrum 9 (197): -66 David Smyth and Don Traut, Stravinsky's Sketches for the Great Chorale, Intégral 5 (011): 9-10 The authors also exlore faint connections to block form through sketch studies of the larger chorale 6 Gretchen Horlacher, Building Blocks (New York: Oxford University Press, 011), 7

10 between a melodic motive in the first movement of Three Pieces for String Quartet (191) and several motives in Histoire Making note of the dates of comosition, it is interesting that in 191 (the conclusion of World War I), Stravinsky returned to the melodic tetrachordal gesture of Three Pieces, comosed in 191 (the start of World War I) With The Rite of Sring (191) and several other comositions comleted in the decade following it, Stravinsky s wartime comositions are often characterized as a turn to neoclassicism, or, in some cases, a conversion to the rimitive 7 Adorno s classification of this collection of works as a hase of infantilism beleaguers the notion of Stravinsky s oeuvre around the first war as non-develomental, saying that he was always rone to exloit children s songs as messengers of the rimeval to the individual Adorno references music by Beethoven and other earlier styles as evolvement while stating that more literal forms of reetition imede any ercetion of rogress His descrition of an imlied regression to juvenile tooi within Stravinsky s works comleted during the First World War is an at ortrayal considering that the nature of literal reetition can often thwart any attemts of meaningful rogression However, to view Stravinsky s reetitions as urely non-develomental would overlook a glaring contradiction in that reetition has always facilitated develoment, and that interconnection in a given iece of music has often been largely contingent uon reaearances of motives and harmonic rogressions What would Baroque music be without the sequencing of motives, or the absence of a thematic return in the Classical sonata form 7 Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belkna Press, 199), -9 Adorno, Philosohy of Modern Music, 16

11 In Stravinsky s case, his music facilitates a sense of fluidity and mutability; although the reeated figures remain fixed in their own right, they eventually become an agent of continuity through suerimosition, juxtaosition, and the shifting of differing strata This active stasis engenders greater coherence through sections of his works, ultimately granting the comoser more alternatives to bridge sections that may otherwise resent themselves to be inert Pierre Boulez references methods of aosition and motivic overlay in musical writing as the antithesis of the comositional rocess, but misses the oint that these networks ossess an interrelation entrenched in a larger, overarching narrative of structural cohesion 9 Boulez may have had a change of heart, considering his remarks in a series of lectures on the music of Stravinsky in the early 190s Edward Cambell notes that [a]t the level of form, Stravinsky s ieces begin to resemble Stravinsky s sectional forms, and in lectures from 19 to 195, he commends the originality of Stravinsky s discourse, which bases musical form on the ermutation and return of recognizable sections 10 He goes on to quote Boulez s statements from Leçons de musique where he says Stravinsky s concetion of melodic develoment is based on a salmody and litany where deviation is minute in relation to the original model, but where the intervening extensions, contractions, dislacement of accents finds its rofound force in accumulation 11 This thesis will show how stasis and reetition in Histoire enables develoment Through a series of transformations of static 9 Boulez, Proosals, in Stocktakings, 9 10 Edward Cambell, Boulez, Music, and Philosohy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 010), Ibid, 06 The quotation of Boulez is from the author s translation 5

12 fields within the comosition, the discontinuous ultimately manifests into an ally of the continuous 1 Chater one discusses the role of reetitions and the outcomes of ercetion in its use The second chater surveys the literature and methodologies used to analyze reetitions and block form in Stravinsky s works I will isolate secific instances where those theories reveal a deeer level of motivic organization within Histoire I introduce two ossible sources that may have contributed to the blocks in the second section ( Airs by a Stream ) of Histoire My analysis demonstrates how Stravinsky uses reetition and ordered succession as a vehicle of develoment In the final chater I will show smaller levels of reetition, rotation, and their connections to the story and other works comosed by Stravinsky that dislay similar reetitions of motives that he either forecasts or recalls in Histoire 1 Christoher Hasty, On the Problem of Succession and Continuity in Twentieth- Century Music, Music Theory Sectrum (196): 5; Horlacher, Building Blocks, 5 6

13 CHAPTER 1: AFFECTS AND EFFECTS OF REPETITION [S]omething has to occur again for it to occur at all 1 The contribution of reetition to musical develoment, and its redeeming or adverse qualities, has been debated amongst many musicologists and theorists The subject encounters added comlexity when considering the changing styles and eriods in music history, and the role in which reetition can exist in each Yet, regardless of its chronological manifestations in the musical continuum, the roerties of reetition ultimately rest within its ability to effect change in the environment in which it exists The use of reetition as a conduit of action is another view that has received some added attention as it relates to develoment Dahne Leong and David Korevaar discuss the roagating comortments of reetition as musical motion, addressing this characteristic as a generic concetual blend of hysical motion and musical structure, arguing that motion occurs when some arameter is held constant while others change, resulting from the action of some agent 1 Stravinsky s musical reiterations often ersonify this henomenon as many of his works use reetition as a mirror by which other asects of a iece can interact 1 Catherine Pickstock, Reetition and Identity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 01), Pickstock is arahrasing a assage from Hegel s Philosohy of History 1 Dahne Leong and David Korevaar, Reetition as Musical Motion in Ravel s Piano Writing, in Unmasking Ravel, ed Peter Kaminsky (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 011), 11 7

14 At times these thematic recurrences are veiled, oerating on a sublevel of a comosition beyond mere rolongation and augmentation In his article on motivic arallelisms, Charles Burkhart uses Schenkerian theory to oint out what Schenker describes as hidden reetitions Burkhart s analyses trace reiterations of motives as they occur on multile levels of organization from the foreground to the background In order to establish a reetition through multile structural levels as motivic arallelism, Burkhart states that a motive must have at least two or more statements in order to be established as a musical corresonding entity As the oening quote confirms, reetition and its imortance are established through multile soundings of the initial aearance Referring to the original and its reetitions, the author signifies their soundings as attern and coy, resectively, and goes on to elucidate the distinctions between multilevel arallelisms and surface transformations 15 Although my discussion of reetition is limited to surface level interactions, the concet of a theme (or thematic fragment) being maniulated across a comosition through reetition has secial relevance to the ensuing discussion To deem a reetition as a coy is to deny the reetition an identity; its existence is none other than a consequence of something that transired However, this line of reasoning ignores the distinctiveness of the reetition in and of itself and relegates it to the status of an uninsired imitation of an original unit This critique of attern and coy is not to discredit Burkhart s insights into reetition through arallelism; rather, it serves to gain a 15 Charles Burkhart, Schenker s Motivic Parallelisms, Journal of Music Theory, (197):

15 deeer understanding of the concet of a reetition What does it mean for a melodic or harmonic dulication to exist as a recurrence of something while maintaining an individuated element within its sounding Because the established ercetion of develoment relies on harmonic exansion and melodic variation, unaltered motivic reiterations resent a roblem for listeners execting traditional variants such as registral shift, key or modal change, dynamic contrast, and so on The theoretical nature of musical develoment requires that an idea be subject to exansion while reserving the identity of the original idea Reetition in tonal music is goal oriented; the ear exects a rogression to eventually reach a stoing oint However, this effect can only be achieved if the reiterations of certain motives undergo some degree of transformation either at the foreground, middleground, or background level The essence of tonality is the gravitational ull towards a tonic, an attraction that is heightened through sequencing or imitation, ultimately concluding with the cadential ower of a structural dominant to its tonic To an extent, literal reetition can have the same effect A reeat of the oening theme of the A section in a iece using a binary or ternary format will seem innocuous and when heard, it can arguably go largely unnoticed Is this because we have been reared to hear the section again through a cultural inundation of art music, or is it due to the size and scoe of having a large area of the iece, containing various internal maniulations, returning after listeners have retained a small ortion of a musical statement I would suggest that the reetitions in this case rovide a balance, not only in the sense of form, but also in an aural domain 9

16 On the other hand, what haens when these reetitions are shorter in duration, covering areas of the iece that are as small as a theme or motive These continuous literal reiterations can aear to be directionless, effectively obscuring the sense of exectation There is no sense of beginning or arrival when a reeated fragment occurs over and over while remaining entirely unchanged Although it becomes redictable over each sounding, literal reetitions, esecially those of shorter duration that contain entire statements of a theme may become disorienting and uncomfortable As we listen to music, we want to be surrised and to have our sense of exectation thwarted to a certain degree We want to encounter something that sets a iece of music aart from others, but should the iece comletely alienate our anticiation of an arrival, it ultimately creates an unhinged aural sace where the traditional asects of reetition that award our senses no longer exist Exact relication is acutely roblematic in this sense because the idea resumably has no avenue to develo through external or internal maniulation, thus lending itself to the feeling of stagnation Literal reetition resents itself as static because it is static The art is restated not as a distant echo or allusion, but as an exact restatement of something that was reviously sounded Yet this view only acknowledges reetition as an unconnected entity, and it is recisely this reasoning that leads to an acuity of inaction Lisa Margulis notes that reetition tends to reify a assage, and that its use serves to 10

17 set it aart from the surrounding context as a thing to be mused on, abstractly considered, and concetualized as a unit 16 Viewed in a contextual framework these figures rogress to reserve ermanency and growth Moreover, as a rhetorical entity, motivic reetition oerates as a generator of continuity through its various soundings Its motivic identity is manifested only through recurrence, and its role in a work s develoment only comes through its interactions with other asects of the iece The question of what definitively constitutes a block or a reetition in Histoire must be addressed as we consider Stravinsky s concet of develoment 16 Lisa Margulis, On Reeat (New York: Oxford University Press, 011), 11

18 CHAPTER : REPETITION AS AN AGENT OF CONTINUITY Following The Rite of Sring, Stravinsky became increasingly fascinated with the idea of literal reetition as the driving force in his music Although always a feature of his comositional style, these reetitions were no longer subject to layering across nonfixed melodies and harmonies, and the comoser s technique changed considerably, although it retained his sirit through this adjustment Stravinsky was caught between two worlds: the traditions of his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov and others who embraced a tonal enterrise containing rules that governed the comositional ractice, and the world of his eers who thrived in a time where these conventions became increasingly relaxed as comosers sought alternative ways of exanding (or abandoning) tonality In this chater, I examine the aroaches to reetition and block form and offer my interretation of these systems within the second section, Airs by a Stream, of Histoire I also osit a source for the blocks, illustrate their connection to Histoire, and show how they contribute to a network of shifts that ultimately craft an overall realization of traditional form and develoment Comleted in the fall of 191, Histoire du soldat was the last of Stravinsky s comositions to be comleted during World War I, a eriod that saw the comletion of Five Easy Pieces ( ) and Renard (1916), two works that emloy block form or reetition Stravinsky s technique and realization of reetition as a develomental channel was in full force by the time he began work on Histoire, yet he would not rely on 1

19 this technique alone in his comositional rocess Though the concet of block form can indeed be oen to multile interretations, the general remise of the reetitive nature of atterns and blocks within Stravinsky s works is that they contribute to the structural integrity of his forms The block structure used in Histoire is akin to the configurations of this technique used in both Stravinsky s earlier and later works, in that he frequently used reetition as a conduit for motivic develoment Continuity in Airs is generated by the reetition of motives that articiate in block structure Edward Cone delves into Stravinsky s reetitions when he discusses the sensitivity of the gas between reetitions, or sudden breaks, and argues that these interrutions may corresond to stage movements in his theatre roductions, noting their effects can still be felt even during their absence 17 His method was one of the earliest attemts to assess the deficiencies in using traditional analytical tools to deciher formal asects of Stravinsky s structures in order to exlain the outwardly abrut associations Maureen Carr s study of block form resembles this aroach as her analysis describes the evolution of motives from Stravinsky s sketches and shows how motives were relicated in different comositions 1 17 Edward T Cone, Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method, Persectives of New Music 1, (196): 1-19 While commenting on Histoire s genesis, Stravinsky states that the idea of having the musicians erform on stage with the actor and narrator had the added benefit of seeing the musician s gestures in Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiograhy (New York: WW Norton, 196, reissued 199), 7 This conflicts with another of his retellings regarding the initial insiration for the music of Histoire, and will be further discussed in chater three 1 Carr, After the Rite, -7,

20 In accordance with the work of Pieter van der Toorn and others, my definition of block form in Histoire relates to assages in which Stravinsky uroots sections of the comosition and laces the unaltered fragments alongside other motives in the comosition In his descrition of reetitions found in The Rite of Sring, van den Toorn categorizes the constructs as one of two forms: Tye I and Tye II Reetitions of a Tye I classification function through fluctuating meter, with contrasting blocks continuously exchanging sonorities The blocks can be comrised of one or more measures and although the blocks are offered in raid juxtaosition, growth is only achievable between blocks 19 Tye II reetitions are different rimarily since they occuy saces within a fixed metrical environment and are assembled through the suerimosition of multile blocks Both categorizations are rimarily rhythmic; any awareness of develoment in Tye I is a result of lengthening, shortening, or shuffling of blocks, whereas growth in Tye II deends on vertical or harmonic shifts in alignment 0 The reetitions and blocks in Histoire follow this logic, as they are in art deendent uon the interactions between soundings of each fragment However, these blocks are not always found in their full form and often contain small fragments of the total motive The block analysis in Musical Examle 11 (along with the receding Figure 11 that defines the motives) shows the reetitions and various motives throughout the Airs of Histoire Due to the frequently changing time signatures throughout the section, a Tye I label would be most fitting Yet, when surveying the vertical 19 Pieter C van den Toorn, Stravinsky and The Rite of Sring (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 197), 99 0 Ibid,

21 15 alignments of different reetitions, the various iterations of suerimositions would lead one to classify this section as a Tye II block form The concurrent interaction of formal designations furthers the comlexity of Stravinsky s attention to structure and cohesion, and necessitates sulementary identifying characteristics to distinguish interactions amongst reetitive organizations Figure 11: Blocks of Airs (transcribed to concert itch) Histoire du soldat Chester Music Limited, 1-15 Berners Street, London W1T LJ, United Kingdom, worldwide rights excet the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and all so-called reversionary territories where the coyright 1996 is held jointly by Chester Music Limited and Schott Music GmbH Co KG, Mainz, Germany Reroduced with the kind ermission of the ublisher C C D A1 B A B1 C1 C C D X

22 Examle 11: Stravinsky, Airs by a Stream, Histoire Analysis of reetitions and motivic gestures Chester Music Limited, 1-15 Berners Street, London W1T LJ, United Kingdom, worldwide rights excet the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and all so-called reversionary territories where the coyright 1996 is held jointly by Chester Music Limited and Schott Music GmbH Co KG, Mainz, Germany Reroduced with the kind ermission of the ublisher Vl CB A Œ 1 Œ Œ siccato mf o o o o o o o o o o izz mf [semre] Cl (in A) Bsn Vln Cb > J 5 5 > 5 Œ J ten ten > > j > > j oco sf > # j > > oco sf o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Bsn # > > > 5 Œ # # Vln Cb - > > > 5 5 > # # # > - # # n # # n # subito mf o o o o o o o 5 5 Œ Œ J Cl Bsn Vln Cb Solo 6 5 > > 5 Ó b j J b J b B oco sf sub sim # # 5 5 Œ Œ 5 5 n n n # n # > n n # n # oco iù forte 5 5 sub oco iù forte 16

23 Examle 11 continued Cl A Tt 7 > > j b r r b b > > > > > r b J J J semre simile b r > > r b r r 5 5 j Vln n n # n # n n # izz mg n n # n n # n j ΠJ sf arco 5 # > Cl Bsn A Tt Tbn Vln Cb oco esante, f oco esante , 5 [oco esante], [oco esante], # - - ten ten > # # # j # > j # # > > j # n # n > # > > mf arco 5 > > 7 5 J J J J J J J oco sf oco sf semre simile m m m Cl Vln > molto 5 7 # n n b # > # n # # # # n > # j # n n j R j r j > j r j j sf f f meno f b r b r b Π# r # j n j # r 17

24 Examle 11 continued Cl A Tt > b r b r b - - n 7 b R b 16 b b R ΠΠr b n r b n 7 16 f A 6 6 Vln Cb # j izz n j # r j n j j j 7 16 leggiero arco siccato 7 16 sf o izz sf 6 o o o J 6 [semre] Bsn Vln Cb 7 1 Solo r # 5 6 r # 5 J # J j > mf mf > # ΠΠΠj > o o o o o o o o o o o o o Bsn Tbn Vln Cb > # 6 Π# siccato sicc ten 6, ten sicc sicc > > j > # mf [] [mf] > oco sf [mf] o o o o o o o o o o o o 6 Vln Cb 99 6 ΠR R o o o o o o o o Πarco f izz 1

25 Figure 11 highlights various iterations of the motives that unite to form the reetitions within Airs As a dearture from van den Toorn s definition of block reetition, I suggest that a different methodology would offer a sharer rationalization of the figures contained within the movement Viewing these reetitions through the lens of ordered succession may rove to be a much more valuable tool, esecially when considering that some of the recurrences reside in a larger block or line There are instances in which the initial sounding of a line resents itself as a distinct entity, only to have a subsequent entrance of the comlete and longer block In the oening A section, block A enters first, sounding twice before the entrance of the A1 fragment As it will be shown later in this aer, A1 and A are actually art of one block that has been searated The connection between B1 and B is shared in the lower voice of B s harmony As a stewise uer voice enters on the downbeats, the lower harmony of B includes a lea followed by a stewise descent just like the B1 motive The meandering C blocks are ascending and descending lines that move mostly by ste with no added harmonies, and the entrances of the Devil are marked by announcements of C1 The urose motive D is a brief, bridging movement between the B and A sections The bass ostinato, identified as motive X, functions as a foundation by which juxtaosed and suerimosed fragments can interact and neither changes nor stos, excet at the closures of A and A Horlacher s theory of ordered succession exands the discussion of reetition and block form Her models account for single lines and their manifestations as they move through a comosition Because reetitions in single lines can resent themselves as 19

26 fragments of fragments, her method serves to reveal the relationshi amongst reiterations of the same motive and show how they relate to revious statements Figure 1: Horlacher s list of ordered succession in multile iterations (Only the first two iterations are included) 1 Ordered succession within a single line Ordered succession within a single suerimosition XXXX vs XXXX vs XXXX Histoire s reetitions are unique because fragments of a line or block are declared before a comlete statement of the intact entity The rincial of ordered succession reasons that motivic reiterations oerate simultaneously as evolving and immobile 1 This figure is a reinterretation of the figures in Horlacher, Building Blocks, 6 0

27 figures, and that these structures (functioning as lines or blocks) are erceived aradoxically as both dynamic and inert In Figure 1, the first column which denotes the ordered successions within a single line illustrates the different iterations of a line in which the first exists as a comlete statement, while the second or third either comletes the ending gesture or it begins but does not end The second column of the figure shows the interactions through suerimosition where a line relates to material (the X s) through the various alignments over the course of the comosition Referring back to the A1 and A motivic fragments in my discussion of Histoire with the descritions of ordered succession brings a higher level of understanding to the roles of these reetitions Their soundings fit the characterization of ordered succession within a single line wherein A1 is the ending gesture of the comlete line and A is the beginning As we examine the interactions of the blocks contained in Histoire, the question of the origin of the blocks must also be addressed During the years after The Rite of Sring, articularly , the Stravinsky s ensembles became noticeably smaller comared to his revious large-scale orchestral works, such as The Firebird ( ) and Fireworks (190) What factors rovoked this shift to the more intimate nature of a chamber grou, and how did these influences inform the comoser s ractice A formalist s rendering of Stravinsky s turn might dismiss the nature of this shift as a nostalgic ideology harbored by the comoser during his neoclassical eriod To some extent I agree, however, I offer another ersective and roose that arts of Histoire were influenced by secific chamber ieces, articularly string quartets Stravinsky refers Horlacher, Building Blocks, 7 1

28 to the concet of the string quartet as the most lucid conveyor of musical ideas ever fashioned, and the most human and singing of instrumental means; or, if it was not thus, Beethoven made it that way Stravinsky s borrowings have also been the subject of debate as the comoser often gave conflicting accounts of his insirations This reduction in instrumentation eventually bled into his theatrical roductions, although for the uroses of this section my discussion will center on the effects of chamber works on Histoire In instances where the comoser would reveal the source of his insirations for certain ieces, the resonses would often obstruct or, in some cases, dissolve any attemt to use his words to forge a true connection between his ideas and the music he created I will examine two ossible sources that Stravinsky may have used as models for the motivic reetition contained in the Airs of Histoire In his conversations with Robert Craft, Stravinsky often soke of Beethoven s influence on his comositional rocess, articularly referencing Beethoven s string quartets Though he reserves a great deal of his admiration for the O 1 fugue, I believe Stravinsky also incororates motives found in the first movement of Beethoven s quartets, O 1, no, in the second section of Histoire My analysis will focus on Airs to demonstrate the aarent connection between Beethoven s second string quartet and the first movement of Stravinsky s Three Pieces Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Memories and Commentaries (London: Faber and Faber, 00), 5 Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Comany, Inc, 196),

29 for String Quartet, and the influence these two quartets had on its structural comonents, articularly the formation of blocks As of yet, there has been no mention of these two influences on Histoire, and most of the commentary has centered on the influence of abandoned rojects and fragments found in Stravinsky s sketches Through my analysis, I suggest that the two string quartets mentioned above were an integral art of the formation of the reetitions in Airs The comletion of Three Pieces came just one year after the remiere of The Rite of Sring, and is very much similar to the reetitive structures housed in Stravinsky s other comositions comleted around the same eriod Where Three Pieces differs from other works is in the construction of literal reetitions of the oening material In the first movement, Horlacher describes how Stravinsky offsets the effects of the dulications through various shifts and layering of the four arts, and also oints out that this level of exact thematic recurrence is uncommon, even for Stravinsky s music 5 Stravinsky dismisses the notion of his music recluding or being artial to the techniques of the Second Viennese School, saying that his quartet was not influenced by Schoenberg and Webern and that his quartet is thinner and more reetitive than Schoenberg of the same date 6 Corresonding to a Tye I block form, the first of Stravinsky s Three Pieces for String Quartet does not adhere to a single continuous meter Yet, the shifting of meter is 5 Horlacher, Building Blocks, 11 6 Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries, 65

30 steady, even as it changes: the iece is made u of three-measure successions of one $ measure and two $ measures In Examle 1 the oening 1 measures contain comlete statements of each ostinato, and because of varying lengths, the suerimositions of the arts cause the voice alignments to shift uon successive reeats of the ostinato Examle 1: Stravinsky, Three Pieces, mvt 1, mm 1-1 Violin I Violin II arco Viola Violoncello { B # izz B Sur le sol talon talon j j > j > izz arco Œ Œ Œ # ' mf ' # ' # ' # Œ Œ R semre mf izz f f f ff excessivement Ó Œ Œ Œ b b b b b b b b b b b b semre simile Vln I Vln II Vla Vla Vc j j > > Œ # ' ' # ff ' # # ' ' Œ ' # ff ' # ' B { B Œ Œ Œ Œ Œ Œ b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b Notable among the shifts is the descending F -E-D -C tetrachord of the second violin art beginning in measure 7 Each of the statements of this four note motive enter earlier and earlier against the first violin melody as if it is trying to escae the monotony of it s own soundings Jonathan Kramer suggests that this attention to metrical alignment

31 is a deliberate exloration into roortion control 7 Figure 1 shows the second violin alignments with the five reetitions of the first violin melody in what I refer to as a static shift A static shift occurs when a block (or line) moves against a fixed reetition in order to comlete a gesture to align itself with either the beginning or the end of the comlete unit The movement is analogous to Horlacher s ordered succession within a single suerimosition (shown the second column of Figure 11) excet that it has a secific goal to move to a boundary osition This seemingly arbitrary movement actually serves to give shae to a iece and generally signals the end of a section or entire work The shift in the first movement of Three Pieces finally occurs early enough so that the final reetition of the second violin art is sounded simultaneously with the beginning of the final statement of the first violin melody, thus comleting its effort to reach the beginning of the rimary melody 7 Jonathan D Kramer, Discontinuity and Proortion, in Confronting Stravinsky, ed Jann Pasler (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 196), 176 Horlacher also oints out the shifting suerimositions of the second violin ostinato in Horlacher, Building Blocks, 1 5

32 Figure 1 Static shift through the first movement of Three Pieces between the first and second violin arts VIOLIN I VIOLIN II 9 VIOLIN I VIOLIN II VIOLIN I VIOLIN II VIOLIN I VIOLIN II VIOLIN I VIOLIN II 1 As illustrated in Figure 1, the aftereffect of this technique is a conflicting environment containing qualities that, when emhasized, reveal Stravinsky s astute attentiveness to formal grouings and offers sulementary rocesses for aroaching comarable works that exhibit similar interactions As exlained later in this chater, this shifting technique aears in Airs of Histoire and its function is not only to facilitate develoment, but also serves to imbue the section with the function of conventional form The most rominent reetition in the first movement of the Three is the G-A-B-C tetrachordal ostinato Curiously, a motive from this theme makes its way to the Airs 6

33 section of Histoire and is resented in different iterations as an A-B-C -D Although not an exact coy, Stravinsky alludes to the tetrachord by lacing its fourth note in the clarinet after the bassoon begins a motive with the first three as shown in Examle 1 The sirit of the tune is resent in the downward gesture of the final two notes of each melodic grou Stravinsky treats this descending motion to diminution when comared with the violin line from Three Pieces, but on its last entrance in the clarinet art of Histoire, the original balance is restored when the motive ends with two quarter notes This ractice of self-quotation was not uncommon for Stravinsky as many of his works contain references to ast comositions Examle 1 Airs, mm Chester Music Limited, 1-15 Berners Street, London W1T LJ, United Kingdom, worldwide rights excet the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and all so-called reversionary territories where the coyright 1996 is held jointly by Chester Music Limited and Schott Music GmbH Co KG, Mainz, Germany Reroduced with the kind ermission of the ublisher Clarinet in A Bassoon 0 1 Solo Ó 5 # # 5 # # # Œ Œ Œ Stravinsky ironically makes statements about Beethoven s Ninth Symhony that mirror the criticisms and analyses of Adorno and assertions by others of develomental lethargy within his own works Stravinsky roclaims that nothing in the Ninth is as erennially surrising and delightful, Consider the Adagio without rejudice or try to The echo-dialogue of winds and strings lacks variation, and the Andante moderato, with the edal A and the reeated octaves, sixths, thirds, is harmonically heavy I find the movement rhythmically monotonous for Beethoven excet in its finest eisode, the E flat Adagio, but the effect even of that beautiful 7

34 assage is deadened by the rhythmic inanity of the subsequent 1/ Another weakness, or miscalculation, is the reetition, after only six measures, of the heroics at measure 11 What has haened to Beethoven s need for variation and develoment The movement is the antithesis of true symhonic form 9 Stravinsky s reading of Beethoven s final symhony exists as an odd characterization, esecially considering his own enchant for comosing ieces that convey a feel of motivic immobility The contradiction within the criticisms leveled at Beethoven s work is further comounded when taken into account alongside Stravinsky s own statements concerning the nature of reetition In resonse to a question concerning the reetitive comonent of his works and its urose, Stravinsky resonds, It is static that is, antideveloment; and sometimes we need a contradiction to develoment However, it became a vitiating device and was at one time over-emloyed by many of us 0 Though he acknowledges that overuse of a articular comositional device can transform something remarkably novel into nothing more than an ineffective exloit, Stravinsky also admits that the recurring asects of his technique is a necessary evil to combat the traditional notion of motivic develoment Alternatively, Stravinsky s olemics may have been his attemt to rovide a level of social counteroint to the oular oinion of Beethoven s works Clive Bell recalls attending a arty in which Stravinsky attended along with Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, 9 Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 19), These statements are rerinted in Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries, 0 Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co Inc, 1959), 6

35 and Marcel Proust He describes a tense encounter between Proust and Stravinsky after Stravinsky criticizes some of Beethoven s comositions when aroached by Proust to engage in small talk 1 In site of these statements, the reasoning may have been exlained when Robert Craft inquired about the details of the event in one of his numerous talks with the comoser Stravinsky recalled discussing the quality of Beethoven s works, saying that he would have articiated in [Proust s] interest were it not a commonlace among the intellectuals of that time and not a musical judgment but a literary ose Nevertheless, the comoser goes on to raise Beethoven s string quartets, singling out the O 59 set and the Grosse Fuge in a lengthy discussion of their comlexity and their anticiation of the techniques found in the music of Schumann and Mendelssohn The imression made by Beethoven s string quartets on Stravinsky is noteworthy when examining the rogressively smaller ensembles emloyed by the comoser after The Rite While he does not mention Beethoven s ous 1 quartets in his chats with Robert Craft, Stravinsky would have undoubtedly known the scores; his son, Soulima, owned the entire ous 1 set I assert that the motivic cells that contribute to the formation and interaction of secific blocks in Airs in Histoire are modeled on the material found in the transition section of the first movement of Beethoven s O 1, No, shown in Examle 1 1 Clive Bell, Old Friends (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Comany, 1956), 10 Stravinsky Craft, Conversations, 99 Stravinsky Craft, Dialogues, Housed in the Igor and Soulima Stravinsky Collection (Series 5) of the Juilliard Manuscrit Collection 9

36 Examle 1: Beethoven, O 1, No, mvt 1, mm # J ΠΠ# # f sf # Πsf f sf B # j j Π# J n J J f sf f sf # f sf f sf 0 # n # n # # cresc f # n n # n # n cresc f B # # # J J # # n # # cresc # j J j J # cresc f f When viewed together in Examle 15, the resemblance is brought to bear even more when considering, in addition to the striking rhythmic mirroring, both works share the same $ meter, make use of the violin to invoke the statements of the thematic material, and emloy similar iano dynamic markings In the Beethoven quartet, the transition theme is stated twice, followed by entrances of the sixteenth note motive that are searated by rests Stravinsky mimics these entrances by beginning Airs with the sixteenth note entrances and resents the full statement last 0

37 Examle 15: Airs and Beethoven: o 1, no thematic comarison Chester Music Limited, 1-15 Berners Street, London W1T LJ, United Kingdom, worldwide rights excet the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and all so-called reversionary territories where the coyright 1996 is held jointly by Chester Music Limited and Schott Music GmbH Co KG, Mainz, Germany Reroduced with the kind ermission of the ublisher Stravinsky, Airs, mm 9-11 # mf This last 16th air only aears in m Beethoven, O 1, No, mvt I, mm 1- # J f sf # f sf Another consicuous arallel between both works is the resence of G as a tonal center; the excert by Beethoven is rooted in G major (although it quickly modulates because of the nature of the transitory assage), while Stravinsky s does not establish a key, but embraces G as a focal oint, noticeably in the bass ostinato In the oening section of Stravinsky s Airs, G is the highest and lowest written itch of both the violin (G -G ) and the contrabass (G -G, [sounding G -G ]), and the violin invokes F#, the leading tone of G, in measure 17 as the only altered tone from an otherwise entirely natural note assage Horlacher also notes the G-centered melody of the string quartet discussed earlier 5 In Stravinsky s iece (shown in Musical Examle 16), the violin enters over the bass s eighth note ostinato with a set of alternating stoed and single sixteenth notes on 5 Horlacher, Building Blocks, 1

38 the ubeat of the second measure, resembling the ubeat of the second measure of Beethoven s transition section where the sixteenth notes of the violins are written over eighth notes While Beethoven s excert does not emloy the use of an ostinato, there is a continuous succession of eighth notes found in the viola that are exchanged with the cello during a rest Examle 16: Airs, oening, mm Chester Music Limited, 1-15 Berners Street, London W1T LJ, United Kingdom, worldwide rights excet the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and all so-called reversionary territories where the coyright 1996 is held jointly by Chester Music Limited and Schott Music GmbH Co KG, Mainz, Germany Reroduced with the kind ermission of the ublisher Vl CB Π1 ΠΠsiccato mf o o o o o o o o o o izz mf [semre] The static shift mentioned earlier in the first movement Three Pieces returns in Airs and is also emloyed as a form-defining signal of closure The goal of this movement is for the violin motive to comlete a shift against the four notes of the bass ostinato, starting with the last and moving one itch backwards in each aearance The 16 th note stos of the violin motive of O 1 are sounded three times against the th, rd, and nd notes of the bass, however the static shift is interruted, causing the gesture to end unfinished Thus when this section returns at the end of the comosition, the static shift reaears and the exression is allowed to comlete its movement successfully alongside the four bass notes

39 Examle 17: Airs, closing, mm Chester Music Limited, 1-15 Berners Street, London W1T LJ, United Kingdom, worldwide rights excet the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and all so-called reversionary territories where the coyright 1996 is held jointly by Chester Music Limited and Schott Music GmbH Co KG, Mainz, Germany Reroduced with the kind ermission of the ublisher Figure 1: Static shift in Airs between the 16 th notes of the violin and and bass ostinato Vln Cb mf [] [mf] oco sf [mf] Vln Cb f > siccato sicc ten >, ten > sicc > sicc o o o o o o o o o o o o arco izz 6 o o o o o o o o j # Œ R R Œ 1 Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf Cl Bsn Solo oco sf sub sim siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o > > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Ó b j J J b b # Œ Œ # Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf Cl Bsn Solo oco sf sub sim siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o > > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Ó b j J J b b # Œ Œ # Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - > > > > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # Shift Interruted Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Static Shift of A through oening 11 measures Static Shift of A through closing 17 measures Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf Cl Bsn Solo oco sf sub sim siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o > > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Ó b j J J b b # Œ Œ # Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf Cl Bsn Solo oco sf sub sim siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o > > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Ó b j J J b b # Œ Œ # Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn Vln Cb 5 5 mf siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - - > > > > > subito o o o o o o o Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # # # n # # n # Œ Œ J Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - > > > > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # # # # # Vl CB mf 1 mf Cl Bsn Vln Cb 1 oco sf oco sf Bsn siccato izz o [semre] o o o o o o o o o > > > ten ten > > > > > > o o o o o o o o o o o o o o > > > - > Œ Œ Œ J Œ J j j # j Œ # # #