Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Stravinsky created an individual voice by developing several traits, most from Russian traditions. Distinctive qualities Undermining meter through unpredictable accents and rapid changes of meter Frequent ostinatos Static blocks of sound juxtaposed or layered Discontinuity and interruption Dissonance based on diatonic, octatonic, and other collections Dry, antilyrical, but colorful use of instruments Stravinsky forged these traits during his Russian period. He became arguably the most important composer of his time.
Biography Stravinsky was born near St. Petersburg to a well-to-do musical family. He studied composition and orchestration privately with Rimsky-Korsakov. Sergei Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to compose for the Ballet Russes. Stravinsky moved to Paris in 1911 and remained there after the Russian Revolution. Capitalizing on the notoriety of the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky performed tirelessly as a pianist and conductor, which increased his international recognition. He eventually settled in Hollywood, and several of his pieces incorporate American styles.
Russian Period (to 1918) The Firebird (1910) The ballet is based on Russian folk tales. Human characters are portrayed with diatonic music and supernatural creatures with octatonic or chromatic music.
Petrushka (1910-11) The opening scene presents blocks of static harmony with repetitive melodic and rhythmic patterns. Seemingly unrelated musical events interrupt each other, creating an aural equivalent to Picasso's cubism. Stravinsky borrows several Russian folk tunes and simulates folk harmony (see HWM Example 31.7). To depict the supernatural, Stravinsky draws upon a biting octatonic sound. The "Petrushka chord" is derived from an octatonic scale (see HWM Example 31.8).
The Rite of Spring (1911-13) The ballet, set in prehistoric Russia, does not tell a story, but shows a fertility ritual in which an adolescent girl is chosen for sacrifice and dances herself to death. Nikolay Roerich designed the sets and costumes, and Vaclav Nijinsky was the choreographer. The scenario, choreography, and music are marked by primitivism, a deliberate representation of the crude and uncultured (see HWM Figure 31.6). The audience at the premiere broke into a riot (see HWM Source Reading, page 824). The music has since become one of Stravinsky's most commonly performed works.
Danse des adolescents (Dance of the Adolescent Girls) from The Rite of Spring (see NAWM 145a and HWM Example 31.9) The dissonant opening chord uses all seven notes of the A-flat harmonic minor scale. The emphasis on pure pulse contributes to the sense of primitivism. The metrical hierarchy of beats is negated as each pulse is played with the same strength. Unpredictable accents destroy any sense of regularity.
The entire scene is built from ostinatos that create static blocks of sound. Stravinsky builds up textures by layering two or more strands of music on top of each other. The contrasting blocks of sound share several pitches, which lend a sense of continuity. The movement incorporates a Russian folk tune (measure 43) and two folklike melodies. Stravinsky often links a motive with a specific instrumentation. Stravinsky prefers a dry, rather than lush, timbre in his orchestration.
Danse sacrale (Sacrificial Dance) from The Rite of Spring (see NAWM 145b) This is the last dance of the ballet. Stravinsky adopts two additional strategies that reduce meter to pulse. Rapidly changing meters Unpredictable alternation of notes with rests
The opening, section A The main idea (measures 2-5) is repeated many times. Other similar figures alternate with the main idea.
Section B begins in measure 34. The section begins softly with pulsing chords and a chromatic melodic idea. The section builds to a frightening climax (measures 91-92). It suddenly returns to the opening dynamic and begins to build again.
The A section returns, transposed down a semitone (measure 116). A new section begins at measure 149. The section features percussion instruments. A whole-tone scale, introduced by the horns (measure 154), is transformed into a folklike melody (measures 160-171). The opening of section A briefly interrupts (measures 174-80). A bass ostinato is introduced at measure 203, and the material of section A builds to a final climax.
L'histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale, 1918) Wartime economy forced Stravinsky to turn to small musical ensembles. This ballet is scored for six solo instruments and percussion. Using dance movements, such as a tango, waltz, and ragtime, Stravinsky discovered ways to imitate familiar styles within his own musical style.
Neoclassicism Neoclassicism denotes a broad movement that took place from the 1910s to the 1950s. Composers revived, imitated, or evoked styles, genres, and forms of pre-romantic music, particularly from the eighteenth century. Neoclassicism rejected the high emotions of Romanticism. Stravinsky used neoclassicism as a new avenue for his own distinctive style. Stravinsky's neoclassic music has an emotional detachment and can be seen as anti-romantic. Neoclassical period (1919-1951)
Pulcinella (1919), a ballet commissioned by Diaghilev The work consists of orchestrations of pieces by Pergolesi, an eighteenth-century composer. Through orchestrating Pergolesi's pieces, Stravinsky discovered the past.
Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) This work features many of the same methods as The Rite of Spring, but unlike The Rite of Spring, it is an abstract composition. Along with Pulcinella, this work marks the beginning of Stravinsky's neoclassicism.
composer in the neoclassic style, which culminated in the opera The Rake's Progress (1951).
Symphony of Psalms, first movement (1930; see NAWM 146 and HWM Example 31.10) Symphony of Psalms is a three-movement work for mixed chorus and orchestra that uses psalms from the Latin Vulgate Bible. Baroque features Perpetual motion Frequent ostinatos Fully developed fugue in the second movement Stravinsky maintains an objective rather than emotional sound; he omits violins, viola, and clarinets. Some traits remain from the Rite, such as changing meters and unexpected rests. But the music is less dissonant and has characteristics of earlier music, such as the Gregorian chant style at the entrance of the voices. The juxtaposition of contrasting blocks of material articulates an abstract form. The movement alternates two main sections, and there is a contrasting middle section (see diagram in the commentary to NAWM 146).
Neotonality Tonal centers are established through repetition and assertion, not through traditional harmony. At the beginning, E-minor chords alternate with sixteenth-note arpeggiations. When the voices enter, E is the main focus. E is also sustained in the bass. The A sections are primarily diatonic, using the notes of E Phrygian. The B sections are largely octatonic. Stravinsky juxtaposes E and G and also moves from E to G at the close.
Stravinsky and Schoenberg Partly because of his use of tonal centers, audiences preferred Stravinsky's music to Schoenberg's. Both composers had supporters who argued about the need for tradition. The two composers were closer in spirit than might be first perceived.
Serial period (1951-1971) In the 1950s, Schoenberg's twelve-tone techniques were extended to parameters other than pitch, which became known as serialism. Stravinsky adapted serial techniques, but maintained many of his distinctive characteristics in his late works, including: In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), a song cycle Threni (1957-58), for voices and orchestra, on texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah Movements (1958-59), for piano and orchestra
Influence Stravinsky's impact on other composers is similar to that of Wagner and Debussy. Many elements that he created became commonplace. He popularized neoclassicism. His support for serialism helped gain him a strong following. His writings, such as Poetics of Music, have been widely read.
Béla Bartók (1881-1945) (see HWM biography, page 830, and Figure 31.8) Bartók synthesized elements of Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian peasant music with elements of the German classical tradition. Biography Bartók was born in a small Hungarian city (now in Romania). He began piano lessons at age five and began to compose at age nine. He studied piano and composition at the Budapest Academy of Music and returned there in 1907 to teach piano. A virtuoso pianist, he concertized throughout Europe. He also edited the keyboard music of classic composers.
Bartók as an ethnomusicologist Bartók collected thousands of folk songs, edited them into collections, and wrote about folk music. He used audio recording in his field research (see HWM Figure 31.9). He argued that peasant music better represented the nation than urban music. In 1934 he accepted a position as ethnomusicologist at the Academy of Sciences.
Bartók enjoyed a productive compositional period until the threat from Nazi Germany forced him to flee to the United States. He settled in New York, but suffered financially and physically until his death from leukemia in 1945.
Musical influences In his early career, he modeled his music on the works of classical masters, such as Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt. He was later inspired by the works of modernists, including Richard Strauss, Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. Bartók and folk music He arranged many peasant tunes. He created original works by blending rhythmic, melodic, or formal characteristics of peasant music with classical and modern traditions.
Major works He created a distinctive style in his early works. Bluebeard's Castle (1911), a one-act opera, mixes Hungarian elements with influences from Debussy. Allegro barbaro (1911) and other piano music treated the instrument in a percussive manner.
Following World War I, his works grew more dissonant. Two Violin Sonatas (1921 and 1922) The Third and Fourth String Quartets The Miraculous Mandarin, an expressionistic pantomime
His later works are his most widely known. The Fifth and Sixth String Quartets Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936) Concerto for Orchestra (1943)
Mikrokosmos (1929-33) 153 piano works in six books of graded difficulty The work is of great pedagogical value.
Musical style Bartók maintained a single pitch center, using diatonic and other scales. He built melodies from repeated and varied motives. Bartók retained elaborate contrapuntal procedures from the classical tradition, such as the fugue. He drew upon complex rhythms and meters common in peasant traditions. His harmonies, often dissonant, are frequently built from seconds and fourths. He was fond of symmetry.
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta The work has four movements, similar to a classical symphony. Slow fugue Fast sonata form Slow arch form Rondo finale
The fugue theme appears in each of the other movements. Each movement contains canon and imitation, often in inversion. The outer movements are in A, and the inner movements center on notes a minor third above (C) and below (F-sharp).
The work is neotonal. All of the movements center on tritone relationships. The slow movement centers on F-sharp with C as a competing pole (see HWM Example 31.11). The themes, created by varying small motives, are often in diatonic modes.
Peasant elements Bulgarian dance meters alternate twos and threes; Bartók adopts a 2-3-3 pattern in the fourth movement. The Serbo-Croatian song is heavily ornamented, partly chromatic, and speechlike (parlando-rubato), which is imitated near the beginning of the third movement (see HWM Example 31.13). Other characteristics include drones, snapped pizzicatos, and percussive dissonant chords.
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, third movement (NAWM 147) The movement is a modified arch form: ABCB'A'. The four phrases of the opening fugue theme separate these sections (measures 19, 34, 60, and 74).
Section A (measures 1-18) The palindromic form of the third movement is foreshadowed in the opening xylophone solo (see HWM Example 31.12). The section also features glissandos on the timpani, low string tremolos, and chromatic figures in the violas and violins. The pitches center on F-sharp and C, the tonal poles of the movement.
Section B (measures 20-33) Two solo violins and celesta share the B theme. The eerie background consists of string trills, parallel major sevenths articulated by the piano, violin glissandos, and tremolos.
Section C (measures 35-59) The section opens with glissandos, pentatonic scales in the harp, piano, and celesta, and a twisting theme in tremolos. This texture is known as Bartók's "night music." The theme builds to a climax, where a new motive appears (violin I, measures 44-45). The new motive, sometimes played in retrograde, is related to the third phrase of the fugue theme, which enters at measure 60.
Section B' (measures 63-72) The B theme is in canon at the tritone. The accompanying texture is similar to the first half of section C. Section A' (measures 75-83) presents an abbreviated version of the opening section.
Charles Ives (1874-1954) (see HWM biography, page 836, Biography and Figure 31.10) Ives was born in a small Connecticut city, where his father was a bandmaster and music teacher. He became the youngest professional church organist in the state at age fourteen. His father taught him theory and an experimental approach to sound. He studied music with Horatio Parker at Yale. Ives settled in New York, working as an organist. He chose a career in the insurance business and built one of the most successful agencies in the nation. He composed music in the evenings and weekends, but retired from composing in 1918 due to a health crisis. Although he worked in obscurity, he was later recognized as the first American composer to create a distinctly American body of art music.
Ives was fluent in four distinct spheres of composition, and he combined elements of each in his mature music. American vernacular music He grew up surrounded by American vernacular music, including parlor songs, minstrel shows, and marches directed by his father. He composed numerous marches and parlor songs.
Protestant church music Ives sang and played organ in church for much of his early life. He learned all of the styles prominent in American Protestantism, which were cultivated in his studies with Parker.
European classical music He played major organ works by composers such as Bach and transcriptions of other classical works. He studied art music with Parker. His First Symphony is modeled after Dvo ák's New World Symphony.
Experimental music He experimented with new sounds, including polytonality (melody in one key and accompaniment in another), in his youth. Processional for chorus and organ is an essay on possible chord structures (see HWM Example 31.14a). Scherzo: All the Way Around and Back for chamber ensemble is a palindrome that builds on dissonant ostinatos (see HWM Example 31.14b). The Unanswered Question (1908), his best-known experimental work, combines both tonal and atonal layers in one work.
Synthesis Ives composed in classical genres after 1902, but mixed in other styles and sounds that he knew. The Second Symphony paraphrased American popular songs, borrowed passages from classic composers, and combined them in a symphonic idiom.
Cumulative form American hymn tunes can be found in Ives's Third Symphony, four violin sonatas, and First Piano Sonata. In each, thematic development occurs first and leads to the themes at the end. In this process, Ives asserts the universal value of his country's music (see HWM Source Reading, page 840).
Many of Ives's later pieces have programs celebrating American life. Three Places in New England presents orchestral pictures of: The first African-American regiment in the Civil War A band playing at a Fourth of July picnic A walk by a river with his wife during their honeymoon
A Symphony: New England Holidays captures the spirit of national holidays. Concord Mass., 1840-60, his second piano sonata, pays tribute to the writers in that city at that time: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. The Fourth Symphony, a philosophical work, poses and seeks to answer the "searching questions of What? and Why?" Quotations of American tunes are frequent, often layered on top of each other. Ives frequently mixed styles within a single work.
General William Booth Enters into Heaven (1914; see NAWM 148 and HWM Example 31.15) This song is based on a Vachel Lindsay poem that pictures the founder of the Salvation Army leading the poor and downtrodden into heaven. Although it is an art song, Ives mixes aspects of American vernacular music, church music, and experimental music. Several hymns and American tunes are paraphrased, and a cumulative form leads to an entire verse of the hymn There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.
Opening section (measures 1-18) Ives imitates Booth's bass drum with dissonant chords on the piano. Over the "street beat," the vocal line presents phrases derived from There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.
Second section (measures 19-39) Ives gives each group of followers a different musical characterization. He uses ostinatos, parallel dissonant chords, and other modernist sounds. The hymn tune returns with the refrain.
The "mighty courthouse" (measures 40-81) A crowd is suggested through a rising and falling whole-tone scale in the voice and ostinatos in the piano. The piano paraphrases Oh, Dem Golden Slippers in measures 52-55 with the suggestion of banjo playing. Ives adds a bugle call and a hint of the hymn Onward, Upward in measures 70-74.
The appearance of Jesus (measures 82-91) There Is a Fountain is heard in the piano. This is the first mostly diatonic passage in the song. The slow tempo and soft dynamics suggest the dignity and serenity of Jesus.
Closing section (measures 92-113) The march beat returns in the piano. At the climax, the complete verse of There Is a Fountain is sung. The action stops near the end, and the closing refrain is set twice, over soft arpeggiated chords and then in four-part Protestant harmony. The parade fades away in the distance.
Influence Ives's influence was felt after World War II. He could justifiably be called the founder of the experimental-music tradition in the United States.
Composer and Audience Modernism widened the split between popular and classical music. Modernism targeted those willing to study and listen to a work repeatedly. Such works became favorites of other composers, but were held in disdain by audiences. Films have introduced both excerpts from modernist works and modernist techniques to general audiences. Compositions by all six of the composers mentioned here have found a permanent place in the classical repertory, and interest in their music has tended to increase.