Miniature essays: Igor Stravinsky.
by Anonymous.
IGOR STRAVINSKY
Igor Stravinsky was born at Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg, on June 5th (18th), 1882. His father, an operatic singer, who won great favour with the public of the Russian capital at the Maryinsky Theatre, soon discovered remarkable musical gifts in the boy, which he did not neglect to develop, although he wished him to grow up to a legal career. In accordance with this plan, Igor Stravinsky, on having reached adolescence, entered the University of St. Petersburg and devoted himself to the study of jurisprudence, not without periodical and almost irresistible impulsions to abandon it for music. He had thus reached the age of twenty-two, when a meeting with Rimsky-Korsakov, who saw and appreciated the young man"s astonishing talent, proved the decisive event of his life. Rimsky-Korsakov declared himself willing to accept him as a pupil.
The direct outcome of Rimsky-Korsakov"s tuition was, first of all, a Symphony, begun in 1905 and finished in 1907. This was succeeded by "Faun and Shepherdess," a song-cycle with orchestra, and two orchestral works, "Fireworks" and "Scherzo fantastique." The latter was the means of bringing about a meeting that was destined to direct Stravinsky"s activities into a new channel: he made the acquaintance of Serge Diaghilev, who was struck by the vitality and colour of the work he had heard, and who induced him to set to music one of the ballets he proposed to produce. This was the "Firebird" (1910), which was followed in due course by "Petrushka" (1911) and "Le Sacre du Printemps" (1913).
Next came an opera, begun some years earlier, "The Nightingale,"
finished in 1914, the second and third acts of which were later converted into the symphonic poem, "The Song of the Nightingale" (1917).
Stravinsky left Russia at an early stage of his career and has since lived alternately in Paris and on the sh.o.r.es of the Lake of Geneva.
It is almost impossible to-day to consider the work of Igor Stravinsky with the detachment that is the first requisite of a judicious appreciation, and to avoid taking part in the violent controversy to which it has given rise, a controversy that is in itself a testimony to its vitality, for Stravinsky"s music is so characteristic an expression of the artistic tendencies of our time that even those who most dislike it cannot pa.s.s it by in silence. It is perhaps hardly paradoxical to a.s.sert that fundamentally all the critics agree as to its significance, and that they differ merely in the point of view from which they regard it.
There have been few composers whose development has been as rapid and as far-reaching as that of Stravinsky, and this is probably the chief reason why his later works so completely baffle anyone who is not intimately acquainted with those that precede them. For it cannot be too strongly emphasized that, disjointed as Stravinsky"s output may appear to the superficial observer, it reveals a gradual and very logical transformation, in the course of which each work falls into its place and contributes something to an evolution--so often mistaken for revolution--which is only more difficult to follow than that of most other composers because it is so much more rapid. Stravinsky has covered, within a decade, a stretch of ground which most others would have taken fifty years to traverse, if indeed they would have traversed it at all. Small wonder that he leaves many of those who endeavour to follow him in a state of breathless vexation by the wayside.
The development began immediately after the Symphony, Stravinsky"s first work, and the only example of his availing himself of a cla.s.sical form for the expression of his ideas, which were even then sufficiently original to force upon him the realization of the necessity of creating new and more elastic moulds. The next works, in fact, "Faun and Shepherdess," "Fireworks" and "Scherzo fantastique," already give an impression of far greater spontaneity and, despite the still apparent outside influences, especially Rimsky-Korsakov"s, of greater individuality. Rimsky-Korsakov"s sway over his pupil was, even at this early stage, confined to a certain picturesqueness that soon became too obvious for Stravinsky, and to the example of the master"s glowing orchestration, an inheritance destined to bear compound interest in the pupil"s hands. In the "Firebird" this influence is seen for the last time and in a greatly diminished degree, being now restricted to the characteristic national treatment of the thematic material. It may be remarked in pa.s.sing that the national element is a secondary matter in Stravinsky"s music, and that his personal expression always predominates; he is above all a _musician_, and only incidentally a _Russian_ musician, just as Poushkin was first and foremost a poet, who only by the accident of his birth happened to express himself in the Russian language. Yet the national idiom in Stravinsky is second only to his universally human expression, or we should never have had such a work as "Petrushka." In this ballet, still regarded as his masterpiece by those who are unable to follow him beyond it, he certainly reached full maturity and completely revealed his personality. To consider the music of "Petrushka," as the casual listener might be tempted to do, as merely descriptive, is to mistake its purpose entirely. With Stravinsky, as we may already see in the "Firebird," where it is narrative rather than ill.u.s.trative, music is never subservient to anything else, even when it is allied to literary, histrionic or ch.o.r.eographic conceptions.
It is a separate organism and always remains absolute music that makes its appeal to the senses rather than to the intellect. It is not explicative, but parallel, it is a stimulant that calls forth other ideas; hence the possibility of giving "Le Sacre du Printemps" two entirely different ch.o.r.eographic settings. The tendency to provide pure music to a scenario with which it is a.n.a.logous in feeling, but from which it remains nevertheless independent, reaches its culmination in "L"Histoire du Soldat" and in "Renard." That the music of the former, for instance, is capable of being enjoyed separately, as music pure and simple, has been proved by more than one concert performance, and will be experienced by those who play at home the composer"s own Trio arrangement (for piano, violin and clarinet), or the piano transcription of some of the princ.i.p.al numbers.
A very remarkable feature of "L"Histoire du Soldat" is the manner in which Stravinsky explores the possibilities of various forms of popular music--not the folk-song, but the music of the fair, the ballroom, or the music-hall--which he converts into art-forms that are lifted out of their original functions. The Waltz, the Tango, the Rag, become in his hands much the same musical a.s.sets that the Allemande, the Courante, the Sarabande, became in the hands of the old masters. Other examples of this conversion of vulgar forms of music may be found in the "Piano Rag Music," in the "Ragtime" for small orchestra or piano, in the two sets of easy pieces for piano duet, and in the diminutive piano pieces for children, "Les Cinq Doigts."
It is difficult to imagine that the principle of absolute music can be realized where it is a question of the setting of words; yet Stravinsky has succeeded in upholding his ideal even in such works as the "Berceuses du Chat," the "Pribaoutki," the "Four Chants Russes" and the "Three Histoires pour Enfants." This explains at once the otherwise perhaps inexplicable choice of words that have no literary significance.
To set a great poet"s words to music has become for Stravinsky an absurdity, because to him the verses themselves are already a completely and independently satisfying equivalent of musical emotion. His aim is not to write music that performs the functions of applied art, and he is therefore on the look-out for texts that are too insignificant or nave in themselves, such as the little popular Russian verses he has chosen.
They made their appeal to him because of their sonorous and rhythmic, not because of any literary quality; they are potential, foreseeing all sorts of possibilities which they leave to the composer to realize.
Stravinsky is sociable and direct; he writes simply for the enjoyment of player and hearer alike.
The one quality of Stravinsky"s art that no critic has ventured to dispute is his consummate mastery of every instrumental resource. His combinations of tone-colour always hold surprises in store for us, which curiously enough do not seem to wear off even after repeated hearing.
One of the secrets of the extraordinary resonance that astonishes the hearer is the fact that Stravinsky writes for each instrument individually as if he were himself a virtuoso on it; he always gives it exactly the kind of music to play that suits its particular character.
He does not transfer the same phrase from one instrument to another unless he is sure that it is congenial to both, and he generally prefers to give each one something entirely different to do, something that invariably goes to the very root of its idiosyncrasy. This tendency results in a subtle blending of different rays of colour and degrees of light and shade, in a kind of dynamic (as distinct from harmonic) chord formation. In the later works, this manner of individualizing each instrument has become still more interesting because Stravinsky has more closely adapted his medium to his purpose. He distributes his chords among instruments of very different character instead of aiming at unity of colour, and he thus helps us to hear each of the simultaneously sounding notes as a separate value. "L"Histoire du Soldat" and the "Ragtime" give an impression of extraordinary plasticity; we have here a parallel to the three-dimensional art of the sculptor rather than to the deceptive perspective of the painter"s canvas. But Stravinsky can at will abandon the three dimensions and give us a perfectly satisfying study in mere contour, such as we get in the three pieces for solo clarinet.
An entirely new conception is the ballet-divertiss.e.m.e.nt, "Les Noces,"
where in addition to an orchestra from which string instruments are excluded, there are four solo voices and a chorus supporting the whole fabric of sound, sometimes alternately and sometimes in combination, without a single interruption throughout the whole work. The music of the _Noces_, like all the later works by Stravinsky, is directly and exclusively written to satisfy the auditive faculty of the hearer and it is thus a new affirmation of the reaction against the subjective expression in music that has so many adepts among the greatest composers of the nineteenth and the opening of the present century. If he can be compared to any older masters, he certainly has far more affinity with Haydn and Mozart than with any nineteenth century composer, and it is less surprising than those who are but superficially acquainted with his work might be inclined to think, that he should have found a very congenial task in composing on the basis of some pieces by Pergolesi the ballet of "Pulcinella," a task of which he acquitted himself with a delicacy and a reverence that none but a kindred spirit could have achieved.
[Decoration]
Igor Strawinsky est ne a Oranienbaum, pres de St. Petersbourg, 5 (18) Juin, 1882. Son pere, un chanteur d"opera qui jouissait d"une grande faveur aupres du public de la capitale a.s.sidu au Theatre Marie, decouvrit bientot les remarquables dons musicaux de l"enfant et ne negligea point de les developper, bien qu"il souhaitat le voir poursuivre l"etude du droit. Conformement a cette intention, Igor Strawinsky entra par la suite a l"Universite de St. Petersbourg et se consacra a l"etude de la jurisprudence, non sans de vives et presque irresistibles tentations de l"abandonner pour la musique. Il avait ainsi atteint l"age de vingt-deux ans quand une rencontre avec Rimsky-Korsakow, qui vit et apprecia l"etonnant talent du jeune homme, fut l"evenement qui decida de sa vie. Il se declara pret a le prendre pour eleve.
La consequence directe de l"enseignement de Rimsky fut, tout d"abord, une _Symphonie_ commencee en 1905 et achevee en 1907; et qui fut suivie par _Faune et Bergere_, suite de melodies avec orchestre, et par deux oeuvres pour orchestre _Feu d"artifice_ et _Scherzo fantastique_. Cette derniere oeuvre fut l"occasion d"une rencontre qui allait engager l"activite de Strawinsky dans une nouvelle voie; il fit alors la rencontre de Serge de Diaghileff qui fut frappe de la couleur et de la vie de l"oeuvre qu"il venait d"entendre et qui decida le compositeur a mettre en musique un des ballets qu"il se proposait de monter. Ce fut _l"Oiseau de feu_ (1910), suivi peu apres par _Petrouchka_ (1911) et _le Sacre du Printemps_ (1913). Puis vint un opera, commence plusieurs annees auparavant, _le Rossignol_, acheve en 1914 et dont le deuxieme et troisieme acte furent ensuite convertis en poeme symphonique: _le Chant du Rossignol_ (1917). Strawinsky avait quitte la Russie au debut de sa carriere et a vecu depuis lors alternativement a Paris et sur les bords du lac de Geneve.
Il est presque impossible aujourd"hui de considerer l"oeuvre d"Igor Strawinsky avec le detachement qui est la condition d"une appreciation judicieuse, et d"eviter de prendre part dans la violente controverse a laquelle elle a donne naissance, controverse qui est par elle-meme le temoignage de la vitalite de cette oeuvre: car la musique de Strawinsky est une expression si caracteristique des tendances artistiques de notre temps que meme ceux qui la detestent le plus ne peuvent la pa.s.ser sous silence. Il est peut-etre a peine paradoxal d"affirmer que tous les critiques sont essentiellement d"accord sur sa signification et qu"ils ne different que par le point de vue d"ou ils la considerent.
Peu de compositeurs ont connu un developpement aussi rapide et aussi considerable que Strawinsky, et c"est probablement pourquoi ses dernieres oeuvres deconcertent si completement ceux qui ne sont pas familiarises avec des oeuvres precedentes. On ne peut en effet trop insister sur le fait que si decousue que puisse paraitre l"oeuvre de Strawinsky aux yeux d"un observateur superficiel, il revele une evolution graduelle et parfaitement logique au cours de laquelle chaque oeuvre prend sa place et contribue a dessiner la courbe d"une evolution, (trop souvent consideree comme revolution) qu"il est seulement plus difficile de suivre que celle des autres compositeurs parce qu"elle est plus rapide. Strawinsky a parcouru en dix ans un chemin que la plupart des autres auraient mis cinquante ans a franchir, si meme ils l"avaient franchi. Comment s"etonner alors qu"il laisse haletants sur le bord de la route bon nombre de ceux qui s"efforcent de le suivre?
Ce developpement commence aussitot apres la _Symphonie_, premiere oeuvre de Strawinsky, et seul exemple d"utilisation d"une forme cla.s.sique qu"il ait donne pour exprimer ses idees, idees qui etaient des alors a.s.sez originales pour l"amener a se creer des moules nouveaux et plus souples.
Les oeuvres suivantes; _Faune et Bergere_, _Feu d"artifice_ et le _Scherzo fantastique_, donnent deja la sensation d"une spontaneite beaucoup plus vive, et en depit de visibles influences (specialement celle de Rimsky) d"une plus grande individualite. L"empreinte de Rimsky sur son eleve etait, meme a cette epoque des debuts, limitee a un certain pittoresque qui devint bientot trop _facile_ pour Strawinsky et a l"exemple de la brillante orchestration du maitre, heritage qui devait porter des interets composes entre les mains de l"eleve. Cette influence se montre pour la derniere fois et grandement attenuee dans l"_Oiseau de Feu_ et se reduit a l"emploi caracteristiquement national du materiel thematique. On peut remarquer en pa.s.sant que l"element national est une question secondaire dans la musique de Strawinsky, et que l"expression personnelle predomine toujours; il est par dessus tout un _musicien_, et seulement occasionnellement un musicien _russe_, exactement comme Pouchkine etait, d"abord et avant tout, un poete qui dut au seul hasard de la naissance de s"exprimer en russe. Mais chez Strawinsky l"idiome national ne pa.s.se qu"immediatement apres l"expression universellement humaine, sans quoi nous n"aurions jamais eu _Petrouchka_. Dans ce ballet, que considerent encore comme son chef d"oeuvre ceux qui ne peuvent le suivre plus loin, il a certainement atteint sa pleine maturite et revele completement sa personnalite.
Considerer la musique de _Petrouchka_ comme uniquement descriptive, ainsi que l"auditeur occasionel peut etre tente de le faire, c"est s"abuser entierement. Chez Strawinsky, ainsi qu"on l"a deja vu dans l"_Oiseau de Feu_, ou elle est plutot un recit qu"une ill.u.s.tration, la musique n"est jamais subordonnee a quoique ce soit d"autre, meme lorsqu"elle se trouve alliee a des conceptions litteraires, theatrales ou ch.o.r.egraphiques. C"est un organisme separe et qui demeure toujours de la musique absolu s"adressant aux sens bien plus qu"a l"intellect. Elle n"est pas explicative, mais parallele, c"est un stimulant qui eveille d"autres idees; de la la possibilite de donner du _Sacre du Printemps_ deux expressions ch.o.r.egraphiques entierement differentes. La tendance a attacher, a un scenario, de la musique pure qui, si a.n.a.logue qu"elle puisse etre par le sentiment, en demeure cependant independante, se montre au plus haut point dans l"_Histoire du Soldat_ et dans _Renard_.
Que la musique de la premiere, par exemple, puisse etre goutee separement, comme de la musique pure et simple, on en a eu la preuve par plus d"une execution au concert, et on peut l"avoir aussi en jouant chez soi l"arrangement en Trio (piano, violon et clarinette) ou la suite pour piano que l"auteur a faite de quelques uns des princ.i.p.aux morceaux.
Un caractere tres remarquable de l"_Histoire du Soldat_ est la maniere dont Strawinsky utilise les ressources des diverses formes de la musique populaire,--non pas la chanson populaire, mais la musique des foires, des salles de bal, ou du "music-hall,"--qu"il convert.i.t en formes d"art eloignees de leur fonction originelle. La _Valse_, le _Tango_, le _Rag_ deviennent entre ses mains des elements musicaux a.n.a.logues a ce que l"_Allemande_, la _Courante_ ou la _Sarabande_ sont devenues entre les mains des Maitres anciens. D"autres exemples de cette transformation des formes vulgaires de la musique se voient dans le _Piano-Rag-music_, dans le _Ragtime_ pour pet.i.t orchestre et piano, dans les deux series de pieces faciles a quatre mains, et dans les toutes pet.i.tes pieces de piano pour enfants, _les Cinq Doigts_.
Il est difficile d"imaginer que le principe de la musique absolue puisse etre realise lorsqu"il est question de paroles mises en musique; pourtant Strawinsky a reussi a rester fidele a son ideal, meme dans des oeuvres telles que _Berceuses du chat_, les _Pribaoutki_, les _Quatre Chants russes_ et les _Trois Histoires pour enfants_. Cela explique de suite le choix, peut-etre inexplicable autrement, de paroles qui n"ont aucune signification litteraire. Mettre en musique les paroles d"un grand poete est devenue pour Strawinsky une absurdite, parce qu"a son avis les vers eux-memes sont deja un equivalent satisfaisant, completement et en soi, de l"emotion musicale. Son but n"est pas d"ecrire de la musique qui remplisse le role de l"art applique, aussi est-il toujours en quete de textes tout a fait insignifiants ou nafs par eux-memes, tels que les pet.i.ts vers populaires russes qu"il a choisis. Ils le satisfont par leur qualite sonore et rythmique et non pas par leur qualite litteraire: ils contiennent en eux toutes sortes de ressources qu"il appartient au compositeur de faire surgir. Strawinsky est sociable et direct; il ecrit simplement pour la satisfaction de l"executant et de l"auditeur a la fois.
Une qualite de l"art de Strawinsky qu"aucun critique ne s"est aventure a discuter est sa maitrise consommee de toutes les ressources instrumentales. Ses combinaisons de timbres ont toujours pour nous des surprises en reserve, qui a.s.sez etrangement, ne semblent pas s"user apres des auditions repetees. L"un des secrets de l"extraordinaire resonnance qui etonne l"auditeur est le fait que Strawinsky ecrit pour chaque instrument individuellement comme s"il etait lui-meme un virtuose; il lui donne toujours a jouer exactement la sorte de musique qui convient a son caractere particulier. Il ne transporte pas la meme phrase d"un instrument a l"autre, a moins d"etre sur qu"elle peut convenir aux deux, et il prefere generalement donner a chacun d"eux quelque chose d"entierement different, quelque chose qui aille invariablement jusqu"aux profondeurs memes de son caractere particulier.
Il en resulte un melange subtil de rayons de couleurs differentes et de nuances de lumiere et d"ombre, une sorte de formation dynamique des accords (distincte de la formation harmonique). Dans ses dernieres oeuvres, cette facon d"individualiser chaque instrument est devenue encore plus interessante parce que Strawinsky a etroitement adapte le moyen au but. Il distribue ses accords parmi des instruments de caractere different au lieu d"avoir en vue l"unite de couleur, et il nous laisse ainsi entendre chacune des notes resonnantes comme une valeur separee. _L"Histoire du Soldat_ et le _Ragtime_ donnent une impression d"extraordinaire plasticite: on a ici un parallele a l"art a trois dimensions du sculpteur, plutot qu"a l"illusoire perspective de la toile du peintre. Mais Strawinsky peut aussi abandonner les trois dimensions et nous donner une etude de simple contour, parfaitement satisfaisante, telle qu"on la trouve dans les _Trois pieces pour clarinette seule_.
Une conception tout-a-fait neuve est le ballet-divertiss.e.m.e.nt: _Les Noces_ ou en plus d"un orchestre d"ou la ma.s.se habituelle des cordes est exclue, l"on trouve quatre voix et un choeur qui supportent toute la sonorite, quelquefois alternativement, quelquefois combines avec elle, sans une simple interruption durant tout le cours de l"oeuvre. La musique des _Noces_, comme du reste toutes les dernieres oeuvres de Strawinsky, s"adressant directement et uniquement a l"oue de l"auditeur, est une nouvelle affirmation de cette reaction contre l"expression subjective en musique dont on trouve tant d"adeptes parmi les plus grands musiciens du 19e et du commencement de notre siecle.
S"il fallait le comparer a quelque maitre d"autrefois, on lui trouverait a.s.surement plus d"affinite avec Haydn et Mozart qu"avec ceux-la, et il est moins surprenant que ceux qui ne connaissent que superficiellement son oeuvre pourraient le croire, de voir qu"il a trouve une tache qui lui convenait parfaitement lorsqu"il a compose sur des morceaux de musique de Pergolese le ballet _Pulcinella_, tache dont il s"est acquitte avec une delicatesse et un respect que seul pouvait posseder un esprit de la meme famille.
[Decoration]
[Ill.u.s.tration: IGOR STRAVINSKY
chansons plaisantes
pour une voix et huit instruments
j. & W. Chester Ltd Londres & Geneve]
[Music: [Russian: Zhar" Pt.i.tza]--L"oiseau de feu]
[Music: D"apres le ma.n.u.scrit original, propriete du Conservatoire de Musique de Geneve.]
WORKS BY OEUVRES PAR
=IGOR STRAVINSKY=
=PIANO=
_s. d._
=Les Cinq Doigts=, 8 Pieces tres faciles sur 5 notes 3 0