Enjoyment of Music, Essential Listening Edition, 3rd Ed. Chapter 46 Igor Stravinsky

1. THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC
ESSENTIAL LISTENING
EDITION
by
Kristine Forney
Andrew Dell’Antonio
Joseph Machlis
THIRD EDITION
Lecture Slides

2. Calculated Shock:
Stravinsky and Modernist Multimedia

3. A Caricature of Stravinsky at the
Keyboard

4. • Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
• Russian composer
• Embodied the most significant
impulses of his time
• Serge Diaghilev and Russian Ballet
– Firebird (1910)
– Petrushka (1911)
– The Rite of Spring (1913)
Calculated Shock:
Stravinsky and Modernist Multimedia

5. Igor Stravinsky
(1882 - 1971)
• Stravinsky--constantly reinvented himself.
• Born in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• Father was a famous operatic bass singer.
• Studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov
• Was a neoclassicist--a composer who retained musical elements from the
past while experimenting with new ones.
• France, 1920
• Came to Los Angeles at beginning of WWII, 1939.
• Lectured at Harvard; citizenship in 1945.
• Later in life, he started writing 12-tone music--a break from his earlier style.
• One of the century’s 2 greatest composers (Schoenberg)
• Connected well with audiences.
• Died 1971 in New York City; buried in Venice, his favorite city.

6. Calculated Shock:
Stravinsky and Modernist Multimedia

7. Igor Stravinsky
Other Compositions
• Neo-Classical period
– Oedipus Rex
– Symphony of Psalms
• Petrouchka--a ballet for Ballets Russe
• Pulcinella--another ballet for Ballets Russe
• Symphony in 3 Movements--a neoclassical work that includes
a fugue
• The Rake’s Progress (Hogarth)--an English-language opera
• Canticum sacrum--a 12-tone work for tenor, baritone, chorus,
and orchestra
• Song of Bernadette – film score, rejected

8. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
• Scenes of Pagan Russia
• Expanded ensemble
• Russian folk songs
• Primitivistic theme and rhythm
• Liberated from metric regularity

9. Stravinsky Visits Debussy

10. The Rite of Spring
• First performed in 1913 in Paris at the Theatre of the
Champs-Elysées by prestigious company, Ballet Russes.
• Audience was unaccustomed to dissonant sounds,
shocked by Nijinsky’s avant-garde choreography and
pagan rituals.
• First laughing, then heckling and protesting, finally
breaking into a riot that spilled out into streets of Paris.

11. “Mild protests against the music could be heard from the very beginning of
the performance. . . . The uproar continued, however, and a few minutes later I
left the hall in a rage. . . . I have never again been that angry. The music was
so familiar to me; I loved it, and I could not understand why people who had
not yet heard it wanted to protest in advance.”
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

12. Igor Stravinsky
The Rite of Spring Part One
• The scenario (story): young girl dances herself to death while
sage elders look on.
• Divided into 2 parts:
– The Adoration of the Earth
– The Sacrifice

13. Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
Part One
• Harmony--polytonal--2 tonalities going on at the same time
– Difficult to hear either tonal center.
– Each harmony sounds good alone, but put them together and
they are dissonant.
• Melody--many are pentatonic
– Captures a folk-like sound
– From Russian folk songs
– Brief and full of repetitions--small fragments repeated and
varied many times

14. Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
Part One
• Rhythm--very irregular at times
– Frequent meter changes
– Offset by frequent ostinato figures--a single rhythmic or
rhythmic-melodic figure is repeated over and over again.
• Timbre--the Mega-Orchestra
– A huge ensemble with large woodwind, brass, and percussion
sections, as well as a string section

15. Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
Part One
• A musical choreographic work
– Represents pagan Russia.
– Unified by a single idea--the mystery and great surge of creative
power of Spring.
– Has no real plot.
• Form: Through-composed in two parts
– The Adoration of the Earth--many dancers represent various
spring rites and rituals.
– The Great Sacrifice--a young girl sacrifices herself while the old
men watch.
– Little repetition between sections of the work

16. The Rite of Spring
Performed by the Kirov Ballet

17. Part I, excerpts:
• Adoration of the Earth
– bassoon melody
• The Dance of the Youths and
Maidens
– dissonant chords, elemental
pounding, polytonal harmonies
• Game of Abduction
– syncopated accents
– loud chords and sustained trill
end the movement
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

18. Rite of Spring
Rite of Spring

22. Expressionism
• Music, painting, poetry developed in Vienna in early
20th century.
• Rejection of “Impressionism” with its focus on the
“outer” world; focus on “inner” world, described by
Sigmund Freud; desperate intensity of feeling.
• Three leading composers: Arnold Schoenberg, Anton
Webern, Alban Berg
• Three leading painters: Pablo Picasso, Wassily
Kandinsky, Paul Klee
• Three leading writers-Frederich Nietzsche, Tennessee
Williams, James Joyce

23. Expressionism

24. Expressionism: Musical
Characteristics
• Atonality--careful construction of melodies and
harmonies to avoid a tonal center, “absence of key”
• The 12-tone system of composition
– Developed by Schoenberg circa 1923
– Also called serial or dodecaphonic method
– Involves creating a set of pitches in a certain
order (register--which octave pitch is in--doesn’t
matter)
– No pitch repeats until entire row has been heard

25. Arnold Schoenberg
Pierrot lunaire
• a set of 21 songs for soprano and a small
ensemble of instruments
• A piece that represents expressionism--an
artistic movement in music, painting, and
literature--concerned with expression of
inner moods and thoughts, giving voice to
the unconscious, to humanity’s deepest and
darkest emotions.

26. A Modern Pierrot
• Note the facial
expression depicting
longing and anxiety.
• Pierrot’s character was
subject to many mood
changes.

27. Arnold Schoenberg
Pierrot lunaire
• Pierrot--a clown in an improvisational type of theater that
originated in the Renaissance in Italy but spread
throughout Europe--commedia dell’arte
– Other characters--Harlequin, Punch, and Judy
– Pierrot is the lovesick character who is always pining away.
– Based on Albert Giraud’s Pierrot lunaire--a cycle of poems.

28. Arnold Schoenberg
Pierrot lunaire
• Timbre--soprano sings throughout in a manner that is
between speech and song--called Sprechstimme (“Speech-
voice”).
– Singer hits precise pitches but doesn’t hold them.
– Creates an eerie, disassociated sort of sound that fits with the
text of Pierrot lunaire.
– Different from earlier recitative--notes are delivered slowly so
sound of voice trails off at end of each word--sounds like slow,
exaggerated talking.
– Mondestrunken

29. Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
• Grew up in Vienna; learned violin.
• Worked in a bank to support family
after father passed away.
• Mostly self-taught as composer,
started as Neo-Romantic, moved
toward Expressionism.
• Became music director at Berlin
cabaret.
• Returned to Vienna, but served in
Austrian army in WWI.

30. Arnold Schoenberg (1874-
1951)
• Formulated 12-tone method between 1918 and 1923,
used exclusively for all works.
• Appointed professor of composition at Berlin Academy of
Arts.
• Fled to U.S. from Germany when Hitler seized power
because he was Jewish.
• Lived in Southern California and became a U.S. citizen.
• Taught at Univ. of Southern CA and UCLA.

31. Arnold Schoenberg
(1874 - 1951)
• A tortured soul who never felt he fit anywhere
• He believed he was extending the work of Bach, Beethoven,
and Brahms, but he was not accepted.
• Born Jewish, converted to Christianity, and then went back to
Judaism.
• Searched for a new system of organizing music--founded the
twelve tone system.
– All 12 notes in octave played before any is repeated.
– All notes equally important.

32. A Survivor from Warsaw,
Op. 46 (1947)
• Cantata for narrator, male
chorus, orchestra
• Deals with single episode in
murder of 6 Jews by Nazis
• Schoenberg wrote text, based
on direct report by one
survivor
• Uses sprechstimme, twelve-
tone, 6 minutes
• Survivor From Warsaw

33. 12-Tone Composition
• The most widely used and systematic means for
avoiding repetition to avoid tonality; also called
serial composition.
• The melody is called a tone row.
• Rows could be manipulated:
– Forward
– Backward (retrograde)
– Inverted (inversion)
– Backward and inverted (retrograde inversion)

34. Matrix for Serial Composition

35. Serial Music
• Serial Music is composed systematically--somewhat like following
a mathematical formula.
• Once the tone-row is established, the composer decides how to
transform it.
• Pieces tend to be short and concise.
• For example, Webern’s Symphony only lasts 10 minutes (compare
to Mahler’s Third (1 hr. 20 min.).
• Sounds fragmented and dissonant; difficult for audience to follow.
• Klangfarbenmelodie-”Tone Color Melody”
– Instruments maintaining constant pitches drop in and out of an
orchestral texture, creating a melody of different tone colors
– Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 10 – Anton Webern

36. Alban Berg (1885-1935)
• Born in Vienna; worked as a
government accountant.
• Studied composition with
Schoenberg at 19.
• Chronically ill, did not perform
or conduct
• Served in Austrian army during
WWI.
• Composed opera, Wozzeck, to
capture turmoil of common
people during wartime.

37. Wozzeck
• Opera, libretto
adapted from Georg
Buchner play
• Three parts
– I. Exposition
– II. Development
– III. Recapitulation
– Different from
Sonata Form

38. Wozzeck
• Each act contains five scenes organized around
specific musical form or compositional
technique(Ex. Act III-Theme & Variations)
– Scene 1-on theme
– Scene 2-on single tone
– Scene 3-on rhythm pattern
– Scene 4-on chord
– Scene 5-continuous running note
Did not intend for audience to be aware of forms

39. Wozzeck
• Plot
– Franz Wozzeck,
incompetent soldier,
persecuted by captain,
guinea pig for demented
doctor; Mistress Marie
cheats on him, he stabs
her then drowns trying
to wash away blood

40. Wozzeck
• Act IV Scene 2
• Final Scenes

41. Charles Ives
(1874 - 1954)
• Grew up in Danbury, Connecticut; father was a bandmaster.
• Exposed to many types of music.
• Had a “day job” as an insurance salesman, where he
contributed to development of actuarial tables.
• Composed in his spare time; gave it up in 1918 when his
health declined.
• By time of his death, recognized as a pioneer in music.

42. A Photo of Charles Ives

43. Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question
• Timbre--performed by 3 contrasting groups of
instruments.
– Strings--small string orchestra of violins, violas,
cellos, and double basses plays throughout the
piece.
– Solo trumpet--plays “The Unanswered Question.”
– Wind quartet--(two flutes and two clarinets)
responds to question with a different answer each
time.

44. Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question
• Texture--layered using contrasting instruments
– Groups of instruments in dialogue with one
another (trumpet vs. winds) while strings play on
obliviously.
– Three blocks of sound result; each moves
independently of the others.

45. Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question
• Harmony--conflict between 2 different harmonic languages--
tonal and atonal
– Tonal = having a tonal center
– Atonal = having no tonal center
• Notes sound “wrong”
• Sound is called dissonance, as opposed to notes that sound “right”
which are consonance.
• Strings play tonal music--like a very slow hymn.
• Solo trumpet plays 5-note figure that has no harmonic center.
• Wind quartet plays atonally and is rhythmically independent
of the other sections.
• The Unanswered Question

46. by
Kristine Forney
Andrew Dell’Antonio
Joseph Machlis
Lecture Slides
THIRD EDITION
THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC
ESSENTIAL LISTENING EDITION
http://wwnorton.com/web/enjoyess2