Maureen A. Carr
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199742936
- eISBN:
- 9780199367993
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199742936.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire ...
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After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire du soldat, Étude for Pianola, Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Concertino, Pulcinella, Mavra, Octet, Cinq pièces monométriques, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Piano Sonata, the Serenade in A. One of the goals of this monograph is to illustrate how musical sketches help to inform music analysis. The use of original sources, diplomatic transcriptions, and diagrams illustrate: (1) the presence of melodic motives, such as anticipatory gestures that have a bearing on subsequent works, (2) the layering of imitative techniques that sometimes participate in the emergence of block form before transitioning into Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style, and (3) the incorporation of materials borrowed from the eighteenth century to create musical narrative, and so on. In addition to these visual representations of musical ideas, another goal is to consider the cultural complexities that established the framework for Stravinsky’s evolution as a composer, such as: (1) the cross-currents in literary circles around 1914 that were concerned with Shklovsky’s “Resurrection of the Word” and the notion of defamiliarization, (2) the swirling designs in artworks by painters who espoused the ideals of futurism and cubo-futurism, and (3) Fokine’s outline of the “New Ballet” that appeared in the Times (London) on July 6, 1914, just before the declaration of war on July 28, 1914, and that in a way paralleled the emergence of Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism.Less
After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire du soldat, Étude for Pianola, Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Concertino, Pulcinella, Mavra, Octet, Cinq pièces monométriques, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Piano Sonata, the Serenade in A. One of the goals of this monograph is to illustrate how musical sketches help to inform music analysis. The use of original sources, diplomatic transcriptions, and diagrams illustrate: (1) the presence of melodic motives, such as anticipatory gestures that have a bearing on subsequent works, (2) the layering of imitative techniques that sometimes participate in the emergence of block form before transitioning into Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style, and (3) the incorporation of materials borrowed from the eighteenth century to create musical narrative, and so on. In addition to these visual representations of musical ideas, another goal is to consider the cultural complexities that established the framework for Stravinsky’s evolution as a composer, such as: (1) the cross-currents in literary circles around 1914 that were concerned with Shklovsky’s “Resurrection of the Word” and the notion of defamiliarization, (2) the swirling designs in artworks by painters who espoused the ideals of futurism and cubo-futurism, and (3) Fokine’s outline of the “New Ballet” that appeared in the Times (London) on July 6, 1914, just before the declaration of war on July 28, 1914, and that in a way paralleled the emergence of Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism.
Maureen A. Carr
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199742936
- eISBN:
- 9780199367993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199742936.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
The musical sources for Stravinsky’s Pulcinella are known because most of them were given to him by Diaghilev. Stravinsky wrote his earliest compositional sketches for this work directly on these ...
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The musical sources for Stravinsky’s Pulcinella are known because most of them were given to him by Diaghilev. Stravinsky wrote his earliest compositional sketches for this work directly on these manuscript pages—most of which are preserved at the Stravinsky archive of the Paul Sacher Stiftung. Other sketches can be found at the British Library. Interestingly, Mikhail Druskin expressed the idea that Mavra could be considered the Russian equivalent of Pulcinella in that Stravinsky based it on literary sources. For Pulcinella, Stravinsky’s collaborators were Picasso and Massine. For Mavra, Stravinsky used a text by Pushkin. The musical outcome for Mavra is much more complex than Pulcinella, as Stravinsky was experimenting more deliberately with contrapuntal models than in Pulcinella.Less
The musical sources for Stravinsky’s Pulcinella are known because most of them were given to him by Diaghilev. Stravinsky wrote his earliest compositional sketches for this work directly on these manuscript pages—most of which are preserved at the Stravinsky archive of the Paul Sacher Stiftung. Other sketches can be found at the British Library. Interestingly, Mikhail Druskin expressed the idea that Mavra could be considered the Russian equivalent of Pulcinella in that Stravinsky based it on literary sources. For Pulcinella, Stravinsky’s collaborators were Picasso and Massine. For Mavra, Stravinsky used a text by Pushkin. The musical outcome for Mavra is much more complex than Pulcinella, as Stravinsky was experimenting more deliberately with contrapuntal models than in Pulcinella.
