Octet (Stravinsky)

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Stravinsky in 1921

The Octet for wind instruments is a chamber music composition by Igor Stravinsky, completed in 1923.

Stravinsky’s Octet is scored for an unusual combination of

variation, fugue), as well as the fact that the composer published an article asserting his formalist ideas about it shortly after the Octet's first performance, it has been generally regarded as the beginning of neoclassicism in Stravinsky's music, even though his opera Mavra (1921–22) already displayed most of the traits associated with this phase of his career (Walsh 2001
, §5).

History

According to Stravinsky, he composed the Octet fairly rapidly in 1922. After completing the first

fugato, especially pleased Stravinsky, and the following third movement grew out of this final variation (Stravinsky and Craft 1963, 71). One biographer concludes that Stravinsky began composing the Octet after returning from Germany to Biarritz late in the autumn of 1922, and completed the score on 20 May 1923.[1]

However, the sketch materials reveal a more complex chronology. Twelve measures of what would become the waltz variation were composed in 1919, and the fugato variation was the first complete section to be composed, in January 1921. There is an early five-page

theme and titled the movement "Thème avec variations monométriques". Variation D was begun next, but work was interrupted and Stravinsky finished it only on 18 November, followed by the "ribbons of scales" variation A on 1 December, variation B on 6 December, and variation C on 9 December. The Finale was completed in Paris on 20 May 1923.[2]
The score was revised by the composer in 1952.

Stage of the Paris Opera, where Stravinsky conducted the premiere of the Octet in 1923

The published score does not carry a dedication, though Stravinsky said it was dedicated to Vera de Bosset.[3]

Stravinsky himself conducted the premiere of the Octet on one of Serge Koussevitzky's concerts at the Paris Opera House on 18 October 1923. This was the first time he had conducted a premiere of a new piece, though not the first time he had conducted his music in public.[4] The cavernous space cannot have been ideal for presenting such a chamber-music work, but Stravinsky later expressed satisfaction with the balance of the sound at that performance.[5]

The very first recording that Stravinsky made was of the Octet: a private recording, probably made for his own study purposes, which is now lost.[6]

Form

Linear counterpoint from the Octet.

The Octet is in three movements:

  1. Sinfonia (Lento – Allegro moderato)
  2. Tema con variazioni (Andantino)
  3. Finale (Sempre quarter note = 116, Tempo giusto)

The thematic and rhythmic materials of the three movements are interrelated,[7] and the second movement connects to the third without a break.

First movement

The opening Sinfonia is a comparatively rare example (despite his label of "neoclassic composer") of Stravinsky's use of sonata form.[8] His employment of this form, along with the other style elements consciously borrowed from the past, is not out of a reverent desire to perpetuate them, but rather constitutes a defiant and satirical act of mockery.[9] The opening Lento section functions like a classical introduction, presenting the background tonal structure that will also govern the main Allegro section.[10][11]

{ \new PianoStaff << \new Staff \relative c'' { \clef treble \key ees \major \time 3/4 \tempo "Lento" 8 = 76 bes2-.\sfp~ bes16 <aes d,>-. <d f,>-. <ees aes,>-. | <aes d,>4-- << { g~ g16 } \\ { c,4\trill( b16) } >> } \new Staff \relative c'' { \clef treble \key ees \major \time 3/4 r4 <aes f>\sfp\trill( <g ees>16) <bes bes,>-. <aes d,>-. <g f>-. | <g ees>4-- <f d>~ <f d>8 } >> }

In the Allegro, Stravinsky exploits the apparent contradiction of two formal balances: one created through the parallel restatement of themes, the other through the symmetrical arrangement of themes and events on different structural layers of the composition.[12]

Second movement

\relative c''' { \clef treble \time 3/4 \tempo "Andantino" 8 = 92 cis4( a cis | bes8 c!32 bes a bes c2) | \numericTimeSignature \time 4/4 a4( bes cis c | \time 3/4 a2.) | cis4( c a | cis2) a4( | bes e g | fis,2.) }

In 1922, when Stravinsky was composing the second, theme-and-variations movement, he confided in a letter to

Ingres was to Picasso. The hybrid of rondo and variation form resembles the slow movement of Mozart's E♭ major Piano Concerto, K. 482, to which it has been compared.[13] Variations 1, 3, and 6 are practically identical (all are labeled "variation A" in the score), and serve as introductions to the following variations 2, 4, and 7.[14] Stravinsky referred to this recurring introduction as the "ribbons of scales" variation.[15] The second, fourth, fifth, and seventh variations assume the characters of a march, a waltz, a can-can, and a solemn fugue, respectively.[16] The fugato is almost uniformly written in 5
8 time.[17] This seventh, final variation is particularly surprising. The theme here is scarcely recognizable, and does not seem promising as the subject for a fugue; the sound character of the variation, with its emphasis on slow-moving harmonic masses, is unearthly, and its plan is unconventional, with the subject occurring only four times.[18]

Third movement

\relative c'' { \clef bass \time 2/4 \tempo "Sempre" 4 = 116 g4. e8 | g c, e fis,~ | fis4. }

The finale's material is based on a rhythm identified by Stravinsky in earlier works (such as The Firebird and The Rite of Spring) with the Russian circle-dance called a khorovod. This repeating, three-note syncopated rhythm with proportions 3:3:2 (dotted quarter note. dotted quarter note. quarter note) is especially evident in the accompanying chords at the end, but all the preceding material in the movement is built on it or contains it. The overall formal design may be represented as A–B–A′–C–A″–D–D′, where the refrain material in the A sections occurs one time fewer in each successive repetition: three times, then two times, and finally just once. In this process, the khorovod-like element becomes progressively less evident in the refrain, whereas in the intervening couplets it increases in clarity, from a disguised augmentation in the solo trumpet in section B, to a flute solo built on the original rhythmic shape in C, to the chordal accompaniment in D. The conception of a round dance is transformed here into an instrumental rondo, with a main theme resembling a baroque fugue subject.[19]

Reception

Romantic era.[20]

Not all of the early reviewers took a negative view, however. When the Octet was performed at the

Brandenburg Concerto", it displayed "a complete mastery of the medium", as well as a sure sense of form and "an ingenuity in counterpoint" with its own laws. Though finding moments of unaccustomed discords preventing acceptance of the music as "beautiful", this critic concluded that "there is so much to admire in the work that it cannot be dismissed as a piece of buffoonery".[21]

References

  1. ^ White 1979, 308–309.
  2. ^ Craft 1983–84, 458–462.
  3. ^ White 1979, 85, 308.
  4. ^ Walsh 2001, §5.
  5. ^ White 1979, 313.
  6. ^ Cook 2003, 177.
  7. ^ Waeltner 1971, 274.
  8. ^ Haimo and Johnson 1987, x.
  9. ^ Straus 1987, 161.
  10. ^ Haimo 1987, 45.
  11. ^ Straus 1987, 159.
  12. ^ Kielian-Gilbert 1991, 464.
  13. ^ Kielian-Gilbert 1991, 471–472.
  14. ^ Nelson 1962, 329.
  15. ^ Stravinsky and Craft 1963, 71.
  16. ^ Simms 1986, 279.
  17. ^ White 1979, 311.
  18. ^ Nelson 1962, 337.
  19. ^ Waeltner 1971, 267–269, 272–273.
  20. ^ Copland 1968, 72.
  21. ^ Anon. 1924.

Sources

  • Anon. 1924. "The Salzburg Festival: Stravinsky's Octet; The Work of English Composers". The Times (18 August): 8.
  • ISBN 978-0-521-66377-9
    .
  • Copland, Aaron. 1968. The New Music 1900–1960, revised and enlarged edition. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • Craft, Robert. 1983–84. "A. On the Symphonies of Wind Instruments. B. Toward Corrected Editions of the Sonata, Serenade, and Concerto for Two Pianos. C. The Chronology of the Octet". Perspectives of New Music 22, nos. 1 & 2 (Fall–Winter/Spring–Summer): 448–463.
  • Haimo, Ethan. 1987. "Problems of Hierarchy in Stravinsky's Octet". In Stravinsky Retrospectives, edited by Ethan Haimo and Paul Johnson, 36–54. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Haimo, Ethan, and Paul Johnson. 1987. "Editors' Preface". In Stravinsky Retrospectives, edited by Ethan Haimo and Paul Johnson, vii–xi. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Kielian-Gilbert, Marianne. 1991. "Stravinsky's Contrasts: Contradiction and Discontinuity in His Neoclassic Music". The Journal of Musicology 9, no. 4 (Autumn): 448–480.
  • Nelson, Robert U. 1962. "Stravinsky's Concept of Variations". The Musical Quarterly 48, no. 3, Special Issue for Igor Stravinsky on His 80th Anniversary (July), pp. 327–339.
  • Simms, Bryan R. 1986. Music of the Twentieth Century: Style and Structure. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Collier Macmillan Publishers.
    ISBN 0-02-872580-8
    .
  • Straus, Joseph N. 1987. "Sonata Form in Stravinsky". In Stravinsky Retrospectives, edited by Ethan Haimo and Paul Johnson, 141–161. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. 1963. Dialogues and a Diary. New York: Doubleday.
  • Waeltner, Ernst Ludwig. 1971. "Aspekte zum Neoklassizismus Strawinskys: Schlußrhythmus, Thema und Grundriß im Finale des Bläser-Oktetts 1923". In Bericht über den Internationalen Musikwissenschaftlichen Kongress Bonn 1970, edited by
    ISBN 3-7618-0146-7
    .
  • Walsh, Stephen. 2001. "Stravinsky, Igor (Fyodorovich)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
  • White, Eric Walter. 1979. Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, second edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press.
    ISBN 0-520-03985-8
    .

Further reading

External links
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