Scherzo fantastique

Scherzo fantastique, op. 3, composed in 1908, is the second purely orchestral work by

Opéra Garnier

, with the title Les Abeilles, which was objected to by Maeterlinck.

History

In July 1907, Stravinsky wrote to

St Petersburg. Stravinsky's Feu d'artifice (Fireworks) received its first performance at the same concert. Sergei Diaghilev was present and was impressed by this music, leading him to offer Stravinsky the first of his commissions for ballet music.^[4] The score was first published around 1909 by the Russian sheet music publisher P. Jurgenson.^[3]

Stravinsky later claimed that he conceived the Scherzo Fantastique as abstract music. On 10 January 1917 it was performed as a

Maeterlink's essay "La Vie des Abeilles" (the life of [the] bees). Stravinsky had not authorised this performance, and Maeterlinck objected to it.^[4]

Instrumentation

Scherzo fantastique is scored for

clarinet in D), bass clarinet in A, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets in A, contralto trumpet in F, cymbals, celesta, 3 harps and strings.^[5] Stravinsky reduced the number of harps to 2 in 1930.^[4]

Musical style

Like other early works of Stravinsky, the Scherzo fantastique follows the 19th-century Russian taste for exoticism. It uses

whole-tone scales, augmented triads and diminished seventh chords,^[3] and more chromaticism than in the composer's earlier works.^[4] The rhythm still uses fixed time signatures, and phrases are predominantly four bars long. It avoids rubato, using perpetuum mobile to maintain forward momentum.^[4]

Influences on the work acknowledged by Stravinsky were: Rimsky-Korsakov ("

Debussy.^[4]

Form

The work comprises a single movement that plays for between 11m 40s [6] and 16 minutes.^[4] A note on the flyleaf of the score, contemptuously dismissed by Stravinsky as a sales blurb, reads:

This piece is inspired by an episode in the life of the bees. The first section gives an impression of life and activity in the hive. The central section, a slow movement, depicts sunrise and the nuptial flight of the queen bee. The love flight with her chosen mate, and his death. The third section, a reprise of the first, shows the peaceful activity of the hive continuing. Thus the whole piece becomes for us human beings the fantastic picture of an eternal cycle.^[4]

Discography

Stravinsky's 1 December 1962 recording with the
Sony Classical's 22-CD set of the composer's works.^[6]

Gerard Schwarz conducted the
Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 1988 on Delos Productions DE 3054 release of Petrouchka.^[7]

References

^ Robert Craft,'Conversations with Igor Stravinsky', 1959, https://archive.org/stream/conversationswit00stra/conversationswit00stra_djvu.txt
^ Richard Taruskin, 'Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions', Vol.1, p.7.
^
ISBN 0-19-816375-4

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Eric Walter White, Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, second edition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979): 32, 179–180, 562–563. Accessed 3 October 2013.
^ Scherzo fantastique, Op.3 (Stravinsky, Igor): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
^ ^a ^b Works of Igor Stravinsky. 22-CD set. Sony Classical 88697103112. New York: Sony BMG Music Entertainment, 2007. Disc 1, "Ballets vol. 1" 88697103112-1.
^ Gerard Schwarz Discography. September 2012 AOR Management Inc.