issue five - Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Bramwell Tovey conductor
For a biography of Maestro Tovey please
refer to page 24.
Igor Fyodorovich
Stravinsky
b. Oranienbaum, Russia / June 17, 1882
d. New York, USA / April 6, 1971
Fireworks Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 4
Petrouchka
The Rite of Spring
Despite Stravinsky's initial success with
the 1910 premiere of The Firebird, there
were humble beginnings to his career;
Stravinsky’s early musical training was
nothing remarkable, even though his father
was a respected Russian Basso, so for a time,
he studied law. It was not until Stravinsky
joined with the great Russian composer
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (who tutored him
privately) that his musical talents caught
fire. When impresario Sergei Diaghilev and
members of the famous Ballets Russes heard
Stravinsky's Fireworks in 1908, he believed
that he had found a composer to write for
his ballet company. This short but brilliant
little showpiece for orchestra was written as
a wedding present for Rimsky-Korsakov’s
daughter, and in it, one hears Stravinsky’s
own still-developing voice for the first time
in his early works. Though the piece is
quite short, it is impressive, featuring some
stunning orchestral effects that foreshadow
the extraordinary orchestrations of the ballets
about to come.
When Diaghilev came to hear sketches of
what would later become the Rite of Spring,
Stravinsky instead played for him a mini
concerto that he had written while becoming
more and more obsessed with the idea of
dancing puppets. That piano piece became
his next ballet, Petrouchka, and was
premiered in Paris in 1911.
Petrouchka is the story of a carnival puppet at
the "Shrovetide Fair." Stravinsky’s basic story
envisions Petrouchka as the "EveryPuppet"
as it were, the archetypal puppet character
– as Stravinsky put it, “Petrouchka (is) the
immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in
all countries.”
Generally speaking, the story follows this arc,
with “scenes” marking movements: Scene I:
a small showman’s theatre is set up in a busy
square (Admiralty Square in St. Petersburg),
where the show begins with three puppets:
Petrouchka, the Ballerina, and the Moor.
Scene II: Petrouchka, as is to be expected,
leads a dismal life behind the show curtains,
and is smitten with love for the carnival's
ballerina. But Petrouchka feels that he cannot
woo her as he is ashamed of his “ugliness.”
This is reinforced, as his awkward motions
frighten her, and takes flight.
Scene III: things progress, and as Petrouchka
is treated without compassion by the
Magician, the Ballerina engages in an affair,
which of course makes the poor puppet
snap (figuratively speaking, at this point).
Petrouchka attacks the Ballerina's lover, but
realizes he is only small and weak, and runs
for his life.
Scene IV: the Moor (the Ballerina's latest
lover) chases Petrouchka down in the afterhours
menagerie of the Fair, and hacks him
down, dead. But Petrouchka has only become
cheekier in death, as his spirit rises from his
stuffed puppet-body to thumb its nose at his
tormentors.
In telling this story musically, Stravinsky
discovered and perfected what became a
characteristic ability to “express physical
gestures and movements, and the
psychological states that prompt them, in
purely musical form." Stravinsky mastered,
and in fact redefined, the compositional ability
to influence a visual sensation with sound.
Though Stravinsky of course composed
Petrouchka, Firebird, and Rite of Spring to
accompany dance, the music alone produces
vast canvasses of visual colour. Indeed,
choreographing both Petrouchka and The Rite
of Spring have proved tremendously difficult
over the years; the music almost projects
more visually than the dance.
From a musicality point of view, Stravinsky
achieved with Petrouchka his first authentic
voice. His influences came heavily from
58 allegro