Minnesota Orchestra Tours Japan: Stravinsky

Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite Listen in RealAudio Performed by the Minnesota Orchestra 1996; CD RR-70CD Minnesota Orchestra Tours Japan Home
Program Notes by Mary Ann Feldman Igor Stravinsky Born June 17, 1882, Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg; died April 6, 1971, New York City Suite from The Firebird (1919 revision) Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, xylophone, harp, piano and strings On the Eve of Celebrity More than a quarter century has passed since Stravinsky was laid to rest in a Venetian cemetery beneath a spartan tombstone not far from the ornate gravesite of the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev. The composer died rich and successful after a long career sparked by The Firebird, an early masterpiece that, with Petrouchka, is still abundantly performed, while the twelve-tone works of his last years languish in obscurity and other pieces turn up only infrequently. As the 28-year-old composer was rehearsing the orchestra for the Firebird premiere at the Paris Opéra on June 25, 1910, Diaghilev pointed to him from the wings and told Tamara Karsavina, who danced the title role: "Take a good look at him. He is a man on the eve of celebrity." The risk Diaghilev had taken in commissioning the young Russian quickly paid off. The Firebird took its glittering Parisian audience by storm as the music's original voice and glowing images signaled a new master for the twentieth century. A twinge of envy was apparent in Debussy's comment to his publisher a month after encountering the iridescent sounds of Stravinsky's score: "It is not a perfect piece, but from certain aspects, it is nevertheless very fine, for here the music is not the docile servant of the dance. And at times you hear altogether unusual combinations of rhythms!" A single encounter with Stravinsky's earlier Fireworks (1908, which Glazunov denounced as showing "No talent--only dissonance") had persuaded Diaghilev to pursue a new work for his Ballets Russes. The assignment: to provide music that would follow nearly bar by bar the detailed action of a scenario based on the Russian legend of the Firebird. In 1919, when Stravinsky re-orchestrated the original score for less lavish forces, he reminisced, ". . . I remember the day Diaghilev telephoned me to say go ahead, and my telling him I already had." Within five months the score was ready, and the "fairy story ballet in two scenes," as it is subtitled, was put into rehearsal. Just a year later, Stravinsky made his first concert suite from The Firebird, more or less preserving the original orchestration. Ultimately there were three suites in all, the second, dating from 1919, prepared for a considerably reduced orchestra instead of the "wastefully large" resources over which he initially gloated. The third suite, for a similarly trimmed orchestra, came 35 years after the ballet. Reluctant to discuss these second and third thoughts, Stravinsky drily dismissed the subject: "I have already criticized The Firebird twice . . . in my revised versions of 1919 and 1945, and these direct musical criticisms are stronger than words." Even these more sparely fleshed suites evoke the opulence of his youthful conception, which exploited the prisms of orchestral color that Stravinsky had learned from Rimsky-Korsakov, to whose son Andrev the ballet was dedicated. The startling trombone glissando that announces the approach of the giant Kashchei--a sound that stunned the public of 88 years ago--was an idea handed down by his eminent teacher, author of a treatise on orchestration. Other magical sounds were Stravinsky's own. His favorite was the natural harmonic string glissando touched off by a bass chord as the Firebird takes flight. The sound results from isolating the overtones of a string and suppressing its fundamentals, but you do not require a technical explanation in order to succumb to its bewitching effect--like the distant beating of wings. "I was delighted to have discovered this," he recalled, "and I remember my excitement in demonstrating it to Rimsky's violinist and cellist sons. I remember, too, Richard Strauss' astonishment when he heard it two years later in Berlin." The Scenario in Brief The story is easily traced in the course of this suite, even though certain climactic moments are omitted. A gloomy line unraveled by muted low strings at the outset evokes a moonless night, while an ominous trombone motif reminds us that we are in the neighborhood of the ogre's castle. Into the magical gardens wanders the handsome Prince Ivan, who hears the beating wings (string harmonics) and catches a glimpse of the Firebird (in a glint of harp and piano) as she flutters about a tree bearing golden apples. Her balletic display is extravagantly drawn in incandescent strokes of woodwind color. In contrast, the Dance of the Princesses (a Russian Khorovode, or Ronde) offers a willowy interlude set off by flutes, the folk-like theme prophetic of the great song at the end. A solo oboe first presents the fluid melodic line identified with the thirteen captive maidens who are under the spell of the green-taloned Kashchei. Ivan falls in love with the fairest of them and vows to storm the monster's castle in order to set them free. Upon a sudden leap and crash in the orchestra, Kashchei's slaves surround their master in a barbaric dance, their frenzy spurred by a pounding drumbeat prophetic of The Rite of Spring. Bassoons, horns and trumpets sound the theme of the guardian monsters, a syncopated tune whose nasty tone is served by gritty background harmonies. Just as the Prince is about to be transformed into a pillar of stone, he remembers the magic feather that summons the Firebird. At her command, Kashchei and his retinue dance until they drop in exhaustion, whereupon she reveals the secret of the ogre's immortality: the egg preserved in a casket--his very soul, which must be dashed to the ground in order to destroy his spirit. The Firebird's tale is cast as a Berceuse, a lullaby, in which the bassoon begins to sing above a gently rocking figure. Soft string tremolos float downward to form a bridge to the majestic finale. There is awed excitement in the persisting tremolos that form the backdrop of a song of thanksgiving intoned by horns. A fervent hymn spreads exultantly throughout the orchestra, but before the bell-like tolling of the closing bars Stravinsky offers one last glimpse of the Firebird taking flight.