Stravinsky and His World

by Levitz, Tamara

  36. Chaykovskiy, Zhizn' Petra Il'icha Chaykovskago, 1:95, 98.

  37. Ibid., 2:185; and 2:49, 467, 471, 631.

  38. See Igor Stravinsky, Chroniques de ma vie (Paris: Denoël et Steele, 1935), 1:178.

  39. Chaykovskiy, Zhizn' Petra Il'icha Chaykovskago, 2:117–18, 127, 184, 187, 565; 3:369, 370.

  40. Aleksander Pushkin, Sochineniya, ed. Pyotr Yefremov, 8th ed., 7 vols. (Moscow: Izd. F. I. Anskago, 1882).

  41. Irina Vershinina argues that only the edition from 1887 contains the first version of “Favn i pastushka.” See her comments in Stravinskiy, Vokal'naya muzïka, 1:191.

  42. Igor Stravinsky, Pushkin: Poetry and Music, translated from the French manuscript by Gregory Golubeff (New York and Hollywood: Harvey Taylor, 1940); reprinted in Eric White, Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (London: Faber & Faber, 1979), 588–91.

  43. Lyudmila Stravinsky and Yury Mandelshtam to Igor Stravinsky, 4 January 1937, microfilm 106.1, p. 1392, PSS. Yekaterina Stravinsky also acknowledges that Yury wrote this pamphlet in a letter to Stravinsky from 3 January 1937, quoted in Robert Craft, Stravinsky: Glimpses of a Life (London: St. Martin’s, 1992), 123n9.

  44. Igor' Stravinskiy, “Pushkin: Poėziya i muzïka,” trans. Anatoliy Shaykevich, in Igor' Stravinskiy: Publitsist i sobesednik, ed. Viktor Varunts (Moscow: Sovetskiy Kompozitor, 1988), 139–42.

  45. See Savenko’s note in Stravinskiy, Khronika: Poėtika (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004), 160; and Vershinina’s note in Igor' Stravinskiy, Khronika moyey zhizni, ed. Irina Vershinina (Moscow: Kompozitor, 2005), 281. Stravinsky’s critique of Soviet criticism of Beethoven is omitted in Khronika moyey zhizni, trans. Lyubov' Yakovleva-Shaporina (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoye muzïkal'noye izdatel'stvo, 1963), 176. See the omitted fragment in Stravinsky, Chroniques de ma vie, 2:65; An Autobiography (London: Calder and Boyars, 1975), 116.

  46. Ivan Sollertinsky (1902–1944) was a brilliant polyglot and friend of Shostakovich’s who was also a contested figure in the Soviet Union. See Lyudmila Grigor'yevna Kovnatskaya, ed., D. D. Shostakovich: Pis'ma I. I. Sollertinskomu (St. Petersburg: Izd-vo Kompozitor, 2006).

  47. Pravoslavnïy molitvoslov (Paris: n.p., 1922). Craft erroneously lists this book as published in Moscow in “Selected Source Material,” 349.

  48. Bibliya: Knigi svyashchennogo pisaniya (Berlin: Izdanie Britanskago i inostrannago bibleyskago obshchestva, 1922).

  49. Nikolay Podosenov to Stravinsky, 6 December 1938 and 3/16 June 1939, microfilm 100.1, 2053 and 2068, PSS.

  50. Viktor Nesmelov, Nauka o cheloveke (Kazan: Tsentral'naya tipografiya, 1905–6), 2:93, 104.

  51. Ioann Shakhovskoy was Archbishop of San Francisco, a US representative in the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, and a gifted writer and poet. He was the brother of Nicolas Nabokov’s first wife, Natalie, and lived in Paris and Berlin before moving to the United States in 1946. See Stravinsky’s copies of Ioann Shakhovskoy, Kniga svitetel›stv (New York: Khronika, 1965); and Kniga liriki (Paris: Ichthys, 1966); and the note from Stravinsky to Shakhovskoy kept in Series 1, subseries 3, box 15, Archbishop Ioann Shakhovskoy Papers, Center for Russian Culture, Amherst College.

  52. Pravoslavnïy russkiy kalendar' na 1967 god (Paris: n.p., 1967).

  53. See Stravinsky to Alexandre Benois, 11/24 July 1914, in SPRK, 2:282. See also SPRK, 1:455; and Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 1:571–76. Stravinsky wrote Remizov’s secretary and translator Natalie Reznikoff after his death: “To my great sorrow I did not know Aleksey Mikhailovich Remizov personally.” Stravinsky to Natalie Reznikoff, 26 April 1964, quoted in Taruskin, 1:571n35.

  54. Stravinsky bought Vzvikhrennaya Rus' (Whirling Russia; 1927), Tri serpa (Three Sickles; 1929), and Posolon' (Follow the sun; 1930) for $1 to $2 in Cambridge.

  55. Aleksey Remizov, Tristan i Isol'da: Bova korolevich (Paris: Opleshnik, 1957); and Krug schast'ya: Legendï o tsare Solomone (The circle of happiness: Legends of King Solomon) (Paris: Opleshnik, 1957).

  56. Stravinsky to Suvchinsky, 20 November 1957, microfilm 103.1, 1308, PSS.

  57. Suvchinsky to Stravinsky, 25 November 1957, microfilm 103.1, 1309, PSS.

  58. Yudina’s first letter to Suvchinsky dates from 16 September 1959. Yudina, V iskusstve radostno bït' vmeste: 111–12. Blazhkov’s first letter to Stravinsky dates from two days later, 18 September 1959, microfilm 87.1, 1347, PSS.

  59. Yudina to Suvchinsky, 5 November 1961, reprinted in V iskusstve radostno bït' vmeste, 702.

  60. On the unreceived scores, see Yudina to Stravinsky, unpublished telegram from 19 February 1960, microfilm 96.1, 1067, PSS. Stravinsky wrote “I never received that” in the margins of a letter from Yudina describing a parcel she had sent through Leonard Bernstein. See Yudina to Stravinsky, 29 April 1960, microfilm 96.1, 1072, PSS; published without Stravinsky’s marginal note in V iskusstve radostno bït' vmeste, 297. In the same volume, Yudina complains about Van Cliburn’s behavior in a letter to Tat'yana Kamendrovskaya, 27–30 September 1961, 676.

  61. Suvchinsky to Yudina, 12 September 1960, in V iskusstve radostno bït' vmeste, 354.

  62. Suvchinsky to Yudina, 23 October 1961, ibid., 673.

  63. Yudina describes her correspondence with Stravinsky in a letter to Tat'yana Kamendrovskaya, 11 January 1961, ibid., 438.

  64. These include, before 1962, Viktor Lazarev’s Andrey Rublev (Moscow: Sovetskiy khudozhnik, 1960); Viktor Lazarev’s Feofan Grek i ego shkola (Theophanus the Greek and his school) (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1961); and Aleksandr Sokolovskiy’s Starïy Peterburg na knizhnïkh znakakh (Old St. Petersburg on book plates) (Leningrad: Comintern, 1925).

  65. See Stravinsky’s copy of Bogdanov-Berezovskiy, Fyodor Stravinskiy (Leningrad: Muzgiz, 1951), dated and signed 13 October 1960 by the author.

  66. Referred to in English—rarely—as King of the Stars or The Star-Faced One.

  67. Konstantin Bal'mont, Zelyonïy vertograd: Polnoye sobraniye stikhov (The green garden: The complete poems) (Moscow: Skorpion, 1911). See Suvchinsky to Yudina, 22 June 1960, and Yudina to Suvchinsky, 25 May 1961, in V iskusstve radostno bït' vmeste, 319 and 548, respectively. Balmont’s note on the cover, “1920. Spring. Moscow,” suggests that he signed it before his emigration on 5 May 1920. The page number of “Zvezdolikiy” is indicated on the cover and two bookmarks, on which Stravinsky has written the titles of the poems “Golub'” (Dove) and “Nezabudochka-tsvetochek (Little forget-me-not), are kept within it.

  68. Mitropolit Filaret, Sbornik mïsley i izrecheniy (Moscow: Sïnodal'naya, 1897).

  69. Pavel Florensky (1882–1937) was a great Russian theologian, priest, philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and martyr. He was arrested in 1928 and 1933 and executed in 1937. Yudina corresponded with him for some time.

  70. Stravinskiy, Khronika moyey zhizni, copy dated “1 May 1964” that includes an envelope with Blazhkov’s return address.

  71. Stravinsky to Blazhkov, 22 May 1964, microfilm 87.1, 1372, PSS. Bogdanov-Berezovsky had contributed substantially to rehabilitating Stravinsky’s name in the USSR by organizing a ballet production in Leningrad in 1961 and assisting Yudina with Stravinskyana, an exhibition in his celebration during his visit in 1962.

  72. Boris Yarustovskiy, Igor' Stravinskiy: Kratkiy ocherk zhizni i tvorchestva (Igor Stravinsky: A short summary of his life and creative work) (Moscow: Muzïka, 1964).

  73. Irina Vershinina, Ranniye baletï Stravinskogo (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), 137, 140. Igor Blazhkov confirmed in an email to me of 3 February 2011 that he mailed this book to Stravinsky.

  74. Concerning Yury Grigorovich’s visit, see the entry for 11 July 1966 in Vera Arturovna’s diary, microfilm 248.1, 812, PSS. On Yevgeniy Yevtushenko’s visit on 13 December 1966, see Robert Craft, Chronicle of a Friendship, rev. ed. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1994), 443–44. And on Maya Plisetskaya’s visit on 29 June 1968, see Vera Arturovna’s diary entries for 29 and 30 June 1968, microfilm 248.1, 932–33, PSS. Plisetskaya gave Stravinsky a copy of Leonid Zhdanov’s Maya Plisetskaya (Mosc
ow: Iskusstvo, 1965), and signed it with the date “29 June 1968.”

  The Futility of Exhortation: Pleading in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Orpheus

  GRETCHEN HORLACHER

  Stravinsky has rarely been kind to his characters in trouble. Finding themselves in situations beyond their control, they are compelled nonetheless to persevere, with little chance of changing their unhappy fates. Be it during his early Russian period, the thirty years he spent writing “neoclassical music,” or in his final serial compositions, the composer was frequently attracted to subject matter with a tragic outcome, and especially subjects whose outcomes are known in advance. That is, he chose topics whose sequence of events is driven less by the suspense of surprise than by the fulfillment of destiny. The most famous example is probably the retelling of a Russian folk story in the 1913 ballet The Rite of Spring: here a virgin is sacrificed to please the gods and thereby guarantee the fruits of the earth. The ballet is not about the drama of the life of that virgin, but rather a series of ritualistic tableaux that lead to her inevitable demise. More than forty years later, Stravinsky chose a similar kind of tale for his neoclassical The Rake’s Progress: based on the well-known story of making a deal with the devil, the opera recounts one doomed episode after another. Its central female character, the incredulously gullible Anne Trulove, never stops loving Tom Rakewell in spite of the ridiculous schemes and infidelities with which Nick Shadow (an obviously named devil) tempts him. With Anne by his side, he eventually descends into madness. In both cases we are aware that the fates of the virgin and of Anne are sealed: no one will stop the sacrificial virgin from dancing herself to death. Neither will Anne reconsider or regret her choices in the Rake, a fable whose moral is that “the Devil finds a work to do.”1

  The theme of futility—that is, an awareness that strife, supplication, or pleading is both inescapable and ultimately inadequate—pervades Stravinsky’s settings of Oedipus Rex and Orpheus. In the former, an opera-oratorio from 1926–27, Stravinsky retells the classic Greek tragedy of a hero doomed from birth to unwittingly murder his father and marry his mother. Unable to control their fates, Jocasta (both his mother and wife) commits suicide, and Oedipus leaves his community for exile after blinding himself. Stravinsky’s setting of Orpheus (1947) likewise describes the unsuccessful efforts of the musical hero to retrieve his lover Eurydice from Hades; although he too strikes a deal with the god of the underworld to restore her to earth, according to the myth, Orpheus must fail to meet the conditions of the deal and she is lost to him forever. These works are not simply explorations of the darker side of life; rather, in choosing topics based on celebrated tragic myths, stories whose endings are determined in advance, Stravinsky compels his audience to pass through a series of deeply disturbing events, as if these accounts bear didactic and moral power: their re-creations are cautionary reminders about the nature of human limitations. We listen and watch not to find out what happens next, but to remind ourselves of the ever-present powers of fate.

  How Stravinsky creates works that reveal the unreality of their characters’ desires is the subject of this essay. Stravinsky’s music has always been characterized by its repetitions of melodic fragments and its layering of those disparate melodies. Less considered is how Stravinsky manipulates repeating melodic cells—by adding or deleting a note, or by changing their sequence of pitches, for example—to reveal the inevitability of his characters’ fates. By making small variations to a melody already defined by limited pitch content and short duration, Stravinsky is able to represent both the ongoing pleadings of his characters and their underlying futility: though his characters attempt to modify their tunes by reiterating them in a number of guises, these melodies never truly change. Because the underlying essences of those melodies are present even as the characters move through the events of their lives, we know that their fates are sealed: the pleadings of Orpheus will not return his new bride Eurydice from the underworld back to earth, nor will the pleadings of the citizens of Thebes save Oedipus from his own self-mutilation and exile, or his wife’s suicide.

  The use of varied repetition is ideal for tragic ritual: a compositional style where only very small changes are made to a melody or its accompaniment holds our attention as these variations proceed across time, and their constant presence reminds us that the underlying sequence of events is immutable. In other words, because the variations do not change the essential content of the tune, this method suits the ceremonial retelling of familiar stories: ongoing variations readily represent the sequence of events in a narrative while the inexorable existence of a core motive represents an outcome already known, one that cannot be permanently forestalled. We experience Stravinsky’s time world both as sequentially directed and as immutably circular, as are the events of a ritual or a legend.

  In both Orpheus and Oedipus, Stravinsky foretells the outcome of the stories early on; the former begins with Orpheus already mourning the death of his beloved Eurydice, accompanied by a descending bass line almost too “stock” to represent the depth of his grief. (I will return to Stravinsky’s special setting of this symbolic musical feature later in this essay.) Both stories involve the predetermined outcome when mortals—even a king or a gifted demigod musician—challenge the gods. In the first scene of Orpheus, the mourning musician plays a lament with his back to the audience, letting us know that the death of his treasured Eurydice is the greatest loss he could have experienced. Only then does the ballet begin to tell the story. Similarly, Cocteau (the librettist) and Stravinsky begin Oedipus with a narrator, whose role is not to set the scene but rather to forecast its outcome, relieving us of the burden of drama, and even of the memory of the tragic story itself. The narrator tells us that Oedipus has been asked to do the impossible: he must contend with “the supernatural powers,” that “at the moment of his birth a snare was laid for him,” and that we “will see the snare closing.”2 There is no surprise denouement in this play; in fact, the narrator returns at regular intervals to tell us what is about to happen and the audience is enjoined to follow the particular ways in which Stravinsky and Cocteau slowly cause the gods to tighten the noose around the king. In the next section I will demonstrate how the singing of three key characters—Oedipus, his community (the citizens of Thebes that form the oratorio’s chorus), and his brother-in-law Creon—reveal the futile nature of Oedipus’s struggle.

  Oedipus the King

  Following the narrator’s opening explanation of the plot, the citizens of Thebes begin this opera-oratorio by pleading with Oedipus their king to save them from the plague. This disaster has been interpreted as a punishment from the gods, and because Oedipus is not only their king but also the one who has solved the problem of the Sphinx (in an earlier part of the myth), they beg him to come to their aid. The features of their key melody are particularly Stravinskian: over and over they repeat just three pitches (DH, C, and BH), always moving by step, and using only eighth and quarter notes. Within these limitations, their plea for help is hardly grandiose; moreover, they unwittingly set forth a chain of events that will lead to Oedipus’s destruction. Figure 1 gives the text and translation for the music of the opening chorus, which begins at rehearsal number 2 after some introductory music. The left side of the figure shows Cocteau’s original libretto and its translation into English, and the right side shows Stravinsky’s manipulation of the libretto, putting in bold the words Stravinsky chooses to repeat. Notice how many times the chorus implores Oedipus by name.3

  Examples 1a and 1b lay out the musical setting of the chorus’s entreaties and Oedipus’s first response to them. Although shown in reduced scoring and an unusual format, all of the choral music and the lower ostinato from rehearsal number 2 through rehearsal number 4 are shown in Example 1a (in other words, one may follow the music by moving through each of the five systems, numbered with Roman numerals, continuously; each of the five systems moves across two pages).4 In order to follow the ways in which the chorus moves through three pitche
s, I have broken the chorus melody into five subsections (most of which follow the breaks in the text), each of which vertically aligns with the place where a key set of pitches, the most stable melodic motive, are sung. The example also shows the ominous ostinato (a short melodic or accompanimental figure that never varies) in the timpani, piano, and harp on two of their three pitches (BH and DH).5 The most consistent choral melody begins with two DH’s, and a neighboring of C by BH before moving up to DH in a recognizable rhythm, and is bracketed in its first appearance in Example 1a. Broken into five segments, the example suggests that the chorus continuously urges Oedipus to act: notice that while each subsection uses the melody as a point of departure, it continues in distinct ways, with slightly different pitch configurations as the text repeats its essential message with varied language. None of these variations stray from the constrained pitch or durational conditions defined earlier. Rather, varied continuations of this tiny melody endow the passage with great determination, putting enormous pressure on Oedipus to fulfill his duties to his citizens.

  Figure 1. Cocteau’s libretto for the opening chorus of Oedipus Rex compared with Stravinsky’s setting.

  Against these boundaries the ongoing ostinato pushes forward, repeating almost endlessly without change. These two ways of moving through the passage, taken together, create this section’s time world. We feel the pleadings of the chorus both as it repeats just a few pitches and as its demands accumulate: the pull of melodic flow, even with its minimal variation, versus the stasis of ostinato, helps us to understand the desperation of Thebes even as we know that the chorus’s pleadings will not change the fate of Oedipus.

  Of particular note is the way the chorus sings Oedipus’s name in this passage. Because the unchanging ostinato implies an unchanging 6/8 meter (one we are likely to maintain counting, despite any notational changes of meter to 9/8, as in systems IV and V in Example 1a) we can identify various ways in which Oedipus’s name is repeated within the context of perceived strong and weak beats. Notice that the passage begins with three repetitions of the king’s name, the first of which is placed in syncopation (a classic 3:2 hemiola) with the ostinato. Other repetitions occur at the end of a system (II), or connect lines of text (shown visually at the end of III and IV). In fact, in this format Example 1a demonstrates that the music surrounding the foundation motive, although confined by pitch and rhythm, provides a constant variation to it. The piteous insistence of the chorus derives in large part from these surreptitious manipulations of the melodic motive. Notice also that choir members singing the upper-bass part (in the middle of the texture) must traverse unmelodious lines, moving torturously through tritone leaps and diminished-triad arpeggiations, harmonizing the main melody in particularly harsh ways.6