Michigan State University
Stravinsky and the Violin: Aspects of Style in Stravinsky’s Violin Transcriptions
By Lena Seeger
D.M.A. Document, April 2015
Acknowledgements
The following professors have greatly aided my understanding of musicology, music theory, and contributed to my development as a musician and researcher.
Dr. Kevin Bartig Professor Yuri Gandelsman Dr. Leigh Van Handel Professor I Fu Wang
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Table of Contents Abstract 4
I. Introduction 5 A. The Violin in the 20th Century 5 B. Violin Transcription in the 20th Century 6 a. Heifetz 6 b. Kreisler 7 C. Project Description 8
II. Background 9 A. General Characteristics of Stravinsky’s Compositions 9 B. Russian Period 10 C. Neoclassical Period 11 D. Stravinsky’s Recompositions of his own Works 14 E. Works from which the Violin Transcriptions are Taken 16 a. Pulcinella 16 b. Petrushka 17 c. Mavra 17 d. Le Baiser de la Fée 18 F. Stravinsky’s Early String Writing 18 a. Three Pieces for String Quartet 19 b. Histoire du Soldat 20 c. Concertino 21 d. Pre-Dushkin Violin Transcriptions 21 G. Stravinsky’s Collaboration with Dushkin 22
III. Linking Material 24 A. Violin Concerto Background 24 a. Toccata 26 b. Aria I 26 c. Aria II 26 d. Capriccio 27
IV. Score Study 27 A. Violin Concerto, Toccata 27 B. Divertimento 31 a. Sinfonia 31 b. Danse Suisse 34 C. Ballade 36 D. Suite Italienne 37 a. Introduction 37 2
b. Tarentella 38 E. Danse Russe 38 F. Chanson Russe 39 G. Tango 40 a. Background 40 b. Transcription (2015) 41
V. Summary and Conclusion 42 Bibliography 44 Appendix 46
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Abstract
Igor Stravinsky’s collaboration with the violinist Samuel Dushkin began with his
Concerto in D for violin and continued for over a decade. During this time, the duo performed on tour together and composed a number of violin transcriptions that showcase Stravinsky’s ballets, operas, and piano works. Stravinsky’s violin concerto and subsequent transcriptions demonstrate a rejection of the 19th-century style of violin playing and virtuosity, as represented by Fritz
Kreisler. At the turn of the 20th century, violin writing changed as composers began to move away from the expressive qualities of the instrument. Stravinsky’s earliest chamber pieces that feature strings or the violin certainly demonstrate a kind of “anti-violinistic” writing, characterized by percussive effects and awkward nonidiomatic technique.
Stravinsky’s overall rejection of Romanticism eventually led him to Neoclassicism.
During this period he applied his own distinct approach to rhythm and melody to the styles of earlier composers from Pergolesi to Tchaikovsky, and combined elements of Russian folk theater and ballet with Italian classical opera. The Violin Concerto, as well as the majority of the transcriptions, are in the Neoclassical style.
Through Stravinsky’s collaboration with Dushkin, we are able to trace Stravinsky’s evolution in his unique approach to violin writing. While the earliest works show anti-violinistic writing, the later works reconcile Stravinsky’s unique compositional characteristics with the nature of the violin.
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I. Introduction
The Violin in the 20th Century
Romantic era composers are often associated with a certain type of violin sound.
Mendelssohn is associated with warmth, Brahms with massiveness, Tchaikovsky with elegance, and Franck's violin writing is especially sensuous.1 These characteristics of the Romantic violin are at odds with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), the 20th-century artistic response to the optimism of 19th-century art and music.2 20th-century music began to stress motion rather than emotion,3 which led to a new kind of violin writing. Composers such as Prokofiev,
Hindemith, Stravinsky, Bartok, and Milhaud4 began to use the violin as more of a functional instrument to drive rhythm rather than to express melody, leading to a leaner sound quality for the violin.5 To achieve the leaner tone, composers embraced techniques such as clean bow articulations and special effects, like harmonics and pizzicato. In addition, effects like throbbing vibrato and expressive glissandi were used sparingly.6 Modern composers had to partner with violinists willing to accommodate this new role for the violin and abandon the expressive
Romantic sound quality. These violinists include Paul Kochanski, Samuel Dushkin, and Jeanne
Gautier.7
Stravinsky in particular was eager to discard the 19th-century ideas about the violin.
From his autobiography it appears that his opinion of violinists and violin concertos was low. In
1 Boris Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," in Confronting Stravinsky: Man, 2 Pieter C. Van den Toorn, "Stravinsky, Adorno, and the Art of Displacement," The Musical Quarterly 87, no. 3 (autumn, 2004): 499. 3 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 302. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 5 many of his ensemble works, Stravinsky relegates the violin to a primarily supportive role, and his autobiography derides Leopold Auer and other violinists of the day.8 Stravinsky lamented that contemporary violinists, in an effort to appease audiences, favored superficial showpieces while neglecting the more profound violin concertos of Tchaikovsky and Brahms.9 But even these violin concertos, he felt, were not those composers' best works, and cited Schoenberg's concerto as the only modern violin solo work he admired.10
Violin Transcription in the 20th Century
Despite being adverse to violin virtuoso pieces, Stravinsky wrote a number of short violin transcriptions of his own works with the violinist Samuel Dushkin. These transcriptions were to be used for Stravinsky's tours with Dushkin in the 1930s. During the early 20th century, it was common practice for violinists to play transcriptions from popular operas, ballets, symphonies and songs as encores after recitals.11 We will see that some of the stylistic elements found in the transcriptions were influenced by other encore pieces of the day.
Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler were two important composers of violin transcriptions during the early 20th century. Heifetz produced more than 150 transcriptions from piano pieces, operas, string quartets, symphonies, sonatas, and folk songs.12 Despite being encores for the violin, the piano often shared an equally important role in Heifetz's transcriptions.13 Heifetz was
8 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 305. 9 Robert Craft and Igor Stravinsky, Expositions and Developments (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), 55. 10 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 305. 11 Yeon Kyeong Go, "Jascha Heifetz's Transcriptions for Violin and Piano: A Study of their Genesis and Style," (DMA diss., University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 2013), 11. 12 Go, "Jascha Heifetz's Transcriptions," 23. 13 Ibid, 24. 6 unwilling to alter the pitch structure of the original melody in a work to be transcribed.14
However, he often changed the key of the work, for example from D-flat major to D major, to allow for easier fingerings.15 Heifetz did sometimes make changes to the underlying harmonies of the original work, but only so that the piano could provide more colorful harmonic support to the violin line.16 Lastly, in order to transform the work into a crowd pleaser, Heifetz added virtuosic effects, such as elaborate embellishments and his characteristic trademark, the expressive finger slide.17
Kreisler
Like Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler was a prolific composer of violin transcriptions, as well as a number of original violin encores. His compositions were known for convincingly parodying the style of Viennese composers of waltzes and Länder, which he became familiar with in childhood.18 Initially, many of his own compositions bore the names of the composers he parodied. For example, he initially attributed his own work, Three Viennese Melodies, consisting of Liebesfreud, Liebesleid, and Schön Rosmarin, to Joseph Lanner, a contemporary of Johann
Strauss.19 Perhaps his most famous virtuoso piece, the Caprice Viennois, is made of ornate
Viennese-style melodies.20
Kreisler also composed a number of pseudo-oriental and pseudo-Spanish encores, which were fashionable in Austria at the time. Examples of Kreisler's exoticism include the Tamborin
14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid, 25. 18 Alfred William Cramer, Musicians and Composers of the 20th Century (Pasadena, California and Hackensack, New Jersey: Salem Press, 2009), 801. 19 Cramer, Musicians and Composers of the 20th Century, 801. 20 Ibid, 802. 7
Chinois, which uses the pentatonic scale to reference China; La Gitana; transcriptions of
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade and Sadko; and a transcription of de Falla's Spanish Dances.21
Kreisler is also known for writing violin cadenzas for concertos of Brahms and
Beethoven, which are often used by violinists today, and for producing popular transcriptions of
Dvorak's Slavonic Dances and Corelli's La Folia.22
Project Description
As illustrated by Heifetz and Kreisler, transcriptions are a way for performers to increase their instrument's repertoire. Transcription also allows composers to spread the influence of their music. But composers of transcriptions face the challenge of preserving the integrity of the original work, while ensuring that the recomposed work is both technically and stylistically suitable for the new instrument. To examine this challenge, I will use Igor Stravinsky's collaboration with the violinist Samuel Dushkin as a case study, focusing primarily on the Violin
Concerto in D, and the transcriptions of the Divertimento, Suite Italienne, Danse Russe, Chanson
Russe, and Ballade that followed the concerto. Stravinsky's Neoclassicism is evident in each of these works, which allowed him to showcase his own unique ideas regarding the violin's style and sound.
I begin by describing aspects of Stravinsky's compositional style, especially rhythm and melody. I will then examine Stravinsky's Neoclassicism, as the transcriptions I intend to study use material from primarily Neoclassical works. To put the violin writing of Stravinsky's transcriptions in context, I first provide background on Stravinsky's string writing outside of the transcriptions, and discuss the beginnings of his collaboration with Dushkin. Finally, I will do an
21 Ibid. 22 Ibid, 803. 8 in-depth score analysis of the first movement of the Violin Concerto and of each of the transcriptions, and discuss my own transcription of Stravinsky's Tango.
II. Background
General Characteristics of Stravinsky's Compositions
In order to discuss the elements of style in Stravinsky's transcriptions, I first examine some of the general characteristics of Stravinsky's compositional style, with special attention to his approach to tempo and melody.
Stravinsky was preoccupied with the tempo and exact length of time of each piece, stating that the performers he preferred where those who "mutilate my tempos least."23
Stravinsky's approach to melody also illustrates his obsession with timing. His melodic technique is characterized by “displacement,” or the repetition and metrical shifting of fragments.24 Each fragment consists of a motive, theme, or set of chords, which is broken up into shorter units. The units are then repeated at varying metrical intervals.25 The beginning of Stravinsky's melodies often fix upon a principal tone, or small range of tones, and elaborate on it, as if unable to move away.26 The resultant tunes are long and rambling, and never arrive at a climax or destination.
Their purpose is instead to take up a specific length of time.27
Stravinsky's compositions have typically been classified into three loosely-defined periods: Russian, Neoclassical, and serial.28 These designations are poorly defined, as his
23 Charles M. Joseph, Stravinsky Inside Out (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 216. 24 Van den Toorn, "Stravinsky, Adorno, and the Art of Displacement," 468. 25 Ibid, 481. 26 Anthony Milner, "Melody in Stravinsky's Music," The Musical Times 98, no. 1373 (July, 1957): 370. 27 Milner, "Melody in Stravinsky's Music," 371. 28 Jan Pasler, "Introduction: Issues in Stravinsky Research," in Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist, ed. Jann Pasler (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of 9 compositions often show characteristics of more than one category. For example, his technique of deriving melodies from the structure of Russian folk songs is found in both his early and late works. Some of Stravinsky's compositions do not fit well into any category, such as the small number of works inspired by jazz and ragtime. However, the period designations are useful as a general framework for describing the works to be discussed in the paper.
Russian Period
Works of Stravinsky that fit well under the Russian period label include The Firebird,
Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring. These works rely on Russian folk melodies and the octatonic scale, which are also characteristic of the late Russian Romantic composers such as Rimsky-
Korsakov, Stravinsky’s early teacher, and Glinka.29 But these works also show the beginnings of
Stravinsky's desire to break away from these predecessors.
The Firebird in particular relies heavily on the use of Russian folk songs, and the melodies are set in a manner similar to that in Glinka’s and Rimsky-Korsakov's works. But
Stravinsky admitted to Robert Craft that by the time he wrote The Firebird he was in revolt against his teacher and struggled to keep The Firebird from sounding like "imitation Rimsky-
Korsakov."30 This sentiment would later resurface when Dushkin’s transcription of the Berceuse in 1931 led him to complain that the initial draft sounded too oriental, like Kreisler's transcription of Chant Hindou from Sadko.31
His subsequent work moved even further away from Rimsky-Korsakov’s use of Russian folk music. Petrushka relies on the octatonic collection and also showcases Russian folk
California Press, 1986), xiii. 29 Pasler, "Introduction: Issues in Stravinsky Research," xiv. 30 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 55. 31 Eric Walter White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 191. 10 melodies, but the folk songs Stravinsky chose were shockingly pedestrian and disgusted even non-Romantic contemporaries like Prokofiev, who described the ballet as "rotten trash."32 The
Rite of Spring still uses the octatonic pitch collection, but the folksongs used are Lithuanian as well as Russian33, and unlike in The Firebird, are not quoted verbatim.34 These works show that
Stravinsky resisted the "sugar-coating" of Russian folk songs by the Russian Romantic School and western composers like Kreisler.35
Despite this rebellion, Stravinsky never abandoned folk music influence entirely. His technique of displacement, discussed earlier, is not unprecedented: many Russian folk melodies also consist of the varied repetition of a melodic fragment.36 This ostinato-like repetition of motifs was familiar to the young Stravinsky, more so than the melodies of western and central
Europe.37 In later compositions, Stravinsky rarely quoted actual folk melodies, as he had learned to imitate the properties of Russian folk songs.38
Neoclassical Period
Stravinsky's fondness for borrowing pre-composed material and his rejection of
Romanticism eventually led him to Neoclassicism. This new style allowed him to borrow a much wider array of musical material from a variety of time periods. The ballet Pulcinella is considered Stravinsky's earliest work to contain Neoclassical elements and the first to emphasize
32 Simon Karlinsky, "Igor Stravinsky and Russian Preliterate Theater," In Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist, ed. Jann Pasler (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1986), 6. 33 Richard Taruskin, “Russian Folk Melodies in ‘The Rite of Spring,’” Journal of the American Musicological Society 33 (Autumn 1980): 502. 34 Karlinsky, "Igor Stravinsky and Russian Preliterate Theater," 6. 35 Ibid. 36 John Ogden, "Stravinsky and the Piano," Tempo no. 81 (Summer, 1967): 29. 37 Anthony Milner, "Melody in Stravinsky's Music," 370. 38 Karlinsky, "Igor Stravinsky and Russian Preliterate Theater," 6. 11 earlier period practices strongly.39 However, his Symphony in C is his first original Neoclassical composition, as it uses the classical model but does not employ pre-existing themes or melodies.40
Neoclassical composers were not the first to borrow music and styles from other times periods or genres. Prior to the Baroque period, composers of masses and motets often borrowed secular melodies or cantus firmi by other composers.41 Toward the end of the Renaissance period, the use of parody--composing a mass using another polyphonic work--was widespread.
Renaissance composers also arranged vocal pieces for solo instruments.42 During the Baroque period, composers often recomposed others’ works for practical purposes, such as Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi in order to make the composer’s work playable on the organ.43 By the
19th century, most composers were adept at cleverly embedding borrowed themes in their works.44 They also set compositions they admired for new instruments and ensembles. Examples include Liszt's transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies for piano, and Mahler's re- orchestrations of Schumann's symphonies.45
In the 20th century, composers continued to borrow material and recompose the music of their predecessors, leading to Neoclassicism, a modern alternative to serialism. To create a
Neoclassical work, the composer first chooses a piece of 17th- or 18th-century traditional music.
39 Edward T. Cone, "The Uses of Convention: Stravinsky and His Models," The Musical Quarterly 48, no. 3 (July 1962): 290. 40 Cone, "The Uses of Convention: Stravinsky and His Models,"291. 41 Ji-Yeon Ryu, "Musical Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire" (DMA diss., Florida State University, 2010), 18. 42 Joseph N. Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern," The Musical Quarterly 72, no. 3 (1986): 301. 43 Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern,"301. 44 Ryu, "Musical Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire," 18. 45 Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern,"301. 12
The composer then recomposes the piece to produce new sonorities and motives. This results in a novel piece with two layers, which are well-synthesized but always in conflict.46
Though the concept of borrowing music from previous composers was not new, the nature of borrowing in Neoclassicism represented a radical change in re-composition. Before the
1920s, composers were rarely influenced by music of composers who were not either immediate predecessors or contemporaries.47 Neoclassical works exhibit an unprecedented gap in time between the new work and old work.48 This change came about for a number of reasons. In
Stravinsky's case, music historians cite the primary reasons as rebellion against the Russian
Romantic School, desire to claim music he loved as his own, and anxiety over his own compositional limitations.
While Bach recomposed Vivaldi's works for practical reasons, Stravinsky was motivated by artistic impulse.49 Stravinsky said regarding Pulcinella, “My instinct is to recompose not only students' works, but old masters as well. Whatever interests me, whatever I love, I wish to make my own.”50 By recomposing an already well-known work, Stravinsky was able to establish a specific pattern, such as tonal sonata form, that sets up expectations in the listener, from which he then deviates. The result is a tension between the modern elements and the classical norm, which creates surprise and delight for the listener.51
Other composers, such as Joseph Haydn, have used and deviated from conventional sonata forms in order to develop surprise. However, Haydn composed works for an audience that
46 Ibid, 319. 47 Joseph N. Straus, "The Anxiety of Influence' in Twentieth-Century Music," The Journal of Musicology 9, no. 4 (Autumn, 1991): 447. 48 Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern,"301. 49 Straus, "The 'Anxiety of Influence' in Twentieth-Century Music," 302. 50 Donald Mitchell, "Stravinsky and Neo-Classicism," Tempo no. 61/62, (1962): 10. 51 Cone, "The Uses of Convention: Stravinsky and His Models,"287. 13 was familiar with the compositional conventions of the day, and with his own personal style, allowing him to be relatively avant-garde. Demand for Haydn's new works was high.52 But early
20th century composers struggled to create demand for new works, as the musical canon was largely sealed by this time.53 Thus, 20th-century composers were forced to reinterpret styles and forms of earlier generations to prevent from being pushed out by the past.54
Neoclassicism also allowed composers to overcome their own creative limitations.
Stravinsky built his own style by integrating the melodies and techniques of many different centuries. The resulting composite style allowed Stravinsky to overcome what Anthony Milner calls Stravinsky's "profound realization of his own melodic limitations."55 Stravinsky avoided recomposing the works of more mainstream composers such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
Instead he focused his attention on less well-known composers like Pergolesi.56 In this way, he was able to reinterpret early styles without confronting the great masters of those styles.57
Through both his Russian and Neoclassic periods, we can see that Stravinsky wished to avoid the German Romantic and Classical school entirely. As stated above, he rarely recomposed works by mainstream German composers, and his orchestration is further evidence of his avoidance of the German school. His orchestral works avoid heavy pedaling or excessive doubling, as would be found in Wagnerian compositions, resulting in a much more transparent sound, as is found in Petrushka.58
Stravinsky's Recompositions of his own Works
52 Ibid, 288. 53 Straus, "The 'Anxiety of Influence' in Twentieth-Century Music," 437. 54 Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern," 303. 55 Milner, "Melody in Stravinsky's Music," 371. 56 Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern," 323. 57 Ibid, 324. 58 Van den Toorn, "Stravinsky, Adorno, and the Art of Displacement," 499. 14
In addition to recomposing the works of other artists, Stravinsky also recomposed many of his own works. This is especially true for his piano solo repertoire and songs for voice and piano.
From multiple firsthand accounts, we know that Stravinsky composed at the piano.59
However he created only a small repertory of solo piano works, and most of these were later recomposed. Examples include Stravinsky's Tango, which will be discussed in greater detail later. But even the most elementary works, which are more suited to pedagogical study than performance, are recomposed later for both large and small ensembles. The Three Easy Pieces
(1915) became part of an orchestral work, Suite No. 2, in 1921.60 The Five Easy Pieces are also found in both Suite No. 1 and Suite No. 2.61 Even in 1961, during his serial period, Stravinsky recomposed the final movement of an early piano work, The Five Fingers, for a 12-instrument ensemble.62
A number of Stravinsky's early works are songs for voice and piano, which he recomposed years later. Pastorale (1907), a song for soprano and piano, was transcribed by
Dushkin and Stravinsky for violin and piano, and for a chamber ensemble of oboe, violin,
English horn, clarinet, and bassoon in 1933.63 The Two Poems of Balmont (1911)64 and the Little
Songs (1906),65 both originally for voice and piano, were orchestrated for voice and accompanying chamber orchestra.
Stravinsky also recomposed his large orchestral works for smaller instrumentations.
59 Ogden, "Stravinsky and the Piano," 36. 60 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 238. 61 Ibid, 245. 62 Ibid, 298. 63 Ibid, 177. 64 Ibid, 204. 65 Ibid, 220. 15
Nearly all of Stravinsky's transcriptions for solo instrument and piano are taken from his ballets and opera. To provide an adequate context for these transcriptions, I first discuss Pulcinella,
Petrushka, Le Baiser de la Fée, and Mavra.
Works from which the Violin Transcriptions are taken
Pulcinella (1920)
Stravinsky composed the Neoclassical Pulcinella between 1919 and 1920 after receiving the commission from Sergei Diaghilev.66 The work is best characterized as a ballet, but includes some vocal numbers as well.67 Stravinsky described it as "a look in the mirror, and the first of many looks back,"68 indicating that this is his first truly Neoclassical work. Pulcinella is composed of materials taken from a number of works, primarily by the early classical composer
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Among them are two comic operas, and his Sinfonia a Violoncello.69
Stravinsky recomposed the works of Pergolesi as though he were correcting something he himself had written earlier.70 He created a new tonality by rewriting Pulcinella with "wrong notes." The number of wrong notes is small enough to maintain the basic harmonic structure from the original works, but creates new chords that do not seem to fit in a tonal triadic harmonic scheme.71 The orchestra is quite small compared to the orchestras for Stravinsky's earlier orchestral works.72 The ensemble does not contain any percussion instruments, but to compensate, Stravinsky occasionally uses percussive effects, such as pizzicato chords in the
66 Ryu, "Musical Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire," 50. 67 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 284. 68 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 113. 69 Ryu, "Musical Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire," 50. 70 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 111. 71 Straus, "Recompositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern," 314. 72 Ryu, "Musical Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire," 50. 16 cellos, jeté in the violins, and repeated downbow articulations throughout all strings.73
Petrushka (1911)
Stravinsky originally began composing Petrushka as a piano concerto.74 But when
Diaghilev heard the Russian Dance, he convinced Stravinsky to change the work into a programmatic piece for ballet.75 The ballet tells the story of puppets come to life, and is largely inspired by Russian folk puppet theater, which had fascinated Stravinsky since his childhood.76
Petrushka consists of four tableaux, or scenes. The Russian Dance concludes the first tableaux.
Though still in Stravinsky's Russian period, the work represents a significant departure from The Firebird, as discussed above.
Mavra (1922)
Mavra is a single-act opera buffa77 and represents Stravinsky's fusion of Neoclassical elements and early Russian Romantic styles. The program is from Pushkin's story, Little House in Kolomna.78 The score includes a dedication to the memories of Tchaikovsky and Pushkin, and shows the influence of fairy tales in Stravinsky's compositions, as it was inspired by
Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.79 With Mavra, Stravinsky set out to compose in a song style that was strongly Russian but also imitated early Italian art song.80 This Russo-Italian opera style was
73 Virginia Rose Fattaruso Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky" (DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1980), 72. 74 Jan Pasler, "Music and Spectacle: in Petrushka and The Rite of Spring," in Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist, ed. Jann Pasler (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1986), 56. 75 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 194. 76 Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: a Biography of the Works through Mavra, (University of California Press, 1996), 664. 77 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 81. 78 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 300. 79 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 81. 80 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 301. 17 an alternative to Wagnerian opera.81 In producing the vocal style, Stravinsky infused elements of the styles of Glinka, Dargomisky, Tchaikovsky, and the Italian bel canto.82 Tchaikovsky's influence is evident in the humor of the work, as well as the use of poméshchiks (townpeople's music).83
Le Baiser de la Fée (1928)
A number of Stravinsky's orchestral works take inspiration from fairy tales, such as those by Hans Christian Anderson.84 These include The Nightingale, a brief opera in three acts named after the Hans Christian Anderson story,85 and the ballet Le Baiser de la Fée, both of which yielded violin transcriptions in collaboration with Dushkin. I will focus on Le Baiser, from which he transcribed the Ballade and Divertimento.
Le Baiser uses the Hans Christian Anderson tale The Ice Maiden, and the score is again dedicated to Tchaikovsky.86 Stravinsky received the commission, directing him to write a work representative of Tchaikovsky's music,87 after helping Sergei Diagalev to produce a revival of
The Sleeping Beauty.88 Stravinsky incorporated many of Tchaikovsky's vocal pieces and piano works into the ballet, but nothing from any of Tchaikovsky's orchestral works, ensuring that the orchestration would be uniquely Stravinsky.89
Stravinsky's Early String Writing
81 Ibid, 303. 82 Ibid. 83 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 83. 84 Ibid, 33. 85 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 221. 86 Stephanie Jordan, "Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fee: Ghost Stories," Dance Chronicle 29, no. 1 (2006): 1. 87 Whitehead, "Aspects of Igor Stravinsky's Divertimento," 15. 88 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 81. 89 Ibid, 83. 18
In order to examine Stravinsky's transcriptions of the above works, it will also be helpful examine the characteristics of Stravinsky's string writing prior to his collaboration with Dushkin.
Many of these characteristics continued and evolved in his violin transcriptions.
Stravinsky's earliest string pieces show that he was highly experimental with the violin sound.90 For example, of the string effects in The Firebird, he was most proud of the composition of the natural harmonic glissando in the opening, for which the violins must tune the
E string down a whole step.91 But Stravinsky also experimented with string sound more directly in chamber music, such as in Three Pieces for String Quartet, Histoire du Soldat, and
Concertino.
Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914)
Figure 1
The Three Pieces for String Quartet is Stravinsky's first composition for a string ensemble, and a good representation of his string writing style until he began collaborating with
90 Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky," 50. 91 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 132. 19
Dushkin.92 Like Pulcinella, it demonstrates that Stravinsky often treated strings, and the violin in particular, as percussion instruments. The percussive effect is created in this piece with the use of passages consisting of repeated upbows, downbows and chords. The articulated effect of some of these chords is emphasized by striking them with pizzicato and arco simultaneously, as seen in
Figure 1. Stravinsky also experiments with special string effects, such as harmonics, glissando, and open strings, and employs extreme subito dynamic contrasts.93 These same effects are also prominent in the first movement of the Violin Concerto.
Histoire du Soldat (1918)
Figure 2
The chamber piece Histoire du Soldat further exemplifies Stravinsky's preference for a crisp violin sound.94 In fact, Stravinsky defines the characteristic sound of Histoire, a work for narrator and chamber ensemble,95 as the "scrape" of the violin.96 This scrape is maintained even though various styles are imitated in the work, including brass band march, Spanish tango, waltz,
German chorale, and American ragtime and jazz.97 The scraping sound is achieved through the use of repeated upbows or downbowns (Figure 2), the arco-pizz chords seen in Three Pieces,
92 Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky," 27. 93 Ibid. 94 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin,"302. 95 Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky," 31. 96 Craft, Expositions and Developments, 92. 97 Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky," 31. 20 triple- and double-stops which often contain open strings,98 and bow techniques like spiccato and jeté.99 The violin is often paired with the drums, further emphasizing its role as a percussive instrument in the work.100
Concertino (1920)
The Concertino is Stravinsky's second piece written for string quartet. The characteristics of the first string quartet--such as repeated downbows, pizz-arco chords, harmonics, glissando, open strings, and dynamic contrasts--are also utilized in the Concertino.101 But the most notable aspect of the work is the violin cadenza, which consists largely of scalar passages under longs slurs of 4ths and 5ths.102 The cadenza exemplifies Stravinsky's lack of regard for the ease of execution of his violin writing.103 Stravinsky re-orchestrated the Concertino for an ensemble of twelve instruments in 1953, which still includes the same violin cadenza unaltered, despite the preceding collaboration with Dushkin.104
Pre-Dushkin Violin Transcriptions
Stravinsky also produced three transcriptions for violin and piano before his collaboration with Dushkin: the Suite after Themes, Fragments, and Pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi from
Pulcinella, and the Prelude et Ronde de Princesses and Berceuse from The Firebird.105 Dushkin later helped Stravinsky to create revisions of the Suite after Themes, published as Suite Italienne;
98 Ibid, 36. 99 Ibid, 39. 100 Ibid, 34. 101 Ibid, 46. 102 Ibid, 43. 103 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin,"302. 104 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 291. 105 Kuan-Chang Tu, "In the Fingertips: A Discussion of Stravinsky's Violin Writing in his Ballet Transcriptions for Violin and Piano" (DMA diss., University of Cincinnati, 2012), 2. 21 and Berceuse.106 However the original three transcriptions from the 1920s are especially awkward and unidiomatic, and are thus rarely performed.107 The Violin Concerto in D represents a turning point in Stravinsky's violin writing, as it is the first composition in his collaboration with Dushkin. It is also the first piece for violin, outside of the Suite on Themes, that follows a clear Neoclassical model.
Stravinsky's Collaboration with Dushkin
Stravinsky began his collaboration with Dushkin, an American violinist of Russian birth, upon receiving the commission to write a violin concerto.108 Stravinsky seems an unlikely composer to embark on such an extensive collaboration with a violinist. He was initially hesitant to accept the commission, fearing his unfamiliarity with the violin would be evident. But after
Dushkin promised to consult on technical issues and Hindemith assured him that his outsider perspective would allow him to imagine new possibilities for the instrument, Stravinsky accepted the project.109 As stated in the introduction, Stravinsky despised the virtuosity of 19th-century violin works and violinists like Kreisler, who he saw as valuing virtuosity above musicality.110
But Dushkin lacked this virtuoso mentality, making him the perfect partner for Stravinsky.111
After the Violin Concerto was completed, the collaboration continued. Stravinsky and
Dushkin toured Europe and the United States together, which required Stravinsky to expand his violin repertoire. Over the course of several years, Stravinsky and Dushkin created a program of
106 Tu, "In the Fingertips," 4. 107 Ibid, 2. 108 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin,"303. 109 Igor Stravinsky, Igor Stravinsky, an Autobiography (London: Calder and Boyars, 1975), 168. 110 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin,"303. 111 Ibid, 304. 22 the Duo Concertant, Divertimento, and Suite Italienne.112 These works were intended to make up the meat of their recitals, but Stravinsky desired some shorter encores which would fill out the program and promote the other pieces of his repertory.113 Dushkin assisted Stravinsky in writing the violin parts of the Pastorale, Scherzo and Berceuse from The Firebird; Songs of the
Nightingale and Chinese March" from The Nightingale; the Russian Dance from Petrushka; and
Chanson Russe from Mavra. Though he allowed Dushkin considerable independence in the composition process, Stravinsky always gave the final approval or disapproval, and his primary concern was always to preserve the integrity of the original work.114
Dushkin, in describing his collaboration with Stravinsky, describes two approaches to producing transcriptions. One is to write music that will be playable for the new instrument, and one is to rewrite the music while preserving its original essence. Dushkin claims Stravinsky wanted to concern himself only with the second approach.115 Though Dushkin's advice allowed
Stravinsky's violin writing to become somewhat more idiomatic than the earlier violin pieces,
Stravinsky often rejected Dushkin's attempts to ease the difficulty of passages, stating, “What does it matter...if fools cannot play my music.”116 On other occasions Stravinsky rejected writing by Dushkin that he found to be too traditionally virtuosic.117 But Stravinsky could not avoid violin virtuosity entirely, and it seems that Dushkin was able to incorporate some of the flare typically found in violin encores. I will examine this further during the score study section.
112 Ibid, 305. 113 Samuel Dushkin, "Working with Stravinsky," In Igor Stravinsky, ed. Edwin Corle (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pierce, 1949), 190. 114 Charles M. Joseph, Stravinsky and the Piano (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983), 195. 115 Dushkin, "Working with Stravinsky,"188. 116 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 305. 117 Ibid. 23
III. Linking material
Violin Concerto Background
Stravinsky's statements about the Violin Concerto show he was conflicted about how to balance the nature of the violin with his own style. Before writing the piece, he declared “I want to write a true virtuoso concerto and the whole spirit of the violin must be in every measure of the composition.”118 But after completing the work, Stravinsky revised this statement:
“Virtuosity for its own sake plays little part in my concerto, and I did not write a cadenza for the reason that I was not interested in violin virtuosity.”119 Indeed, Stravinsky wanted to avoid writing a concerto similar to the standards of the day, such as those by Brahms, Beethoven, and
Tchaikovsky.120 He also wanted to avoid writing a work reminiscent of his own popular Russian compositions. In fact, Dushkin remembers Stravinsky receiving a commission to write a violin concerto once before their collaboration, but Stravinsky eventually rejected it because the patron wished for a work similar to The Firebird or Petrushka.121 This explains Stravinsky's decision to write the concerto in the Neoclassical style, emulating Bach.
Though Stravinsky did not like most standard violin concerts, he did profess fondness for
Bach's Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins. He especially appreciated the final movement, which contains a duet between the solo violin and one of the violins from the orchestra. The titles of his movements, Toccata, Aria I, Aria II, and Capriccio, also suggest Bach's influence.122
The concerto is more of a chamber piece than an orchestral piece. The violin often
118 Ibid, 304. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid, 305. 121 Dushkin, "Working with Stravinsky,"191. 122 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 305. 24 dialogues with other solo instruments from the orchestra.123 The full tutti string section is rarely scored, and the violins play little of the concerto, while the double basses are especially prevalent throughout the work.124 For most of the concerto, with the exception of the first movement, the solo violin plays almost without pause.125 Like Pulcinella, the concerto does not have a percussion section.126 These orchestration techniques allow the solo violin to cut through the orchestral texture.
Each movement is based on the “passport chord.” This chord opens each movement, and forms a sort of motto for the concerto.127 The music theorist Lynne Rogers calls the technique used in the concerto “dissociation.” This is Stravinsky's method of beginning with a simple idea-
-such as the passport chord--and using the chord to create a complex web of counterpoint made of independent layers.128
Like many of Stravinsky's Neoclassical works, the concerto had difficulty initially gaining acceptance into the repertoire. Stravinsky voiced disappointment that the violinist Joseph
Szigeti did not include it in his book, With Strings Attached: Reminiscences and Reflections,129 and that Isaac Stern did not properly promote the work. He complained that Stern never performed the concerto again after producing the 1961 recording, and "hardly did me the respect of learning it then."130 Fortunately the Stern recording became a milestone for the piece, and
123 Charles M Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 325. 124 Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention, 325. 125 Ibid, 326. 126 Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky," 72. 127 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 307. 128 Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention, 332. 129 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 308. 130 Joseph, Stravinsky Inside Out, 216. 25 since then, nearly every prominent violinist has recorded and performed the work.131
Toccata
Stravinsky finished Toccata, the first movement of the concerto, on March 27, 1931.132
He did not title the movement until six months later, but the title is apt. The toccata is a keyboard piece originating from the late Renaissance or early Baroque period, a virtuoso-style movement that is sectionalized with quick figuration.133 The first movement of the concerto is sectionalized but also follows a clear sonata form, which is standard for the first movement of a concerto.134
Aria I
Stravinsky finished the second movement of the concerto, Aria I, on May 20, 1931, and he initially titled it Aria da Capo.135 Like a Baroque aria, the movement shows a clear ABA form. This form is also typical of Baroque slow movements, such as the second movement of the
Bach double concerto.136
Aria II
Stravinsky completed Aria II only weeks after the second movement.137 And like Aria I, it employs a tripartite form, largely made of 8-measure phrases.138 Aria II contains allusions to
Baroque writing such as the cantilena-style melody, and the "walking bass" in the low strings.
The solo violin line exhibits heavy ornamentation.139 These same techniques can be found in
131 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 309. 132 Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention, 327. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 135 Ibid, 336. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid, 343. 138 Ibid. 139 Ibid. 26
Bach's arias and string airs.140 Further association with the Baroque is conjured by the melodic descent, a symbol for sadness or death during this time period.141
Capriccio
The finale of the concerto is appropriately titled Capriccio. A capriccio can designate a through-composed piece, or a technically virtuosic concert etude, and both descriptions seem to fit the movement.142 The soloist plays almost continuously, using a number of violin virtuoso tricks--left-hand pizzicato, trills, wide-ranging scalar passages, octave displacement-- demonstrating Dushkin's efforts in improving Stravinsky's understanding of the concert violin.143
However Stravinsky's own style of violin writing is still heard, as demonstrated by the coda, which reminds one of the "scraping" anti-violinistic quality of L'Histoire du Soldat.144 The fourth movement is also the first time in the concerto that the full orchestra is scored to accompany the violin.145
IV. Core Analysis: Score Study
Violin Concerto Mov. 1
In analyzing the first movement of the Violin Concerto in D, we find several elements of
Stravinsky's violin style that allude to his earlier violin works. This is seen with the use of double stops that utilize open strings, natural and artificial harmonics, repeated upbows, polyphony, and octave displacement.
140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid, 347. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid, 349. 145 Ibid, 347. 27
Figure 3
Figure 3 shows the passport chord, which opens each movement of the concerto. Though
Dushkin assured Stravinsky that this chord would be playable, it is uncomfortable, as it requires the violinist to stretch the hand to an 11th. This characterizes much of the writing in Stravinsky’s concerto. Though Dushkin helped Stravinsky improve his understanding of the violin, Stravinsky created a sort of virtuosity for the violin that is unnatural.
The opening passport chord is followed by three quadruple-stops which use both the open e string and d string.146 Chords, especially triple-stops, prevail throughout the movement. As in the Concertino, Stravinsky also utilizes double-stop scalar passages, though these passages use primarily thirds and octaves, which are much more idiomatic for the violin than the ones found in the Concertino.
Figure 4
Stravinsky frequently employs natural harmonics throughout the work, used by the violin to cut through the orchestral texture and create rapid changes in tessitura. Figure 4 shows the actual pitches played by the violin three measures before rehearsal 5. These harmonics follow the
146 Strauss, "The Stylistic Use of the Violin in Selected Works by Stravinsky," 74. 28 first theme of the movement, a bel canto line played on the g string. The harmonics that follow create a sudden registeral shift and a dramatic change in texture. The violin changes from playing a singing melodic line to articulating short notes above the orchestral register, creating a glockenspiel-like effect. As stated earlier, the movement is in sonata form, and because the exposition is repeated verbatim to form the recapitulation, the harmonics appear again three measures before rehearsal 40.
Stravinsky also employs glissandi in a few sections to lead to a natural harmonic. These glissandi do not function as an expressive element, as they do in Heifetz’s work, although he does use expressive glissandi in a few of his later violin transcriptions. In the concerto, they instead aid the violinist in shifting toward the natural harmonic accurately, and help emphasize the sudden registeral shift.
Figure 5
Figure 5 illustrates the first theme. This demonstrates the “scrape of the violin” that
Stravinsky also utilized in Histoire. This scrape is created with the use of repeated upbows, which are marked au talon (at the frog). An upward scalar passage of syncopated thirds leads to the first Bachian polyphonic section in rehearsal 12.
29
Figure 6
Figure 6 demonstrates the Bach-inspired polyphony that begins the development. This section also demonstrates Stravinsky’s classic melodic technique. The cell in Figure 6 is repeated at varying intervals from rehearsal 14 until rehearsal 16 to form a new polyphonic line. A second polyphonic section is used to close the development, beginning in rehearsal 33.
Figure 7
The first movement of the concerto contains two extended ostinato sections for the violin.
An excerpt of the first ostinato section, which begins rehearsal 20 in the development, is shown in Figure 7. This produces a glockenspiel-effect again as the ostinato pitches are in a higher register than the orchestra’s. This ostinato section also uses a new technique: octave displacement, in which the violin varies repeated notes between octaves, which creates a more interesting texture than maintaining the C-sharps in the same octave. The bowing, which alternates two slurred 16th notes with two staccato 16th notes, further emphasizes the alternating registers. This technique of octave displacement paired with alternating bowings is exploited more thoroughly in the Divertimento.
Figure 8
A second ostinato section forms the coda of the movement, played here with a staccato 30 articulation and forte dynamic. This ostinato consists of double stops which outline chords. The inner two notes of the chords are always varied, but the outer two notes form a double-octave D, which helps emphasize the D tonal center of the movement. An excerpt of the ostinato is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 9
A downward scalar passage of thirds closes out the coda, leading to a final added-note chord: a D octave with an E, shown in Figure 9. This E is especially unexpected after the ostinato section stubbornly pounds out the octave Ds for so long. This demonstrates the benefit of the
Neoclassical model for Stravinsky: he is able to set up expectations for the listener, and then thwart them to the listener’s surprise. This chord also prepares the listener for the opening of the second movement, whose passport chord also contains the D-E conflict.
Divertimento (1934)
As in Stravinsky's orchestral suite taken from Le Baiser de la Fée, the Divertimento movements are titled Sinfonia, Danse Suisse, Scherzo, and Pas de Deux.147 I will focus my score study on movements 1 and 2.
Sinfonia
Stravinsky uses two of Tchaikovsky's songs in the Sinfonia, "Lullaby in a Storm"148 and
147 Stephanie Jordan, "Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fée: Ghost Stories," 5. 148 Yukiko Nakane Whitehead, "Aspects of Igor Stravinsky's Divertimento: Suite from the Ballet 'The Fairy's Kiss' Transcribed for Violin and Piano by the Composer and Samuel Dushkin" 31
"Winter Evening," which are taken from the collection 16 Songs for Children (1883).149 The
Sinfonia is significantly more Romantic and idiomatic for the violin than the Concerto in D.
Though this new violin writing is partially due to the use of Tchaikovsky’s materials, it also shows a greater involvement by Dushkin in the composition of the work. It also heavily relies on the octave displacement first seen in the concerto, and shows an increased understanding of the colors and text-painting that can be created by the violin.
The opening material uses the melody from “Winter Evening.” Here the violin plays in a high register, in octaves with the piano, creating an icy color. This is followed by a sul G, bel canto style melody, played an octave lower than in the orchestral suite.150 This sort of technique is commonly used to create an expressive line for the violin, and was possibly suggested by
Dushkin.
The bel canto line is followed by a 32nd-note passage, which outlines chromatic chords.
The use of 32nds paired with rising and falling dynamics creates the imagery of raindrops, signaling the coming of a storm. However, these 32nds are interrupted suddenly by the first statement of the “Lullaby,” appropriately marked piano, ma sonore. After the Lullaby interlude, the 32nds begin again, this time through chromatic lines that quickly rise and fall, leading to a virtuosic scalar passage, gradually growing in dynamic and register before leading into a new section, Allegro Sostenuto.
(DMA diss., University of Memphis, 2004): 37. 149 Whitehead, "Aspects of Igor Stravinsky's Divertimento,"42. 150 Ibid, 65. 32
Figure 10
Figure 11
Figure 12
The Allegro Sostenuto begins with a new theme that, for the first time in the work, hints at characteristics of Stravinsky. This theme, illustrated in Figure 10, is again played sul G but is heavily articulated, as can be seen by the use of repeated downbows and forte dynamic.
These downbows also create hemiola, contradicting the 2/4 meter of the passage. This theme is then followed by octave displacement figures, a technique that is continued until the end of the work. Figures 11 and 12 demonstrate two examples of octave displacement found throughout the movement. As seen in Figure 12, the octave displacement is often paired with alternating hooked and slurred bowing. The rapid string crossings and bow alternations create a busy sound in the violin, which contributes to the storminess of the passage.
Figure 13
The extended stormy section ends abruptly, and is followed by a restatement of the 33
Lullaby interlude, but is suddenly interrupted by a final stormy section made even more ferocious with the use of dissonant and chromatically moving triple stops. The beginning of this passage, actually taken from the piano accompaniment of Evening, is shown in Figure 13. This is followed by a highly fragmented section, alternating between pieces of melodic ascending figures on the G string and 16th-note passages exhibiting octave displacement and the slurred- hooked bow alternations.
The movement ends with a passage of ascending broken chromatic chords, culminating in the dramatic passage of repeated quarter notes which crescendo into the second movement, the
Danse Suisse.
Danse Suisse
Stravinsky creates an abrupt character change by beginning the Danse Suisse attacca after the first movement. While the Sinfonia ends fortissimo in a high register on the E string, the
Danse Suisse begins in the violin’s middle register with a piano dynamic. And while the Sinfonia demonstrates Stravinsky’s Neoromantic style, the second movement highlights the bouncy, transparent texture of the Violin Concerto. The bouncy dance-like character is created with the use of repeated upbows, broken octaves, artificial harmonics, and perfect intervals.
Figure 14
Much of the piece exhibits a theme that alternates between legato perfect fourths and staccato thirds, played with repeated upbows, creating a colorful contrast. The pairing of these two fragments is illustrated in Figure 14, and is reminiscent of other figures in the violin
34 concerto that also contrast a polyphony using perfect intervals with repeated upbow thirds.
The movement also shows Stravinsky's reliance on triple stops. Here some melodic passages are made up entirely of triads, and often involve 16th notes, requiring the violinist to set the left hand and roll the bow across three strings very quickly.
Figure 15a
Figure 15b
Stravinsky experiments with a new technique in this movement: broken octaves.
Stravinsky begins with a simple quarter note motive, as shown in Figure 15a. But this motive is elaborated with the use of grace notes an octave higher preceding each quarter note, as shown in
Figure 15b. Short, off-beat eighth-notes in the piano further add to the buoyancy of the texture.
Figure 16
Though Stravinsky uses natural harmonics in much of the string writing previously, he introduces the use of double-stop harmonics, for which the actual pitches are shown in Figure 16.
When examining the triple-stop passages and harmonic double stops in this movement, one 35 understands Dushkin’s complaint that Stravinsky did not concern himself with ease of execution, making some of the transcriptions difficult to play. Attempting to play two natural harmonics at once, or a natural harmonic with an artificial harmonic, creates difficulties for both the bow arm and left hand. But the result is as charming as it is in the violin concerto, creating the effect of high-pitched percussion. This technique of harmonic double stops is also found in Stravinsky's first transcription of the Berceuse, but was rewritten by Dushkin due to the difficulty in making such a passage speak clearly.151
Ballade (1947)
The Ballade is another arrangement from Le Baiser. Stravinsky approved Dushkin's original arrangement of the Ballade, but ultimately was not satisfied with the piece enough to include it in the Divertimento. Over a decade later, Stravinsky completed the Ballade with the violinist Jeanne Gautier and published the piece separately.152
Figure 17
Rehearsal 7 contains a section exhibiting repeated downbows, which match the staccato passage in the piano, but the piece is characterized overall by lyrical and expressive writing, and represents a somewhat Heifetz-like style. Like some of the other transcriptions, the piece uses glissando. But the Ballade shows the use of expressive glissandi paired with sul G, such as at rehearsal 3 (Figure 17) and in the passage from rehearsal 8 to 9.
151 Tu, "In the Fingertips," 40. 152 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 307. 36
A type of glissando technique is found in the coda, two measures before rehearsal 16.
The violin plays melodic minor scales on the D string, leading to a natural harmonic A. When the 32nd-note scale is played at the tempo indicated, the effect is a fluttery glissando. Because the harmonic A varies in length, the reiterations of the glissando scale creates the effect of rhythmic displacement.
Suite Italienne (1934)
The Suite Italienne is Stravinsky's recomposition of the Suite after Themes, his violin transcription of Pulcinella from 1925. The original suite was dedicated to Kochanski, though he was not involved in the production of the violin part.153 The rewritten suite is radically different and more idiomatic for violin. It is likely that either Dushkin or Gregor Piatigorsky, who wrote a cello version of the Suite Italienne a year before Dushkin, convinced Stravinsky that the original was not idiomatic enough.154 It is already clear that Stravinsky strongly resisted Dushkin’s attempts to make his music more playable, but he may have been more willing to accept
Piatigorsky’s criticism. His understanding of the cello was much less developed than for violin, according to Robert Craft.155 I will limit my study of the Suite to the first movement,
Introduzione, and the third movement, Tarentella.
Introduzione
Boris Schwartz expresses disappointment that the new version of the Suite, particularly the first movement, loses too much the of Stravinskyan character. Dushkin removed much of the angularity of the movement by writing out chords.156 Though these chords were awkward for the
153 Ibid, 303. 154 Ibid, 308. 155 Ibid. 156 Ibid. 37 left hand, Schwartz complains that the new Suite sounds much more ordinary, like violin tunes accompanied by piano.157 A first time listener would likely have difficulty identifying Stravinsky as the composer of the movement.
Tarentella
Figure 18
The third movement, Tarentella, is a perpetual motion movement. The violin plays almost continuous eighth-notes in a 6/8 meter. This movement shows Stravinsky’s early interest in the violin as a percussion instrument, as shown by the bowing, the use of double stops, and the pizz-arco chords. Stravinsky’s bowing pattern, with the first eighth in each group of three being separate and the second two hooked, allows the violinist to strike the string with the bow rapidly.
The triple-stop figures also create a percussive effect, and can be played quickly as Stravinsky makes clever use of open strings. Finally, he utilizes repeated open-string fifth chords struck simultaneously by the bow and by the left hand pizzicato, seen in Figure 18.
The similarities between this movement of the Suite and Stravinsky’s other pre-Dushkin writing are no accident—this movement is barely altered at all from the original 1925 Suite, predating the other movements by several years.
Danse Russe (1932)
Stravinsky and Dushkin wrote the Danse Russe, his second recomposition of Petrushka,
157 Ibid. 38 for violin in 1932. The Danse Russe also appears in Stravinsky's piano transcription of
Petrushka, composed in 1921.158 As stated earlier, Petrushka relies heavily on borrowed Russian folk music. One of these folk songs comprises the second theme of the Danse Russe, and is identified as the Song for St. John's Eve, a folk song from the village of Basheskaia in
Totemsk.159
The Danse Russe shows the continued development of some of the techniques Stravinsky used in the first movement of the Violin Concerto. There is the use of glissandi up to harmonics to create sudden changes in register. Artificial harmonics are also used in the tranquillo section to outline the theme from the opening. Stravinsky also uses a long passage of natural harmonics, such as that found in the Danse Suisse, though without double stops. However, Danse Russe demonstrates that Stravinsky must have begun to tolerate some of the "superficial" virtuosic effects embraced by composers like Wieniawski and Paganini.160 This is seen with the increased use of left hand pizzicato, the dramatic scalar passages that span low to high registers, and a new technique, a banjo-like strumming of the strings, which is a well-known characteristic of Kroll's encore Banjo and Fiddle and the Blues-inspired second movement of Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Piano.
Chanson Russe (1937)
Figure 19
158 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 191. 159 Ibid. 160 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 308. 39
The Chanson Russe is taken from Parasha's aria in Mavra,161 of which Stravinsky composed a second transcription for cello with Dmitry Markevitch.162 This transcription shows
Stravinsky’s ability to use displacement to parody a Russian folk tune, as Parasha's aria is composed of an asymmetric melodic cell, illustrated in Figure 19. This cell is repeated, each time with slightly varied rhythm and ornamentation, to create a self-renewing melody over an ostinato accompaniment of eighth notes in the piano.163
The piece also demonstrates Stravinsky’s continued experimentation with violin colors.
Stravinsky changes key multiple times throughout the movement, from B-flat minor to D minor to G minor. The piece is also marked con sordino. The use of the mute further darkens the color of the sound. Like the other late transcription, Ballade, Chanson Russe utilizes an expressive glissando at the end of the work.
Tango (1940)
Background
It is difficult to place the Tango, a work for solo piano, into any of Stravinsky's periods.
However, it shows his interest in the jazz and musique d'ameublement of the 1920s and 1940s.164
Tango is modeled on another light-music-inspired piece by Stravinsky, Ragtime.165 The Tango employs a simple 4/4 time signature, with 8 bar phrases. The lack of mixed meter is unusual for
Stravinsky, but this allows for a steady flow of syncopation throughout the work.166
The Tango may never have been intended as a solo piano work. First of all, the writing is
161 Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 1558. 162 Ibid. 163 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 303. 164Ogden, "Stravinsky and the Piano," 39. 165 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 410. 166 Ibid. 40 awkward for piano, due to the dense counterpoint. This indicates that the piano solo is just a sketch for later instrumentations.167 The first reorchestration, by Felix Guenther in 1941, is for chamber orchestra, guitars, saxophone, and piano.168 Stravinsky produced his own orchestration of the work for a similar ensemble in 1953.169 He also wrote two arrangements for violin and piano, one with Sol Babitz, and one with Dushkin. It appears he was never satisfied with either, as he never released either transcription for publication, though the manuscripts remained in his collection.170 The transcription with Dushkin was published by Schott after Stravinsky's death.
Though Stravinsky did not produce any other instrumentations of the work, he had planned a dance band version and a vocal pop song version.171 My own version for violin and piano is found in the appendix.
Tango Transcription (2015)
Because Stravinsky composed the Tango with orchestration in mind, the work is relatively straight-forward to transcribe. Upon completing my transcription I discovered the
Dushkin violin transcription, and found that my own work is similar to Dushkin's. However
Dushkin makes several creative alterations that distinguish his transcription from the piano version, and from my own transcription.
The first difference between my transcription and Dushkin’s is in the approach to the introduction, comprising mm. 1-8. In my introduction, both the violin and piano are playing. I have muted the violin in an effort to blend the sound with the piano’s soft dynamic, and remove the mute in m. 9 with the beginning of the first tango theme. However, Dushkin withholds the
167 Ibid. 168 Ibid. 169 Ibid. 170 Schwarz, "Stravinsky, Dushkin, and the Violin," 307. 171 White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 410. 41 violin’s entrance until m. 9. This allows the piano to set the mood of the piece, and allows the tango theme greater prominence with the violin’s delayed entrance. The Tango ends with an 8- measure phrase which is nearly identical to the introduction. Here I pair the violin and piano again, this time using pizzicato. Dushkin pairs the violin with piano for the coda as well, but reserves the pizzicato for the final two notes. But for the rest of the introduction in Dushkin’s transcription, the violin plays col legno, hitting the string with the wood of the bow. This is a technique rarely used for solo violin playing, but certainly references Stravinsky’s interest in percussive effects for the violin.
In the trio portion of my transcription, I allow the violin to take a middle voice of the counterpoint, while Dushkin delegates the top voices to the violin and raises them an octave.
Dushkin’s writing proves more effective, as it allows for a new and lighter character to emerge in the trio. Dushkin also ends the final statement of the tango theme before the coda an octave higher than the previous statements. This shows Dushkin’s creativity in varying repetitive material.
I also found that my transcription makes use of double stops much earlier than Dushkin’s.
I begin writing for two voices beginning in m. 13. Dushkin maintains a single line violin melody until m. 24, corresponding with the first forte in the piece. Where Dushkin chose to thicken the texture, I returned to a single-line melody in the violin.
Finally, I maintain the register of the violin consistent with the register of the original piano work. Dushkin often varies the octaves of the melodic line, taking full advantage of the various contrasting registers of the violin. My transcription rarely utilizes the e-string, but this would allow it to be performed easily on viola as well.
V. Summary and Conclusion 42
In studying the transcriptions that Stravinsky produced with Dushkin, we can see that
Stravinsky had to balance his own preferences for the violin sound with what would be idiomatic for the instrument. Furthermore, he had to balance his desire to write transcriptions that are representative of the character of his own ballets and operas with the nature of short violin transcriptions as virtuoso encores. A comparison of my transcription of Stravinsky’s Tango with
Dushkin's reveals the tricky balance between fidelity to the original music and originality in showcasing the new instrument.
Several factors distinguish Stravinsky’s violin writing from other composers of transcriptions and other Russian composers. These are his rejection of the Romantic and especially German Romantic style, his unfamiliarity with the violin, his embrace of Neue
Sachlichkeit and eventually Neoclassicism, and his disdain for superficial virtuoso effects. As a result, we find that his early writing abounds with awkward techniques, and a nontraditional use of chords, pizzicato, and harmonics. His collaboration with Dushkin allowed him to develop a deeper understanding of the violin’s capabilities, allowing him to experiment with new techniques in the Violin Concerto in D and its transcriptions, such as octave displacement and polyphony. The late transcriptions even show some of the virtuoso elements, such as expressive glissandi, that he criticized in other encore pieces. Though Stravinsky wished to avoid Kreisler’s violin writing style, he is a composer much like Kreisler—a composer who succeeded in absorbing a variety of distinct styles into his own.
43
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45 Tango Igor Stravinsky Arr. Lena Seeger Vln.
con sordino Pno. Violin p Piano p non stacc. Vln.
4 Vln. Pno. Pno.
Vln. senza sord. 7 Vln. mp Pno. Pno. p sf
11 Vln. Vln. mf Pno. mf Pno.
2 14 Vln. p Pno. p
18 Vln. Pno. 22 Vln. f Pno. f
26 Vln. Pno.
2 29 Vln. Pno.
32 Vln. p Pno. p
35 Vln. Pno. 38 Vln. Pno.
3 41 Trio Vln. Pno.
45 Vln. Pno. f 49 Vln. f Pno. 52 Vln. Pno.
4 55 Vln. f p mp Pno. f p p
58 Vln. Pno.
61 Vln. mf Pno. mf
64 Vln. Pno.
5 68 Vln. Pno.
72 Vln. pp Pno. p
75 pizz. Vln. Pno.
78 Vln. Pno.
5 6