Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), L’Histoire du Soldat, Three pieces for clarinet solo Béla Bartók (1881-1945), Contrastes, Sonata for solo violin Béla Bartók, Contrastes for clarinet, violin and piano (1938) 1. Verbunkos 5’30 2. Pihenö 4’42 3. Sebes 6’56 Igor Stravinsky, Three pieces for clarinet solo (1919) 4. Molto tranquillo 2’19 5. [-] 1’09 6. [-] 1’28 Béla Bartók, Sonata for solo violin (1944) 7. Tempo di ciaccona 10’53 8. Fuga (risoluto, non troppo vivo) 5’05 9. Melodia (adagio) 7’30 10. Presto 5’57 Igor Stravinsky, L’Histoire du Soldat for violin, clarinet and piano (1919) 11. Marche du soldat 1’38 12. Le violon du soldat 2’35 13. Petit concert 2’54 14. Tango / Valse / Ragtime 6’27 15. Danse du diable 1’23 David Lefèvre, violin Florent Héau, clarinet Anne-Lise Gastaldi, piano ENGLISH – FRANÇAIS Contrasts When he wrote about learned music being enriched by traditional music, Bartók almost always cited Stravinsky as a major influence and predecessor. The Rite of Springhad a profound impact on Bartók and his contemporaries: Bartók felt its principles of composition showed the influence of Russian folk music. Stravinsky’s attraction to popular culture, however, was mainly literary: as a child he had immersed himself in the world of Russian folk tales in his father’s vast library. One of these tales, part of the Afanassiev collection, inspired Stravinsky during his Swiss exile in 1917 to write L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) with his friend the librettist Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz. Other works written in the same period (Les Noces, Pribaoutki, Renard and Les Berceuses du Chat) stemmed from musical sources, and in particular from the Kivievsky collection of popu- lar songs which Stravinsky had brought from Kiev. This group of works gave rise to the myth of Stravinsky’s Russian period, which is sometimes artificially contrasted with his Classical period. Bartók adopted a more thorough and scientific approach to traditional music. Starting in 1905, and for many years thereafter, he travelled the length and breadth of the Hungarian countryside with a phonograph, recording forgotten peasant songs which he later published in several vol- umes. Apart from these differences, the two composers are fundamentally similar. Far from making mere excursions into the picturesque – Stravinsky abhorred showy exoticism – their works were impregnated with traditional music that was used in their undertaking to renew learned music by rescuing it from post-romantic excess and liberating it from traditional fetters. Direct quoting of folk melodies is rare in both their works, and non-existent in The Soldier’s Tale. The way towards polyrhythm and polytonality for both composers was prepared, as Bartók put it, by a musical language developed from folk music, and treated as a sort of experimental substratum. The composers’ return to their roots was, paradoxically, a touchstone of their modernity. Neither claimed to have broken with learned traditions, however, and both were untouched by Schoen- berg’s twelve-tone revolution, apart from a few instances, on Stravinsky’s part, near the end of his life. Bachian influences are clear in Bartók’s Sonata for solo violin, and Stravinsky constantly referred to his musical forbears in his so-called Neoclassical period. Bartók and Stravinsky can both be defined in terms of contrast resolved through synthesis: contrast between the learned and the popular, between tradition and innovation, and between their native Eastern European music and the music of the west. To the term synthesis, which is an integral part of both composers’ works, can be added the short- lived influences which appeared inContrasts and The Soldier’s Tale: learned Western music and jazz. It is said that Stravinsky’s great friend Ansermet introduced jazz into Europe in 1917, and that the first jazz-band was formed not long thereafter. (Some critics have linked the jazz-band with the septet for which The Soldier’s Tale was originally written, but Stravinsky himself never alluded to such a connection.) Debussy had already used the cake-walk in his Children’s Corner, and it was Satie who first used ragtime in 1917 in Parade. Stravinsky read the score and attended a performance of Parade, and his interest in ragtime is apparent in The Soldier’s Tale (whose tango-waltz-ragtime sequence is a wonderful example of the aesthetic of contrast) as well as in two other contemporary works: Ragtime for eleven instruments (1918) and Piano Rag-Music (1919). It would be incorrect to state that Stravinsky became a jazz composer during this period: the rapport is a more subtle one, nicely defined by Stravinsky him- self when he called the works an attempt at a jazz portrait. Bartók’s contact with jazz came later and was more sporadic. Contrasts was commis- sioned by Benny Goodman (who also performed Stravinsky’s Three pieces for clarinet solo), and although Bartók was not enthusiastic about the order at first, he realised when listen- ing to Goodman’s trio recordings that he was dealing with a virtuoso who shared his own eclec- tic tastes. Goodman’s sophisticated rhythms, daring harmonies and varied, intense atmospheres revealed a type of music that resonated with Bartók’s. The titleContrasts does not only refer to the work’s unusual structure, and the piece’s hybrid nature is emblematic of Bartók’s entire career. Many of Stravinsky’s compositions could easily have been given the same name. Bertrand Schiro Translation: Marcia Hadjimarkos Stravinsky Stravinsky, like Webern, was a pioneer in this new way of composing, although his first impor- tant works in the area were the result of practical considerations. Stravinsky and his family were refugees in Switzerland during World War I, and it was then that he began to compose for small ensembles, especially in the theatrical works he wrote with Ramuz. The best example of this devel- opment is Les Noces (The Wedding). The work was written three times for groups of varying sizes, including a version for full orchestra and the definitive version which has come down to us. Similar considerations gave rise in 1917 to The Soldier’s Tale, which was composed for seven musi- cians in the least expensive way, as a kind of travelling theatre which could easily be moved from one place to another, as Stravinsky recalled in his Autobiography. The success ofThe Soldier’s Tale went beyond the theatre, as its 1919 and 1920 versions attest. The 1920 concert version included eight pieces from the original score, while the 1919 rendition for clarinet, violin and piano was written at the request of Werner Reinhart, the amateur clarinet player and patron who had financed the work’s performances in the theatre and to whom Stravinsky dedicated the wonderful Three pieces for clarinet solo, also in 1919. The abridged version included five pieces (“Marche du Soldat”, “Le Violon du Soldat”, “Petit concert”, “Tango / Valse / Ragtime” and “Danse du diable”) and was first performed in Lausanne on November 8, 1919. This arrangement contains some of the most memorable moments from Ramuz’ script, and is a sampler of Stravinsky’s finest writing. The Three pieces for clarinet solo were written in the same spirit as the above-mentioned three dances and the violin solo in The Soldier’s Tale. The first and second pieces were written for a clarinet in A; the third is for an instrument in B-flat. The triptych contains a slow first movement followed by two highly virtuosic and rapid ones. Stravinsky’s allusions to jazz and Gypsy music are well-adapted to the most agile of the wind instruments. Bartók Contrasts, written by Bartók in 1938, is similar to his two Rhapsodies for violin and piano of 1928 in both intention and spirit. It was at the suggestion of the violinist József Szigeti that the Ameri- can jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman commissioned the work from Bartók; the piece, inspired by traditional music, was to resemble the Rhapsodies in spirit and to have two parts, a quick Lassù followed directly by a slow Friss. Goodman also requested that the work last no longer than ten minutes, so it could be recorded on a 78 rpm disc. Bartók fulfilled these requirements only in a part: the work, completed in September, 1938 in Budapest, consisted of three movements. A preliminary version entitled Rhapsody for clarinet and violin and consisting of the first and third movements received its premier on January 9, 1939 at Carnegie Hall. The definitive version was performed in April, 1940 by Benny Goodman and József Szigeti with the composer at the piano, and was recorded the following month by the same musicians. Bartók’s mention of Contrasts in his correspondence as a work for clarinet, violin & piano clearly shows the respective roles he assigned the three instruments. The piano generally stays in the background, while the clarinet and violin are favoured with cadenzas at the end of the first and third movements. Bartók also took the sonorities of the two solo instruments into consideration: clarinets in A and B flat are required, and in the last movement the violin must be ‘mistuned’ in a scordatura fre- quently found in traditional music (G sharp-D-A-E flat). Like in the Rhapsodies, the opening and closing movements of Contrasts are based on traditional music: the Moderato, entitled “Verbunkos” (recruitment song), and the Allegro vivace, subtitled “Sebes” (quick), are both characterized by the use of modes and rhythmic formulas dear to Bartók (the so-called Bulgarian rhythms in the finale). The second movement, Lento, “Pihenö” (repose), is an original addition which in no way detracts from the piece’s original intentions.