Folklore & Fable

On the one hand, Ravel’s considerable talent and intellect could be satirical and probing—and somewhat ambiguous–as  in La valse.  On the other, his Mother Goose Suite will reveal yet another aspect of his penchant for reinterpretation of time-honored musical traditions.  Ravel took pleasure in the companionship of animals and children, and enjoyed reading fairy tales to Mimi and Jean Godebski, children of his close friends.  In 1910 he composed a piano duet for the young children based upon a few of these stories and orchestrated the suite the next year. The various movements of Mother Goose Suite are based upon versions of traditional tales as told by three well-known French authors.  Ravel is likely the most adroit of those who orchestrate, or adapt for orchestra, music originally written for piano or other instruments.  His version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is certainly the best known, and he was wont to orchestrate his own keyboard works, as well.  What is most intriguing about this suite is the way in which very simple textures for young pianists assume a marvelously profound quality under the expert pen of Ravel the orchestrator—no obvious vestige of the original medium is palpable. While conceived in a refined, accessible, and modest style, the various movements exhibit Ravel’s sophisticated use of “exotic” musical materials, including pentatonic scales (the black keys on the piano) and quartal harmonies (chords made of stacked fourths—not the usual thirds). 

His mastery of orchestral sound is aptly illustrated by the flute and harp of Sleeping Beauty; the plaintive English horn of Tom Thumb after the birds (woodwinds) have eaten his trail of crumbs; and the exotic (and perhaps clichéd by now) music of the little Chinese empress and her orchestra of tiny dolls.  In the Beauty and the Beast (clarinet and bassoon, respectively), the transformation of the Beast into the Prince is easy to spot in the solo violin and harp passage.  The Fairy Garden begins simply, perhaps as an extension of the mood of the previous, happy moments, and grows into a luminous celebration of its subject. 

Aaron Copland is a man who is hard to pin down.  Clearly America’s most well-known and respected “classical” composer, he was the creator of some of the country’s most beloved compositions that brought the “American” style to the concert hall.  Yet, for all that, he was a musician with a remarkably broad range of personal interests and musical styles.  His deep intellect and discerning tastes probed and were influenced by about all of the important composers and approaches to composition of the twentieth century.  He spent time in his early maturity in France, where he immersed himself in the European musical avant-garde; he was interested in and was influenced by jazz; he maintained a life-long interest in the music of Latin America; he participated fully in the burgeoning interest on the part of the arts community in American folk elements and nationalism during the 1930s and 40s; and later in his life explored the dissonant musical idioms of the European avant-garde, yet again.  But, he was not an artistic chameleon, rather a man who saw vitality, authenticity, and artistic possibilities in most of what his probing mind and “big” ears encountered. 

During the Great Depression difficult economic conditions, as well as other political and social factors, led American artists to ally themselves with public intellectuals in a variety of sectors in celebrating and promulgating the American common experience.  It was perhaps the dominating artistic paradigm of the times, and even today remnants may be seen in such unexpected places as Post Office lobbies where the WPA commissioned murals on populist themes.   Copland’s compositions from this time—the ballet, Billy the Kid (1939); Our Town (1940); Fanfare for the Common Man (1942); and A Lincoln Portrait (1942)—all are signature works of the man and the era.  And in the same fecund year as the latter two works came the ballet, Rodeo.  

The American choreographer, Agnes de Mille, was commissioned in that year by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (then in the US) for a ballet on cowboy themes of the American west.  She responded with an apparently simple story:  Awkward Cowgirl strives for the affections of the Head Wrangler, who is more interested in the winsome and feminine Rancher’s Daughter.  She tries to be a “real cowboy” by competing with the men on their own grounds, but only attracts the attention of the Champion Roper.  Finally, she wins the day with the Head Wrangler by revealing her femininity and donning a dress for the Hoedown. 

The first movement—“Buckaroo Holiday”—begins energetically, followed by subdued music for the cowgirl.  Real galloping rodeo music ensues, followed shortly by the big entrance of the boisterous cowboys, accompanied by the traditional “Sis Joe” railroad tune.  “If He’d be a Buckaroo” figures prominently along with “Sis Joe” as the movement develops.  The second movement is quiet reflection by the cowgirl, entitled “Corral Nocturne,” in which she considers her frustration at failing to impress the men, and her love interest, specifically.  Gentle woodwind solos accompany her contemplation of awkwardness.   “Saturday Night Waltz” brings all the principals together in a social showdown to the tune of “I Ride an Old Paint.”  The Cowgirl loses the affection wars to the Rancher’s Daughter and is left with the Champion Roper.  Finally, the exuberant and familiar last movement—“Hoedown”—comes, opening with a literal quotation by Copland of the fiddle tune, “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” made famous by the Kentucky fiddler, William Stepp, in a 1937 Library of Congress recording.  Other traditional songs heard are “McLeod’s Reel” and “Gilderoy,” as the Cowgirl finally wins her man, the Head Wrangler, at the big dance. 

–Wm. E. Runyan 

It would be difficult, indeed, to posit a composer whose artistic achievement and influence on the direction of music during the twentieth century exceeded that of Igor Stravinsky.  Moving through a series of explorations of different styles of composition, his works consistently exhibited a remarkable seriousness of purpose, solid musical integrity, and benchmark imagination.  What is more, his genius made its mark early—there are almost no compositions that we can label “journeyman” or “youthful apprentice works.”  Born into a musical, middleclass family, he studied law and music theory and composition (on the side) simultaneously.  By his mid-twenties he had begun to concentrate on music, rather than law, and had composed only a few works that were heard publicly.  But, that led to his historic encounter with Sergei Diaghilev.  

The cutting edge of the ballet world for most of the early twentieth century was clearly the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev in Paris and Monte Carlo.  Under the artistic leadership of Diaghilev, this company was responsible for the creation of artistic works whose influence continues unabated today.  Diaghilev was peerless in his ability to select and recruit the crème de la crème of the European artistic community in his productions.  Just a of few of the veritable who’s who of artists include dancers, Pavlova, Nijinsky, Fokine, and Balanchine; the choreographer, Petipa; conductors, Pierre Monteux and Ernest Ansermet, designers, Picasso, Bakst, Braque, Coco Chanel, Matisse, Miró, Dalí—well, you get the idea.  Which makes it all the more remarkable that, for the first season of ballet (he had started out a few years earlier with art exhibitions and opera) Diaghilev chose the relatively unknown Igor Stravinsky.  In 1909 Diaghilev had attended a concert in St. Petersburg, where two of the young composer’s few works were performed.  Thoroughly impressed, Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to provide music for the 1910 ballet season in Paris. 

 The young Stravinsky had been a protégé of the famous Rimsky-Korsakov, master teacher, composer of operas, and one of the most adroit orchestrators in musical history.   The latter is key to understanding much of the musical style of Stravinsky’s three ballets, for Rimsky-Korsakov’s sparkling evocation of Russian picturesque images through challenging and imaginative scoring for the orchestra leads directly from the older composer to his student.  The dazzling orchestral color of both master and student was quintessential Russian and perfect for the exotic Russian story that Diaghilev had in mind for his inaugural season.  

The story, assembled by the designer, Alexandre Benois and the choreographer, Michel Fokine, was an amalgam of several different Russian folktales and themes, but the most prominent elements were the mythical Firebird and the evil magician Kashchei. The myth of the Firebird, whose feathers flow with iridescent luminosity, varies considerably in details in the various cultures in which the story occurs.  It has magical powers; sometimes it serves good, other times not.  The magician Kashchei, on the other hand, is irredeemably evil, can only be killed by possessing his soul, which improbably, is hidden inside a needle in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a rabbit in an iron chest buried under a green oak tree on an island.  Whew!   All of these exotic elements are woven into a more or less new story for the ballet, and Stravinsky was more than prepared to provide the impressively evocative music.  The première was in Paris in June of 1910 and was an instant success.  The music, the choreography, the dancing, the sets, and the costumes were uniformly praised, and our hero, Igor, was on his way.   Few great composers have started out with such acclaim.  It did not take long for Stravinsky to extract from the score to the ballet a suite for concert performance. Later, others emerged, and they have gone on to become evergreen concert favorites. 

Our story is archetypical; a beautiful princess is kidnapped by an evil villain, and is rescued by a brave prince with help of the magical Firebird.   The ballet opens in Kashchei the Immortal’s magical realm; Prince Ivan enters and soon spots the luminous Firebird.  He observes thirteen captured princesses, who are dancing a round dance, and, of course, immediately falls in love with one of them.   The evil Kashchei rebuffs the Prince’s request for his chosen one’s release, and a fracas ensues, with Kashchei’s grotesque minions in the attack on the Prince.  The Firebird intervenes, casts a spell over Kashchei’s followers, and they are compelled to dance frenetically.   They ultimately collapse into sleep to a lullaby, but soon Kashchei awakens and another dance ensues.  The Firebird tells the Prince how to slay Kashchei by destroying the giant egg in which his soul resides.  He does so; the whole evil kingdom, Kashchei, and his magic all disappear.  The sun breaks forth, and a general celebratory apotheosis triumphs. 

Stravinsky, in 1911, 1919, and 1945, extracted three somewhat different suites, respectively, from the score of the whole ballet.  That of 1919 is most commonly performed.  There are five major excerpts, beginning with the eerie low strings that depict Kashchei’s evil, magical realm.  The Firebird soon appears, after a flashy paroxysm in the strings.  Virtuoso figurations in the woodwinds and harp glissandi paint the dancing Firebird and his glowing feathers, ending the first section.  A solo flute leads to the round dance of the Princesses, with elegant solos in the woodwinds and strings.  It’s all appropriately composed of simple melodies and harmonies, far from the chromatic complexities of Kashchei and his magic.  The third section is the famous “Infernal Dance,” wherein snarling brass, with angular, jagged motifs, punctuate the whole orchestra’s pounding, insistent rhythms—which constantly confuse with their metric displacements.  It all accelerates to a total, dramatic collapse.  The ensorcelled evil ones then sleep to the lullaby of the “Berceuse,” opening with the famous languid bassoon solo.  A lush, romantic texture gradually ends with sinking string tremolos that lead to the inevitable Finale.  The solo horn dramatically intones an evocation of the arrival of the sun and the triumph of good over evil. The whole orchestra takes up its tune, accompanied by slow, rising scales, and finally pounding brass chords lead to the grand peroration.   The ending is immortal, of course, and the world now was put on notice of the spectacular début and genius of the young Russian.  As Debussy is reputed to have wryly remarked, “Well, you’ve got to start somewhere.” 

–Wm. E. Runyan