Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, The Firebird, premiered on June 25, 1910. Stravinsky was just twenty-seven years old at the time. Stravinsky was hired by Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes Company of Paris, France, to compose the ballet. Michel Fokine was in charge of the choreography used in The Firebird. This work is an example of how tradition and innovation can come together to create a piece, which has withstood the test of time. Such aspects as its use of melody, harmony, and rhythm create a sound which is distinctly Russian.
In general, the music follows traditions set by past composers, but at the same time it is able to bring originality. The biggest influences on The Firebird were Russian composers, such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Pyotr Ilrich Tchaikovsky. The form of the ballet is where Tchaikovsky’s footprint is most noticeable. The action of the story is pushed forward by the dance sequences, which also serve to tie the piece together.
The melody is reminiscence of Russian folksong through its use of diatonic and modal melodic lines. While The Firebird does use chromaticism throughout, the bulk of the Russian folksong elements are still harmonized diatonically. By doing this, Stravinsky is following the mold already set by nineteenth century composers, such as Rimsky-Korsakov. Stravinsky’s treatment of these Russian folksongs can still be considered more forward-thinking than Rimsky-Korsakov’s despite the influence that Rimsky-Korsakov had on Stravinsky. These diatonically harmonized passages are based on major scales; and thus, are tonal in nature. The aforementioned themes are used to represent the human elements of the ballet, such as the music for Ivan Tsarevich, who is the hero of the story, a...
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Works Cited
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The Five, The Mighty Handful, and The New Russian School all depict the five Russian composers who came together in 1856-57 in St Petersburg. Their ultimate goal was to portray and produce a Russian style of music , and this is exactly what they would accomplish. Though one of "The Five" goes farther than this with his works, this being Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky was a composer born march 21st 1839, with one of the most controversial names and spellings of a name. He was born to wealthy land owners and was raised for the military life. Studying piano at a young age in St. Petersburg, then later arriving at a cadet school.
Peyser, J. (1986) The Orchestra: Origins and Transformations. New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons. Sadie, S. (1980) New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
While Tchaikovsky is known for his compositions of classical ballet, he was overall great as a pianist. Like most composers of music, his compositions reflected that of his feelings greatly, which helped him connect to the public and spread his music quite well. As a child, he became better than his teacher in one year, and at the age of ten went to the School of Jurisprudence and quickly completed the upper division classes. After graduating, he did four years at the Ministry of Justice, which didn’t really suite him well. Once out of the Ministry of Justice in the 1860s, he joined the Music Conservatory at the age of 22. Shortly after joining, he composed his first orchestral score in 1864. Two years later, he settled down in Moscow and started to increase his fame as a composer. In the following years he would tour around Europe and even into the United States. In 1893, six days after the premiere of his last piece he
The dynamic levels at the beginning were in piano, but it did not stay that way, there were changes in the sound there were crescendos and decrescendos but mostly toward the end. The harmony was very polyphonic it had many sounds play at one and the texture was also thick it had many layers of sounds because of the number of instruments and the variety of instruments playing simultaneously. The instruments played in this composition were strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion like, cello, flute, French horn, and timpani and they for the tone color the instruments did have a high pitch range. The form for this was theme and variation because he had a theme and variation he took the melody and used it over and over and over again by changing different elements. Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 16 rhythm was a medium walking pace and the steady beat was recognizable. For dynamics, the composition started off mezzo and had changed where it was forte and had crescendos. The melody seemed to be in minor scale
This paper discusses the artist, Leon Bakst and his influences in the Ballet Russe as a costume and scenic designer and analyses its significant social message (political message, or etc.) as related to its time period.
Schwartz, Boris. Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1981. 2nd edition. Indiana University Press, 1983.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the author of six symphonies and the finest and most popular operas in the Russian repertory. Tchaikovsky was also one of the founders of the school of Russian music. He was a brilliant composer with a creative imagination that helped his career throughout many years. He was completely attached to his art. His life and art were inseparably woven together. "I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote, "for as soon as one piece of work is finished and one would wish to relax, I desire to tackle some new work without delay." The purpose of this paper is to give you a background concerning Tchaikovsky's biography, as well as to discuss his various works of art.
The debut of The Firebird took place on June 25, 1910. The Firebird took place at the Paris Opera House. The Firebird was dedicated to Rimsky-Korsakov. The conductor of The Firebird was Gabriel Pierne. People loved The Firebird, it became popular and blew up instantly. The popularity of The Firebird pushed Stravinsky into the spotlight and brought him in direct contact with other composers such as, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and others. In June 1915, Stravinsky came out as a conductor, leading an orchestra in The Firebird in Paris. In the summer of 1910, Stravinsky moved his family to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he began work on Petrushka, a story involving a magician and three puppets. Petrushka was completed on May 26, 1911, and opened on June 13, at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris. Petrushka and The Firebird established Stravinsky's reputation in every major city; the art world awaited his next move with
In the passage by Igor Stravinsky, he uses not only comparison and contrast, but also language to convey his point of view about the conductors of the time and their extreme egotism. Stravinsky believes that conductors exploit the music for their own personal gain, so rather, he looks on them in a negative light.
David Fanning and Laurel Fay. "Shostakovich, Dmitry." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 14 Apr. 2012 .
D”. This use of sound is also seen in pantomime 2 where he asks the
Elements of this piece that helped shape a new musical language for thee twentieth – century would consist of Stravinsky experimenting with rhythm and new combinations of instruments. The way he uses dissonance in his pieces as well polyphonic and polytonal textures. His ballets were strongly nationalistic but contained rites of Russia in ancient times. On the opening night of The Rite of Spring, he caused a riot to ensue because it wasn’t like a regular ballet, it was totally different. It consisted of no ballet dancing at all, but more of a chant dance, the different melodies and the change in dissonance caused the ballet to be viewed as a frightening experience to some. Spring is something that is viewed as beautiful, light, loving and this ballet showed none of this, from the point of view of those who attended that night.
Gutmann, Peter. “Igor Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring.” Classical Notes. 2002. Web. 17 September 2011.
Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Romantic Russian composer who lived from 1873 to 1943. He experienced many tragedies in his life and suffered with melancholia for many years, but as a musician he has written some of the most powerful pieces of the Romantic period and is known as one of the most legendary pianists of all time. Rachmaninoff was also one of the most focused and hard-working composers, and because of his disciplined ways he was able to travel and perform all over Europe and America in his lifetime, becoming very famous, though he was always doubtful of himself and his abilities. But how did he come to recognize his musical talent? What is his music like that it is so famous? Who influenced him and who in turn did he influence?
As a youth he reluctantly studied law, as much bore by it as Schumann had been, and even became a petty clerk in the Ministry of Justice. But in his early twenties he rebelled, and against his family's wishes had the courage to throw himself into the study of music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was a ready improviser, playing well for dancing and had a naturally rich sense of harmony, but was so little schooled as to be astonished when a cousin told him it was possible to modulate form any key to another. He went frequently to the Italian operas which at that time almost monopolized the Russian stage, and laid t...