Mimi Harding

Igor Stravinsky’s Three Musical Periods

March 18th, 2017

The Russian Period (1907-1920):

In his autobiography, Igor Stravinsky writes of two early musical memories:

“An enormous peasant… would begin to sing. This song was composed of two syllables, the
only ones he could pronounce. They were devoid of any meaning, but he made them alternate
with incredible dexterity in a very rapid tempo… Another memory which often comes back is
the singing of the women of the neighboring village. There were a great many of them, and
regularly every evening they sang in unison on their way home after the day’s work. To this day
I clearly remember the tune, and the way they sang it…”

Stravinsky’s works in the Russian period are inspired by these memories with a heavy

presence of characteristically native folk themes, but this period also alludes to unique

developments in the rest of his compositional career. Stravinsky’s two orchestral works Scherzo

fantastique and Fireworks were written the year his mentor, Rimsky-Korsakov died. Scherzo

fantastique is an example of the composers’ shared interest in octatonic pitch relationships.

Fireworks, contrastingly shows Stravinsky’s preference for the absence of tonal progression. The

simultaneous premier of these pieces brought Sergey Diaghilev’s attention to the overnight

rockstar, Igor Stravinsky.

Diaghilev invited Stravinsky to join the Ballets Russes, a close collaboration of Russia’s

major artists. Stravinsky’s involvement with the company provided the resources needed to

execute a large, detailed and meaningful production. This vision of a production can be

compared to Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk. Choreographer Michel Fokine, costume/set designer

Aleksandr Golovin, and Stravinsky brought L’Oiseau de Feu (The Firebird) to life in 1910; the
first of three ballets Stravinsky composed with the company. The ballet is set in the garden of the

evil wizard, Kostchei. Golovin designed a heavy symbolist set and incorporated traditional

Slavic festival wear as costumes but Diaghilev ultimately commissioned new sets and costumes

for the ballet’s revival in 1926. This score arguably remains Stravinsky’s most popular because it

adheres to traditional melodic developments. He associates chromaticism with supernatural

elements in the Russian fairytale Michel Fokine used as the ballet’s libretto. The introduction

employs abrupt alternating of contrasting material. This behavior of seemingly unfinished

segments is similar to techniques used in film. Stravinsky takes this approach to coordinate

musical, spatial, and visual elements successfully. This planning conceived a new musical

structure that would later be influential for atonal works. The last of these ballets, La Sacre (The

Rite of Spring) caused Stravinsky to become the age’s most widely recognized composer. His

work in these scores exists in context of the new type of tonality he was exploring. His orchestral

and compositional approaches manipulated “fixed” musical elements of tonal contexts and

melodic modules into new ideas and techniques particularly of rhythm.

After having lived his whole life in Russia, Stravinsky was exiled to Western Europe

during the Russian Revolution in 1917. This displacement coincides with a transition of his

stylistic orientation. The separation from his homeland, however reinforces the influence of

Russian folk in his music. Diaghilev attempted to revive the Ballet Russes after the war but

Stravinsky’s recent independence made him uninterested.

The Neo-Classical Period (1920-1954):

 The structural styles of Stravinsky’s neoclassical pieces contradict the rhythmic

juxtaposition and static harmonic progressions written during the Russian period. The

‘primitiveness’ that he draws from Russian folklore in La Sacre is replaced with little thematic

background at all but is still compositionally assertive. He treats a music type as an object which

allows him to manipulate the music into an original idea. This period marks Stravinsky’s

exploration combining classicism and contemporary practices. He was intrigued by Diaghilev’s

idea to refer to 18th century composer, Pergolesi and characters of the Commedia dell’arte. This

resulted in his Pulcinella in 1920, a modern ballet whose composition Stravinsky believes “was

my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became

possible.” This discovery is responsible for Stravinsky’s stride to return to significant past

musics by modeling their compositional techniques in creating contemporary music. Octet for

Winds is the beginning of a series of works that would popularize the neoclassical genre

widespread. Pulcinella is modeled on actual pieces of classical (sometimes baroque) composers

but his Octet for Winds in 1923 only uses general classical characteristics to become a

completely original work of Stravinsky’s. His time spent in Western Europe familiarized him

with Western musical tradition and guided his composition approach to consider standard

classical forms. It is true that after the Octet, he chose primarily Western sources to model his

compositions from. The first movement of his Octet is symmetrical and similar to sonata form.

The second and third movements are theme and variations and a rondo. His neoclassical works,

including the Octet emphasize limits rather than excess. This is evident in Stravinsky’s

orchestration decision in the Octet. His vision was that those instruments be able to uniquely use

independent objective elements in creating the classical forms he had modeled the work off of.

The Octet was secretly dedicated to Vera Soudeikine, a lover of Stravinsky’s.

 Stravinsky’s esthetic can be described as art about art. He uses all of music history as

subject matter for contemporary commentary. He stresses that his music (and all music) is not

merely expressive but instead a poetic statement of musical experiences. He introduced these

new musical ideas with the premiere of his Octet for Winds. Stravinsky believed music to only

establish an order, rather than having the power to express. This reinforced his approach to music

being segmented objects able to be altered not by a specific style but instead by limits of

convention. We can compare this to cubism painting because of the shared alternative

perceptions of “conventional reality”. Stravinsky’s abstract, manipulated units are configured

into a recognizable, traditional form.

The Serial Period (1954-1968):

Stravinsky’s work with serialism differs from Schoenberg’s. He considered the twelve-

tone method to exist only scientifically and did not believe that this method made genuine art.

Stravinsky generated tone rows by intentional decision. He admits to chosing intervals “attracted

by tonality” which challenges Schoenberg’s approach that avoids putting the music in any

particular key. Observing the intensity of serialism in the pieces of this period, we notice that

Stravinsky becomes more willing to adhere to the restrictions of serial methods. Early works in

this period have strong tonal orientations and Stravinsky ignores some of the restrictions he finds

to be unmoral but he adheres to standard forms of serialism. The first piece he employs a twelve-

tone row in is his ballet, Agon (1957). Choreographer, Balanchine commissioned the piece in

hopes of connecting dances of important history, including the present. The ballet uses twelve

dancers who reflect the twelve-tone row in the score. This collaboration and continued
relationship with Balanchine proves Stravinsky’s appreciation for art and his devotion to create

art about art. Stravinsky begins Agon in a tonal center, travels to an atonal area sometimes

attempting to combine tonality with the serialism, and finishes with the piece’s original tonal

anchor, C. His intentions while composing the ballet are to create an absolute music but in a new

way; using serial methods. We can even observe a compromise between serial and tonal writing

in this piece by hearing Stravinsky’s blending of the techniques.

With Schoenberg’s death in 1951, Stravinsky was able to approach serialism the way he

did any music of the past. His entire life, Stravinsky welcomed foreign elements to inspire his

compositional approach but his musical contributions remained distinctively Stravinskian with

an audible importance of tonality, the dialogue of polarizing segments, and rhythmic capabilities.