Suite Italienne for cello and piano

Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne for cello and piano is one of the instrumental versions of the
composer’s ballet Pulcinella. Pulcinella is a ballet with singing, all in one act, written by Igor
Stravinsky between 1919 and 1920 based on the music of the early eighteenth-century Italian
composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. The original title is "Ballet avec chant" Pulchinella (Musique
d'après Pergolesi). It is the first important work of the author's neoclassical period.
The character of Pulcinella is one of the figures of the Italian "Commedia dell'arte"; with
Arlecchino, Brighella, Scapino and Scaramuccia it belongs to the type of the comic and a little silly
servant. Pulcinella, a typical character of the Neapolitan theater, is usually characterized as a not
very smart villager, who despite of it, sometimes also proves to be intelligent and a little rude; in
the ballet, however, the cheerful and burlesque element predominates.
The story of the ballet starts when Sergej Djagilev, during one of his trips to Italy, discovered
several manuscripts of Pergolesi's unfinished music at the Conservatory of Naples; he then copied
and added them to others that he found at the British Museum in London. He also found at the
National Library of Naples sketches of comedies from the 1700s which all had Pulcinella as
protagonist. Back in Paris, he proposed to Stravinsky to examine those manuscripts to re-
orchestrate them and create a ballet out of them. When the composer came to know that it was
Pergolesi’s music, he was initially very perplexed; he knew only "La serva padrona" and "Stabat
Mater" of Pergolesi and he didn’t consider his music fit for purpose. However, when he examined
the scores found by Djagilev he was fascinated and he convinced himself of making the ballet. The
impresario also contacted Leonide Massine for the choreography and Pablo Picasso for the scenes,
the costumes and the curtain. Stravinsky researched all the music of Pergolesi he had available
and made a selection of the songs. The collaboration between the three artists was not easy, since
everyone tried to make changes to the work according to their personality and often the
disagreements ended in stormy quarrels. Anyway, after endless discussions the three artists
managed to solve the problems. Stravinsky finished the score in Biarritz on the 20 th of April 1920
and the first performance took place at the Opéra in Paris on the 15 th of May of the same year
under the orchestral direction of Ernest Ansermet.
The manuscripts found by Djagilev included actually three works, "Lo frate 'nnamorato" (1732),
"Adriano in Siria" (1734), "Il Flaminio" (1735) and some sonatas for two violins and basso continuo.
At the time it was thought that all those pieces were written by Pergolesi, but actually many are
part of a large number of fakes written by other authors and passed for authentic after the death
of Pergolesi. In fact, recently, after careful philological research, it has been discovered that only
eight of Pulcinella's pieces are authentic, while the others are works from Domenico Gallo, Unico
Wilhelm van Wassenaer and Alessandro Parisotti.
Stravinsky fell in love with that music, true or false, and as he progressed in their study, he
increasingly found a spiritual affinity with it. In those songs he was looking for the Neapolitan
verve, with a lively and compelling rhythm.
Stravinsky did not make any change to the melodic lines of Pergolesi's pieces; even the basses
remained unchanged. What changes substantially is the harmonic structure, the dissonance and
the polyharmony that make more biting the style of the music of the eighteenth-century. The
rhythm is also often broken by syncopations and accent shifts with typically Stravinsk’s
procedures. The instrumental aspect is instead totally innovative. The vocal roles do not
correspond to the characters on stage; the singers perform melodies in character, duets, trios,
serenades, interposed with the scenic action.
Stravinsky moves with Pulcinella on a very different terrain from his previous music, abandoning
the inspiring principle of the Russian popular tradition and placing the essence of his writing form
on the tradition of the past. "Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which
all my further work became possible. It was a look backwards, the first of many love adventures in
that direction". Stravinsky's statement underlines how from then on the revisiting of the past will
become the starting point of his works which will be later defined as neoclassical.
After the first version of Pergolesi’s music with Pulcinella Stravinsky wrote several orchestral and
instrumental suites. In the first suite for orchestra (1922) he reduced the parts from 18 to 8 and
totally eliminated the singers by replacing them with instruments. In 1925 he made a new version
for violin and piano with only five movements. In 1932, Stravinsky enlisted the aid of cellist Gregor
Piatigorsky to rework the earlier Suite into the Suite Italienne for cello and piano. The following
year, this time with the collaboration of violinist Samuel Dushkin, he wrote the second Italian suite
for violin and piano in six movements.
The charm of Pergolesi's melodies and the piquant flavor of Stravinsky's rewriting makes his Suite
Italienne one of his most enjoyable works and certainly the most popular of his works for
violin/cello and piano.