Rsno Stravinsky Symphony in c Note Apr 2016

8 Stravinsky’s Symphony in C
Symphony in C
IGOR STRAVINSKY
BORN 1882, Lomonosov, Russia
DIED 1971, New York, USA
FIRST PERFORMED 7 November 1940,
Chicago, USA, by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Stravinsky
DURATION 30 minutes
1 Moderato alla breve

2 Larghetto concertante –
3 Allegretto
4 Largo
Stravinsky and the symphony

Many composers have poured some of
their profoundest music into major series of
symphonies – just think of Haydn, Mozart
and Beethoven, or in more recent times
Mahler, Bruckner or Shostakovich, or even
Peter Maxwell Davies. For one of the 20th
century’s most influential composers,
however, Igor Stravinsky had an unusual and
rather cautious relationship with that most
fundamental of classical forms. That’s hardly
surprising, of course, from a figure who made Which leaves us with just his Symphony in
an indelible mark early on with a striking trio C and Symphony in Three Movements, both
of unforgettable ballet scores, culminating in of which are performed in tonight’s concert
the unbridled violence of The Rite of Spring in – his two most traditional symphonies,
1913 (which the RSNO plays next week). although even here Stravinsky takes his
notoriously iconoclastic perspective on this
There’s a student symphony: Stravinsky wrote traditional form.
an attractive early Symphony in E flat in 1907
while studying with Rimsky-Korsakov, but it’s Can music express anything?
hardly representative of his pioneering later He’s notorious, too, for his pronouncements
music. His Symphonies of Wind Instruments on musical expression. He wrote in his 1936
of 1920 only really counts as a symphony in autobiography: ‘Music is, by its very nature,
the word’s literal sense of ‘sounding together’, essentially powerless to express anything
and his 1930 Symphony of Psalms is a sacred at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind,
choral work (it’s even been suggested that a psychological mood, a phenomenon of
Stravinsky only called it a symphony when his nature, etc. Expression has never been an
publisher reminded him that that’s what he’d inherent property of music. That is by no
been commissioned to write). means the purpose of its existence.’
Scotland’s National Orchestra 9
Whether he really believed that or not – and he Not for nothing has it been described as a
later attempted to clarify things by explaining ‘cubist portrait of a symphony’, as though
he was referring to a musical work never simply everything’s there and in the right place,
acting as a diary of a composer’s feelings but we seem to be looking at it all from
– there can be few works that epitomise a unexpected angles.
disconnect between life and music better than
his breezy, neo-classical Symphony in C, written After a nervy introduction with a distinctive
at one of the darkest, most turbulent times of repeated-note theme, the first movement’s
Stravinsky’s life. first main melody is on a solo oboe, put
through all manner of rhythmic inventiveness
He composed the Symphony between 1938 before a snapped loud chord leads to the
and 1940, to a commission from Mrs Robert second main melody, a slow-moving theme
Woods Bliss, wife of a prominent US diplomat on solo trumpet, taken up by horn. The
who had commissioned his Dumbarton Oaks central development section tosses both
Concerto in 1937. At the same time, however, themes around between the orchestra
Stravinsky lost his wife Catherine and daughter sections, with fragments jostling for our
Ludmila to tuberculosis, followed quickly by his attention, before a traditional recapitulation
own diagnosis with the disease and the death returns to both of the opening themes, with
of his mother. Then World War Two forced him decisive chords bringing the movement to a
to leave Europe for the US – not as a refugee, sonorous close.
however. He’d been booked to give a lecture
series at Harvard University, followed by a Stravinsky called the second movement
performance tour, and he eventually settled an aria, and its intricately ornamented
in Beverly Hills with Vera de Bosset (with oboe melody looks straight back to Bach’s
whom he’d been having an affair since 1921), cantatas and passions. After a more agitated,
marrying her in March 1940. The Symphony darker middle section, a brief reprise of the
in C charts this whole period: Stravinsky oboe melody brings the movement to a
completed the first and second movements sudden close.
in the Sancellemoz sanitorium in the French
Alps, where he’d been recovering from The third movement is an eager, propulsive
tuberculosis; he finished the third in Cambridge, scherzo full of ever-changing rhythms,
Massachusetts; and the fourth was wrapped up whose recurring theme is announced in
in Beverly Hills in August 1940. no uncertain terms right at the start, with
reprises separated by contrasting music.
The music A brooding melody for bassoons down in
Outwardly, the Symphony in C is one of the depths of their register launches the
Stravinsky’s most traditional works, a prime fierce, urgent fourth movement, and just
example of the elegant, neo-classical when things seem to be building to a final
style that he’d been exploring since the climax, Stravinsky brings back the repeated-
1920s, looking back unashamedly to the note theme from the very beginning of the
music of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven. Symphony, ushering in a quiet, reflective
With its frequently astringent harmonies ending on inconclusive, jazzy chords.
and predictably unpredictable rhythms,
however, it’s Stravinsky through and through. © David Kettle, 2016

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8 Stravinsky’s Symphony in C

1 Moderato alla breve

Stravinsky and the symphony

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