Renard (Stravinsky)

.

The full Russian name of the piece is: "Ба́йка про лису́, петуха́, кота́, да барана́. Весё́лое представле́ние с пе́нием и му́зыкой" – (Bayka pro lisu, petukha, kota da barana. Vesyoloe predstavlenie s peniem i muzykoi – The Fable of the Vixen, the Cock, the Cat and the Ram. A burlesque for the stage with singing and music).

Details about the score

Publication: Geneva: A. Henn, ©1917; London: J. & W. Chester, ©1917; Vienna: Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag. ©1917; (as "Bajka: veseloe predstavlenie s peniem i muzykaj") Moscow: Muzyka, 1973.

French translation by C. F. Ramuz. German translation by Rupert Koller. English translation by H. Myers.

Duration 20 minutes.

Dedication: “Très respectueusement dédié a Madame la Princesse Edmond de Polignac”

History of creation

In April 1915 Winnaretta Singer, aka la Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Stravinsky a piece that could be played in her salon. She paid the composer 2,500 Swiss francs. The work was completed in Morges (Switzerland)in 1916, and Stravinsky himself made a staging plan, trying to avoid any resemblance to the operatic staging or conventions. He created rather a new form of theatre in which the acrobatic dance is connected with singing, and the declamation comments on the musical action. However the piece was never performed in the salon of the princess. It was not staged until 1922.

coring

Singers: 2 tenors, 2 basses

Ensemble: flute (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling cor anglais), clarinet (doubling Eb clarinet), bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, percussion (timpani, triangle, tambourine with bells, tambourine without bells, cylindrical drum, cymbals, bass drum), cimbalom (or piano), 2 violins, viola, cello and double-bass.

Premiere

May 18, 1922. Ballets Russes, Théâtre de l’Opéra, Paris. Conductor: Ernest Ansermet. Choreography: Bronislava Nijinska. Decorations and costumes: Mikhail Larionov.

Other sources indicate 2 June as the date of the premiere. [ [http://www.festival-aix.com/index.php?Page=les_trois_operas Festival d'Aix en Provence : 1948-2008 ] ]

Plot

This is a moralizing story, a farmyard fairy tale about Reynard the Fox who deceives the Cock, the Cat and the Ram, but at the end they catch and punish her. The Cock is twice tricked and captured by the Fox, only to be rescued each time by the Cat and the Ram. After the Cock's second rescue, the Cat and the Ram strangle the Fox, and the three friends dance and sing. It also contains a slight irony relating to religion and the church – to be invulnerable the Fox wears the black gown of the nun (nuns used the privilege of inviolability in Russia).

As later in his "Les noces" (or Russian:"Свадебка", 1914-17) Stravinsky employs here the singers as part of the orchestra, and the vocal parts are not identified with specific characters.

core and music sample

Stravinsky developed here the original of composition that was almost unknown in the European classical tradition, however was always typical for the folk music. The main features of this are the stubborn repetition of small and simple melodic phrases (called in Russian «попевки» – popevki), played in a syncopated rhythm, with an irregular meter (changing the time signature almost in every bar); the multi-voiced texture is not a real polyphony, but rather a heterophony, that represents monophony or so to say “ragged unison”, where the melody of one instrument is accompanied and embellished with the fragments of the same melody. Here is the most telling example:

Recordings

*Stravinsky, Igor. "The Complete Edition", Volume 1, Sony Classical SM3K46291
*Stravinsky, Igor. "Orchestral music. Ballets ; Stage works ; Orchestral works"/ Stravinsky. London : Decca
*Stravinsky the Composer. "Two Suites, Four Etudes, etc"./Robert Craft. Music Masters 67110-2

Notes

Bibliography

*Stravinsky, Igor. "Renard: Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / The Fox: A burlesque in song and dance / Reinecke: Gesungene und Gespielte Burleske", miniature score, text in Russian, French, and German. London: J. & W. Chester Ltd., 1917.
* Stravinsky , Igor. "Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons". English translation by Arthur Knodell and Ingolf Dahl, preface by George Seferis. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1939-40. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947. Reprinted, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970, ISBN 0-674-67855-9. Originally published in French, as "Poétique musicale sous forme de six leçons". The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1939-1940. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942.
* Stravinsky , Igor, and Robert Craft, "Conversations with Stravinsky". Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980 (©1959). ISBN 0-520-04040-6
* Stravinsky , Igor, "An Autobiography". New York: W. W. Norton, 1998 (©1936). ISBN 0-393-31856-7 (Originally published New York: Simon & Schuster). [Ghostwritten by Walter Nouvel]

External links

* [http://www.chesternovello.com/default.aspx?TabId=2432&State_2907=2&workId_2907=7868 at Chester]