Stravinsky: Technique and Theory, part 5

Taruskin has a long section discussing how Stravinky's Scherzo fantastique was inspired by an essay written by Maurice Maeterlinck in 1901 titled La vie des abeilles (The Life of the Bee). All references to Maeterlinck were later suppressed, likely to avoid a threatened lawsuit from the writer (ironically, much later Maeterlinck himself was accused of a classic example of academic plagiarism from the Afrikaner poet and scientist Eugène Marais). But despite that, Taruskin was able to trace quite a number of connections between the essay and the scherzo. I'm going to press ahead, however, as it is simply too time-consuming to relate all of the myriad details covered in Taruskin's book, though Stravinsky's obsessive focus on the octatonic and whole-tone collections should be mentioned. We do want to get to the Rite sooner or later!

Stravinsky's next piece, another symphonic scherzo, is the Fireworks that occupied him through the fall of 1908 and into the following year. The piece is both briefer than the Scherzo, and much more complex. One important element is a clash between the octatonic collection and the tonic scale of the key, E major--this is typified by the clash between the octatonic C natural and the diatonic C sharp. Here is Taruskin's example:

op. cit. p. 339

The harmonies are rich progressions of whole-tone formations and French sixths connected by chromatic chords that have no common-practice equivalents. Here is another example from Taruskin of chord forms in Fireworks and their linking elements:

op. cit. p. 342

Fireworks shows a remarkable progression for the young composer. As Taruskin summarizes:

In Fireworks, Stravinsky exploited to the very hilt the devices of harmony, texture, and orchestration he had learned from his teacher, but in no real sense did he go beyond them. True, the piece no longer sounds like Rimsky-Korsakov: the harmonies are more unremittingly complex; they are more varied; above all, the harmonic rhythm is quicker ... Fireworks is not "modern," merely up-to-date and therefore dated. It represents at its very limit the kind of petty artistic progress Rimsky-Korsakov stood for. [op. cit. p. 344-5]

Let's stop here for today and listen to Fireworks. This is the Columbia Orchestra conducted by the composer: