mikrokosmos:

Stravinsky – Three Japanese Lyrics (1913)

In different books or lectures about 20th century music, you’ll often see Schoenberg and Stravinsky pitted against each other as dominating forces. Which direction will music go? Schoenberg’s 12 tone expressionism, or Stravinsky’s polytonal/polyrhythmic irony? In my opinion, Stravinsky “won” but that’s beside the point. I think it’s a bit silly to push the outcome of musical ethos onto any one person’s shoulder. And besides, why can’t we love both composers? Here, Stravinsky takes after Schoenberg’s influence, early on in his career during the so called “Russian” period. Even so, this set of music is following the “Japanoise” trend in Europe at the time. A form of Orientalism/Exoticism, this time focused on Japan. And Stravinsky, the ever-stylish cosmopolitain, couldn’t avoid brushing with Japanoise trends in his own music. The year before, Stravinsky came upon the lyrics of some Japanese songs and poetry, and said “The impression which they made on me was exactly like that made by Japanese paintings and engravings. The graphic solution of problems of perspective and space shown by their art incited me to find something analogous in music.” And so he started writing these scene-songs. As he was working with Diaghilev on putting together the Firebird and Petrushka, he attended a performance of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire [conducted by Schoenberg himself], and though he already wrote teh first song, decided to incorporate the same kind of instrumental textures in the second and third songs. And overall this is another example of Stravinsky turning to folk music and treating music with less “subjective” and “academic” views, as the Romantics did. The set is used to transition from winter to spring. The first song opens with a rocking melody in the flute and clarinet. Soon the whole ensemble comes in with rocking, quick staccato, almost pointilist notes. The second song opens with a quick chord and run down the piano, as the instruments play in a quiet frenzy, like something nocturnal, insects running around. The third song slows us down a bit, with thin textures the soprano sings over delicate glass lines of individual instruments. The music ends in this thin texture, drifting away.

Songs:

1. Akahito

2. Mazatsumi

3. Tsaraïuki

Soprano: Susan Naricki
Chamber Ensemble: Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble
Conductor: Robert Craft