United States or Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Le Sacre," on the other hand, is the man-machine viewed not from without, and unsympathetically, but from within. So far, it is Strawinsky's masterwork, the completest and purest expression of his genius. For the elements that make for the originality of style of "Petruchka" and the other of Strawinsky's representative compositions, in this work attain a signal largeness and powerfulness.
He disports himself with the infinitely dignified string-quartet, makes it do light and acrobatic things. There is one interlude of "Petruchka" that is written for snare-drums alone. His work is incrusted with cheap waltzes and barrel-organ tunes. It is gamy and racy in style; full of musical slang. He makes the orchestra imitate the quavering of an old hurdy-gurdy.
And in his two major works, "Petruchka" and "Le Sacre du printemps," Strawinsky makes the machine represent his own person. For the actions of machinery woke first in the human organism, and Strawinsky intensifies consciousness of the body by referring these motions to their origin. "Petruchka" is the man-machine seen from without, seen unsympathetically, in its comic aspect.
But, whatever Strawinsky's future accomplishment, there can be no doubt that with this one work, if not also with "Petruchka," he has secured a place among the true musicians. It is doubtful whether any living composer has opened new musical land more widely than he. For he has not only minted music anew. He has reached a point ahead of us that the world would have reached without him.
And, according to rumor, the newest of Strawinsky's work, the music-hall ballet for eight clowns, and the work for the orchestra, ballet and chorus entitled "Les Noces villageoises," are by no means as bold in style as "Le Sacre," and resemble "Petruchka" more than the later ballet.
If there is a single modern composition which can be compared to "Petruchka" for its picture of mass-movement, its pungent naturalism, it is the "Feria" of the "Rapsodie espagnol."
The rhythmic element, already fresh and free in the scherzo of "L'Oiseau de feu" and throughout "Petruchka," attains virile and magistral might in it, surges and thunders with giant vigor. The instrumentation, magical with all the magic of the Russian masters in the earlier ballets, here is informed by the sharpness, hardness, nakedness which is originally Strawinsky's.
And the score of "Petruchka" is alive marvelously with the rank, garish life of a cheap fair.
If there is a single modern orchestral work that can be compared to either of the two great ballets of Strawinsky for rhythmical vitality, it is "Daphnis et Chloé," with its flaming dionysiac pulses, its "pipes and timbrels," its wild ecstasy. The same delicate clockwork mechanism characterizes "L'Heure espagnol," his opera bouffe, that characterizes "Petruchka" and "Le Rossignol."
Countless poets before Strawinsky have attempted to portray the puppet-like activities of the human being, and "Petruchka" is but one of the recent of innumerable stage-shows that expose the automaton in the human soul. But the puppet-show of Strawinsky is singular because of its musical accompaniment. For more than even the mimes on the stage, the orchestra is full of the spirit of the automaton.
Word Of The Day