Stravinsky Petrushka for Piano, Four Hands

Transcript

Welcome to the Inside Chamber Music podcast presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. I'm Bruce Adolphe, Resident Lecturer at CMS, where I started the lecture series in 1992. In 2011, we began livestreaming the lectures on our website. The audio for this podcast comes from the ever growing archive of videos made available live and on demand at ChamberMusicSociety.org.

We look at the music from a compositional perspective and find parallels in novels, plays and poetry. Plus, we explore historical context and with live musicians in the studio during the lectures. We experiment with performance issues. Today's lecture features Stravinsky's Petrushka in the arrangement he made for Piano for Hands, originally recorded February 20th, 2019.

Good evening. The snow makes you think of Russia, so I'm glad you made it. Although this piece premiered in Paris, but we can still think of it as Russia. I'm going to tell you a little story and you have to guess who the composer in the story is. You don't have to yell it out. But, so, a young composer, very young, went to see- well, maybe 20, went to see Rimsky-Korsakov and asked for lessons.

And Rimsky-Korsakov looked at the music he'd written and told him he had no talent whatsoever and he had no interest in teaching him. And he should never be a composer. And the young man turned to him and said, “You will regret this. In the biographies written of me, this will be a day of shame for you. And you'll never forget that you said this to me. ”

Who do you think that is? It's not Stravinsky. Ha! That's why I did it. But it’s- you know who it is? It was someone named Sergei Diaghilev. Yes, Diaghilev. I see you people read up on things. Diaghilev, of course, produced and was the producer of Ballet Russe and he commissioned Firebird and Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. He never wrote any music.

He did- he wanted to, but he couldn’t. And what's great about that story, to continue the story a little bit, is that Rimsky-Korsakov thought this man was so rude that he became kind of a little laughingstock in the Rimsky-Korsakov Circle, which included the young Stravinsky, who Rimsky-Korsakov admired immensely and felt was one of the most talented young composers he'd ever seen in his life.

And Rimsky-Korsakov met Stravinsky through his son. He had two sons, Rimsky. They call a Rimsky. It's not like a familiar thing. Otherwise, it would be Nikolai. But his sons introduced him. And, you know, Stravinsky never really studied composition with anyone but Rimsky-Korsakov. And we'll talk about the indebtedness there in a moment. Now, there is a strange connection to the things we've been talking about in other lectures.

Opus 96 of Beethoven seems like pure music. And I was bringing to your mind, if you recall, think back, the fact that there was a kind of program related to the Pastoral Symphony and Pastoral tropes. So that was pure music that we're trying to hear and understand as program music in a way. This is a ballet which has a very elaborate story, and the story is told in great detail in the music.

But here I'd like you to try to think about this as pure music, because yes, there is a story. Yes, there are characters, you know. And the characters are now somewhat controversial. I heard something strange. Somewhat controversial, such as, you know, there's Pierrot, turned into Petrushka. What is that? Okay, thank you. And there is also The Moor who is now somewhat problematic, politically speaking, character.

And there's Columbine, the dancer. But I'm going to not get into all of that because even though the story is very important to how Stravinsky wrote the music, the music stands on its own. And I know that personally, because I fell in love with his music when I was 11 and I didn't see the ballet till I was about 15 or 16.

And I was almost disappointed because I thought, why are all these people leaping around and doing things? Can't they just listen to this music? Not everybody agrees. And in fact, do I have to say, not everyone agrees? But I said it. In fact, there's a very famous comment by Tovey. I mentioned Tovey last time. Donald Francis Tovey was a very important theorist, historian, not so important composer, and also a pianist who wrote a lot of articles about music theory and music history and is responsible for a lot of the basic ways that teaching music theory and music composition came to be mostly in Western Europe, of course, and also in the US.

And this is, his articles, this is from about 1929, are very opinionated and he's writing a chapter on form and he decides to talk about Petrushka and he says in Petrushka he, meaning Stravinsky, produces rhythms and tones that enhance the moods of a fascinating pantomime. But the concertgoers who profess to enjoy it without ever seeing the ballet show themselves to be of the tribe who will gaze quote, “As ducks that die in tempests at anything they are told to admire. ”

I had to look up the phrase as ducks that die in tempests because it's in quotes and, you know, it’s just what it sounds like. A duck will be in a storm and stare at something and not go away. I mean, fine. It goes on to say, “Self-deception-” this is hard to believe, but this is from an article on form, “Self-deception and dry rot set in when the designers, as well as the composers of the ballet, retire into the arbitrary kingdom of abstractions, which they call symbolic, in which common sense calls nonsense.”

Anyway, he goes on to say that this piece, even though he likes Stravinsky, will definitely be forgotten by the mid 20th century. He died in 1940, so he didn't know for sure what would happen. And it's still very popular. Now, when this was produced in 1911, in Paris, the audience was mostly Parisian, but there were people from other countries, of course.

But the Russians who were there and there weren't many, they were the only ones who knew how much folk music was in Petrushka. There's a huge amount of Russian folk music in it. So to give you a sense of that, we are going to go through these areas that have some Russian folk songs, but maybe before we do, would you play that...

There's a version here of the first folk song you're going to hear and this version that you're about to hear is not as it is in Petrushka. This is arranged by Rimsky-Korsakov and it's important to know where did Stravinsky get all these folk songs? Did he just know them all? Not really. It was a tradition to look at the folk songs of Russia when you studied composition and the people who organized the folk songs into books and arrange them for piano were Rimsky-Korsakov and before him, Tchaikovsky and Balakirev and all these people.

So here is Rimsky-Korsakov’s setting of this particular folk song. (music)

Okay, great. Now let's hear- we'll go through the score and listen to some of the folk songs so you recognize them later. That song appears, it’s number seven, of course, appears fairly early on in the piece. And here in the Petrushka, it sounds like this. (music)

Okay, great, great. And, you know, it has a different energy and a lot of excitement. Now, one of the things that's really important to know about this piece and also the history of music and how it relates to this piece, is that Stravinsky, because he was writing a ballet, even though I'm going to keep asking you to not worry about the story, because he was writing a ballet, he not only drew on folk materials, but he rhythmically, and we'll get to this soon, innovated like crazy and the way he used folk songs overlapping each other with, you already heard there was kind of a rhythmic contrast going on and modal contrasts.

The innovations come from trying to be realistic on stage, and the same is true for Mozart, the strangest thing Mozart ever did- well, he did two really strange things as a composer. One is the Dissonant Quartet, which is not about anything as far as we know. But maybe it is, but we don't know. But the other is in Don Giovanni.

There's a famous scene, and they're all famous scenes. But one scene where there's the ball, Don Giovanni goes to the ball. There is the orchestra is playing the music for the opera. And on stage there's a band playing in a different time signature and a different piece. And it doesn't quite fit together. I mean, it does, but it doesn't quite.

It's kind of like what happens in Petrushka. Why did Mozart do that? Because he had the opportunity, see, I didn’t let you answer. He had the opportunity to do something extraordinary because the theatrical elements, the story allowed him to think in a great way. He would never and never did do anything like that without the excuse of an opera.

So that's the same thing here. But Stravinsky innovated a little bit in Firebird, but much more in Petrushka and then even more in Rite of Spring, always based on how the materials can react to some kind of story program. Alright, let's go on to the next tune. The next tune... Oh, actually, the next tune, we're going to do the little French ditty first.

This is not a folk song. This is Elle Avait une Jambe en Bois. She has a wooden leg. This is not a Russian folk song. What is this doing in here? Well, the opening scene, but don't pay attention to the opening scene. The opening scene has Mummers. And if you don't know what that is, you can look that up. Mummers and maskers and coachmen and children and a magician.

And they're all running around the square during Easter time to see these great productions of like carnival style productions. And there are also things like organ grinders. There is an actual organ grinder in the script. Well, so Stravinsky, when he was working on this, actually heard an organ grinder outside his window and he used that melody. That's what this is.

He didn't know, unfortunately, that the tune was copyrighted and he had to pay for it. But here it is. (music) Okay, let's stop there for a moment. And then, of course, you can't just keep doing that because there are a lot of things going on. So let's go a little further and you'll see that some people are not interested in the organ grinder.

Just continue from there. (music)

Okay. We'll skip that for now. I don't know if you started to hear there’s some dissonance creeping in that sounds almost like it doesn't belong there, because that's exactly what is going on. Now, another folk song. So we're going to go to 66. This song is called St John's Eve. I could tell you the text, but they're all either religious or drunken.

And, you know, I'm not going to get into stereotypes of Russia, but all the folk songs are about either- doesn’t that sound- I hate to say who that reminds me of. I'm not going to do this, but I'm going to, I'm not going to speak for Russia, but I am going to say that that they're all either religious or about, usually, drunken women whose husbands need to steer them home.

Okay, whatever. Alright, here's St. John's Eve. (music)

Okay, great. And, actually, we just go to 73. You'll hear the tune St John's Eve much more clearly than that, because it gets simpler and simpler. (music)

There it is in its purity. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. It's hard to stop. Not only it's hard to stop musicians, but when they're married, it's really difficult. Okay. And then let's go to the folk song number three, which is about a drunken wife and her husband trying to get her home. We'll start a little before that.

It will be obvious when this folk song begins at 170. And of course, nobody knew what these were except for the Russians in the Ballet Russe. This must have been hilarious. The Russians dancing. They knew all these tunes and Diaghilev knew them. And the Frenchman, Benois, had grown up in Russia and was essentially Russian. He wrote the script.

And Fokine, who did the choreography, they knew all of these tunes. The audience probably, hardly anybody. Go ahead. (music)

Okay, great. Alright. See, I told you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a particularly difficult one. Now, folk song four occurs at 180. This- sorry. This is called The Vestibule. And it's a story about getting into the vestibule of a house. And it stands for many more things than the word vestibule, apparently.

It's a doorway. It's an entrance way. It's a way to leave. It's a place to put things. And there's quite a story behind it. But this is the tune. (music) Alright. Thank you. That works. Okay. And then 216, we have folk song number five, which is called Oh, Snow Thaw, asking the snow to thaw. So it's great for tonight. (music) (singing)

Okay. Hey, that was perfect. Alright, now, rhythmically speaking, the innovations are extraordinary, and they really, they are just like the Mozart in that he wanted to create the scene that Benois made up. Now, let's backtrack a little bit. Originally, this was not even going to be a ballet in Stravinsky's mind. He had this idea of writing a piano and orchestra piece about a puppet, Petrushka.

It was just going to be a one, like a rhapsody for piano and orchestra. And it became, most of that we hear in the second scene, which we'll get into in great detail. But then he showed it to Diaghilev and Diaghilev, this was his real talent, was saying, “No, let's make it a ballet. You already had a hit with Firebird, you know, and I'm sure you could do it again.”

Also, he had been looking for a composer to do a new ballet and five or six of them turned him down. So, Stravinsky was next. But he already had such a hit with Firebird. He was okay and he gave the story of Petrushka to Benois and Benois elaborated it with Stravinsky's help. And in the opening scene there are all of these different characters and people and groups of people getting in each other's way, trying to see things, looking over each other's shoulders, interrupting each other.

And so the rhythm of the opening reflects that in a way that Stravinsky had never done before, and neither had anyone else. Let's start at the, I suppose, two after three? Three after three? Seven, eight. (music)

Okay, now, before we do that, let's just hear the top part of the soprano and you'll hear, it’s in seven. Just play that for us. (music) Now, underneath that rather tricky rhythm, which is in seven with gaps in it, with rests, we have a straightforward, the folk song that we heard before in the lower part of the piano. (music) (singing)

Okay. So let's hear how the three and the sevens fit together. Again, the way its written. (music)

Okay. Now, what's interesting is that these folk songs are actually Russian folk songs and folk songs around the world often are not in a simple time signature, or they vary because people were not reading music or writing it down, so they didn't notice. And it often had to do with words. So the rhythms of the folk songs themselves already have a natural 1 to 1 to 1 to 3, 1 to 1 to a lot of them are like that.

The three and to even this one. One, two, three. One, two, three. If you just play the bass part, you'll see that the accents are not where the measures are. Two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. But it's already, you know, you could already get confused, so it's good not to look up if you're in the orchestra.

Okay. Now, I'm going to talk to you now about the entire history of the harmony in the second tableau so you guys can retire briefly now. Stravinsky was an extraordinary innovator, but that's not the same thing as saying that he came up with something brand new in harmony that no one had done before. There's a history and the history of what we're about to hear, I will demonstrate, came a little bit from Schubert and then from list and from list to Rimsky-Korsakov and that whole circle with Mussorgsky.

So it became a Russian thing because Rimsky-Korsakov taught himself composition. So he looked at list and he looked at music that he liked and he took things out of it and developed into a very high degree. Now, Debussy, who was one of the greatest innovators in history of music, Debussy as a young man, was in Russia for a while in Moscow, where he was taking care of the children of Fort Mac.

He followed her everywhere because he was working for her and teaching her children piano. And so he heard Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and this music, and he brought what he heard back to France and Debussy doing that influenced Ravel, who also then looked at Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky. So I'll show you all of that. But first, what am I talking about?

Okay, I'm talking about something called Octatonicism, which is a word none of them knew, but it just means an eight note scale and the harmonies that grow out of it. So, let's think about this. Here's C major. (music) It's really only seven notes. Because that's the same note as that. So, an octatonic scale sounds like this. That's eight notes that I didn't get to the first one again.

This is because there was this idea that started with Liszt and moved further with, as I said, Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mazursky. That dividing the keys on the piano and in an orchestra or chamber music, why does it have to be always major or minor? And why do- or even old modes? Can’t we come up with some new modes? And modes emerged, good ones emerged and not invented.

So this mode emerged. And what it is, it sounds very simple. It's an alteration, alternation of half steps and whole steps. It goes half, whole, half, whole, half, whole, half. Another way to think of it is even more interesting. Do you remember the diminished seventh chord? Okay, if you're sitting next to someone who remembered the diminished seventh chord, that's good enough.

So, the diminished seventh chord is three minor thirds. (music) It's the same interval three times. And I said last time, I think, last week, because Beethoven was using it like (music) He was using all three and there only are three because this is the chord that divides the chromatic spectrum, the whole deal. All the notes on the piano, all 12 of them, into three times four. (music) One, two, three, after that, you're playing the same notes again.

So, this also, now, by the way, there are two ways to understand things at least. One is to understand every detail so that you could then teach it. Forget that. That's complicated. I mean, unless you're a musician, that's fine. The other way is to get the concepts and appreciate the- I mean, this is the way I go to when I read books on science.

I get the concepts. I can't do the math, I don't worry about it. And the concepts are very moving and they're interesting. So let's go for that. So in this, because I'm rushing you through, like, how many years of harmony? I don't know. But don't forget, Rimsky-Korsakov taught himself all of this and made up. He didn't have any musical education at all.

He was a naval officer. Then when he was appointed professor at the conservatory, he suddenly started learning how to do things, studying fugue, counterpoint, everything because he was really nervous somebody might ask him a question. Okay, so, but he knew enough to know that Diaghilev was just terrible. So anyway, there’s there diminished chord. And here's another one. (music)

If we take two and put them next to each other, we're leaving out the third diminished chord. This gives us eight notes. And if we play them as a scale, (music) that's two diminished chords. What's great about that? I'll tell you. What's amazing is if you put these two diminished chords together and you go half step, whole step, half step, whole step, which is called the symmetrical scale too, it gives you an entire harmonic world that is completely different, but it sounds close enough to tonality that we can relate to it.

So, for example, in the key of C Major, the chord of F sharp has nothing, it doesn't belong there. It's very hard to get there. It's far away. It means it's just irrelevant. But in the octatonic scale, both of those chords exist together because if you alternate whole steps and half steps you have on, on the lower diminished chord, you have a major minor, diminished and dominant seventh on every single of those notes. So, you have on C, C, minor, C diminished.

C major C dominant seventh. It’s called a French sixth. Half dim- all of that on C and all of it on E flat, minor, diminished, major dominant, all of it on F sharp. All of it on A but on the next diminished chord, nothing. No chord, no fifths. There are no fifths left. The fifth is this so you can fill it in. (music)

Right? So on four of the notes you have every kind of triad and dominant seventh and on the other four notes you don't have anything. That means you have a built in hierarchy that has strong harmonic sound and basically notes that can lead in and out of it and can only play diminished chords. So what does that mean?

Well, for example, in The Rite of Spring, you hear this. (music) Only it's, you know, sounds better. (music) That happens to be an E-flat dominant seventh and a C major chord. They belong together in the octatonic scale. Otherwise it's just Stravinsky. People thought for a while before they figured this out because Stravinsky didn't tell anybody. Rimsky-Korsakov’s notes were all in Russian and only Russians knew about it, and they didn't tell anybody.

I mean, we didn't have sufficient musical spies at the time so that we had no infiltration of this material until Arthur Berger, an American composer whom I knew quite well, figured out, he said, “Wait a minute now.” The scale was not unknown because Ravel had used it. Liszt had used it. Debussy had used it. But Stravinsky's use of this whole world was not just a scale or a couple of chords.

It was an entire way of writing music based on this. And Arthur Berger said, “Hey, wait a minute, isn't this that scale again that everybody?” And then after that it became quite known. So for example, the opening of Symphony of Psalms of Stravinsky has three chords. (music) And another one. Like this. Those three chords are not in the same key. E minor, B-flat dominant, and G seven. Those are three different keys, but they all fall into the octatonic mode.

This is getting fun, right? Okay, so where did he get this from? Here is a little bit of Scheherazade. It won’t sound like Stravinsky, but I'll tell you what's going to happen. You're going to hear a tune, (singing) you probably remember this thing. It starts on a C dominant chord and it moves around on C and then it goes down a minor third to the next level, and then it goes down a minor third to the next level.

So it actually is structured as an octatonic progression. It sounds like this. (music) Now, we go down a minor third, but it sounds like a modulation, but it's an octatonic, it's in the same octatonic mode. (music) Now we're going to go down another minor third to F sharp. Now there's something strangely, it's beautiful, but it's strangely static too, which is what appealed to them because Rimsky-Korsakov followed Glinka in the idea that when you tell a story for an opera, they didn't like ballets, those guys.

If you're telling a story for an opera or an orchestral piece that tells a story when there's something magical or mysterious or a weird character, it should be somehow very chromatic. And octatonicism became the thing. Rimsky-Korsakov, in every opera where there's a mystery or magic or another world or a creature that doesn't exist in real life, it's octatonic and then you come back to humans and it's major and minor.

That is exactly what happens in Petrushka. He was still- actually, also happens in Firebird. What happens in Firebird and in Petrushka is that the puppets or the magical characters in the Firebird, they are octatonic and the humans? No. The humans are Russian folk songs, tunes from the street, and they're in modes and keys that we all know.

But as soon as you get to the puppet, you get octatonic. That's the Russian for octatonic. Now, after the F sharp, you see, he didn't, getting back to Rimsky-Korsakov, (music) he did this, and then he went down here and then he went down here. So the next thing should have been this. But this is what's interesting. Now, this really tells you the whole thing in a nutshell.

Here we are in F sharp, the F sharp key. I mean, the F sharp part of octatonicism. (music) And if it were to go to the next key, which it doesn't, it would go like that. But it doesn't. It does this. Now, the reason- that gets you, right? It does. It has a chill attached to it. (music) Why do you get a chill from that?

I'll tell you why. This is what I love about technique. I mean, this, Rimsky-Korsakov is very deliberately doing this. He uses this octatonic thing in a long- in threes, big sections. And then the last one, instead of becoming another octatonic one, resolves five one in D minor, and you go, “Oh, I know that.” You know, that's familiar.

That's something I grew up with, and that's exactly what he does. So instead of (music) instead of that, he does this. B minor. Five, one. You see how satisfying that is? So, he uses octatonicism and tonality that way. Now, I’ll do a few more of these before we get into Petrushka. Here's a surprising example of someone slightly aware of octatonicism.

It's Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. (music) What is that? The key is the chords. A-flat, B, D, and F. They're not in the same key. They are in the progression of diminished sevenths. Same thing. But he was not using it. You can see the progression. I'm going backwards. He was not using it the way Rimsky-Korsakov was, who also wasn't using it the way Stravinsky does.

Now, here, is a very clear, you get two chords that are octatonically related. An A-flat dominant, and a D dominant. They're a tritone apart. They're part of the octatonic spectrum, and it's going to be as clear as a bell. All you get is those two chords. (music) If you know that, it's from Boris Goodnough. Mussorgsky and it's (music) just those two chords, but they're related by octatonicism. And here are the same two chords, exactly the same two chords and nothing else by somebody else. (music)

It's a very different mood. It's Ravel. But this is the two chords by Rimsky-Korsakov, (music) and here they are by Ravel. (music) Interesting, isn't it? But there's no more notes. Or it's just mood and rhythm. Here's something you might recognize of Tchaikovsky from the Sugar Plum Fairy. (music) Those two chords, you could say they're not in the same key.

They're close, though. They are, but they are both octatonically related. A few more of these. Let's see. Ravel, you might have played this when you studied piano for a few years. (music) Now, that's already octatonic because it has a dominant seventh and F sharp dominant. And it stays that way because then E-flat comes in. So we get (music)

That's the sound of Petrushka. You know, it's that (music) these chords that are not in the same key, but they're related by minor thirds. (music) (singing) So Ravel was doing it as well or better. And here's the most astonishing one. Now, if you know Petrushka, you know this. (music) With a puppet, it's Petrushka himself and this used to be called and it's still called the Petrushka chord.

It's two chords. (music) C Major. (music) F Sharp major. As I said, they don't exist in the same key, but they both exist in the octatonic mode because of the C, E, flat, F sharp. So we have a C major chord and F. (music) That Petrushka chord because it symbolizes Petrushka and because the second movement is completely octatonic-

Well, I want to say completely. It's like 80% octatonic and then there's things around it and other modes and keys. But that's the bulk of it. It was called the pictures chord. And for a long time people said, “Well, Stravinsky is writing in two keys.” It’s the beginning of what's called bitonality. And then there's going to be multi, but it's not actually that. It is octatonicism. Here it is by somebody else. (music)

Those are the same two chords, F sharp and C. (music) It's Ravel. From Jeux d’eau 1901. So did Stravinsky know that? Well, Rimsky-Korsakov heard it and he didn't like it, but he recognized the octatonicism and he said, “I better leave and get back to Russia or I might like this by tomorrow,” in a diary, which is quite amusing.

So now let's get into Petrushka a little bit since we've warmed up here. I think I might have you guys play sections of this. Yeah, let's do it that way. So, we've rehearsed this so much. While they practiced, I thought about it because that’s the way it goes. So, the fourth, I mean, the second tableau, which is the one that started as a mini piano concerto in the mind of Stravinsky... hold on. I know what you mean, but I have so many paper clips in here.

That's the problem. Okay, here we go. So let's hear the very opening of it. (music) Stop. Okay, Now, you don't have to move, but play a C major chord for me. (music) And then an E-flat major chord. And then how about an F sharp, diminished chord? So basically we have (music) we have C, major, C, minor, F sharp, dimin- all those that whole opening.

That is like saying octatonic. It's an announcement because it's purely octatonic. Let's hear that one thing again and go a little further. (music) So, the beginning and the ending of that phrase are pure octatonic and then that little chromatic thing, it has some octatonic notes, but it has the diminished chord that doesn't belong just sticking its nose in there.

Who's to tell Stravinsky not to do that? I mean, what's funny about it, though, is that it is very chromatic, almost Wagnerian. Can you play the third measure of that in slow motion? (music) Wait, you're starting in two different places there. The third bar? Yeah, almost like do that in a very slow motion. You can think Wagner. See what I mean?

So, it's, that is not octatonic. That's totally chromatic. Now, the next thing that happens at the molto meno is the announcement of Petrushka himself. (music) Now, do you hear that (singing) that note, the higher note? Does that note sound like it's part of it? No, it's sticking out. Right? That note that’s sticking out that's going (singing) is literally, Stravinsky was thinking of Petrushka thumbing his nose at the audience and he said that Petrushka is a rude character.

He is not so rude in the ballet, but he is rude in Russian folklore. In the ballet, he's more like Pierrot, but, which is his French comrade, an Italian version of it also. But in Russia, he thumbs his nose a lot. So he uses, Stravinsky uses notes that are not part of the octatonic collection, the little group of chords.

He uses them for spice, the same way Haydn in C Major will take notes that are not in the key for the same purpose. So that's how that fits in there. Let's go a little further. Let's go to the Furioso where it says Petrushka’s curse or series of curses. This is very clearly octatonic with the Petrushka chord blaring in the orchestra there.

It's before 52 one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11. The Furioso. Before, wait forget 52. Let me see. This. Yeah, we have some different numbers here. (music) Wow. No. What's that D major chord doing there? Isn't that strange? Just give me the two measures before the, let's say the two for three bars before and then the D major again. (music)

Okay. That's meant to be a shock. But what's great is it's like a reverse shock because you're so used to this incredible dissonance of the octatonic harmonies of the tritone that when you get a D major chord, you (gasp). That's a brilliant accomplishment. But it's not just that. It's structural. The first section of this tableau is purely octatonic with C at the bottom.

This hits the D major chord. The entire next section has D and D major going on for a while and it's D major with a raised fourth degree with a G sharp. And could you play me a D major scale? (music) Now with a G sharp in it? (music) Now, some people would call that Lydian, which is a mode. Lydian mode.

But here, while it still is Lydian, it's not what Stravinsky’s thinking. He keeps that dissonance of the tritone because that's the relationship of the Petrushka chord. The tritone from C to F sharp. Now it's up a step from D to G sharp. Let's hear a little bit of this music. Let's start with a run right into the adagieto thing. (music)

So as the G sharp. Now this it- keep going, this is pure D major with that G sharp and that G sharp Lydian comes from Petrushka. Okay, now in a moment it's going to drop, I mean not drop, raise from D up to E. So, just keep going until because it's about to happen. Now, the lowest note, just play. Sorry, just play that E for me.

The lowest note. Yeah. So we went from C, the shocking D major chord. Now we're up to E and the last chord of this whole movement is F sharp. So, (inaudible) I'm just going to reach in here, So, excuse me. Have you been on an airplane recently? Okay, So do you mind if I sit here? Okay, no, right. So, basically, we've had C, (music) D major with a G sharp.

Now we're having E, then the piece will end on F sharp. So that means he's structuring it in whole tones. And the reason for that is that is the tri tone of Petrushka, that relationship and also strangely enough, the octatonic collection or octatonic mode has built into it the feeling of whole tones, because on each one of these notes you can have something that sounds like whole tones.

It's called the French sixth. Go up a third, and you get another one, go up a third, and you get another one, go up a third, and you get another one. So that whole tone sound is built into octatonicism. Okay, now could you play for me the Menomoso just a few bars away, this, yeah, this little thing. (music) Okay, but one more note.

Yeah. Now play it again. I'm going to talk while you do it. Listen to the bottom line. It’s chromatically descending. (music) And now in the middle. So does that remind you of any of the lectures in the last few weeks? Do you remember Boridin? And in Borodin you have simple tunes or beautiful melodies, but they're often accompanied by these little chromatic things.

Here, now, this time I'm going to have to sit there for a second. This is a tune by Borodin, harmonized by Borodin called Arabskaya Melodiya, Arabian Melody. And of course, Stravinsky knew it. (music) So whether he's quoting it or not isn't clear, but it's the idea. So he's paying homage throughout this. I've never said it as homage. I usually say, homage.

But anyway, he's paying homage to Rimsky-Korsakov in certain ways and to Borodin in certain ways and even to Mazursky. Now let's get to a really fantastically octatonic section, the cadenza ad Libitum, when the ballerina leaves. You're not supposed to know anything about the story though. So that's before the Vivo strigendo, that whole cadenza thing. This. Here, let's see.

Sorry. Coming up. (inaudible) Ah, here we go. (music) That is pure octatonic. That sound was, it still is kind of exciting in a strange way because the harmonies are strangely chromatic. They sound special and out of the ordinary, but they actually, the that they last and it works so well is also because they are part of a concept, a collection of ideas.

It's not just random chromaticism. It's not just expressive. And when I say just expressive, I mean, you know, like in romantic music, sometimes there's chromatic ideas and nobody really knows where they're going and you're looking for underpinnings, but it's part of this new, new-ish, I should say, exciting collection called octatonicism. It's totally, purely that. Now let's get to the end of this section where you will hear that it ends in F sharp. And, again, Stravinsky’s sense of humor, musically speaking, is built on using keys, tonality and octatonicism like that D major chord. Shocking you out, bringing you somewhere and then shocking you out of it.

Stravinsky has nothing to do with Beethoven except for one thing the idea of bringing us somewhere and shocking you out of it. They both enjoyed that. So let's try starting at Petrushka’s despair like... it’s, voila. (music) That's the end of that scene. And you know, you can feel the humor. And he wrote a lot of this before it was even going to be a ballet, which is very strange, but it was still a program and an image.

And I think it's possible for a choreographer to bring all this to life. But it's amazing how much more powerful I think the music is on its own because of its vocabulary. The vocabulary includes Russian folk songs, street tunes, modes from different areas. This octatonic thing at the center, at the center of it, and the juxtaposition of those structurally to cause humor, anger and fear in ways that were different, that had never happened before.

Now, I'm going to go to the piano for a moment. So clear out. This is great to have a bench for two people. Two things I wanted to mention to you. First of all, actually, three things. The Russian folk song thing was like octatonicism was not known by outside of Russia, by music scholars, composers, and for a long time they didn't realize that these were Russian folksongs. And still people will listen to Firebird and say these are gorgeous melodies that Stravinsky composed.

And he did compose some of them, but some of them are Russian folk songs. If you know Firebird, here is a Russian folk song, and, again, in an arrangement by Rimsky-Korsakov in the collection of Russian folk music. (music) That's a very important melody in The Firebird, just taken right out of there. Then the harmonies changed. And don't forget, even when he made the whole octatonic world, he took it further than Rimsky-Korsakov by a lot.

But he took that from him too. It was his only teacher. Now, if Borodin was not a chemist or a doctor and, which he was. And if he had time to take more lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, and he didn't have much time, he might have learned. octatonicism and that tune we all know (music) might have been like this. Feels like Stravinsky.

See, and all I did was apply all the octatonic rules. Now, there's another composer who was obsessed with Petrushka, in my opinion, Gershwin. If you look at recordings of an American in Paris, you will see that very often it's paired with Petrushka. And there's a reason, even though I think a lot of the conductors who do that, don't think about it consciously, but they say, “Oh, these sound great together. ”

Because they do, and they do because there's a lot of similarity. This is the Petrushka chord. (music) If I put it up a step, and I put it down a third, up a half step back down, and down one more step. Those are all Petrushka chords. (music) That is note for note from American in Paris. This thing (music) (singing)

At one point it does that. So what I've done very briefly is I put together a short series of quotes. Everything is either American in Paris or Petrushka. There's not a single thing that is not one of them and they’re not added together. They're just put next to each other. (music) Sorry. Okay, now wait. Alright. Thank you. The more you know those two pieces, the more it's clear.

But if It's confusing, that's perfect. Like, you’re thinking, “Wait a minute. Which is it?” That's the point. Like, for example, this is Petrushka. (music) And this is American in Paris. And you have, this ends (music) (singing) They go right into each other. Now, this is Petrushka (music) and this, no, that's American in Paris. And this is Petrushka. (music) And anyway, now there's one other thing that's very important. The Petrushka chord is not as weird in different contexts as it sounds purposely here, because if I take it apart, C major, dominant seventh, dominant minor ninth.

Beethoven used that. (music) See? It's only one more note for Petrushka chord. That's it. There's only one note that Beethoven didn’t use and if you hear it in the right context, (music) it's completely part of the American songbook later. Okay, time to hear Petrushka. Tableaus one and two. Okay? I'm excited. I'm going to leave the stage. Hold on. (music) We hope you enjoyed the podcast.

Visit ChamberMusicSociety.org to watch videos of these lectures as well as masterclasses and concert performances. And while you're there, check out the calendar of upcoming Chamber Music Society events in New York and around the world. See you in two weeks.