Stravinsky: The Firebird

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Cat No: 8555999

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Release Date: 06 January 2003

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313599929

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: STRAVINSKY

Description
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)The Firebird (Piano transcription, 1910)As coincidences go, The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky(1882-1971) abounds in them. Despite being considered the most outwardly'Russian' of his major works, it came out of a cultural tradition which hadlargely ignored ballet since the death of Tchaikovsky, created for anon-Russian audience in a country, France, whose ballet tradition was a potentif waning one.The ballet's genesis goes back to 1909, when Ballets russesimpresario Sergey Dyagilev, mindful of financial disaster after his firstRussian season in Paris, decided to concentrate on ballet rather than operaproductions, thereby cutting costs in the process. That the ballets of thisfirst season, all Classical stylisations, had been less well received than the'exotic' Russian operas, compelled him, as did the prompting of his chiefadviser Alexandre Benois, to commission ballets in which Russian folk-lore wasparamount. In this he was abetted by the reforming zeal of his choreographerMikhail Fokin, who adapted The Firebird scenario from two different Russianfolk-tales, with a number of recent additions. The result was the perfect'synthetic' Russian folk-tale, but the problem remained of who was to providethe musical realisation.Working, in his own order of preference, through thecomposers who had arranged Chopin numbers for his 1909 ballet Les Sylphides,Dyagilev first approached Nikolay Tcherepnin, whose ballet score for Lepavillon d'Armide had enjoyed a modest success in the first Ballets russesseason. Tcherepnin had actually begun composing the ballet, when a disagreementwith Fokin caused him to abandon work. Approach was then made to AnatolyLyadov, who considered but rejected the proposal, as did the now obscureNikolay Sokolov. Stravinsky was very much a 'last resort' for the impresario,having been called in at short notice to work on Les Sylphides after Dyagilevhad been impressed by the St Petersburg premi?¿re of his Scherzo fantastique inJanuary 1909 (not Fireworks, first performed a year later, as is often stated).Begun in November and first given at the Paris Opera on 25th June 1910, thesuccess of The Firebird was instantaneous and absolute, assuring Stravinsky'sfuture as a composer.That Dyagilev and Stravinsky were, in effect, continuing thetradition of Russian opera through the medium of ballet is evident in thecombination of a folk-song-derived idiom for the human characters with aharmonically 'exotic' one for the supernatural figures. In this respect, TheFirebird takes its place in a lineage going back to Stravinsky's teacherNikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and beyond him to the 'father' of Russian musicMikhail Glinka, notably his 1842 opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. The influence ofAlexander Scriabin, however, whose piano sonatas and symphonic works The DivinePoem and The Poem of Ecstasy were then the latest thing in Russian musicalculture, is also apparent, making The Firebird a judicious amalgam of Russianmusic past and present.The
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