October 03, 2008
After achieving international acclaim in 1910 with The Firebird, Igor Stravinsky became a veritable “citizen of the world,” residing in Switzerland during the autumn and winter months, returning to Russia during the summers, and visiting Paris frequently to oversee the productions of Petroushka, The Rite of Spring, and Le Rossignol. With the outbreak of “The Great War” in 1914, however, his travel was restricted, and he settled full-time in Switzerland, where he remained until moving to France in 1920.
One of Stravinsky’s closest friends during the War was Ernest Ansermet, then conductor of the symphony concerts in Geneva and founder (in 1918) of L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which he conducted until 1967, two years before his death. Ansermet introduced Stravinsky to the Swiss novelist and poet Charles Ferdinand Ramuz late in 1915. Stravinsky invited Ramuz to help prepare French versions of the Russian texts for Reynard and Les Noces, and the collaboration went so well that they agreed to undertake a new joint project in 1917.
Given the difficulty of theater production during the War, they realized that only a very small company could be assembled, perhaps one which could play almost any hall and easily tour Switzerland. Ramuz, not being a dramatist, suggested that he write a story which could be presented on stage as a kind of acted narration, something “to be read, played, and danced.” They agreed that Stravinsky’s music would be an accompaniment to the action, arranged so that it could be performed either on stage or independently in concert. For a subject, they settled on a story from a collection of Russian tales compiled by Alexander Afanasiev. A Narrator would tell the following Soldier’s Tale while performers portraying the characters danced and mimed to Stravinsky’s music:
“A Soldier, granted ten days leave, marches home to his family’s village. He rests along the way, takes out his fiddle, and plays. The Devil, disguised as an old man with a butterfly net, persuades the Soldier to trade his fiddle for a magic book. He invites the Soldier to spend two days of his leave with him, when he will show him how to earn immense wealth from the book. Arriving at his village after their encounter, the Soldier discovers that not two days but 20 years have passed. He tries to console himself with the wealth obtained through the book, but can find no peace, and wanders into another kingdom. The Princess of the land is ill, and the King has promised her hand in marriage to anyone who can cure her. The Soldier determines to try. The Devil appears, playing the Soldier’s violin. The Soldier challenges him to a game of cards. The Soldier loses his wealth to the Devil, whose power over him is thus ended. When the Devil collapses, the Soldier reclaims his violin, and plays the Princess back to health. She dances a tango, a waltz, and a ragtime. The Devil reappears, the Soldier fiddles him into contortions, and the Soldier and the Princess drag his body into the wings. The Devil swears vengeance. Some years after his marriage, the Soldier wants to visit his village. The Narrator counsels him not to seek the old, lost happiness of his youth, now that he has found married happiness in a new home with the Princess. Refusing the advice, the Soldier sets out. When he crosses the frontier, however, he again falls under the mastery of the Devil, who takes his violin and leads him away, powerless to resist.”
Histoire du Soldat, or The Soldier’s Tale, signaled an important change in Stravinsky’s musical style, away from the full orchestral sound of the early ballets and toward a more economical, neo-Classical, international manner of expression, and one which experimented with unique combinations of instruments and uncommon timbres and tonal colors. Stravinsky later explained:
“My choice of instruments was influenced by a very important event in my life at that time, the discovery of American jazz…The Histoire ensemble resembles the jazz band in that each instrumental category—strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion—is represented by both bass and treble components [violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, bass trombone, percussion]. The instruments themselves are jazz legitimates, too, except the bassoon, which is my substitution for the saxophone…The percussion part must also be considered as a manifestation of my enthusiasm for jazz. I purchased the instruments from a music shop in Lausanne, learning to play them myself as I composed. To bang a gong, bash a cymbal, and clout a woodblock (or a critic) has always given me the keenest satisfaction…My knowledge of jazz was derived exclusively from copies of sheet music [brought back from America by Ernest Ansermet]. As I had never actually heard any of the music performed, I borrowed its rhythmic style not as played, but as written. I could imagine jazz sound, however, or so I liked to think. Jazz meant, in any case, a wholly new sound in my music, and Histoire marks my final break with the Russian orchestral school in which I had been fostered.”
The most obvious evidence of the influence of jazz and modern dance styles on the work are the Tango and Ragtime danced by the Princess. (Stravinsky so liked the rag idiom that he wrote an independent Ragtime for Eleven Instruments as soon as he had finished the score for Histoire.) Concerning the dramatic use of his instrumental ensemble, Stravinsky noted, “If every good piece of music is marked by its own characteristic sound, then the characteristic sounds of Histoire are the scrape of the violin and the punctuation of the drums. The violin is the Soldier’s soul and the drums are the diablerie.”
Histoire du Soldat was first performed at Royce Hall in January 1952, with the composer in the audience. Ten years ago (on May 3, 1998), Histoire returned to Royce Hall in a collaboration between the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and we were there. What’s more, the Stravinsky original (which Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times called “an instant success that has never lost its popularity” and “an early example of inspired crossover”) was paired with a new companion piece by jazz and classical trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, A Fiddler’s Tale. The Narrator was André De Shields, who also played the Soldier and the Devil (reviewers thought performing the multiple roles was overly ambitious). Joining Marsalis and stellar jazz percussionist Stefon Harris for Histoire were Ida Kavafian (violin), former LACO clarinetist David Shifrin, Edgar Meyer (bass), Milan Turkovic (bassoon) and David Taylor (bass trombone). After the intermission, the ensemble transformed itself into a Marsalis jazz band.
Reviews by Swed and Richard S. Ginell in Variety were parched (especially of the Marsalis rewrite), although we appreciated both presentations. Swed thought Marsalis didn’t give himself enough of the solo spotlight, but that, when he did “connect in the score, it is brilliant,” especially when he “finds just the right overpass between Stravinsky and blues, and [when] he shows Stravinsky a thing or two about tango and ragtime.” When he attempted to find “a musical connection with the narrative by the equally loquacious Stanley Crouch” (who wrote the jazz narration), however, he was “less successful.” Swed thought that “De Shields was mesmerizing in a lavishly poetic cautionary account of a young violinist who sells her soul to a record producer, which is something that the music world can never hear too much of.” Violinist Ida Kavafian, “the musical star of both pieces, was magnificent.”
Program Notes for A Fiddler’s Tale were written by Richard E. Rodda, copyrighted 1998; this essay was largely abstracted from unsigned Program Notes from Performing Arts magazine of the time, page P-9.