October 16, 2008
As Terry Teachout reminds us in his Third Stream chapter in Bill Kirchner’s The Oxford Companion to Jazz (Oxford University Press, 2000), the New Orleans-born Louis Moreau Gottschalk was composing piano pieces reflecting his firsthand knowledge of the music out of which ragtime [and jazz] developed as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. This awareness is exemplified by the syncopated melodies and repeated-note figurations of pieces such as La bamboula (1847, subtitled “Danse des negres”) and Le banjo (1854-55). European composers began to discover ragtime and related styles around the turn of the century, usually through published sheet music. They soon began writing pieces that made reference to these syncopated rhythmic patterns; examples include Eric Satie’s Jack in the Box (1899), the first such work; Percy Grainger’s In Dahomey (Cakewalk Smasher) Suite (1903-9); Claude Debussy’s Golliwog’s Cakewalk (from Children’s Corner Suite, 1906-8); and Paul Hindemith’s Ragtime (1921) and Suite 1922.
Stravinsky’s Ragtime, composed in 1918, grew directly out of the “Ragtime” section of A Soldier’s Tale. It is scored for a small chamber orchestra of eleven instruments: flute, clarinet, two horns, trombone, big drum, snare drum, side drum, cymbals, cimbalom, two violins, viola, and double bass. The cimbalom, a concert hammer dulcimer originally from Eastern Europe, assumes a prominent role; Stravinsky became aware of it in 1915, and he sought to use it whenever possible thereafter. “Ragtime” was arranged for piano by Stravinsky himself and can be heard in that arrangement.
Stravinsky described his Piano Rag Music of 1919 as a written-out portrait of improvisation, although Roman Vlad describes it as “jazz elements…broken down and crushed to a pulp, then reassembled as if processed by a diabolical machine.” “Piano Rag Music” and the “Tango for Piano are noteworthy in that they show off Stravinsky’s musical language to a remarkable degree. He described composing as the ability to put the right notes in the right places; in addition, he was something of a chameleon, with the special gift of being able to take on the coloring of his surroundings, be they Russia, France, or America, and also to transport himself mentally into any chosen period (as he did, for example, in “Pulcinella”). He was like a chemist in his ability to distill the essence of whatever basic musical principles he happened to be concerned with at any given time. For instance, when he wrote a piece in ragtime, it had all the essential qualities of ragtime without sounding in the least like Scott Joplin. Likewise, in his “Tango,” he reduced it to its basic essentials, while bringing out its universal appeal. Klaus Billing wrote: “If all the tangos in the world except this were lost, people would [still] know exactly what a tango was.”
Stravinsky’s Scherzo à la Russe was premièred by the very popular Paul Whiteman Band in 1944, by which time Stravinsky was comfortably settled in the United States. His Symphony in Three Movements was premièred in January of 1946, with the composer conducting the New York Philharmonic. Just two months later at Carnegie Hall, Woody Herman’s First Herd, nominated by its peers and voted best band by Downbeat, Metronome, Billboard, and Esquire polls, premièred The Ebony Concerto, which Stravinsky had written for it. From Herman, the composer had borrowed scores and records of the band’s usual repertoire and presumably gave these some attention. Nonetheless, although probably Stravinsky’s most celebrated “jazz” piece, “The Ebony Concerto’s” three short movements are strikingly independent of the kind of modernized big band swing for which the Herman Herd was known. As Woody Herman remarked: “What we were doing then, the First Herd,…were heavy, strong, jazz things, with lots of open brass and so forth…[“Ebony Concerto” is a] very delicate and a very sad piece.” Stravinsky had made use of the band’s instrumental resources—plus harp and horn—in an entirely personal and original way. Max Harrison has expressed regret that “Ebony Concerto”, a remarkably innovative, ironic, neo-Baroque composition, “exerted no influence on the conventions of writing for big jazz bands.”
4 comments
Bob, I love the information you provide in your blogs. I don't post to blogs very often (Mostly because I have nothing of value to contribute) but I do want to let you know that I enjoy your perspective and every time I read a post about the music, I feel compelled to listen to the referenced music in a new paradigm. Keep up the good work.
PS- I did use your blog last year to stimulate some discussion with my high school orchestra kids. Some of the kids really got into the discussion. Yay.
I'll give you one-half hour to stop saying things like that, Dan. No, seriously, I'm delighted that these blogs not only are enjoyable for you, but also that they stimulate you to explore and experience the music in a new way. And then, when you are able to use the blog to encourage and stimulate the thinking of young people, how much better does it get than that?! "Yay," indeed, and thanks!
I'm writing a short paper on Stravinsky's involvement with Jazz, and though I've looked through many databases, these articles have been the most informative! Thanks so much!
It was thoughtful of you to provide us feedback, Jess! I'm delighted that you found these articles informative and useful, especially since it sounds as if you were writing a paper for a class. I hope you earn a good grade for it...!