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IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971)
Suite from
Pulcinella
Scored for two utes and piccolo, two oboes, two
bassoons, two horns, trumpet, trombone, and strings
(including a solo quintet)
Stravinsky fell in love with Naples and its vibrant
Italian and Spanish heritage. So when ballet im-
presario Sergei Diaghilev approached him in
with a new dance project involving music
by the early- th-century Neapolitan composer
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi ( – ), Stravin-
sky found the idea di cult to refuse: “I have al-
ways been enchanted by Pergolesi’s Neapolitan
music; so entirely of the people and yet so exotic
in its Spanish character.”
ough World War I caused the dissolution of
the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev reunited the troupe
in London for three short seasons in
and
. Hoping to rekindle the musical excitement
Stravinsky brought to the Ballets Russes earlier
in the decade, Diaghilev presented the compos-
er with a complete ballet scenario constructed
around the
commedia dell’arte
hero Pulcinella, a
team of celebrated artists including Pablo Picas-
so (scenery and costumes) and Leonide Massine
(choreography), and several manuscripts con-
taining music attributed to Pergolesi.
e
commedia dell’arte
scenario in eight tab-
leaux comes from a Neapolitan manuscript dat-
ed sometime around
. Four jealous young
men plot the murder of Pulcinella, believing
their sweethearts have fallen for the dashing
young hero. Each man plans to approach his
beloved disguised as Pulcinella. Discovering the
conspiracy, Pulcinella switches clothing with
Furbo, who feigns death. Pulcinella appears
dressed like a magician, revives Furbo, and ar-
ranges marriages for the four young couples.
Pulcinella marries Pimpinella, and Furbo be-
comes the magician.
Diaghilev le the selection and treatment of
musical excerpts to Stravinsky. Instead of ap-
proaching this antiquated music as a source of
fragments for modern pastiche, Stravinsky re-
tained the melodic and harmonic framework
of Pergolesi’s music (the authenticity of some
excerpts has since been discredited) while add-
ing his own mildly dissonant lines. e resulting
score—Stravinsky’s rst major work of Neoclas-
sicism—proved an immediate success.
Pulcinella
enjoyed continued and widespread
popularity over the next few decades. Stravinsky
made four di erent arrangements of his ballet
music for a variety of ensembles: the present
concert suite for chamber orchestra ( ), a
ve-movement suite for violin and piano ( ),
the ve-movement
Suite italienne
for cello and
piano ( ; in collaboration with Gregor Piati-
gorsky), and a six-movement
Suite italienne
for
violin and piano ( ), created for his European
tour with violinist Samuel Dushkin.
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Suite from
Der Bürger als Edelmann
(
Le bourgeois gentilhomme
),
c
Scored for two utes and piccolo, two oboes and
English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons and
contrabassoon, two horns, trumpet, bass trombone,
timpani, cymbals, tambourine, triangle, bass drum,
snare drum, glockenspiel, piano, harp, and strings
Poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s
dramatic ideals—an interest in Baroque dramas
combined with a modern synthesis of poetry,
dance, and music reminiscent of ancient Greek
drama and Richard Wagner’s
Gesamtkunstwerk
(synthesis of the arts)—were well formed when
Richard Strauss approached him with the idea
of a collaboration. Having attended Hofmanns-
thal’s version of Sophocles’s
Electra
in a stage
production by Max Reinhardt, Strauss suggest-
ed an adaptation of this ancient Greek tragedy
for their rst operatic collaboration.
e opera
Elektra
produced more notoriety than praise,
yet it sealed the creative relationship between
Strauss and Hofmannsthal.
eir next opera,
the three-act comedy
Der Rosenkavalier
, was
set in th-century Vienna during the time of
the Empress Maria eresia. e production by
Reinhardt achieved instant and lasting success.
In
, Hofmannsthal suggested a German
adaptation of Molière’s play
Le bourgeois gen-
tilhomme
as a gi for Reinhardt in appreciation
of the successful production of
Der Rosenkava-
lier
. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin ( – ), known
as Molière, was a French playwright and actor
in the service of Louis XIV. His
comédies-bal-
lets
, which the king favored, included elements
of both spoken comedy and ballet. Between
the scenes of the comedy, ballets and musical
numbers with mythological characters would
serve as entr’actes. (Later, the interludes became
connected to the subject of the comedy so that
a continuous and complete drama with ballet
and music resulted.) For his adaptation of
Le
bourgeois gentilhomme
—in German,
Der Bürg-
er als Edelmann
—Hofmannsthal asked Strauss
to compose incidental music for the play and
to replace the original ballet with an opera.
Hofmannsthal chose the mythological story of
Ariadne and Bacchus as the subject of the opera.
Strauss was anxious to instead follow the success
of
Der Rosenkavalier
and work on the next pro-
posed opera,
Die Frau ohne Schatten
. However,
by the spring of
, Hofmannsthal had not
made progress on the libretto, and he suggest-
ed the
Ariadne
project to Strauss as an interim
work. (Strauss set aside the summer months
from his conducting schedule for work on
composition.) Strauss agreed to undertake this
“slight” work, as Hofmannsthal called it, which
soon grew in complexity.
e correspondence between Strauss and
Hofmannsthal reveals di erences of opinion
on nearly every point. Hofmannsthal believed
that Strauss was not sensitive to the psycholog-
ical subtleties of the characters; Strauss argued
that they were not clearly de ned in the libretto.
Hofmannsthal wanted the work to be premiered
in Berlin at Reinhardt’s Kleines Deutsches e-
ater (Little German
eater); Strauss wanted
it performed at the regional Stuttgart Court
eater, even if Reinhardt was not available.
Igor Stravinsky
Pablo Picasso’s costume design for
Pulcinella
Richard Strauss (1904)
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