Igor Stravinsky is a Russian-born composer, pianist and conductor. He is considered one of the most influential composers in 20thcentury. His fame started with his cooperation with “Ballet Russes” lead by Sergei Diaghilev, in which there were tremendous amount of talent are collaborating, including Vaslav Nijinsky, Nicholas Roerich, Pablo Picasso, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc. During this time, he wrote his most famous three ballet suites, Petrushka, Firebird and The Rite of Spring. The three pieces for solo clarinet is a direct heritage musical piece after his famous Rite of Spring in many ways, in which way Stravinsky wrote a serious of works following up the rite of spring, such as the bassoon duet before the three pieces for solo clarinet, as well as the Soldier’s tale.
The three pieces for solo clarinet is written for Werner Reinhart. Werner Reinhart is a Swiss philanthropist, who supports Igor Stravinsky while Stravinsky was writing the Soldier’s tale. He continued to support Stravinsky financially afterwards for a serious of concerts featuring Stravinsky’s chamber music. Stravinsky’s suite for clarinet, violin and piano arranged from the soldier’s tale was a nod to Werner Reinhart’s help, because Werner Reinhard was himself an amateur clarinetist. The three pieces for solo clarinet is a gift from Stravinsky to his friend Werner Reinhart in 1918.
Continuing with the style of composition from the Rite of Spring, the Three Pieces for solo clarinet is completely atonal music without a strong compositional structure. Supposedly, Stravinsky or the publisher followed Stravinsky’s wish marked in the front page “Breath marks, accents and metronome markings should be strictly observed” in the publication of this work. However, comparing to Stravinsky’s manuscripts many things are rather ambiguous towards to that phrase. Stravinsky thinks that without total control there will be no freedom. In his music as well, everything is very clearly marked in detail, which made it very interesting to see the differences between his own manuscripts and the published version. It’s still very confusing which way to follow in fact.
First of all, the choice of instruments is already a question. Igor Stravinsky wrote this piece first in C (at least the first two pieces), so when it’s published the first two pieces are transposed to playing on A clarinet, because the low concert C-sharp which is only able to play on A clarinet with written E. However, in the shirt piece, the pitch of the published version is the same as the manuscript, which if seeing in C, should be transposed a whole step higher in playing on B-flat clarinet; but, the published version just simply left it the same and marked “preferred Clarinet in Bb”. There will be no way to know how Stravinsky himself thought of it, whether he intended to that piece to be played on Bb clarinet, or he changed his mind after hearing Reinhard playing it, or it’s simply a mistake made by the publishers.
In the first piece, first thing we see is the frequently switched meter signature. Almost every bar, Stravinsky will have a new signature. However, musically speaking, none of this meter changes really occur to our ear. We see Stravinsky’s phrasing very clearly. Stravinsky never phrase by bars in this piece, the slurs are mostly cross bar lines to make longer phrase, or to make each phrase related to the other ones as some what a sequence. There is one detail to be mentioned, that in this first piece, there are total of 10 breath marks marked in the score; however, in the original manuscript, there is only three. And they are the ones in bar 2, bar 5 and bar 21. Stravinsky’s breath marks are not for players to breath; instead, they are a indication of where he wanted the phrase to start and end. This first piece could be seen as section based on a scale, G-sharp, F-sharp, F-nature, E-flat, D-flat, C-nature. The piece start with G-sharp, the first section is from bar 1 to the first beat in bar 5, where he marked his second breath mark. A sub phrase act as a commenting phrase to the open short phrase in bar 2 and 3 after first breath mark. The phrase structure is surprisingly similar to a sentence phrase in a classical or romantic period phrasing. Phrase A, phrase B, then a combination of A and B. Phrase A and B each contains 6 either notes, which is rather interesting to show some kind of symmetrical structure which is rare in Stravinsky’s composition. The 2ndsection of this piece is from bar 5 to 9, which is more in a style of “motivtic development” like Brahms. The section start with concert F-sharp following this scale, where the second phrase of this section is using the same pitch class as the first phrase, however with the note change from F-sharp to F-nature, which is also the next note in the scale. Then comes to the F-nature section from bar 10 to the first beat of bar 13, where Stravinsky tries to have a contracting phrase style, one being very separated, one being very lyrical. It is notable that the tenuto marking in Stravinsky’s music, as well as many modern composers such as Elliott Carter, are a symbol to play things separated instead of play them long and connected. The E-flat section is a very lyrical section from bar 13 to 21 before the third breath mark from the manuscript. This whole section is constructed on the note E-flat as a center, as well as the next note in scale D-flat and the note between E-nature. Stravinsky messes with to create different color with each phrase. This section is in ternary form. A being bar 13 to 17, B being bar18 to 19, A’ being bar 19 to 21. It’s very interesting that Stravinsky noted in phrase B most note to be flat as to the other two phrase most pitch are marked as sharp. Clearly, he wants to have an injection between two similar phrases to have a different color to contrast; however, he didn’t mark anything special there. D-section is after the last original breath mark in bar 21 to bar 28. This section is also function as a recapitulation. The opening of this section is almost the same as the beginning of this piece. Then pitch D-flat is introduced to very refreshing sounding and dominating. However, after the first beat in measure 26 to measure 28, D-flat is changed to D-nature. Personally, I think it is because that most of the phrase in this piece is ending with a whole step with only a few exceptions most in the recapitulation; so that in order to make this piece unified, beginning to the end, Stravinsky added the D-nature to prepare the final resolving to C-nature. As well as to think of a cadence V-I in C, a D-nature certainly fit in to the harmonic structure of this very common finishing cadence.
The second piece starts as a continuation of the scale of first piece on pitch class B. Different from the first piece, second piece has no meter signature. The second piece is in rounded binary form. Stravinsky marked tempo marking first to be 3 sixteenth notes equals a eighth note, then marked few beats after that sixteenth notes equals sixteenth notes. Stravinsky continues to use pitch classes to construct this movement as the first piece, with much more of a rhythmical feeling to it, as well as phrasing with his own slur markings. I believe that there are two mistakes in the published part. The first one is the beginning of the second system, where the rhythm should be two eighth notes on written F and E-flat, instead of how it is published with rest in-between them, because in the manuscript that we don’t see the rhythm, as well as in system 3 toward to the end of it, the same figure appears without rest. The second one is in second system towards to the end after the breath mark. I think the first note is concert D instead of a written D, first because that in his manuscript there is a concert D as well as in the opening he repeat concert B in both first phrase and second phrase, as a unified piece of music, it is more like a mistake in publishing instead of Stravinsky wanted a concert B there instead. Go by breath marks again, there is two sections with in the first half of the second piece. The first 3 long phrases forms section A on the note E. Each of them are ending on the note E. With in section A, there are three small phrase separated by breath marks. Phrase 1 and 3 are both contain another important pitch, which is B, and phrase 2 is a very dancing humor injection to contrast from the fast rhythmical 1 and 3. Section B in first half of this piece is also in 3 pieces. First and last pieces are ending on E as well. The middle piece is rather interesting. It’s a variation on pitch A, which is a perfect 5thfrom E. the second half of this middle section is a continuation of the quarter note C at the end of the first half, with the character change in the written E-flat, F, E-flat D motive from the section A. Then the piece goes into it’s second half. Starting PP contrasting from the mf in the first half. It’s a much more jumpy musical feeling compare to before, very delicate and funny, folk music like with all the grace notes. Then after the first section, section 2 is graduating getting more and more excited with louder dynamic and the moving notes at the end of it. The pitch center gradually gets back to E as well in section 2. Then there is the recapitulation of the entire piece, where the first section ended on E; however, after the two strong high E in the first half of the second section, with the mark“Subito meno f sombrer le son retardando (poco)”,Stravinsky suddenly shift the pitch center to C-sharp.
The third piece’s original tempo marking is quarter notes equal 160 in his manuscript, as to eighth note equal 160. It is simply impossible to play it at the original tempo. However, as Stravinsky wished this piece to be fast, to play it at eighth note equal 160 is just too slow for the composer’s intension regardless how strict his music marking is. The third piece is a combination of the first two pieces. It also is constructed based a serious of scales, G-sharp, A, A-sharp, and A, A-sharp, C, which is the same as the first piece; as well as the constantly meter change in the second piece which is in the style of the first movement. The fast moving notes are certainly a continuation from the second movement, as well as the rhythmical feeling and the plus of rhythm. Stravinsky again didn’t phrase this third piece by bar-lines, he used breath mark as the first two pieces, and he added a huge amount of accents in this third piece to high light the individual rhythmical figures to have a dance feeling to it. However, he avoids symmetrical sounding as much as he could, there isn’t a single moment in this third piece that sounded anything symmetrical or even. There are 11 phrases, with two short “wonder section” or bridge. First phrase is based on pitch G-sharp, and switched into A the second half of it. The second phrase continues the formula of the first phrase, starting on the center note A and transit to note A-sharp at the second half of it. The third phrase is a modulation section, which leads the music to F based. It is a rhythmical quotation from the second movement in the beginning of the second half of it. The fourth phrase is a phrase which mirroring the opening phrase with the quotation from it. Starting with centering pitch G-sharp, later goes into A. With out symmetrical feeling, Stravinsky wrote phrase five centered with pitch G-sharp and A alternately. Which leads into phrase 6 to be very center pitch concerned until the end will pitch A was finally established and repeated in the short bridge section after that to emphasis it. Then there is a long modulation section in phrase seven, where Stravinsky continue the feeling of duple and change to triple in“sombrer subito”section. Phrase eight is on pitch A-sharp, back to the feeling of between phrase seven as a recapitulation. Then the bridge figure appears again to create even more tension in to the music like pulling a bow and ready to shoot. Phrase nine modulate again to C. Phrase ten in constructed on pitch C as well as D-sharp, as well as it’s a imitation of phrase four in rhythmical figures. As the same to first piece, before ending the piece on G-sharp, Stravinsky introduce the fifth above D-sharp to the music to create the feeling of a cadence, as the same time finish out the sequence of A, A-sharp, C in phrase ten. Phrase eleven is the close phrase of this work, which has the high point at pitch D-sharp with a very virtuosic passage without any pattern in its rhythm. The ending however is another mistake of the publisher I think. They simply looked at Stravinsky’s accent marking as too long, and put it as a decrescendo mark. The piece sounds very unfinished and unsatisfied if decrescendo.
I think, Music should always being played expressively, no matter whom the composer is. I believe nobody want their music to be boring and machine like, we just need to understand some modern music better to be able to play them beautifully so that people would have a chance to see their beauty and love them.
Many people think that Stravinsky’s music is very metronomic and free less. Indeed, Stravinsky is very strict on his music marking, such as very accurate tempo marking, slur, and expression indications. All these are very important to follow; however, we must understand the intention of him why to mark it in that way to prevent our misunderstanding in reading his music, such as the tempo marking in the first movement, and the interpretation of the slur and as well as which note to emphasis on when he doesn’t show any indication. I personally found that the three pieces for solo clarinet could be played extremely expressive and musically when one who take everything in count both strictly from Stravinsky as well as personalized by performer himself based on the understand of this work. It’s just not good enough to simply play what on the page with the wrong understanding of “Breath marks, accents and metronome markings should be strictly observed”.
注一：文中所提到的音名均为标准音高。
注二：本文由joezhouchina先生原创。未经许可，严禁转载。
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