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Stravinsky's Les Noces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Extract

Stravinsky's first ideas for Les Noces date from 1913, when mention of the ballet first appears in his correspondence, yet they did not come to fruition until the ballet's premiere in 1923. This protracted gestation, the longest for any of his compositions, was largely caused by the impositions and consequences of World War I and the revolution in Russa. Both Stravinsky and the Ballet Russes, the company he had been associated with since 1909, experienced economic difficulties. Without any promised performance of Les Noces, Stravinsky concentrated his efforts on other compositions.

During the genesis of the ballet, Stravinsky reformulated his musical philosophy. Before the war; Stravinsky was composing large-scale works for sizable orchestras, with plots derived from Russian folktales and customs, and melodies borrowed from Russian folk music; a few years after the war, he began composing works for smaller forces that borrowed features from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European music, rather than Russian elements. Both styles — “Russian” and “neoclassical” — are present in Les Noces.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1987

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