3/21

It's my brother's birthday today. Happy birthday, Max.

I'm at a coffeehouse, taking advantage of speedy wifi and the opportunity to get out of my room. I have two more videos to put up, which will probably be on here soon.





I would just like to take this space to talk about Stravinsky and his Ballets Russes.

Well, they're not really his. But he's who really made them famous in the music world.

Just after the turn of the century, Igor Stravinsky teamed up with some of his Russian friends and wrote 3 ballets in Paris. His first was The Firebird, which I don't really know much about, but if you've ever heard it, it's a lot more conservative than anything he writes later on.

His second was Petrouchka, a tragedy and a comedy about a puppet who falls in love with another puppet, a ballerina, but then he gets into some big mess and a moor kills him. This all happens because a magician brings them to life at a carnival or something in Russia, and all of the people are sad that Petrouchka dies, and the magician tries to remind them that it was just a puppet, but they all make him look like a fool, and, to make matters worse, he's cursed by Petrouchka's ghost at the end.

Here's the first segment of a really good rendition:



The music for Petrouchka was written at the same time Stravinsky was exploring polytonality, and, supposedly (I haven't looked at the score yet), everything is in either C or F#, or sometimes both, which can make for some interesting and ugly sounds. This was a big step for Stravinsky considering how normal The Firebird was, but it seems like nothing compared to what his last ballet was.

Stravinsky's last ballet was the Rite of Spring, and it was pretty wacky. The setting was pagan, traditional Russia, and the whole story is about the sacrifice of a young girl. The dancing is almost the opposite of traditional ballet, and the music is basically the opposite of what was traditional orchestral music at the time.

And here's one for Rite of Spring:



This whole scene, with ludicrous dancing and absurd music made the Parisians either really angry or really excited. Some people at the premiere started booing and throwing things during the performance, while others yelled at the angry people to shut up so they could watch history be made. Camille Saint-Saens, a notable French composer, walked out after the opening bassoon solo. Supposedly all of the yelling was too loud to hear the music, and Nijinksy, the choreographer, yelled out numbers to the dancers so they had something to reference. There was a riot, and I wish I could have seen it.

Sometimes I play this as background music. Well, I did, before I watched this. Now it's kinda weird.

This music has all sorts of weird rhythms, and ridiculous instrumentation (2 timpanists with 5 drums each, alto flute, piccolo and bass trumpet, Wagner tubas, 2 bass clarinets), and was probably really hard for the dancers to follow. But it sounds really cool.

I'm going to bed early. I have a Texas Government test in the morning, and I would like to pass.

M