continued from previous page Suite from Pulcinella Igor Stravinsky Born 1882 in Oranienbaum, Russia Died 1971 in New York, New York Igor Stravinsky composed the ballet music for Pulcinella, based on music by Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736), between 1919 and 1920. The work was first performed in Paris by the Ballet Russes under the direction of Ernest Ansermet in 1920. Stravinsky extracted the Suite in 1922 and it was first performed the same year by Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Stravinsky revised the work in 1949. The score calls for a solo string quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, and bass), 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, and strings. As the two men strolled one day in Paris, Serge Diaghilev (the great impresario of the Ballet Russes) urged Igor Stravinsky to look at some “delightful” eighteenth century music with the idea of orchestrating it for a ballet. When he mentioned that Pergolesi was the composer, Stravinsky thought Diaghilev was out of his mind. All Stravinsky knew of Pergolesi was his Stabat Mater and La Serva Padrona, and neither had impressed him. Still, he agreed to study the scores Diaghilev had been collecting. “I looked,” said Stravinsky, “and I fell in love.” The idea was to create a ballet based on Pulcinella, the traditional character of the Neapolitan commedia dell’arte, using selections from several different Pergolesi works woven together to suit the action. Costumes and sets were to be by Picasso, choreography by Massine. Though a collaboration of four such men was bound to have some friction, Stravinsky later recalled that it turned out to be “one of those productions where everything harmonizes, where all the elements—subject, music, dancing, and artistic setting—formed a coherent and homogeneous whole.” Stravinsky made his selections from a number of Pergolesi’s suites, trio sonatas, and operas. He made minimal changes: keys were transposed, phrase lengths were altered, and movements were sometimes cobbled together from disparate sources. His genius was assembling all of these unrelated works into a unified whole that still sounds like Pergolesi. Well, almost: the actual sounds we hear are often like nothing Pergolesi could have imagined, for Stravinsky’s orchestration of the music is lively, imaginative— and sometimes surprising. After the stately Overture, the Pulcinella Suite unfolds as a Baroque suite of dances. The music is delightful, from the brilliant Scherzino with its surprise ending, the rhythmic hijinks of the Tarantella, the sheer beauty of the Toccata, the humorous trombone of the Vivo, to the headlong exuberance of the Finale. Much has been made of Stravinsky’s affinity for eighteenth century music and its effect on his own style. Though he had already taken several steps down the road to neoclassicism, Pulcinella is rightly pointed to as the turning-point that validated his direction: “Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too.” Program Notes 62
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