STRAVINSKY PULCINELLA
DOWNTOWN
BALTIMORE
Throughout his career, Prokofiev
loved the vigorously rhythmic gavotte
dance, and in the third movement, he
substitutes it for the minuet Haydn
would have written. This gavotte opens
clumsily with an exaggerated stress
on all the strong beats of its angular
melody. But after a middle section led
by woodwinds over a bagpipe drone
in strings, the flute reprises it with
enchanting gentleness and grace.
The Molto vivace finale is like
movement one on amphetamines.
More Mannheim skyrockets, a comical
repeated-note theme and a whimsical
little melody for flute fly by at
breakneck speed.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns,
two trumpets, timpani and strings.
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24
OV E R T U R E / BSOmusic.org
PULCINELLA
Igor Stravinsky
Born in Oranienbaum, Russia, June 17, 1882;
died in New York City, NY, April 6, 1971
After shocking the musical world with The
Rite of Spring, Stravinsky, now a Russian
emigré, began to look back to the music of
the 18 th century to find inspiration for the
future. The result was the neo-classicism
that dominated his music for three decades.
But when in 1919 Serge Diaghilev,
impresario of the Ballets Russes and
Stravinsky’s discoverer, pointed the
composer toward the music of Giovanni
Pergolesi (1710–1736) for a new ballet
based on the Italian commedia dell’arte,
the idea didn’t seem the harbinger of a
new style. A vogue for creating pastiches
of 18 th -century music had recently sprung
up, possibly as a reaction to the over-
heated mood of late-Romanticism. In
using a Stravinsky reworking of Pergolesi
for a ballet featuring the irrepressible
commedia clown Pulcinella, Diaghilev
sniffed another hit.
And a hit it was at its premiere at the
Paris Opéra on May 15, 1920. Diaghilev
had again assembled a creative dream
team: score by Stravinsky, choreography
by the brilliant young Leonid Massine
and sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso.
Stravinsky was ever alert to reaping
the full financial rewards of his music.
Therefore, in 1922 he arranged his ballet
score into a shorter concert suite for
chamber orchestra.