After the resounding success of The Firebird in 1908, Igor Stravinsky became an instant celebrity in Paris. His name was now inseparable from the famous Ballets Russes, whose director, Sergei Diaghilev, was eager to continue this most promising collaboration. Plans were almost immediately underway for what eventually became The Rite of Spring.
When Diaghilev visited Stravinsky in Lausanne in the summer of 1910, he expected his friend to have made some progress with The Rite of Spring. Instead, he found the composer engrossed in a completely different composition. Stravinsky had begun writing a concert piece for piano and orchestra in which the piano represented “a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios.” The puppet was none other than Petrushka (or Pétrouchka, in French), the popular Russian puppet-theater hero. Diaghilev immediately saw the dramatic potential of Stravinsky’s concert piece and persuaded the composer to turn it into a ballet. Alexandre Benois, a Russian artist and longtime Diaghilev collaborator, wrote the scenario with Stravinsky and designed the sets and costumes for the performance.
The first of the four tableaux (“The Shrovetide Fair”) alternates between the noise of the crowd and songs played by street musicians. At first, we hear a flute signal accompanied by rapid figurations that evoke the bustle of the fair. Soon the entire orchestra breaks into a boisterous Russian beggars’ song, followed by the entrance of two competing street musicians, a hurdy-gurdy player and one with a music box.
Soon, the puppet theater opens and the Showman, playing his flute, introduces Pétrouchka, the Ballerina, and the Moor to the audience. As he touches them with his flute, the three puppets spring to life and begin the famous “Russian Dance,” in which the piano plays a predominant part. The dance and the tableau eventually end with a bang.
The second tableau moves the action to Pétrouchka’s room. It starts with a sonority that has become emblematic of the work: two clarinets playing a bitonal melody—that is, in two different keys at once. After a short piano cadenza, we hear a theme giving vent to Pétrouchka’s anger and despair at his failure to win the Ballerina’s heart. His fury changes into quiet sadness in a slow, pseudo-folk song, played by the flute and piano with occasional interjections from other instruments. The Ballerina soon enters, and Pétrouchka becomes giddy with excitement. Then she leaves, and the earlier despair motif closes the tableau.
The third tableau takes place in the Moor’s room. His slow dance is accompanied by bass drum, cymbals, and plucked strings, whose off-beat accents impart a distinctly Middle Eastern flavor to the music. Soon, the Ballerina appears, trumpet in hand, and dances for the Moor. She then starts waltzing to two melodies by Viennese composer Joseph Lanner (a forerunner of the great Strauss dynasty) while the Moor begins his own, less graceful dance. The waltz is interrupted as Pétrouchka suddenly enters the room. His fight with the Moor is expressed by frantic runs before the orchestra plays violent fortissimo chords as the Moor chases Pétrouchka out the door.
The fourth and final tableau brings us back to the fair, where, as the sun sets, more and more people are gathering for the festivities. A series of numbers are performed in succession. Among them: A group of nursemaids dance to two Russian folk songs, a trained bear dances to a peasant’s pipe (represented by two clarinets playing in their highest register), and a drunken merchant stumbles across the stage, his tune played with frequent glissandos in the strings.
Suddenly, the celebration is disrupted by a scream coming from the puppet theater. Pétrouchka rushes in, pursued by the Moor, who overtakes him and strikes him down. Soft woodwind solos, accompanied by high-pitched violin tremolos, lament Pétrouchka’s death. But as the Showman arrives to pick up the puppet and take him back to the theater, Pétrouchka’s ghost appears overhead as two trumpets intone his melody. Only a few soft string pizzicatos accompany the close of the curtain; the last event in the piece is the resurgence of Pétrouchka the invincible, thumbing his nose at the magician and the entire world, which had been so hostile to his pure and sincere feelings.
At the age of 48, despite his growing international fame, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was constantly plagued by self-doubt. Early in 1888, he went on a three-month European tour, conducting his own works with some of the world’s finest orchestras. He was feted in Leipzig, Paris, London, and Prague, and made the acquaintance of Dvořák, Grieg, and Mahler.
Tchaikovsky’s private life, however, was not free from turmoil. His sister Alexandra and his niece Vera were both seriously ill, and one of his closest friends, Nikolai Kondratyev, had recently died. It must have been hard to escape the thought that life was a constant struggle against Fate, which appears as a hostile force attempting to thwart all human endeavors.
After his return from abroad, Tchaikovsky decided to write a new symphony, his first in 10 years. Characteristically, the first sketches of the new work, made on April 15, 1888, include a verbal program portraying an individual’s reactions in the face of immutable destiny, involving stages of resignation, challenge, and triumph:
Introduction. Complete resignation before Fate, or, which is the same, before the inscrutable predestination of Providence. Allegro. (1) Murmurs of doubt, complaints, reproaches against XXX. (2) Shall I throw myself in the embraces of faith??? A wonderful program, if only it can be carried out.
Tchaikovsky never made this program public, however, and in one of his letters even went out of his way to stress that the symphony had no program. Clearly, the program was an intensely personal matter to him, in part because he was reluctant to openly acknowledge his homosexuality, which seemed to him one of the hardest manifestations of the Fate he was grappling with. Many people believe that the unnamed, mysterious “XXX” in the sketch stands for homosexuality. In his diaries, Tchaikovsky often referred to his homosexuality as “Z” or “That.”
The four movements of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony are linked by a common theme, often played by the brass instruments and apparently symbolizing the threatening power of Fate. English musicologist Gerald Abraham noted that this theme was taken almost literally from an aria in Mikhail Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar, in which it was sung to the words “Ne svodi na gore” (“Do not turn to sorrow”).
The Fate theme is first heard in the Andante introduction of the first movement, soon to be followed by a more lyrical, lilting idea as we move into the faster Allegro tempo. Even with the change of melody, the accompaniment of the Fate motif remains present as a stern reminder. The entire first movement swings back and forth between lyrical and dramatic moments. We would expect it to end with a final climax. Instead, the volume gradually decreases to a whisper, and the mysterious last measures are scored for the lowest-pitched instruments in the orchestra—bassoons, cellos, basses, and timpani.
The second movement is lyrical and dreamlike, suggesting a brief respite from the struggle. The first horn plays a beautiful singing melody, eventually joined by the full orchestra. A second idea, in a slightly faster tempo, is introduced by the clarinet. Soon, however, an intense crescendo begins, culminating in a fortissimo entrance of the Fate theme. The movement’s opening theme returns, again interrupted by Fate; only after this second dramatic outburst does the music finally find its long-desired rest.
The third movement is a graceful waltz, with a slightly more agitated middle section. Again we expect a respite from the Fate theme and the emotional drama it represents. Yet before the movement is over, there is a short reminder, subdued yet impossible to ignore, in the clarinets and bassoons.
In the fourth-movement Finale, Tchaikovsky seems to have taken the bull by the horns. The Fate theme dominates the entire movement, despite the presence of several contrasting themes. At the end of a grandiose development section, the music comes to a halt. At some performances over the years, audience members have mistakenly thought that the symphony was over at this point and started applauding. The final resolution, however, is yet to come, in the form of a majestic reappearance of the Fate theme and a short Presto section in which all “doubts, complaints, and reproaches” are cast aside. Against all odds—or is it simply humanity’s optimistic desires?—the symphony receives the triumphant ending we’ve all been listening for.
—Peter Laki