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Petroushka

Petroushka

Pètroushka (English: Petrushka; Russian: петрушка) is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Petrushka is a folk tale of a puppet who is only made of straw and with a bag of sawdust as his body, but who comes to life and has the capacity to love. He is to the Russians what Pinocchio is to the Italians—a not-quite-real “being” whose tragedy is his very real passion, which make him yearn for an unattainable human life. His movements are sometimes jerky and awkward, conveying the torture of imprisoned emotions within the body of a puppet.

Composition

The work was composed during the winter of 1910-1911 for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. It was premiered at the Paris Théâtre du Chatelet on 13 June 1911 in Paris. While the production was generally a success, more than a few observers were taken aback by music that was brittle, caustic, and at times, even grotesque. One critic approached Diaghilev after a dress rehearsal and said: “And it was to hear this that you invited us!” to which Diaghilev succinctly replied, “Exactly.” When Diaghilev and his company traveled to Vienna in 1913, the Vienna Philharmonic initially refused to play the score, deriding Petrushka as “schmutzige Musik” (“dirty music”). The original 1911 version of Petrushka is scored for 2 piccolos, 4 flutes, 4 oboes, English horn, 4 clarinets, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, 2 harps, piano, celesta, bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, tambourine, triangle, xylophone, tam-tam, offstage snare drum and tambourine, and strings. The work is characterized by the so-called "Petrushka chord," a recurring polytonic device based on two major triads a tritone apart (C major and F-sharp major) played at the same time and heralding the appearance of the main character. It has been suggested that this is another application of one of Stravinksky's favourite devices, the diminished or octatonic scale, as both the C major and F# major triads are obtainable from a single permutation of that scale.

Story

diminished The play opens up at a carnival/fair, called Shrovetide, (the Russian Maslenitsa - akin to Mardi Gras) which is a celebration a few days prior to a long religious fast. The people rejoice before the long fast when they won’t be able to enjoy themselves for a while. Stravinsky's orchestration and rapidly changing rhythms depict the hustle and bustle of the fair. An organ grinder and dancing girl entertain the crowd. Drummers announce the appearance of the Old Wizard, who charms the captivated audience. Suddenly, the curtain rises on a tiny theater, as the Wizard introduces the inert, lifeless puppet figures of Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Moor (the brute). The Old Wizard uses a flute to cast a magic spell. The vivified puppets leap from their little stage and dance among the astounded carnival-goers. The puppets, now alive, perform a vigorous Russian dance. After the performance, we are taken back to Petrushka’s room (the 2nd scene) where the walls are dark colors, and are decorated with black stars, a half-moon, and a portrait of the frowning Old Wizard. Petrushka lands in his cell with a resounding crash, as he is kicked into his dismal cell by the Wizard. Petrushka leads a dismal life behind the show curtains, and is smitten with love for the ballerina puppet. The frowning Wizard’s portrait hangs there, looming, as if to remind Petrushka that he is a mere puppet, which is nothing compared to a human, and that he should be submissive and humble. This causes Petrushka to become angry and shake his fists at the Wizard's glare. Although Petrushka is a puppet, he feels human emotions, including bitterness toward the Old Wizard for his imprisonment, as well as love for the beautiful Ballerina. Petrushka unsuccessfully tries to escape from his cell. The Ballerina enters. Petrushka attempts to profess his love, but the Ballerina rejects his pathetic advances. As Petrushka is treated without compassion by the Magician, the Ballerina engages in wanton affairs with the Moor, and this snaps the poor puppet's sensibilities. In The 3rd scene, it is very easy to see that the Moor lives a better life just by glancing into the Moor’s lavishly decorated cell. The Moor has a couch to lounge on, where he is playing with a coconut. His room is much more spacious. The bright colors give off a happy, luxurious atmoshpere. Red, green and blue are the prominent colors, and rabbits, palm trees and exotic flowers decorate the walls, along with a red floor. Instead of going to a cell like Petrushka's, this puppet goes on a vacation to a happy room where he has luxury at the tip of his fingers. Then the Ballerina, who is attracted by the Moor’s handsome appearance, is placed in his room by the Wizard. She plays a saucy tune and she and the Moor begin to dance. After Petrushka finally breaks from his cell-like room, he is put into the moor's by the Wizard to interrupt the ballerina’s seduction. Petrushka begins to attack the Ballerina's lover, but realizes he is only small and weak. The Moor shows his extreme displeasure by working him over and chasing him, as Petrushka runs for his life escaping out of the room. The fourth and final scene is back at the fairground, where a series of (unrelated) characters of the fair come and go. The orchestra becomes a giant accordion to introduce the chain of colorful dances, the first and most prominent being the Wet-Nurses’ Dance (to the tune of the folk song “Down the Petersky Road”). Then comes a peasant with his dancing bear, followed in turn by a rake merchant and Gypsies, coachmen and grooms, and masqueraders. As the merrymaking reaches its peak, (after some time has passed), a cry is heard from the puppet-theater. Petrushka suddenly runs across the scene, followed by the Moor in hot pursuit with an axe. The crowd is horrified when the Moor catches up with Petrushka and hacks him to death. The moor becomes a metaphor for the mindless world, indifferent to the sufferings of the human soul. The police at the fair question the Old Wizard, who seeks to restore calm by shaking sawdust from the “corpse” to remind everyone that Petrushka is but a puppet with a wooden head and a body filled with sawdust. As Night falls and the crowd disperses, the wizard leaves, carrying Petrushka’s limp body with him, his ghost appears on the roof of the little theater, his cry now in the form of an angry protest. Petrushka’s death only enlivens his spirit, which thumbs its nose at his tormentor from beyond the wood and straw of his carcass. Now completely alone, the Old Wizard is terrified to see the leering ghost of Petrushka. The wizard scampers off, with a single frightened glance over his shoulder, and the scene is hushed, leaving the audience to wonder who was “real” and who was not.
Sections
The work is divided into four parts (tableaux) with the following scenes: Part I: The Shrovetide Fair
- Introduction (at the Shrovetide Fair)
- The Charlatan's Booth
- Russian Dance Part II: Petrushka's Room
- Petrushka's Room Part III: The Moor's Room
- The Moor's Room
- Dance of the Ballerina
- Waltz - The Ballerina & the Moor Part IV: The Shrovetide Fair (Evening)
- Dance of the Wet Nurses
- Peasant With Bear
- The Jovial Merchant with Two Gypsy Girls
- Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms
- The Masqueraders
- The Fight - The Moor and Petrushka
- Death of Petrushka
- Apparition of Petrushka's Double.
Other versions
In 1947, Stravinsky penned a revised version of Petrushka for a reduced orchestra. The 1947 version also provides an optional fff (fortissimo) near the ambiguous piano conclusion of the original. In either guise, Petrushka — along with its Ballets Russes siblings, The Firebird and The Rite of Spring — continues to challenge and thrill audiences with a dramatic impact that is as fresh today as when the works first appeared.
Sources

- Carnegie Hall's [http://carnegiehall.org/article/box_office/events/evt_3377699735790982_pn.html?selecteddate=11162004 Program Notes] for the performance on Nov 16th 2004. Category:Ballets Category:Ballets Russes productions Category:Compositions by Igor Stravinsky ko:페트르슈카

English language
English is a West Germanic language that is spoken in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and many other countries. English is now the third-most spoken native language worldwide (after Chinese and Hindi), with some 380 million speakers. It has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and that of the United States from the 20th century to the present. Through the global influence of native English speakers in cinema, airlines, broadcasting, science, and the Internet in recent decades, English is now the most widely learned second language in the world. Many students worldwide are required to learn some English, and a working knowledge of English is required in many fields and occupations.
History
English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Old Saxon language brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "creolised" to some degree (though it was never a full creole in the linguistic sense of the word); creolisation arises from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated. These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now the Netherlands and north-west Germany. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jorvik). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain would be partly creolised by the contact with Norse invaders. This resulted in a stripping away of much of the grammar of Old English, including gender and case, with the notable exception of the pronouns; thus, the language became simpler and plainer. The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet. For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
Classification and related languages
The English language belongs to the western subbranch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest living relative of English is Scots (Lallans), a West Germanic language spoken mostly in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. Like English, Scots is a direct descendant of Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. After Scots, the next closest relative is Frisian—spoken in the Netherlands and Germany. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Plattdüütsch and the Scandinavian languages. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (pronunciations are not always identical, of course), because English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French, via the Norman language after the Norman conquest and directly from French in further centuries; as a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to the French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional differences in meaning.
Geographic distribution
Norman conquest English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today; a total of 600–700 million people use English regularly. About 377 million people use English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use it as their second or foreign language. It is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language compares with that of Latin in the past. English is the primary language in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Belize, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland (Irish English), Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the United States. English is also an important minority language of South Africa (South African English), and in several other former colonies and current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for example Guam and Mauritius. In Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in business activities. It is taught from kindergarten, and is the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all universities. Substantial numbers of students acquire native-speaker level. It is so widely used and spoken that it is inadequate to say it is merely a second or foreign language, though there are still many people in Hong Kong with poor or no command of English. The majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the United States. Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, it has been given official status by 27 of the 50 state governments, most of which have declared English their sole official language. Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico have also designated Hawaiian, French, and Spanish, respectively, as official languages in conjunction with English. In many other countries where English is not a major first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. English is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and as such, many linguists believe it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of "native English speakers", but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. It is the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6 per cent), followed by French, German, and Spanish. It is also the most studied in Japan, South Korea and in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where it is compulsory for most high school students. See English as an additional language.
English as a global language
See also: English on the Internet Because English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not the official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its global status. There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it excludes those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent. It can also marginalise populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto). A secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (English, Spanish, etc.) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called "language deaths" and "linguicides" around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. In the Americas, Native American nations have been most strongly affected by this phenomenon.
Dialects and regional variants
The expansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins. The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English. English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard. Some consider Scots as an English dialect. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially. The Scottish dialect retains many German aspects including guttural pronunciations. Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Many countries around the world have blended English words and phrases into their everyday speech and refer to the result by a colloquial name that implies its bilingual origins, which parallels the English language's own addiction to loan words and borrowings. Named examples of these ad-hoc constructions, distinct from pidgin and creole languages, include Engrish, Wasei-eigo, Franglais and Spanglish. (See List of dialects of the English language for a complete list.) Europanto combines many languages but has an English core.
Constructed variants of English

- Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an initial practical subset of English.
- Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
- English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
- Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international co-operation and communication in specific areas.
- European English is a new variant of the English language created to become the common language in Europe.
Sounds

Vowels
Notes: It is the vowels that differ most from region to region. Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere. #North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with or . According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian English. #Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See cot-caught merger. #The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel. #Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa . #This sound is often transcribed with or with . #The letter U can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.
Consonants
This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). #The velar nasal is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas. #The alveolar flap is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and increasingly in Australian English. This is the sound of "tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones in North American English. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in some varieties of Spanish. #In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is merged with /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives. #The sounds are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. #The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach or Chanukah /xanuka/, or in some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) where the affricate [kx] is used instead of /k/ in words such as docker . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead. #Voiceless w is found in Scottish, Irish, some upper-class British, some eastern United States, and New Zealand accents. In all other dialects it is merged with /w/.
Voicing and Aspiration
Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
- Voiceless plosives and affricates (//, //, //, and //) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable and are not part of a consonant cluster—compare pin [] and spin [].
- In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.
- In other dialects, such as Indian English, most or all voiceless stops may remain unaspirated.
- Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
- Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English)—examples: tap [], sack [].
- Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English)—examples: sad [], bag []. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.
See also
International Phonetic Alphabet for English
Intonation

Tone groups
English is an Intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically, for example, to convey surprise and irony, or to change a statement into a question. In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. The structure of tone groups can have a crucial impact on the meaning of what is said. For example: :- :- :-
Characteristics of intonation
Each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). There is always a strong syllable, which is stressed more than the others. This is called the nuclear syllable. For example: :That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done! Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words "best" and "done", which are stressed. "Best" is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable. The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example: :John had stolen that money. (... not I) :John had stolen that money. (... you said he hadn't) :John had stolen that money. (... he wasn't given it) :John had stolen that money. (... not this money) :John had stolen that money. (... not something else) The nuclear syllable is spoken louder than all the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. For example: :When do you want to be paid? :Nów? (rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: can I be paid now?) :Nòw (falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I choose to be paid now)
Grammar
English grammar is based on its Germanic roots, though some scholars during the 1700s and 1800s attempted to impose Latin grammar upon it, with little success. English is just slightly inflected, much less so than most Indo-European languages. It compensates for this by placing more grammatical information in auxiliary words and word order. Unlike most other Indo-European languages, modern nominal groups (nouns) in English do not carry gender, although an archaic form of gender is technically assigned as either masculine, feminine, neuter or common. Engendered nouns are only apparent in special cases, such as "I loved that ship as if she were my own", where the noun "ship" is referred to by its feminine pronoun.
Vocabulary
Almost without exception, Germanic words (which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions) are shorter and more informal. Latinate words are often regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is often mistaken for either pretentiousness (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or obfuscation (as in a military document which says "neutralise" when it means "kill"). George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language gives a thorough treatment of this feature of English. An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty"—and sometimes also between a word inherited through French and a borrowing direct from Latin of the same root word: "oversee", "survey" or "supervise". The richness of the language is that such synonyms have slightly different meanings, enabling the language to be used in a very flexible way to express fine variations or shades of thought. List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents In everyday speech the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article. English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words which often come into common usage. In addition, slang provides new meanings for old words. In fact this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also sociolinguistics.
Number of words in English
As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary state: :The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits.... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology—some enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might be considered "English" or not. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) includes over 500,000 headwords, following a rather inclusive policy: :It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933). The difficulty of defining the number of words is compounded by the emergence of new versions of English, such as Asian English.
Word origins
One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, mostly from Norman French but some borrowed directly from Latin). A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1% James D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary." [http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1990May15.155309.8892%40watdragon.waterloo.edu&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain]
Writing system
English is written using the Latin alphabet. The spelling system or orthography of English is historical, not phonological. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken, and English spelling is often considered to be one of the most difficult to learn of any language that uses an alphabet. See English orthography.
Basic sound-letter correspondence

Written accents
English includes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing, to the point where actually writing the accent may be interpreted as a sign of pretension—though this view is counterbalanced by the view that fine typography should preserve accents, especially where it makes a distinction in pronunciation (compare façade vs. facade which would rhyme with cascade). The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café has a pronounced final e, which would be silent by the normal English pronunciation rules. Some examples: ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà. For a more complete list, see List of English words with diacritics. Some words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most publications today, but Time magazine still uses it. For some words such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic. Italics, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós, coup d'état, crème brûlée, pièce de résistance, raison d'être, über (übermensch), vis-à-vis. It is also possible to use a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break, but again this is often left out or a hyphen used instead. Examples: coöperate (or co-operate), daïs, naïve, noël, reëlect (or re-elect). One publication that still uses a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break is the New Yorker magazine. Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the meter of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd. In certain older texts (typically in Commonwealth English), the use of ligatures is common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia. Such words have Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced in Commonwealth English by the separated letters "ae" and "oe" ("archaeology", "oesophagus") and in American English by "e" ("archeology", "esophagus"). However, the spellings "oeconomy" and "oecology" are now generally replaced by "economy" and "ecology" in Commonwealth English, making these spellings the same as in American English.
See also

- English literature
- Formal written English - regional differences
- List of languages
- Common phrases in various languages
Dialects

- American and British English differences
- English speaking Europe
- General American
- List of dialects of the English language
Pronunciation

- General American
- International Phonetic Alphabet for English
- List of words of disputed pronunciation
- Non-native pronunciations of English
- Phonemic differentiation in English
- Received Pronunciation
- Regional accents of English speakers
- Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
Social, cultural or political

- English as a lingua franca for Europe
- English as an additional language
- English on the Internet
- Foreign language influences in English
- Languages in the United States
- Lists of English words of international origin
- Anglosphere
- Anglo-Saxon
Grammar

- English declension
- English plural
- English verb conjugation
- Initial-stress-derived noun
- Present progressive tense
Usage

- Dictionary
- Like
- List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents
- List of unusual English words
- Longest word in English
- Misspelling
- Gender-neutral language
- Singular they
- Siamese twins (English language)
External links

- [http://www.abroadlanguages.com/al/english/ Learning English abroad] and online. With dictionaries, games, penpals, etc.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/index.shtml BBC - Radio 4 - Routes of English]
- [http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com Short Discriptions of the English Tenses]
- [http://www.ego4u.com/ English Grammar Online] free exercises, explanations, games and teaching materials on English as a foreign language
- [http://www.eslbase.com/ TEFL] - Teaching English as a Foreign Language - information and advice
- http://www.teach-yourself-english.com/ Easy-going learning aid
- [http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en Learning English Online] grammar, vocabulary, exercises, exams - English as a second language.
- [http://www.english.hb.pl Pako's English Page - Articles and advice on learning English]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng Ethnologue report for English]
- [http://www.LanguageMonitor.com LanguageMonitor] - Watchdog on contemporary English usage
- [http://www.vec.ca/english/1/english.cfm Development of English]
- [http://www.esu.org English Speaking Union]
- [http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages]
- [http://www.antimoon.com/ Antimoon - How to learn English] - Advice and inspiration for learners of English.
- [http://www.zozanga.com/ Zozanga ESL - Learn Online English] How to learn English.
- [http://www.quiz-tree.com/English_Spelling_main.html Free English spelling quizzes]
- [http://inenglishofcourse.pl Conversation and Resource Point for Learners of English]
- [http://www.globalenglishsalon.com Global English Salon] - Listen to English online free.
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=2&learn-English/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in English] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- [http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com What Does That Mean?] A wiki based lexicon of English idioms from around the world
- [http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/ELiX/bge.pdf Basic Global English]
Dictionaries

- [http://www.oed.com Oxford English Dictionary] The definitive record of the English language
- [http://dicts.info/dictlist1.php All free English dictionaries] Collection of many free English dictionaries.
- [http://dictionary.cambridge.org Cambridge Dictionary]
- [http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/french.html Freelang - French-English Dictionary made by Bertrand Cornu]
Further reading

- Baugh AC and Cable T. A history of the English language (5th ed), Rouledge, 2002 (ISBN 0415280990_
- Crystal, D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language (2nd ed), Cambridge University Press, 2003 (ISBN 0521530334)
- Halliday, MAK. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed), London, Edward Arnold, 1994 (ISBN 0340557826)
- McArthur, T (ed). The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press, 1992 (ISBN 019214183X)
- Robinson, Orrin, "Old English and Its Closest Relatives", Stanford Univ Press, 1992 (ISBN 0-8047-2221-8) English language Category:Languages of Fiji Category:Languages of Guam Category:Languages of Hong Kong Category:Languages of Singapore Category:Languages of the Philippines Category:Languages of the United Kingdom Category:Languages of the United States Category:Languages of Canada Category:Languages of New Zealand Category:Languages of India als:Englische Sprache ko:영어 ms:Bahasa Inggeris zh-min-nan:Eng-gí ja:英語 nb:Engelsk språk simple:English language th:ภาษาอังกฤษ

Ballet

---- Ballet is the name given to a specific dance form and technique. Works of dance choreographed using this technique are called ballets, and may include: dance, mime, acting and music (orchestral and sung). Ballets can be performed alone or as part of an opera. Ballet is best known for its virtuoso techniques such as pointe work, grand pas de deux and high leg extensions. Many ballet techniques bear a striking similarity to fencing positions and footwork, perhaps due to their development during the same periods of history, but more probably, because both arts had similar requirements in terms of balance and movement. Domenico da Piacenza is credited with the first use of the term ballo (in De Arte Saltandi et Choreas Ducendi) instead of danza (dance) for his baletti or balli which later came to be known as Ballets. The first Ballet per se is considered to be Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx's Ballet Comique de la Royne (1581) and was a ballet comique (ballet drama). 1581 also saw the publication of Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino, a technical manual on ballet dancing that helped to establish Italy as a major centre of ballet development.

History of ballet

Italy Ballet has its roots in Renaissance court spectacle in Italy, but was particularly shaped by the French ballet de cour, which consisted of social dances performed by the nobility in tandem with music, speech, verse, song, pageant, decor and costume. Ballet began to develop as a separate art form in France during the reign of Louis XIV, who was passionate about dance and determined to reverse a decline in dance standards that began in the 17th century. The king established the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, the same year in which the first comédie-ballet, composed by Jean-Baptist Lully was performed. This early form consisted of a play in which the scenes were separated by dances. Lully soon branched out into opéra-ballet, and a school to train professional dancers was attached to the Académie Royale de Musique, where instruction was based on noble deportment and manners. The 18th Century was a period of great advancement in the technical standards of ballet and the period when ballet became a serious dramatic art form on par with the Opera. Central to this advance was the seminal work of Jean-Georges Noverre, Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (1760), which focused on developing the ballet d'action, in which the movements of the dancers are designed to express character and assist in the narrative. Reforms were also being made in ballet composition by composers such as Christoph Gluck. Finally, opera was divided into three formal techniques sérieux, demi-caractère and comique. Ballet also came to be featured in operas as interludes called divertissements. The 19th Century was a period of great social change, which was reflected in ballet by a shift away from the aristocratic sensibilities that had dominated ealier periods through Romantic ballet. Ballerinas such as Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler pioneered new techniques such as pointework that rocketed the ballerina into prominence as the ideal stage figure, professional librettists began crafting the stories in ballets, and teachers like Carlo Blasis codified ballet technique in the basic form that is still used today. Ballet began to decline after 1850 in most parts of the western world, but remained vital in Denmark and, most notably, Russia thanks to masters such as August Bournonville, Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa. Russian companies, particularly after World War II engaged in multiple tours all over the world that revitalized ballet in the west and made it a form of entertainment embraced to one degree or another by the general public.

Ballet production

World War II Seminal artists involved with ballets include:

Ballet education

Canada

- [http://www.nbs-enb.ca/ The National Ballet School of Canada] A boarding school, one of the world's finest places to train dancers for The National Ballet of Canada and other world-class dance companies.
- [http://www.rwbschool.com/ Royal Winnipeg Ballet School] Official school of Canada's acclaimed Royal Winnipeg Ballet
- [http://www.grandsballets.qc.ca/en/ Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal] Classical ballet company based in the francophone province of Québec.

Denmark

- [http://www.kgl-teater.dk/dkt2002uk/ballet/frame.htm] Royal Danish Ballet School, Copenhagen
- [http://www.balletskolenholstebro.dk/] Royal Danish Ballet School, Holstebro
- [http://www.balletskolen-odense.dk/] Royal Danish Ballet School, Odense

Germany

- [http://www.muho-mannheim.de/cgi-bin/frame.php3?path=/wirueberuns/Ballett/ Akademie des Tanzes at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts] in the city of Mannheim, Germany.
- [http://www.ballettschule-lekovic.de/ Ballettschule R. Lekovic], Berlin.
- [http://www.ballettschule-berlin.de/ Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin und Schule für Artistik Fachrichtung Bühnentanz], Berlin.
- [http://www.hamburgballett.de/ Ballettschule des Hamburg Ballett], Hamburg. Director John Neumeier (see :de:John Neumeier).
- [http://www.theforsythecompany.de/ The Forsythe Company], Frankfurt and Dresden.

Switzerland

- [http://www.ballettluzern.ch/ Dance Art Studio Ballettschule Luzern / Lucerne Ballet School] Professional ballet school in Switzerland for aspiring dancers and teachers

United Kingdom

- Royal Ballet School [http://www.royal-ballet-school.org.uk/] Founded in England in 1926 by Dame Ninette de Valois
- [http://www.enbschool.org.uk/] English National Ballet School

USA

- [http://www.sab.org/ School of American Ballet] Official ballet school of the New York City Ballet, founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein
- [http://www.washingtonballet.org/school.htm/ The Washington School of Ballet] Located in the nation's capital.
- [http://www.sfballet.org/school/ The San Francisco Ballet School]
- [http://www.pnb.org/pnbschool/ The Pacific Northwest Ballet School] Located in Seattle, Washington.
- [http://www.obt.org/school.html The School of Oregon Ballet Theatre] Located in Portland, Oregon.
- [http://www.nutmegballet.org The Nutmeg Conservatory] Located in Torrington, Connecticut
- [http://www.cpyb.org/ The Central Pennsylvannia Youth Ballet] Located in Carlisle, Pennsylvannia

Australia

- Australian Ballet School [http://www.australianballetschool.com.au]. 95 % of the Australian Ballet Company are graduates from this school.
- Perth City Ballet. 100% of Perth City Ballet Members are graduates from this school.

Norway

- Statens Balletthøgskole (Norwegian National College of Ballet and Dance) [http://www.khio.no/Norsk/Ballett_+_dans/]

External links

- [http://www.balletforfigureskaters.com Ballet for Figure Skaters]

Video Clips

- [http://www.paballet.org/outreach/steps.aspx Ballet Steps] ja:バレエ

Composer

A composer is a person who writes music. The term refers particularly to someone who writes music in some type of musical notation, thus allowing others to perform the music. This distinguishes the composer from a musician who improvises. However, a person may be called a composer without creating music in documentary form, since not all musical genres rely on written notation. In this context, the composer is the originator of the music, and usually its first performer. Later performers then repeat the musical composition they have heard. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians also varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music. For example, in the development of classical music in Europe, the function of composing music initially had no greater importance than the function of performing music. The preservation of individual compositions received little attention, and musicians generally had no qualms about modifying compositions for performance. Over time, however, the written notation of the composer has come to be treated as strict instructions, from which performers should not deviate without good reason. This notion is often seen as a purist one. The term "composer" is often used specifically to mean a composer in the Western tradition of classical music. In popular and folk music, the composer is typically called a songwriter (since the music generally takes the form of a song.)

Lists of composers

- List of composers
- List of opera composers
- List of uncategorized composers
- List of soundtrack composers

By style, time period, or technique

- List of classical music composers
- List of 20th century classical composers
- List of 21st century classical composers
- List of modernist composers

By nationality, culture, or identity

- List of French composers
- List of Dutch and Flemish composers
- List of Indonesian composers
- List of Italian composers
- List of Russian composers
- List of Polish composers
- List of Indian composers
- List of female composers
- List of gay, lesbian or bisexual composers
- List of composers of African descent

By chronology

- [http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/EasyTimeline/Introduction.htm Timeline of classical composers] Category:Classical music Composers Category:Occupations in music ko:작곡가 ja:作曲家 th:คีตกวี

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky (Russian: ) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian-French-American composer of modern classical music. He composed in the primitivist, neo-classical and serialist styles, but he is best known for two works from his earlier, Russian period: Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) and L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird). For some, these daring and innovative ballets practically reinvented the genre. Stravinsky also wrote in a broad spectrum of ensemble combinations and classical forms. His oeuvre included everything from symphonies to piano miniatures. Stravinsky also achieved fame as a pianist and conductor, often at the premieres of his own works. He was also a writer. With the help of Alexis Roland-Manuel, Stravinsky composed a theoretical work entitled Poetics of Music. In it, he famously claimed that music was incapable of "expressing anything but itself". Robert Craft transcribed several interviews with the composer, which were published as Conversations with Stravinsky. A quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian, Stravinsky was one of the most authoritative composers and artists of 20th century music, both in the West and in his native land. He was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people of the century. Stravinsky has also been criticised for his support of Mussolini and Fascism during the 1930's.

Biography

Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum (now Lomonosov), near St. Petersburg, Russia. Brought up in an apartment in St. Petersburg and dominated by his father and elder brother, Stravinsky's early childhood was a mix of experience that hinted little at the cosmopolitan artist he was to become. Though his father was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Stravinsky originally studied to be a lawyer. Composition came later. In 1902, at the age of 20, Stravinsky became the pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, probably the leading Russian composer of the time. Stravinsky left Russia for the first time in 1910, going to Paris to attend the premiere of his ballet L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird). During his stay in the city, he composed three major works for the Ballets Russes—L'oiseau de feu, Petrushka (1911), and Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913). The ballets trace his stylistic development: from the L'oiseau de feu, whose style draws largely on Rimsky-Korsakov, to Petrushka's emphasis on bitonality, and finally to the savage polyphonic dissonance of Le sacre du printemps. As he himself said, with these premieres his intention was "[to send] them all to hell". (He succeeded: the 1913 première of Le sacre du printemps turned into a riot.) Stravinsky displayed an inexhaustible desire to learn and explore art, literature, and life. This desire manifested itself in several of his Paris collaborations. Not only was he the principal composer for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, but Stravinsky also collaborated with Pablo Picasso (Pulcinella, 1920), Jean Cocteau (Oedipus Rex, 1927) and George Balanchine (Apollon Musagete, 1928). George Balanchine. Picasso took the opportunity to make several sketches of the composer.]] Relatively short of stature and not conventionally handsome, Stravinsky was nevertheless photogenic, as many pictures show. Although a notorious philanderer (even rumoured to have affairs with high-class partners such as Coco Chanel) Stravinsky was also a family man who devoted considerable amounts of his time and expenditure to his sons and daughters. He was still young when he married his cousin Katerina Nossenko, who he had known since early childhood, on 23 January 1906. Their marriage endured for 33 years, but the true love of his life, and partner until his death, was his second wife Vera de Bosset (1888-1982). When Stravinsky met Vera in the early 1920s she was married to the painter and stage designer Serge Sudeikin, but they soon began an affair which led to her leaving her husband. From then until the death of Katerina in 1939 Stravinsky led a deft double-life, spending some of his time with his first family and the rest with Vera. Katerina soon learned of the relationship and accepted it as inevitable and permanent. After her death Stravinsky and Vera were married in New York where they had gone from France to escape the war in 1940. Patronage too was never far away. In the early 1920s Leopold Stokowski was able to give Stravinsky regular support through a pseudonymous "benefactor". The composer was also able to attract commissions: most of his work from The Firebird onwards was written for specific occasions and paid for generously. Stravinsky proved adept at playing the part of "man of the world", acquiring a keen instinct for business matters and appearing relaxed and comfortable in many of the world's major cities. Paris, Venice, Berlin, London and New York all hosted successful appearances as pianist and conductor. Most people who knew him through dealings connected with performances spoke of him as polite, courteous and helpful. For example, Otto Klemperer, who knew Schoenberg well, said that he always found Stravinsky much more co-operative and easy to deal with. At the same time he had a disregard of his social inferiors: Robert Craft was embarrassed by his habit of tapping a glass with a fork and loudly demanding attention in restaurants. Eventually Stravinsky's music was noticed by Serge Diaghilev, the director of the Ballets Russes in Paris. He commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet for his theater; so in 1911, Stravinsky traveled to Paris. That ballet ended up being the famous L'Oiseau de Feu. However, because of World War I and the October Revolution in Russia he moved to Switzerland in 1914. He returned to Paris in 1920 to write more ballets as well as many other works. He moved to the United States in 1939 and became a naturalized citizen in 1945. He continued to live in the United States until his death in 1971, unsuccessfully writing music for films. Stravinsky had adapted to life in France, but moving to America aged 58 was a very different prospect. For a time he preserved a ring of emigré Russian friends and contacts, but eventually realised that this would not sustain his intellectual and professional life in the USA. When he planned to write an opera with W. H. Auden, the need to acquire more familiarity with the English-speaking world coincided with his meeting the conductor and musicologist Robert Craft. Craft lived with Stravinsky until his death, acting as interpreter, chronicler, assistant conductor and factotum for countless musical and social tasks. musicologist] Stravinsky's taste in literature was wide and reflected his constant desire for new discoveries. The texts and literary sources for his work began with a period of interest in Russian folklore, progressed to classical authors and the Latin liturgy, and moved on to contemporary France (André Gide, in Persephone) and eventually English literature: Auden, Eliot, and medieval English verse. At the end of his life he was even setting Hebrew scripture in Abraham and Isaac. In 1962 he accepted an invitation to return to Russia for a series of concerts, but remained an émigré firmly based in the West. He died in New York City on April 6, 1971 at the age of 88 and was buried in Venice on the cemetery island of San Michele. His grave is close to the tomb of his long-time collaborator Diaghilev. Stravinsky's life had encompassed most of the 20th Century, including many of its modern classical music styles, and he influenced composers both during and after his lifetime. He has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard.

Stylistic periods

Stravinsky's career largely falls into three distinct stylistic periods. Most of his compositions can be placed in one of the three.

The Primitive, or Russian, Period

The first of Stravinsky's major stylistic periods (excluding some early minor works) was inaugurated by the three ballets he composed for Diaghilev. The ballets have several shared characteristics: they are scored for extremely large orchestras; they use Russian folk themes and motifs; and they bear the mark of Rimsky-Korsakov's imaginative scoring and instrumentation. The first of the ballets, L'oiseau de feu, is notable for its unusual introduction (triplets in the low basses) and sweeping orchestration. Petrushka, too, is distinctively scored and the first of Stravinsky's ballets to draw on folk mythology. But it is the third ballet, The Rite of Spring, that is generally considered the apotheosis of Stravinsky's "Russian Period". Here, the composer draws on the brutalism of pagan Russia, reflecting these sentiments in roughly-drawn, stinging motifs that appear throughout the work. There are several famous passages in the work, but two are of particular note: the opening theme played on a bassoon with notes at the very top of its register, almost out of range; and the thumping, off kilter eighth-note motif played by strings and accented by French horns on off-rhythms (See Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) for a more detailed account of this work). Other pieces from this period include: Renard (1916), Histoire du soldat (A Soldier's Tale) (1918), and Les Noces (The Wedding) (1923).

The Neo-Classical Period

The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style, slightly overlapping the first, is marked by two works: Pulcinella 1920 and the Octet (1923) for wind instruments. Both of these works feature what was to become a hallmark of this period; that is, Stravinsky's return, or "looking back", to the classical music of Mozart and Bach and their contemporaries. This "neo-classical" style involved the abandonment of the large orchestras demanded by the ballets. In these new works, written roughly between 1920 and 1950, Stravinsky turns largely to wind instruments, the piano, and choral and chamber works. Other works such as Oedipus Rex (1927), Apollon Musagete (1928) and the Dumbarton Oaks concerto continue this trend. Some larger works from this period are the three symphonies: the Symphonie des Psaumes (Symphony of Psalms) (1930), Symphony in C (1940) and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). Apollon, Persephone (1933) and Orpheus (1947) also mark Stravinsky's concern, during this period, of not only returning to "Classic" music but also returning to "Classic" themes: in these instances, the mythology of the ancient Greeks. The pinnacle of this period is the opera The Rake's Progress completed in 1951. This opera, written to a libretto by Auden and based on the etchings of Hogarth, encapsulates everything that Stravinsky had perfected in the previous 20 years of his neo-classic period. The music is direct but quirky; it borrows from classic tonal harmony but also interjects surprising dissonances; it features Stravinsky's trademark off-rhythms; and it harkens back to the operas and themes of Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart. After the opera's completion Stravinsky never wrote another "neo-classic" work and instead began writing the music that came to define his final stylistic change.

The Serialist, or Twelve Tone Period

Only after the death of Arnold Schoenberg, the inventor of the twelve tone system, in 1951 did Stravinsky begin making use of the technique in his own works. No doubt, Stravinsky was aided in his understanding of, or even conversion to, the twelve tone method by his confidant and helper Robert Craft, who had long been advocating the change. Regardless, the next fifteen years were spent writing the works in this style. Stravinsky first began to dabble in the twelve tone technique in smaller vocal works such as the Cantata (1952), Three Songs from Shakespeare (1953) and In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), as if he were testing the system. He later began expanding his use of the technique in works often based on biblical texts, such as Threni (1958), A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer (1961), and The Flood (1962). An important transitional work of this period in Stravinsky's work, was a return to the ballet: Agon, a work for twelve dancers written from 1954 to 1957. Some numbers of Agon recollect the "white-note" tonality of the neo-classic period, while others (the Bransle Gay, e.g.) display his unique re-interpretation of serial method. The ballet is thus a sort of miniature encyclopedia of Stravinsky, containing many of the signatures to be found throughout his compositions, whether primitivist, neo-classic, or serial: rhythmic quirkiness and experimentation, harmonic ingenuity, and a deft ear for masterful orchestration. Indeed, these characteristics are what make Stravinsky's output so unique when compared with the work of contemporaneous serial composers.

Influence and innovation

Stravinsky's work embraced multiple compositional styles, revolutionised orchestration, spanned several genres, practically reinvented ballet form and incorporated multiple cultures, languages and literatures. As a consequence, his influence on composers both during his lifetime and after his death was, and remains, considerable.

Compositional innovations

Stravinsky began re-thinking his use of the motif and ostinato as early as The Firebird ballet, but his use of these elements reached its full flowering in The Rite of Spring. Motivic development, that is using a distinct musical phrase that is subsequently altered and developed throughout a piece of music, has its roots in the sonata form of Mozart's age. The first great innovator in this method was Beethoven; the famous "fate motif" which opens Fifth Symphony and reappears throughout the work in surprising and refreshing permutations is a classic example. However, Stravinsky's use of motivic development was unique in the way he permutated his motifs. In the "Rite of Spring" he introduces additive permutations, that is, subtracting or adding a note to a motif without regard to changes in meter. The same ballet is also notable for its relentless use of ostinati. The most famous passage, as noted above, is the eighth note ostinato of the strings accented by eight french horns that occurs in the section Auguries of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls). This is perhaps the first instance in music of extended ostinato which is neither used for variation nor for accompaniment of melody. At various other times in the work Stravinsky also pits several ostinati against one another without regard to harmony or tempo, creating a pastiche, a sort of musical equivalent of a Cubist painting. These passages are notable not only for this pastiche-quality but also for their length: Stravinsky treats them as whole and complete musical sections. Such techniques foreshadowed by several decades the minimalist works of composers such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Neoclassicism

Stravinsky was the greatest, if not the first, practitioner of the "neoclassic" style, a style that would be later adopted by composers as diverse as Darius Milhaud and Aaron Copland. Sergei Prokofiev once chided Stravinsky for his neo-classical mannerisms, though sympathetically, as Prokofiev had broken similar musical ground in his Symphony No. 1, "Classical" of 1916-17. Stravinsky announced his new style in 1923 with the stripped-down and delicately scored Octet for winds. The clear harmonies, looking back to the Classical music era of Mozart and Bach, and the simpler combinations of rhythm and melody were a direct response to the complexities of the Second Viennese School. Stravinsky may have been preceded in these devices by earlier composers such as Erik Satie, but no doubt when Copland was composing his Appalachian Spring ballet he was taking Stravinsky as his model. Certainly by the late 1920s and 1930s, Neoclassicism as an accepted modern genre was prevalent throughout art music circles around the world. Ironically, it was Stravinsky himself who announced the death of Neoclassicism, at least in his own work if not for the world, with the completion of his opera The Rake's Progress in 1951. A sort of final statement for the style, the opera was largely ridiculed as too "backward looking" even by those who had lauded the new style only three decades earlier.

Quotation and pastiche

Stravinsky used the now very postmodern technique of direct musical quotation and pastiche as early as 1920 in his work Pulcinella. Here he uses the music of Pergolesi as source material, sometimes directly quoting it and other times simply reinventing it, to create a new and refreshing work. He used the same technique in the ballet The Fairy's Kiss of 1928. Here it is the music of Tchaikovsky, specifically Swan Lake, that Stravinsky uses as his source. Such compositional "borrowing" would come into vogue in the 1960s, as in the work Sinfonia by Luciano Berio.

Use of folk material

There were other composers in the early 20th century who collected and augmented their native folk music and used these themes in their work. Two notable examples are Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Yet in Le Sacre du Printemps we see Stravinsky again innovating in his use of folk themes. He strips these themes to their most basic outline, melody alone, and often contorts them beyond recognition with additive notes, inversions, diminutions, and other techniques. He did this so well, in fact, that only in recent scholarship, such as in Richard Taruskin's Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works Through Mavra [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520070992/qid=1088714967/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/102-2385533-5218561?v=glance&s=books], have analysts uncovered the original source material for some of the music in The Rite.

Orchestral innovations

The late 19th century and early 20th century was a time ripe with orchestral innovation. Composers such as Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler were well regarded for their skill at writing for the medium. They, in turn, were influenced by the expansion of the traditional classical orchestra by Richard Wagner through his use of large forces and unusual instruments. Stravinsky continued this Romantic trend of writing for huge orchestral forces, especially in the early ballets. But it is when he started to turn away from this tendency that he began to innovate by introducing unique combinations of instruments. For example, in L'Histoire du Soldat (A Soldier's Tale) the forces used are clarinet, bassoon, tenor and bass trombone, double bass, cornet, violin and percussion, a very striking combination for its time (1918). This combining of distinct timbres would become almost a cliché in post-World War II classical music. Another notable innovation of orchestral technique that can be partially attributed to Stravinsky is the exploitation of the extreme ranges of instruments. The most famous passage is the opening of the Rite of Spring where Stravinsky uses the extreme reaches of the bassoon to simulate the symbolic "awakening" of a spring morning. It must also be noted that composers such as Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg were also exploring some of these orchestral and instrumental techniques in the early 20th century. Yet their influence on succeeding generations of composers was equalled if not exceeded by that of Stravinsky.

Criticism

"The music of Le Sacre du Printemps baffles verbal description. To say that much of it is hideous as sound is a mild description. There is certainly an impelling rhythm traceable. Practically it has no relation to music at all as most of us understand the word." Musical Times, London, August 1, 1913 (Slonimsky, 1953) "All the signs indicate a strong reaction against the nightmare of noise and eccentricity that was one of the legacies of the war.... What has become of the works that made up the program of the Stravinsky concert which created such a stir a few years ago? Practically the whole lot are already on the shelf, and they will remain there until a few jaded neurotics once more feel a desire to eat ashes and fill their belly with the east wind." Musical Times, London, October 1923 (ibid.) Composer Constant Lambert (1936) described pieces such as L'Histoire du Soldat (A Soldier's Tale) as containing, "essentially cold-blooded abstraction". Further, the "melodic fragments in L'Histoire du Soldat are completely meaningless themselves. They are merely successions of notes that can conveniently be divided into groups of three, five, and seven and set against other mathematical groups", and the cadenza for solo drums is, "musical purity...achieved by a species of musical castration". He compares Stravinsky's choice of, "the drabbest and least significant phrases", to Gertrude Stein's: "Everday they were gay there, they were regularly gay there everyday" ("Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene", 1922), "whose effect would be equally appreciated by someone with no knowledge of English whatsoever". In his book Philosophy of Modern Music (1948) Theodor Adorno calls Stravinsky an acrobat, a civil servant, a tailor's dummy, hebephrenic, psychotic, infantile, fascist, and devoted to making money. Part of the composer's error, in Adorno's view, was his neo-classicism, but more important was his music's "pseudomorphism of painting", playing off of le temps éspace (space) rather than le temps durée (duration) of Henri Bergson. "One trick characterizes all of Stravinsky's formal endeavors: the effort of his music to portray time as in a circus tableau and to present time complexes as though they were spatial. This trick, however, soon exhausts itself." (1948)

List of works

Ballets

- L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird) for orchestra (1910)
- Petrushka for orchestra (1911)
- Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) for orchestra (1913)
- Renard (1916)
- Histoire du Soldat for chamber group and 3 speakers (1918)
- Pulcinella for chamber orchestra and soloists (1920)
- Les Noces for 4 pianos, percussion, choir and soloists (1923)
- Apollon Musagète for string orchestra (1928)
- Le baiser de la fée (The Fairy's Kiss) for orchestra (1928)
- Jeu de cartes for orchestra (1936)
- Scènes de Ballet f

Petroushka

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