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reh. 7 - reh. 9
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Skills & Techniques: Accuracy, Loud Playing, Marcato Style, Rhythms, Tonguing Flexibility
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Horn 1 (F)
Horn 2 (F)
Horn 3 (F)
Horn 4 (F)
Horn 5 (F)
Horn 6 (F)
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Columbia Symphony Orchestra (1969)
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London Symphony Orchestra (1965)
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Composer & Composition Information
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a seminal figure of the early- and mid-twentieth century musical world far beyond his birthplace near St. Petersburg. As a cosmopolitan in the broadest sense, holding Russian, French, and American citizenships at various times of his life, Stravinsky’s influence was far-reaching.
Igor Stravinsky was born in the town of Oranienbaum, Russia, in 1882, and was raised in the city of St. Petersburg. His father was an operatic bass at the Maryinsky (now Kirov) Theatre in St. Petersburg, and his mother was an accomplished pianist. While Stravinsky studied piano and music from an early age, his parents wished for him to pursue another vocation. He entered law school in 1901 upon graduation from secondary school. While at St. Petersburg University, he was a less-than-enthusiastic law student, attending merely 50 class sessions over his 4 year tenure. In 1902, Stravinsky spent a summer in Heidelberg, Germany, at the home of the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with whom he began private music theory and composition studies. Rimsky-Korsakov encouraged Stravinsky to continue private study rather than pursue formal music instruction, and Stravinsky followed his advice while earning a “half-course” law diploma in 1906. Stravinsky’s father had passed away by this time, and Stravinsky was no longer under pressure to avoid a musical future. Another important association for Stravinsky began in 1909. Two of his compositions were performed at a concert in St. Petersburg, a concert attended by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who had just organized a ballet company in Paris, the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky for a full-length ballet, The Firebird. The text & image are reprinted from Utah Opera where more information about the composer can be found. |
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Feu d'artifice (Fireworks), Op. 4
Stravinsky’s Fireworks – in spite of its brevity – occupies an important place in his output for two reasons. First, most commentators consider it his first fully characteristic piece, the work in which the young composer’s own voice emerged for the first time, unencumbered by echoes of his forebears. Second, Fireworks got the attention of a figure who would play a key role in Stravinsky’s career, the impresario Serge Diaghilev.
Stravinsky wrote Fireworks as a wedding present for Nadezhda Rimsky-Korsakov, daughter of composer and pedagogue Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky’s most important teacher, and another Rimsky pupil, Maximilian Steinberg. Steinberg received the finished composition by the end of June 1908 and expressed his initial enthusiasm in a July 1 letter to his friend Mikhail Gnesin, who would later become a famous teacher in his own right: “I like it very much; the music is typical of Igor…. It’s brilliantly scored, if it only proves playable, for it’s incredibly hard.” Over the years, Stravinsky’s once friendly relationship with Steinberg hardened into mutual animosity; Stravinsky’s own biography records a different reaction from Steinberg, the memory certainly polluted by those feelings: “The best he could do even for my Fireworks was to shrug his shoulders.”
The text is written by & reprinted from John Mangum (Los Angeles Philharmonic) where more information about the composition can be found.
Stravinsky wrote Fireworks as a wedding present for Nadezhda Rimsky-Korsakov, daughter of composer and pedagogue Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky’s most important teacher, and another Rimsky pupil, Maximilian Steinberg. Steinberg received the finished composition by the end of June 1908 and expressed his initial enthusiasm in a July 1 letter to his friend Mikhail Gnesin, who would later become a famous teacher in his own right: “I like it very much; the music is typical of Igor…. It’s brilliantly scored, if it only proves playable, for it’s incredibly hard.” Over the years, Stravinsky’s once friendly relationship with Steinberg hardened into mutual animosity; Stravinsky’s own biography records a different reaction from Steinberg, the memory certainly polluted by those feelings: “The best he could do even for my Fireworks was to shrug his shoulders.”
The text is written by & reprinted from John Mangum (Los Angeles Philharmonic) where more information about the composition can be found.
Notable Performances/Recordings:
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2023)
New York Philharmonic (2016)
Boston Symphony Orchestra (2000)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2023)
New York Philharmonic (2016)
Boston Symphony Orchestra (2000)