The Cantata by Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 is a work for soprano, tenor, female choir, and instrumental ensemble (of two flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

, cor anglais

Cor anglais

The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....

 (doubling second oboe), and cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

), and was composed from April 1951 to August 1952. The premiere performance on 11 November 1952 was by the Los Angeles (Chamber) Symphony Society (to whom the work is dedicated), conducted by Stravinsky himself. After completing the opera The Rake's Progress

The Rake's Progress

The Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947, in a Chicago...

, Stravinsky felt the urge to compose another work setting English words, but in a non-dramatic form (White 1979, 468–69). Having collaborated with the poet Wystan Auden on the libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 of The Rake's Progress, Stravinsky decided to set the anonymous English texts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that Auden had just published.

The piece consists of the following movements:

1. A lyke-wake dirge. Versus I. Prelude: This ae nighte
2. Ricercar I. The maidens came
3. A lyke-wake dirge. Versus II. First interlude: If ever thou gav'st hos'n and shoon
4. Ricercar II. Sacred History: To-morrow shall be my dancing day
5. A lyke-wake dirge. Versus III. Second interlude: From Whinnymuir when thou may'st pass
6. Westron Wind
7. A lyke-wake dirge. Versus IV. Postlude: If ever thou gav'st meat or drink

The dirge

Dirge

A dirge is a somber song expressing mourning or grief, such as would be appropriate for performance at a funeral. A lament. The English word "dirge" is derived from the Latin Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam , the first words of the first antiphon in the Matins of the Office...

 sections concern a soul's approach to and journey through purgatory

Purgatory

Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...

. Ricercar II sets the carol Tomorrow shall be my dancing day

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day is an English carol usually attributed as 'traditional'; its first written appearance is in William B. Sandys' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern of 1833...

. Westron Wind

The western wynde

Westron Wynde is an early 16th century song whose tune was used as the basis of Masses by English composers John Taverner, Christopher Tye and John Sheppard. The tune first appears with words in a partbook of around 1530, which contains mainly keyboard music...

is a sixteenth-century song.

Further reading

• Burde, Wolfgang. 1994. "Igor Strawinskys Annäherung an die Reihentechnik". Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung, no. 7 (April): 18–21.
• Carter, Chandler. 2010. "The Rake's Progress and Stravinsky’s Return: The Composer’s Evolving Approach to Setting Text". Journal of the American Musicological Society 63, no. 3 (Fall): 553–640.
• Cushman, D. Stephen. 2000. "Stravinsky's Lyke-wake Dirge Revisited: A Possible Source". In The Varieties of Musicology: Essays in Honor of Murray Lefkowitz. Detroit Monographs in Musicology/Studies in Music 29. Edited by John Daverio and John K Ogasapian, 167–74. Warren, MI: Harmonie Park. ISBN 0-89990-093-3.
• Ginsborg, Jane, Roger Chaffin, and George Nicholson. 2006. "Shared Performance Cues in Singing and Conducting: A Content Analysis of Talk During Practice". Psychology of Music 34, no. 2 (April): 167–94.
• Neidhöfer, Christoph. 2004. "A Case of Cross-fertilization: Serial and Non-serial Counterpoint in Stravinsky's Cantata (1951-52)". Tijdschrift voor muziektheorie 9, no. 2 (May): 87–104.
• Straus, Joseph N. 1999. "Stravinsky's 'Construction of Twelve Verticals': An Aspect of Harmony in the Serial Music". Music Theory Spectrum 21, no. 1 (Spring): 43–73.