Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Charles Parker & Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring Chris Alberi Music History Research Paper Dr. Perkins Alberi 1 Chris Alberi 5/6/14 Dr. Perkins Charlie Parker and The Rite of Spring Igor Stravinsky, like many composers of his age had a fascination with the new sounds of Jazz music that were coming out of America in the 1940s and 1950s. “Has jazz influenced me? Jazz patterns and, especially jazz instrumental combinations did influence me forty years ago, of course, but not the idea of jazz… I don’t follow it, but I respect it” (Craft, 116). Stravinsky also commented on the musical objectives of jazz music: “The point of interest is instrumental virtuosity, instrumental personality, not melody, not harmony, and certainly not rhythm” (Craft 116). Not one single figure in the history of jazz embodies instrumental virtuosity more than Charles “Bird” Parker. Parker revolutionized and indelibly left his mark on the melodic phrasing of jazz, and forever changed the way jazz musicians would approach harmony and rhythm for decades to come. Charles Mingus once said: “If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats” (Koch, 10). Bird certainly left his mark on jazz music, but what left its mark on Bird? While Parker was deeply influenced by the blues and the early jazz of Kansas City, he is reported to have had a great admiration for Igor Stravinsky. In an apocryphal tale, Parker was once performing at Birdland in 1951, and found Igor Stravinsky sitting in the audience. Parker immediately cued up the bop tune “Koko” and at the Alberi 2 top of his solo played an opening excerpt of Stravinsky’s “The Firebird Suite”. Stravinsky allegedly roared with laughter and slammed his glass on the table so hard he covered patrons around him with his beverage (Woideck 56). If we dig deeper into the music of Charles Parker, will we find echoes of Stravinsky? How deeply did the great Russian composer’s most famous ballet, The Rite of Spring, affect Bird’s music? Throughout “The Rite of Spring”, Stravinsky takes a variety of approaches to rhythm. In his first approach to rhythm, Stravinsky employs a constantly changing metric landscape. In this approach, he changes meter rapidly with no repeating pattern or system to determine the metric changes. To add to the disorientation of a constantly changing meter Stravinsky juxtaposes different meters, creating a sense of absolute anarchy. In this excerpt from “Ritual of Abduction” Stravinsky juxtaposes the piccolo clarinet playing septuplets over the rest of the ensemble, which is playing in six-eight. Stravinsky also employs great rhythmic flexibility and repeatedly employs the same melodic idea in a variety of different metric settings. In this excerpt, also from the Ritual of Abduction, Stravinsky uses a repeating eighth note Alberi 3 pattern across four different time signatures, while remarkably maintaining the melodic integrity of the phrase. In “Glorification of the Chosen One”, Stravinsky utilizes an astounding twelve different time signatures. This is a constant theme of Stravinsky, as he employs a variety of time signatures while keeping a consistent pulse throughout the entire composition. The end result is a constantly surprising stream of syncopated rhythms. This excerpt shows how Stravinsky is able to transition seamlessly from 5/8 into 9/8 by maintaining a steady pulse in the string section. Pulse is ultimately what drives The Rite of Spring. In the Augurs of Spring, Stravinsky uses the extremely conservative time signature of 2/4 throughout the entire movement. Again, the eighth note pulse is nearly omnipresent throughout the Alberi 4 entire piece. Because of the modest metric layout of the movement, Stravinsky uses every trick in the book to obscure the repetitive beat pattern. In the beginning of the movement, Stravinsky uses distantly placed accents both on the beat and off the beat, which creates a surprising sense of syncopation and obscures the meter of the movement. Later in the movement, Stravinsky endows the responsibility of maintaining the pulse to the strings, while the winds assault the meter with an onslaught of sextuplets and triplets that serve to further disorient the listener. The eighth note pulse is constant throughout the entire movement. What is also worth noting is how Stravinsky organizes his complex rhythmic sections. In Glorification of the Chosen One, Stravinsky creates his most startling juxtaposition of rhythms yet by employing only five different groupings of instruments. First he has the piccolo and second flutes playing this repeating triplet phrase in 3/8. Next, he composes for the first and third flutes to perform this sextuplet figure. The piccolo clarinet, and clarinets one, two and three and the fifth, sixth, seventh and eight French horns all play this septuplet figure. Alberi 5 The strings perform this complex triplet figure. Finally, the first, second, third, and fourth French horns and trumpets maintain the pulse by playing this quarter note rhythm. The juxtaposition of these five different rhythms creates a hectic and frantic rhythmic landscape that is as animalistic as it is unpredictable (Van Den Toorn, 126132). Through a system of rhythmic juxtaposition, rapidly changing meter, feverish syncopation and a fierce pulse, Stravinsky created a sense of primal urgency out of intensely complex rhythms. So are there any echoes of Stravinsky’s use of rhythm inside of Charles Parker’s improvisation? If one comparison can be immediately drawn, it is the ubiquitous presence of pulse. Parker was at the forefront of the bebop tradition, which featured remarkably fast tempos. Most bebop tunes are standardly played at around two hundred beats per minute, but some tunes can reach speeds of three- Alberi 6 hundred-plus beats per minute. As a result, a constant eighth note pulse is required to keep the musicians tightly in-sync. As a matter of fact, the eighth note is frequently the slowest unit of beat found in most of Parker’s transcribed solos. Here is an example of a how Parker uses the eighth note as his basis for improvisation, from one of his solos on the tune “Confirmation” (Koch, 135). Much like Stravinsky, Parker’s music was intensely syncopated. Parker rarely started a phrase on the downbeat. In addition to rapidly pouring out complex syncopated rhythms, Parker also had a diverse arsenal of rhythmic units at his disposal that he frequently deployed. While Stravinsky used quintuplets, sextuplets, and septuplets to obscure the beat, Parker used these rhythmic devises to highlight the metric layout of the tune (Koch, 135). Parkers use of different rhythmic units isn’t used to obscure the rhythmic pattern of the piece, instead Parker uses these rhythms as a way to jump start a new phrase with energy and rhythmic drive. Does any connection exist between Parker and Stravinsky’s use of rhythm? Not really. Though both men use many of the same rhythmic devices in a similar Alberi 7 fashion, they both achieve drastically different results. Stravinsky utilized a fierce pulse in combination with sporadic syncopation and a myriad of rhythmic units to create a primal sense of urgency in his music. Parker also employed a frantic tempo and pulse in addition to nearly constant syncopation and a variety of rhythmic units, but his final product was that of an elegant rhythmic freedom, not like the primal vigor of Stravinsky. When analyzing the music of Stravinsky, it is important to bear one thing in mind: Stravinsky abandoned most traditional ideas of tonality when composing the Rite. In his own words: “I was guided by no system whatever in Le Sacre du printemps. When I think of the other composers of that time who interest me- Berg, who is synthetic (in the best sense), Webern, who is analytic, and Schoenberg, who is both- how much more theoretical their music seems than Le Sacre; and these composers were supported by a great tradition, whereas very little immediate tradition lies behind Le Sacre du printemps” (Stravinsky, 76). Given that, it is best to abandon any hope of traditional music analysis. Instead, it is best to examine the scales that Stravinsky used while composing The Rite of Spring. Much like his juxtaposition of meters, Stravinsky frequently superimposes different scalar devices to create his unique sense of harmonic mayhem. In the very beginning of the ballet, Stravinsky writes a meandering bassoon solo in C major, which he superimposes over a descending chromatic accompaniment. The bassoon solo avoids establishing itself firmly in C major, only hinting at the sonority, and the chromatic accompaniment only serves to further obscure any sense of tonality. Still Alberi 8 in the introduction of the piece, just before the return of the opening theme, Stravinsky builds the music up to its first frantic climax. In addition to juxtaposing various rhythmic units, Stravinsky heightens the excitement by superimposing not only numerous chromatic sections, but also Ab pentatonic elements, and G# harmonic minor elements. The tonality is moving in so many directions at one time, the effect is truly overwhelming (Forte, 45). A more simple use of superimposition by Stravinsky occurs in The Augurs of Spring. After the intensely rhythmic introduction, Stravinsky superimposes a C major chord arpeggiation in the bassoon over an E major arpegiation in the viola. On top of this superimposition, Stravinsky includes elements of a Bb minor scale (Forte, 57). Chromaticism is also a device employed by Stravinsky, and when it rains it pours, as Stravinsky is as fond of superimposing chromaticism over itself as anything. For instance, in the opening of the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky employs four separate voices performing a descending 32nd note septuplet run. The clarinets, second and third oboes, and the flutes, all perform this run while moving in parallel motion (Stravinsky, 7). Similar to his overwhelming approach to rhythm, Stravinsky employs the superimposition of diatonic scales, octatonic scales, diminished scales and Alberi 9 chromaticism to create an awe-inspiring effect. Charlie Parker also deployed an immense amount of scalar structures in his improvisation. Parker revolutionized jazz improvisation. Before Parker, jazz musicians used primarily chord tones and the melodic structure as their basis for improvisation. Parker realized that he could use extensions of the harmony in combination with chromaticism to create his new form of jazz. Parker said: “I’d been getting bored with the stereotyped changes (harmonies) that were being used all the time. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I’d been hearing. I came alive. I could fly” (Woideck, 15). For instance, in this excerpt from “Confirmation” Parker treats the 7th and the 9th of the chord as the most import chord tones, placing them on a stronger beat than the tonic (Koch, 136). Chromaticism was as integral a part of Parker’s improvisation as it was Stravinsky’s. In addition to using the 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th scale degrees to base his melodic lines off of, Parker also freed himself through chromaticism. Parker uses chromaticism as much as he uses diatonic harmony. Parker utilizes the diatonic chord tones as an outline for his improvisation, while snaking from chord tone to chord tone using an immense amount of chromatic scale degrees. In this excerpt, also from “Confirmation”, Parker outlines a C# diminished chord while crawling Alberi 10 through the chord tones chromatically (Koch, 133). While both Stravinsky and Parker used chromaticism as a primary system of developing melodies, there is a stark difference between how the two men deploy the device. Stravinsky used chromaticism to create a disorienting effect, leaving the listener lost without a tonal center. Stravinsky also did not resolve the dissonences caused by his use of chromaticism. Parker on the other hand, used chromaticism in a much more utilitarian way. Parker used the effect to travel between chord tones, ultimately resolving the dissonences within the chord. Stravinsky and Parker used many of the same musical devices in their music, with entirely different results. Stravinsky juxtaposed meters in combination with using a vast array of rhythmic units to create an astounding wall of rhythms that constantly surprise the listener with interjections and interruptions. Both men also use pulse, though in very different capacities. Parker used pulse to propel his music through its rapid tempos and complex syncopations, while Stravinsky used pulse to create a sense of primal energy. In terms of melody, the two composers also used the same musical tools with entirely different final products. Stravinsky superimposes scalar structures on top of one another in order to create his signature dissonant sound, while Parker used Alberi 11 chord extensions and chromaticism to create an edgy, bluesy quality to his improvisation. So did Stravinsky deeply influence Charlie Parker in any way? The answer ultimately is no. While Parker used many of the same devices that Stravinsky used, he employed them in such fundamentally different ways, it is nearly impossible to see a logical connection between the two composers. What is more readily apparent is what would draw Parker to idolize Stravinsky the way that he did. Stravinsky was a revolutionary who reimagined the role of tonality and harmonic development in music, much in the same way that Parker reimagined the fundamentals of jazz improvisation. Works Cited C., Van Den Toorn Pieter. Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring: The Beginnings of a Musical Language. Berkeley: University of California, 1987. Print Forte, Allen. The Harmonic Organization of The Rite of Spring. New Haven: Yale UP, 1978. Print. Koch, Lawrence O. Yardbird Suite: A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1988. Print. Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. Conversations with Igor Stravinsky. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. Print. Stravinsky, Igor. Igor Stravinsky: An Autobiography. New York: Norton, 1962. Print. Stravinsky, Igor. The Rite of Spring. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1969. Print. Woideck, Carl. Charlie Parker: His Music and Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996. Print.