Trois mouvements de Petrouchka
(Petrushka: Three Movements for Piano) has its roots in the second of Igor Stravinsky’s (1882-1971) three full-fledged ballet scores that were written at the behest of his mentor, the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. After the immense success of his first ballet, The Firebird, Stravinsky had intended to compose another ballet next, The Rite of Spring – but Diaghilev instead urged him to transform a non-theatrical orchestral piece he had written about a mischievous puppet brought to magical life into his next ballet. Stravinsky completed the score in May 1911, naming it Petrushka, a Burlesque in Four Scenes — after the stock “Punch-and-Judy”-style puppet character that was a fixture in pre-Lenten Russian carnivals.
The solo piano spinoff appeared ten years later, written specifically for (and dedicated to) his friend, the virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein. Stravinsky carefully re-composed the music so as to make it highly “pianistic” in nature, and thus appealing to a brilliant pianist (he always insisted that it was not a transcription). While he drew the musical materials directly from the orchestral original, he sought to transform everything into a keyboard tour-de-force that would challenge the finest players. Being an excellent pianist himself, he succeeded wildly well, and this music continues to challenge top pianists to this day. In all three movements, you’ll hear breakneck tempos, huge jumps, speedy runs, profuse glissandos and frequent tremolos; also intricate polyrhythms and bitonal harmonies – like the famous “Petrushka” chord (simultaneous C major and F# major triads) that one hears whenever the title character appears (a “Leitmotif ” of sorts). Much of the music is based on Russian folk-tunes. It’s interesting to note that Rubinstein – though he performed this music often and (by all accounts) spectacularly well – never recorded it.
The first movement, the manic “Danse Russe” (Russian dance), comes from the conclusion of the ballet’s first scene, in which Petrushka and the other main characters appear for the first time and dance together. “Chez Petrouchka” (Petrushka’s room) encompasses the entire second scene, delivering mostly a musical portrait of the title character, to typically “floppy,” puppet-like effect. The final movement, “La Semain Grasse,” (Shrovetide fair), spans almost the entire fourth scene, where – after a series of colorful introductory dances – Petrushka is murdered by his rival, but returns as a ghost.
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