Octet for wind instruments

Octet

Sinfonia: lento - allegro moderato

Tema con variazioni: andantino

Finale

Shortly before he wrote his Octet Stravinsky observed that if he had his way he would cut all the development sections out of Mozart’s symphonies - “They would be fine then!” The source of the quotation is not the most reliable but it is a characteristic Stravinsky provocation and, bearing in mind the aesthetic stance he had adopted in the early 1920s, it is a credible remark even if it is meant to be taken only fractionally seriously.

Shortly after he had completed his Octet, Stravinsky issued another curious statement, to the effect that “I have excluded all nuances between forte and piano; I have left only forte and piano.” In fact, his score covers all the nuances between pianissimo and fortissimo (both in the original 1923 version and in the 1952 revision). It also contains a development section, incidentally, and so much contrapuntal detail that it has to be heard in clear acoustic conditions - although the vastness of the Paris Opéra, where it was first performed with the composer conducting in 1923, seems to have done the work no harm.

What is important here is not so much the sound as the balance of the proportions, with no dramatic continuity or emotional accumulation from movement to movement. In fact, Stravinsky - at this early and particularly severe stage in his “neo-classical” period - was at pains to exclude all emotional nuance from his work: what he calls its “emotive “ qualities are in the tension of the form, the contrapuntal development, and the contrast of volumes (hence the principle if not the fact of cutting out the nuances between forte and piano).

Actually, although the unity of the Octet depends on its proportions rather than on the homogeneity of its thematic content, the main themes do have one thing in common, which is that they begin with either a rising or falling third (major or minor). It is not so important a characteristic that it has be established in all obviousness in the Lento introduction to the Sinfonia first movement. But out of the general flux of this section there does emerge a three-note motif - played four times by flute and clarinet - which is the tiny cell out of which later themes grow. The main point of the Lento, apart from its correspondence to the slow introduction to the baroque overture, is the weight it carries in the general balance as a representative of piano dynamics and legato articulation. Although it is directly in contrast to the first subject of the Allegro moderato (in C minor), it has an ally in the trumpet melody of the second subject. In the contrapuntal development each theme influences the balance in its own forte or piano direction but, since only the first subject is recapitulated, the weight of the Allegro moderato is predominantly on the loud and staccato side.

The Andante, a theme and variations beginning in D minor, would conventionally be a lyrical movement. Stravinsky maintains the balance with a characteristically formal manoeuvre - which is to present a definitely unlyrical, loud, and dramatic first variation and repeat it not only between the quiet marching song of the second variation and the waltz of the third but also between the scherzo-like fourth variation and the elaborate fugato of the last.

The legato lines of the fugato are extended to make a direct link with the Finale (in C major). The contrast is similar to that between the Lento introduction and the beginning of the Allegro moderato. The two main themes here, the second again introduced by a trumpet, weight the balance in much the same way as their related counterpoints in the Sinfonia. The problem now, having achieved the balance, is how to end the work without coming down on either side. Stravinsky solves it by favouring neither, holding back the gathering momentum by an abrupt change in rhythmic character, and setting echoes of the original three-note cell (on flute and clarinet, then trumpets) against the firmly held syncopations in the rest of the band.