Petrushka (1911)

The Shrove-Tide Fair

Petrushka’s Cell

The Blackamoor’s Cell

The Shrove-Tide Fair

(and the death of Petrushka)

But for the intervention of Sergei Diaghilev, Stravinsky’s Petrushka - one of the most successful works of its kind - might never have become a ballet score at all. After completing The Firebird and seeing it through its first performance in Paris in 1910, Stravinsky settled in France for a while and instead of getting on with his next ballet for Diaghilev (which was to have been The Rite of Spring) he began a piece for piano and orchestra: “In composing the music,” he said, “I had in mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. The orchestra retaliates with menacing trumpet-blasts. The outcome is a terrific noise which reaches its climax and ends in the sorrowful and querulous collapse of the poor puppet.”

Stravinsky had already selected the title for the piece - Petrushka being the Russian equivalent of Pierrot, “the immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in all countries” - when Diaghilev called on him in Lausanne to see how The Rite of Spring was progressing. To his credit, on hearing the first two movement of the new piece, Petrushka’s Cry and Russian Dance, Diaghilev immediately saw the ballet potential in them. The composer and the impresario agreed on the setting and the basis of the action: the Shrovetide Fair in St Petersburg “with its crowds, its booths, the little traditional theatre, the character of the magician, with all his tricks; and the coming to the life of the dolls - Petrushka, his rival, and the dancer - and their love tragedy, which ends with Petrushka’s death.” Alexandre Benois, an expert on Russian puppet theatre, was called in to work out the details of the scenario and, in spite of being struck down by nicotine poisoning in the middle of his work on it, Stravinsky completed the score in May 1911.

Petrushka was first performed by the Russian Ballet at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 13 June 1911 with choreography by Fokine, sets and costumes by Benois, and with Nijinski as Petrushka and Karsavina as the Ballerina. Pierre Monteux conducted an orchestra of proportions characteristic of those opulent times. In the post-war austerity of 1947 Stravinsky published a more economical version, reducing the instrumentation, simplifying and recolouring the scoring, and revising the tempi in several instances. He also supplied an ending specially designed for the concert hall: in this version, which is to be performed today, the work ends with a spectacular flourish immediately after the Masqueraders’ dance and spares the listener the unhappy experience of witnessing the death of Petrushka at the hand of the Blackamoor.

Melodically, Petrushka is not the most original of Stravinsky’s works, since it draws heavily - though, in these fairground circumstances, quite appropriately - on traditional Russian sources. As far as colour, atmosphere and characterisation are concerned, however, nothing like it had been heard before. A simple but important and recurrent element in suggesting the bustle of the fair is the accordion motif (alternating fifths and thirds) which can be heard on clarinets and horns under the jubilant flute tune in the opening bars. Activity subsides from time to time for side-shows like the hurdy-gurdy man (clarinets), his persistent rival with a musical box (celesta and harp) and, after a loud drum roll, the sinister showman who brings his puppets to life with a few empty phrases on his flute. The frantically energetic music to which Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Blackamoor are conjured to dance is derived from the second movement, Russian Dance, of the original piece for piano and orchestra.

The scene in Petrushka’s cell, which follows after another drum roll, is derived from the first movement of the concert piece. Petrushka’s cry is a bitterly dissonant arpeggio figure introduced by two clarinets. Its bitonal harmonies affect first the piano and then the whole orchestra as Petrushka’s anger at his dependence on the Showman mounts. The entry of the Ballerina, signalled by an expressive little tune on flute and piano, promises some diversion but Petrushka’s grotesque leaps do not so much impress as alarm her and she runs away to take refuge in the Blackamoor’s cell - which is where, after yet another drum roll, the next scene takes place.

Not the most elegant of exotic dancers, as the clarinet and bass clarinet in lugubrious octaves unmistakably indicate, the Blackamoor is nevertheless more successful with the Ballerina than Petrushka was. After making her entry to the accompaniment of her own toy trumpet and drum, she performs two waltzes for him - both of the tunes borrowed from Joseph Lanner, incidentally - and the Blackamoor joins her in clumsy duple time.The tender scene is interrupted by Petrushka, his intrusive cry now on trombone and trumpets, and he is thrown out.

A last drum roll leads into the final scene, which is devoted largely to the fun of the Shrove-Tide Fair. Nursemaids dance to Down the Petersky on oboe and then on horns; the crowd falls back as a performing bear takes the stage, a tuba clumsily imitating his peasant-owner’s piping on high clarinets; gypsy girls amuse themselves with a rich merchant to an emphatically articulated tune on unison strings; heavy-footed coachmen brandishing trombones and trumpets are eventually joined by the nursemaids; a party of masqueraders present a series of caricature dances - which, in the present version, is where the score ends.

The Shrove-Tide Fair

Petrushka’s Cell

The Blackamoor’s Cell

The Shrove-Tide Fair

The Death of Petrushka

But for the intervention of Sergei Diaghilev, Stravinsky’s Petrushka - one of the most successful works of its kind - might never have become a ballet score at all. After completing The Firebird and seeing it through its first performance in Paris in 1910, Stravinsky settled in France for a while and instead of getting on with his next ballet for Diaghilev (which was to have been The Rite of Spring) he began a piece for piano and orchestra: “In composing the music,” he said, “I had in mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. The orchestra retaliates with menacing trumpet-blasts. The outcome is a terrific noise which reaches its climax and ends in the sorrowful and querulous collapse of the poor puppet.”

Stravinsky had already selected the title for the piece - Petrushka being the Russian equivalent of Pierrot, “the immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in all countries” - when Diaghilev called on him in Lausanne to see how The Rite of Spring was progressing. To his credit, on hearing the first two movement of the new piece, Petrushka’s Cry and Russian Dance, Diaghilev immediately saw the ballet potential in them. The composer and the impresario agreed on the setting and the basis of the action: the Shrovetide Fair in St Petersburg “with its crowds, its booths, the little traditional theatre, the character of the magician, with all his tricks; and the coming to the life of the dolls - Petrushka, his rival, and the dancer - and their love tragedy, which ends with Petrushka’s death.” Alexandre Benois, an expert on Russian puppet theatre, was called in to work out the details of the scenario and, in spite of being struck down by nicotine poisoning in the middle of his work on it, Stravinsky completed the score in May 1911.

Petrushka was first performed by the Russian Ballet at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 13 June 1911 with choreography by Fokine, sets and costumes by Benois, and with Nijinski as Petrushka and Karsavina as the Ballerina. Pierre Monteux conducted an orchestra of proportions characteristic of those opulent times. In the post-war austerity of 1947 Stravinsky published a more economical version, reducing the instrumentation, simplifying and recolouring the scoring, and revising the barring and tempo indications in several instances.

Melodically, Petrushka is not the most original of Stravinsky’s works, since it draws heavily - though, in these fairground circumstances, quite appropriately - on traditional Russian sources. As far as colour, atmosphere and characterisation are concerned, however, nothing like it had been heard before. A simple but important and recurrent element in suggesting the bustle of the fair is the accordion motif (alternating fifths and thirds) which can be heard on clarinets and horns under the jubilant flute tune in the opening bars. Activity subsides from time to time for side-shows like the hurdy-gurdy man (clarinets), his persistent rival with a musical box (celesta and harp) and, after a loud drum roll, the sinister showman who brings his puppets to life with a few empty phrases on his flute. The frantically energetic music to which Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Blackamoor are conjured to dance is derived from the second movement, Russian Dance, of the original piece for piano and orchestra.

The scene in Petrushka’s cell, which follows after another drum roll, is derived from the first movement of the concert piece. Petrushka’s cry is a bitterly dissonant arpeggio figure introduced by two clarinets. Its bitonal harmonies affect first the piano and then the whole orchestra as Petrushka’s anger at his dependence on the Showman mounts. The entry of the Ballerina, signalled by an expressive little tune on flute and piano, promises some diversion but Petrushka’s grotesque leaps do not so much impress as alarm her and she runs away to take refuge in the Blackamoor’s cell - which is where, after yet another drum roll, the next scene takes place.

Not the most elegant of exotic dancers, as the clarinet and bass clarinet in lugubrious octaves unmistakably indicate, the Blackamoor is nevertheless more successful with the Ballerina than Petrushka was. After making her entry to the accompaniment of her own toy trumpet and drum, she performs two waltzes for him - both of the tunes borrowed from Joseph Lanner, incidentally - and the Blackamoor joins her in clumsy duple time.The tender scene is interrupted by Petrushka, his intrusive cry now on trombone and trumpets, and he is thrown out.

A last drum roll leads into the final scene, which is devoted largely to the fun of the Shrove-Tide Fair. Nursemaids dance to Down the Petersky on oboe and then on horns; the crowd falls back as a performing bear takes the stage, a tuba clumsily imitating his peasant-owner’s piping on high clarinets; gypsy girls amuse themselves with a rich merchant to an emphatically articulated tune on unison strings; heavy-footed coachmen brandishing trombones and trumpets are eventually joined by the nursemaids; a party of masqueraders present a series of caricature dances. And in the official concert version that is where the work ends. Today’s performance, however, includes the four very short episodes that follow in the complete ballet score - the violent Scuffle between the Blackamoor and Petrushka, the Death of Petrushka with its pathetic woodwind utterances, Police and the Juggler, in which the showman demonstrates that the victim is no more than a sawdust doll, and the closing Apparition of Petrushka’s Ghost on two muted trumpets.

The Shrove-Tide Fair

Petrushka’s Cell

The Blackamoor’s Cell

The Shrove-Tide Fair

(and the death of Petrushka)

But for the intervention of Sergei Diaghilev, Stravinsky’s Petrushka - one of the most successful works of its kind - might never have become a ballet score at all. After completing The Firebird and seeing it through its first performance in Paris in 1910, Stravinsky settled in France for a while and instead of getting on with his next ballet for Diaghilev (which was to have been The Rite of Spring) he began a piece for piano and orchestra: “In composing the music,” he said, “I had in mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. The orchestra retaliates with menacing trumpet-blasts. The outcome is a terrific noise which reaches its climax and ends in the sorrowful and querulous collapse of the poor puppet.”

Stravinsky had already selected the title for the piece - Petrushka being the Russian equivalent of Pierrot, “the immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in all countries” - when Diaghilev called on him in Lausanne to see how The Rite of Spring was progressing. To his credit, on hearing the first two movement of the new piece, Petrushka’s Cry and Russian Dance, Diaghilev immediately saw the ballet potential in them. The composer and the impresario agreed on the setting and the basis of the action: the Shrovetide Fair in St Petersburg “with its crowds, its booths, the little traditional theatre, the character of the magician, with all his tricks; and the coming to the life of the dolls - Petrushka, his rival, and the dancer - and their love tragedy, which ends with Petrushka’s death.” Alexandre Benois, an expert on Russian puppet theatre, was called in to work out the details of the scenario and, in spite of being struck down by nicotine poisoning in the middle of his work on it, Stravinsky completed the score in May 1911.

Melodically, Petrushka is not the most original of Stravinsky’s works, since it draws heavily - though, in these fairground circumstances, quite appropriately - on traditional Russian sources. As far as colour, atmosphere and characterisation are concerned, however, nothing like it had been heard before. A simple but important and recurrent element in suggesting the bustle of the fair is the accordion motif (alternating fifths and thirds) which can be heard on clarinets and horns under the jubilant flute tune in the opening bars. Activity subsides from time to time for side-shows like the hurdy-gurdy man (clarinets), his persistent rival with a musical box (celesta and harp) and, after a loud drum roll, the sinister showman who brings his puppets to life with a few empty phrases on his flute. The frantically energetic music to which Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Blackamoor are conjured to dance is derived from the second movement, Russian Dance, of the original piece for piano and orchestra.

The scene in Petrushka’s cell, which follows after another drum roll, is derived from the first movement of the concert piece. Petrushka’s cry is a bitterly dissonant arpeggio figure introduced by two clarinets. Its bitonal harmonies affect first the piano and then the whole orchestra as Petrushka’s anger at his dependence on the Showman mounts. The entry of the Ballerina, signalled by an expressive little tune on flute and piano, promises some diversion but Petrushka’s grotesque leaps do not so much impress as alarm her and she runs away to take refuge in the Blackamoor’s cell - which is where, after yet another drum roll, the next scene takes place.

Not the most elegant of exotic dancers, as the clarinet and bass clarinet in lugubrious octaves unmistakably indicate, the Blackamoor is nevertheless more successful with the Ballerina than Petrushka was. After making her entry to the accompaniment of her own toy trumpet and drum, she performs two waltzes for him - both of the tunes borrowed from Joseph Lanner, incidentally - and the Blackamoor joins her in clumsy duple time.The tender scene is interrupted by Petrushka, his intrusive cry now on trombone and trumpets, and he is thrown out.

A last drum roll leads into the final scene, which is devoted largely to the fun of the Shrove-Tide Fair. Nursemaids dance to Down the Petersky on oboe and then on horns; the crowd falls back as a performing bear takes the stage, a tuba clumsily imitating his peasant-owner’s piping on high clarinets; gypsy girls amuse themselves with a rich merchant to an emphatically articulated tune on unison strings; heavy-footed coachmen brandishing trombones and trumpets are eventually joined by the nursemaids; a party of masqueraders present a series of caricature dances - to be interrupted by Petrushka’s cry on trumpet and violins as he runs onto the fairground pursued by the Blackamoor, who cuts him down with his scimitar. The horrified crowd is assured by the showman that the limp body is only a doll but, as the crowd begins to bustle off again, a ghostly echo of Petrushka’s cry on muted trumpets pierces the falling snow.

Petrushka was first performed by the Russian Ballet at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 13 June 1911 with choreography by Fokine, sets and costumes by Benois, and with Nijinski as Petrushka and Karsavina as the Ballerina. Pierre Monteux conducted an orchestra of proportions characteristic of those opulent times. In the post-war austerity of 1947 Stravinsky published a more economical version, reducing the instrumentation, simplifying and recolouring the scoring, and revising the tempi in several instances. On this occasion the ballet will be performed in the 1911 version which, it is generally agreed, is more appropriate to the original inspiration.

Gerald Larner©2004