String glissandi in The Firebird

[Sylph]

I was just reading the CSO's programme notes on The Firebird and this:

Although Stravinsky later called the Firebird orchestra "wastefully large," he used it with formidable clarity and imagination. "For me," Stravinsky wrote, "the most striking effect in The Firebird was the natural-harmonic string glissando near the beginning, which the bass chord touches off like a catherine wheel. I was delighted to have discovered this, and I remember my excitement in demonstrating it to Rimsky's violinist and cellist sons. I remember, too, Richard Strauss's astonishment when he heard it two years later in Berlin."

reminded me of a passage from Taruskin's Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, which after quoting the above, says:

But Stravinsky has "discovered" the effect in Rapsodie espagnole, where it appears in the viola and cello six bars into the last movement ("Feria": Ex. 5.1b). And where had Ravel discovered it? In Rimsky-Korsakov! It appears in the suite from the opera Christmas Eve[ (Noch' pred rozhdestvom), in the section called "Demonic Carol" ("Besovskaya Kolyadka", Ex. 5.1c). This suite was heard in Paris under Rimsky-Korsakov's own baton, at one of the concerts put on by Diaghilev in his first year of musical impresario activity in the French capital. The concert took place on 16 May 1907. Ravel, who was in the audience, finished the Rapsodie espagnole in October of that year, and completed the orchestration in February 1908. Meanwhile, the Christmas Eve suite remained popular in Pairs and, by a strange coincidence, was performed by the orchestra of the Concerts Colonne on the very program that included the première of the Rapsodie espagnole.

Now, the reason Stravinsky may have learned about the harmonic glissando from Ravel rather than directly from his own teacher is that Christmas Eve (1895) was an old composition by the time Stravinsky became close to Rimsky-Korsakov and (to judge by Yastrebtsev memoirs) was rarely discussed or played in those years, while Rapsodie espagnole was all the rage exactly when Stravinsky received the Firebird commission. Yet in the event, his glissandi were obviously modeled on Rimsky's: the cello part in the Firebird passage might almost have been copied right out of Rimsky's score. St. Petersburg gossip concerning Ravel's sources must have sent Stravinsky back to Rimsky's old opera. As for Strauss, he too was at the Paris concert in 1907; that was where he made his famous comment on the works of Russian composers so dear to the French: "This is all very well, but unfortunately we are no longer children." It hardly seems likely that Stravinsky would have surprised him five years later with the same orchestral effects, even though the glissandi are far more conspicuous in The Firebird than they were in the work of either predecessor (Stravinsky: "I tried to surpass [Rimsky] with ponticello, col legno, flautando, glissando, and fluttertongue effects").

Thought some might be interested.

[Dax]

Indeed. Many thanks. Will try + check it out.

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/8/86/IMSLP22144-PMLP46700-Rimsky_XmasEve_Suite_sc.pdf

Yup. 4 bars of cello pages 47-8.

And here's the Ravel on p.40

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/e/ef/IMSLP07484-Ravel_-_Rapsodie_espagnole__score_.pdf