GMG Listening Group — Stravinsky's Agon :: 22 May - 4 June 2011

[Guido]

Isn't someone meant to post a big introductory piece on the thing, and then guide the discussion?

[DavidW]

I've never been to one of these things, so I don't know the rules of order. So far, it seems just like a book club, without the wine. '

Oh it's fun!  We did a whole series of them a few years ago.

Some of them were great successes where the poster would say listen at so and so and this time, do you hear that well blah blah blah...  And some would talk about context, and how to listen to such a piece, and some would do a full musical analysis.  Great stuff. 

It'll be great to do it again, and if Karl makes it succeed then we might see more from other posters and that would be cool.

[DavidW]

Isn't someone meant to post a big introductory piece on the thing, and then guide the discussion?

Yeah that would be Karl.

[Gurn Blanston]

I've never been to one of these things, so I don't know the rules of order. So far, it seems just like a book club, without the wine. '

I'd share mine, but don't know where to send it.

A nice Merlot, I think...

[Dana]

I've never been to one of these things, so I don't know the rules of order. So far, it seems just like a book club, without the wine. '

It's a BYOW club.

[karlhenning]

I wound up taking vacation time last week, and my Agon activity simply did not happen. (Other musical activity did, about which I am very pleased, but call that OT.)

Bumping this ahead to next week, which allows me time to scare up my score 

[Franco]

I wound up taking vacation time last week, and my Agon activity simply did not happen. (Other musical activity did, about which I am very pleased, but call that OT.)

Bumping this ahead to next week, which allows me time to scare up my score 

My situation exactly. 

[karlhenning]

I know it's around here, somewhere . . . .

[karlhenning]

Found it.

[Franco]

Are we going to plan on a group listen and then give our comments or start a discussion at some point?  I still have not sat down with the score but plan on doing that this afternoon/evening.

I don't know how these kinds of threads have been done in the past and am not suggesting anything specific, just wanted to ask.

[karlhenning]

The weekend past was a bit heavier of demand than I had counted on. Normally, I should have gotten things started with some background . . . which I can rustle up this evening.

But it's nothing really formal . . . so if you want to get the discussion started, please be welcome!  At last I shall be able to answer your questions, because I've got the score and the Big Box both to hand! 

[karlhenning]

Here's a general and not particularly profound observation, though.

Agon is such a delightful hodge-podge, that I have found it easy to 'play favorites' in the back of my mind.  But this occasion to revisit the piece yet closer, I find I am keenly fond even of my 'non-favorite' numbers.

[Franco]

The weekend past was a bit heavier of demand than I had counted on. Normally, I should have gotten things started with some background . . . which I can rustle up this evening.

But it's nothing really formal . . . so if you want to get the discussion started, please be welcome!  At last I shall be able to answer your questions, because I've got the score and the Big Box both to hand! 

If things go as planned, and I in fact sit down and listen with score, I will post something later tonight.  Whether it actually starts a discussion is out of my hands.

[karlhenning]

(fully re-employed after 7 mo. of layoff).

Good news!

[Franco]

Last night, with score in hand, I listened to Agon - and while I am not prepared to make any ground- shaking comments, I can say a few things about my impressions of the experience.

I first listened to the Robert Craft, Naxos, recording - and then listened to the Stravinsky Los Angeles 'Big Box" one.  While my score following during the Craft was pretty good, my attention was wandering during the Stravinsky, I was also watching the Yankees beat up (Yay!) on the Angels - but what struck me immediately was how much more I enjoyed the Craft recording.

In comparison, the Big Box performance sounded ragged and blurred.  Craft seemed to get his group to play as an inspired ensemble, whereas the L.A. band appeared to be satisfied just to get through the work.  In places, the L.A. group sounded like the dynamics were all wrong with the wrong instrument(s) overshadowing what ought to be more prominent.  (I will listen again tonight and have measure numbers at the ready tomorrow for a more informed comment in this regard.)

I never did find the "errors" in the Stravinsky performance, although one of the closing chords in the first half sounded funky - but this could have been because of the balance of the forces not matching what I heard from Craft.  I can say this, when people have said of the Stravinsky recording, "well, there are better versions out there" - I totally understand this now.

I want to hear even more conductors.

This is one of my favorite works, and I have listened to it many times, but not until I followed the score was I aware of some things and had enjoyed the work almost superficially before.

I really want to read what others came away with.

[karlhenning]

Most interesting, thank you both.

[Harpo]

I just received my CD (Craft). I believe I've heard of Stravinsky  but not this piece, so I have some questions:

Why was this piece chosen for discussion?

What was going on in Stravinsky's life and does that matter to the listener?

Where do we hear the dialogue between diatonic and atonal, and between instruments? Why was it composed that way?

Can you highlight specific parts of the piece to illustrate those points?

Is it harder to listen to ballet music vs. music composed strictly for listening? Does lack of visual make it incomplete?

[karlhenning]

Thanks for joining in, Susan!

Why was this piece chosen for discussion?

(Argh, somehow the forum software ate my reply-in-progress.)  I chose the piece for largely personal reasons, because (a) I like it a great deal, (b) it was time (I felt) that I got to know the piece even better, (c) the revival of a listening group was a good excuse to force myself to root about and turn up the score, and (d) Franco and I had some amiable banter going, wherein, whenever the topic of this piece came up, I regularly spoke of the regrettable inadequacies of the "Stravinsky's own" recording, and Franco would say, "What is this, Karl?"

What was going on in Stravinsky's life and does that matter to the listener?

Eric Walter White writes:

Schoenberg's death in the summer of 1951 (a few weeks before the première of The Rake's Progress) meant that the three chief Viennese serialists – Berg, Webern and Schoenberg – were now all dead:  so their contributions to serialism could at last be viewed in a historical perspective.

[...] his [Stravinsky's] own approach to serialism was a gradual one.  He was clearly not going to allow himself to be rushed into a snap decision;  and between 1952 and 1957 his serial essays were cautious experiments carried out within a framework of tonal music.  This is particularly true of the Three Songs from William Shakespeare, the Canticum sacrum (1955) and Agon (1953-57).  Not until Threni (1957-58) and Movements for piano and orchestra (1958-59), does one encounter completely serial works.

In his recent biography, Stephen Walsh puts the discreet case that Stravinsky was beginning to feel that musical fashion was moving out of his orbit;  that Craft (whom Stravinsky had invited to stay with him from 1947) was discreetly instrumental in bringing the work of Webern (in particular) to Stravinsky's close attention;  and that Stravinsky's "slouching towards serialism" was (in part) an unusual effort by an aging composer to remain au courant.

The first concert performance of Agon was conducted by Craft on 17 June 1957 "as part of a Los Angeles festiva progamme to commemorate Stravinsky's seventy-fifth birthday."

"The first stage performance was given by George Balanchine on 1 December 1957 in New York with choreography compared by Stravinsky to one of Mondrian's abstractions." (Roman Vlad)

Where do we hear the dialogue between diatonic and atonal, and between instruments? Why was it composed that way?

Lincoln Kirstein commissioned Agon for the New York City Ballet, and Stravinsky began work on the ballet (the tonal bits, notably the Prelude, which would undergo some changes in scoring over the years) "as early as December 1953."  He had composed about two-fifths of the piece when he interrupted that work, and composed In memoriam Dylan Thomas and the Canticum sacrum.  So we might say that the 'why' of the piece being written in this hybrid manner, is the span of time between starting the work, and resuming it to completion;  and the fact that his compositional manner had begun 'trending' heavily to serialism in the interval.

One aspect of the 'verging upon serialism' in Agon is, that there is not a single unifying series.  More on this presently.

Can you highlight specific parts of the piece to illustrate those points?

The Prelude is readily apparent as 'tonal', though it does not function within Common Practice tonality.  In the first system, F is the pitch in the bass;  so even though the opening trumpet fanfare rattles a repeated C (a phrase which actually seems to trend to A Minor?), an actual 'cadence' on C (though with the 'Lydian' raised fourth degree) is left for the two horns in the second system.  Overall the Prelude contrasts the somewhat-more-chromatic warmth of the woodwind, trombone and low string passages in the middle, with the archaic "white-note" fanfare material (though, as a result of that 'dialogue', the trumpets and horns adopt D-flat at different times, though in both cases manage to gravitate back to C.

This is part of the instrumental dialogue, too, as Stravinsky "marks off" the different pitch-world segments (we might say) with distinct scoring.

This contrasts with the ensuing Double pas-de-quatre, which on the one hand, recalls the energetic "Italianate" writing of (say) Pulcinella and Jeu de cartes, and yet presses further away from the tonal fanfare of the Prelude.

I should go on, only it is eleven o'clock  

Is it harder to listen to ballet music vs. music composed strictly for listening? Does lack of visual make it incomplete?

Not in Stravinsky's case, I don't find;  for he really does write the music for "listening integrity," and he writes eminently danceable music.

[Harpo]

Indeed. I always thought Harpo's name was Arthur, after he changed it from Adolph.

I like to keep people guessing. 

[Harpo]

Thanks, Karl and Apostrophe. Now I'll go back and listen more knowledgeably.