Music Borrowing in Stravinsky's music

Musical borrowing is a common phenomenon in Stravinsky’s music. The borrowed materials or quotations are varied from melody to chord progression; from musical structure to compositional technique; from well-known classical tunes to folk songs. There are several reasons for such borrowings: it might be the composer wanted to go back to a certain tradition; to look for references for a change of musical style; or maybe he wanted some new musical ideas. In this essay, I will discuss about the extent to which borrowing from the music of others has been useful for the creativity of Igor Stravinsky.

Stravinsky was one of the leading creative figures of the 20^th century; his music is widely performed and his ideas influenced a lot of composers.¹ Just as Pieter C. van den Toorn said in his book The Music of Igor Stravinsky: ‘Few contemporary composers have exerted a more conspicuous musical presence than Igor Stravinsky.’² Today many composers and musicologists are still researching and analysing his music. Stravinsky borrowed musical ideas from others to use in his compositions and from that; we can see Stravinsky understood the art of borrowing.

The borrowing from Russian ethnic music allowed Stravinsky to accomplish his unique music style. Many of Stravinsky’s borrowings were to do with his Russian origins and traditions. He borrowed and quoted from a lot of folk song melodies and incorporated them into his own compositional ways and musical language. Folk songs could be an appropriate source for musical inspiration as they could reflect the spirit of a nation; and music could extend the spirit of a folk song.³ The folk songs were from olden times and they held a place in the nation’s musical history. People sang and performed folk songs frequently.

It is always a useful and effective practice for composers to quote folk music in compositions as this provides a music motif or theme. Also, by doing so, the composers are giving the music an immediately sign of the nation and a taste of the musical tradition which could quickly engage the audience. Stravinsky made references to Russian folk melodies in many of his compositions and when quoting folk songs.

Firebird has some borrowing and arrangement of Russian folk music in it. In ‘Khorovod’, Stravinsky used a folk melody from the folk music collection at the time at figure 3⁴. He then added a sixth to the melody later on at figure 10. This four-bar melody had become famous with the large popularity of Firebird and had probably become one of those ‘familiar tunes’ of Stravinsky’s music with the audience. From my point of view, this is also the beauty of folk music borrowing since the melody will quickly be remembered by the audience and when they hear it again, they will instantly recall that it’s from Firebird and will also evoke the whole context and structure of the work. Though it was probably the borrowed melody that was easily remembered, it did not distinguish itself from the work since Stravinsky had turned it into his own music language.

Petrushka was conceived following the public success of Firebird.⁷ Like Firebird, Petrushka made references to Russian folk music too. In the first tableau, there is an Easter song melody borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov’s collection of 100 Russian National Songs. Also, in the same tableau, there is a folk melody from the Istomin-Diutsch Collection of 1894⁸ Although Stravinsky didn’t take direct quotations from the authentic Russian folk music in the second and third tableaus, he did return to it in the last two tableaus. For example, he used folk melody in the ‘Wet-nurses’ dance’.⁹ Stravinsky’s borrowing of materials in Petrushka produces the combination of his style: folk melodies with contemporary compositional approaches; just as the set of the story: traditional puppets with the magical, dramatic storyline and tragic ending.

Apart from ethnic music borrowing, Stravinsky’s borrowing from Classical style music during his neoclassicism period is another good example of creative borrowing. This provided Stravinsky with some useful musical ideas and materials from the Classical style period. The change of Stravinsky’s music style to neo-classicism may be related to when he was forced to leave Russia, as he was faced changes to both his personal and artistic life. He probably felt that Russia was no longer home for him, just as Martha M. Hyde wrote: ‘After that, his homeland became the historical landscape of music, and his compatriots were the composers that populate that history.’¹³ Or, maybe Stravinsky just wanted a change of style since his life had turned over a new leaf.

Writing music in the neo-classical style in 20^th century may have needed some sources from the actual Classical style; just as Alan Lessem wrote in his book Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Neo-Classicism: The Issue Reexamined: ‘…the evolution of the Neoclassical styles of Schoenberg and Stravinsky,…both composers attempted this partially through borrowing from the established classical tradition,…’¹⁴ Stravinsky had certainly borrowed and quoted musical materials from the work of the Classical period composers.

In Symphony in C, Stravinsky employed many musical features of the Classical style. The work is for classical symphony orchestra; the four movements are in the conventional order; the harmonic language is very much diatonic. Also, the first movement almost strictly follows the traditional setting of a sonata form: first subject – second subject – development – recapitulation.¹⁵

Moreover, in the first theme of Symphony in C, Stravinsky recalled the presentation (I, II, V) of the first theme of Beethoven’s Symphony No.1¹⁶ 

From the example above, we can see that in comparison to the folk melody borrowing during his time in Russian, Stravinsky’s borrowing during his neoclassicism was less direct. He was borrowing the presentation of the theme of Beethoven. Though the notes at the beginning motif are quite similar, it is the chord sequence and theme structure that he was after. Rather than taking one phrase or melody from folk music, Stravinsky took the borrowing indirectly from a wider and broader view.

Stravinsky’s only composition with a text about romantic love,¹⁹ The Rake’s Progress, has a lot of characteristics of the Classical style. From the score of this work, there are many fragments from ascending and descending of major scales; progressions of the interval of thirds; melodies which consist of the notes from a major triad; simple and conventional rhythm within the 3/8 time signature. Although Stravinsky didn’t model any compositional or musical elements in particular in The Rake’s Progess, he took most of the historical references from the Classical style period.

When commenting on his Octet, Stravinsky said the work was partially influenced by Bach’s two-part Inventions.²⁰ There are lines in the shape of Baroque phrasing – short, duet with simple counterpoint, and sometimes the melody goes theme and answer in Bach’s two-part Inventions. In the second movement, Stravinsky even employed the structure of ‘Theme and Variations’ which implied that the musical form to be like a Rondo form. All these various Classical features in the Octet made the composition often marked as the first masterpiece of Stravinsky’s neoclassic style.

Above are some examples with regard to the creative borrowings of Igor Stravinsky in his compositions. From my point of view, borrowing from the Russian folk music provided Stravinsky with the space to establish his own music language and borrowing from the Classical style gave him musical inspiration for Classical music. Both of the two borrowings have been useful to Stravinsky’s compositional creativity.

Bibliography

Edward T. Cone, ‘The Uses of Convention: Stravinsky and His Models’, Stravinsky a new appraisal of his work’ ed. Paul Henry Lang (USA, 1963)

Henry F. Gilbert, Folk-Music in Art-Music—A Discussion and a Theory (New York 1917)

Kenneth Gloag, ‘Russian rites: Petrushka, The Rite of Spring and Les Noces’, The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky, ed. Jonathan Cross (Cambridge 2003)

Martha M. Hyde, ‘Stravinsky’s neoclassicism’, ed. Jonathan Cross, The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky (Cambridge, 2003)

Alan Lessem, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Neo-Classicism: The Issue Reexamined (New York, 1982)

Pieter C. van den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New York, 1983)