On Revisiting Stravinsky's, "Les Noces," After Thirty Years.

"To hear music is not enough.  Music must be listened to.
A duck also hears."
                    ~  Igor Stravinky


Has so much time really passed since I last heard my favorite recording of a 20th century piece?   Perhaps the greatest work of the musical arts (forgive me, Beatles fans) written during the century, Les Noces, (The Wedding) is Igor Stravinsky's matchless masterpiece.   Because of it I had what might possibly be the single greatest revelation of my life.

I was introduced to, "Les Noces," during a college course on music of the 20th century.   The professor, a brilliant man, with a world-wide reputation for scholarship and musicianship, played a recording in class.   I thought I was hearing a group of pigs that were stuck under a fence.   "This is either a complete joke, a game of intellectual 'Emperor's New Clothes,' or I am a real idiot," I thought.   Well, the latter could not possibly be true.   After all, I had been studying music virtually my entire life!  Before I could read, I could play an instrument!   I was a gifted pianist!  And I got really good grades in music history classes and thoroughly enjoyed them.   I had the respect of all the professors of the extraordinary music department of the college in which I was enrolled.   So, I concluded that a game of intellectual fraud was being played upon me.   "Les Noces," was nonsense, and those who held it as a work of genius were too ashamed of admitting that they did not "get it."   I would not relent.

The course complete, the summer upon me, I found myself with some free time, time I thought I should use well.    Aside from a part-time job, and taking two summer courses at the college, I determined to investigate this,  "Les Noces,"  further.    If there was truly genius in the work I was determined to uncover it.   Otherwise I would declare it a sham.

I went to the lending library at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.   There I took out the piano-vocal score, and a recording of, "Les Noces."   I would study it, a little every day, alone in my bedroom, undisturbed where I could focus and concentrate.   The recording was an interesting one: Stravinksy himself was the conductor and the pianists were Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, and Lukas Foss.  (If you don't know those names. . . shame on you).   "A lot of talent there!" I thought.   Yes.  Indeed.

So, I began my study.   Comfortable on the floor of my bedroom I played the recording and followed along with the score.   At first, nothing, no difference, just a long of screeching noise.   It was difficult to take, so I stopped it less than half-way through.   This was not going to be easy.  

The following day I decided to pick up the piece later on, about three-quarters of the way through.   Again, nothing.  Awful, in fact.   I barely held on to the end, which thankfully came before I had to scream.   I left, to play basketball and get the bad vibes out of my system.    Things were looking bleak.

Day three was different.  I started again about three-quarters of the way through and began to recognize certain musical motives re-appearing at different times that I had not before.   Nothing special.   Did not make it sound any less like pigs stuck under a fence.   But, I believe, there was, at  least, some compositional thought put into the work.   I listened to it again.   For the first time, I was able to re-listen to a passage of this work, and this time I made even more connections.   It was becoming very interesting on an intellectual level.

Day four.   Starting from the beginning, and playing only about half-way through, then repeating it, I was having the same experience as the day before.   I noticed subtle thematic use of material I had not heard before.  Then, still more.   The music certainly did have a homogeneity to it.   Then, something different: the text.   I began to pay more attention to the text being sung:  snippets of conversations, proverbs, folk tales that one would hear at a peasant or folk wedding.   I began to recognize a certain charm, a poignancy to the text, which included a rather profound invocation to God and certain saints.

I think it was at this point I became hooked.   I had to listen to the entire piece now, without a break.   It held my interest throughout.   The final scene came and I noticed again, patterns of thematic material, simple,  plainly displayed, quite appropriate to the text.

Day five.   With great excitement and anticipation I started the recording and opened the score.   Now, it was like visiting an old friend.   I anticipated themes, patterns, certain moments, which began to speak to me. One melodic idea I even labeled for it appeared over and over and most prominently on the word, "happiness."    I called it the, "Happiness motive."  And there were others.

More importantly, I began to imagine choreography, or rather, how I would choreograph this scene to give it the most meaning, symbolism, poignancy.   I tried to match Stravinksy's work with movement and imagery.   It was extremely interesting.

Then, it happened.    I came to the final scene.   The bride and groom are being led into the bridal chamber.

"Dear heart, little wife, my own.   Dearest flower and treasure of mine; fairest flower and sweetest wife, let us live in happiness, so that all men may envy us."   

Words of such simple sentiment.   The music, now completely stripped down to a sparse texture of pianos and percussion, consisted of chorale-like repetitions of the "happiness motive," as I called it.   It all worked perfectly together.   Sublime.  I noticed instructions in the score:  "During this music the curtain slowly descends."    I saw it clearly in my mind, the bride and groom are led off-stage, to the wedding chamber,  the revelers now standing in prayerful stillness, and the stark music fading away, till the "happiness motive," is transformed into the sound of church bells fading in the distance, all while the curtain descends.  

I noticed something else: my cheeks were wet.   I had started to weep from the beauty of this moment, the perfected union of text and sound.   Without question, I believed at that moment that this was the greatest piece of music I had ever heard.   My opinion has not changed in over thirty years.  

Thank you, Igor!

***

But that was not my final revelation of that experience.

Coming soon. . .  the uber-revelation. . .