Musical tales from Stravinsky and Marsalis

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1919, a concert suite from Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale had its premiere in Lausanne, Switzerland — the same city in which the original theatrical version of Stravinsky’s score was first presented in 1918.

In that original form, The Soldier’s Tale was a kind of musical morality play scored for narrator and small chamber ensemble. Stravinsky incorporated elements of American jazz, although what he knew of jazz was derived entirely from looking at sheet music rather than any firsthand experience of actually hearing American jazz.

Eighty years later, for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis composed A Fiddler’s Tale — a companion piece to Stravinsky’s work, scored for the same configuration of instruments.

Wynton Marsalis said, “No matter what I do, I'm not going to compare myself to Stravinsky. That would be ridiculous. You have to accept who he is and do what you can do, and hope that what you do is on some level of quality.”

Like Stravinsky’s piece, A Fiddler’s Tale also exists in two versions: as a theater piece with a narrator, and as a purely instrumental suite. Both have been recorded, and both, not surprisingly, feature Wynton Marsalis as the trumpeter.

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): L’histoire du Soldat Suite; Philharmonia Orchestra; Robert Craft, conductor; Koch 7504

Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961): The Fiddler’s Tale; Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Sony 60979

On This Day

Births

• 1770 - German composer Friedrich Witt, in Niederstetten, Württemberg. Like Beethoven, he composed nine symphonies, and one of them, his Jena Symphony, was for a time mistakenly believed to be an early work by Beethoven.

• 1883 - English composer Arnold Bax, in Streatham

• 1945 - American composer and pianist Judith Lang Zaimont, in Memphis

Deaths

• 1599 - Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero, 71, in Seville

• 1890 - Belgian-French composer César Franck, in Paris, 67

• 1894 - Russian composer Anton Rubinstein, 64, near St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Nov. 20)

• 1924 - Russian composer Sergie Liapunov, 65, in Paris

Premieres

• 1879 - Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1, in Bonn, by violinist Joseph Joachim and the composer at the piano

• 1919 - Stravinsky: The Soldier’s Tale Suite (for violin, clarinet and piano), in Lausanne. The staged version of The Soldier’s Tale had premiered in Lausanne at the Théatre Municipal on September 28, 1918

• 1926 - Gershwin: musical Oh, Kay! at the Imperial Theater in New York City. This show featured Gertrude Lawrence, and included the classic Gershwin songs “Clap Yo’ Hands,” “Do, Do, Do,” and “Someone to Watch over Me.”

• 1936 - Jean Françaix: Piano Concerto, in Berlin