Overview
Introduction
Les noces (French; English: The Wedding; Russian: Свадебка, Svadebka) is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title: "Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices." Though initially intended to serve as a ballet score, it is often performed without dance. It premiered under the musical direction of Ernest Ansermet at the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska on June 13, 1923, in Paris. Several versions of the score have been performed, either substituting orchestra for the percussion and pianos or using pianolas in accordance with a version of the piece that Stravinsky abandoned without completing.
Composition
Stravinsky first conceived of writing the ballet in 1913 and completed it in short score by October 1917. He wrote the libretto himself using Russian wedding lyrics taken primarily from songs collected by Pyotr Kireevsky and published in 1911. During a long gestation period its orchestration changed dramatically. Stravinsky first planned to employ an expanded symphony orchestra similar to that of The Rite of Spring. His thinking went through numerous variations, including at one point the use of synchronised roll-operated instruments, including the pianola, but Stravinsky abandoned that version when only partially completed because the Parisian piano firm of Pleyel et Cie was late in constructing the two-keyboard cimbaloms, later known as luthéals, that he required.
Stravinsky settled on the following forces: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass soloists, mixed chorus, and two groups of percussion instruments: pitched percussion, including four pianos, and unpitched percussion. This orchestration exemplifies Stravinsky's increasing proclivity for stripped down, clear and mechanistic sound groups in the decade after The Rite, although he never again produced such an extreme sonic effect solely with percussion.
Reminiscing in 1962, Stravinsky recalled "When I first played Les Noces to Diaghilev ...he wept and said it was the most beautiful and the most purely Russian creation of our Ballet. I think he did love Les Noces more than any other work of mine. That is why it is dedicated to him."
Performances
The work was premiered on June 13, 1923, at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris, by the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. The instrumental ensemble of four pianos and percussion was conducted by Ernest Ansermet. The work is usually performed in Russian or French; English translations are sometimes used, and Stravinsky used the English one on the recordings he conducted for Columbia Records in 1934 and 1959.
At the 1926 London premiere the piano parts were played by composers Francis Poulenc, Georges Auric, Vittorio Rieti and Vernon Duke.
The premiere of the 1919 version of Les noces, with cimbaloms, harmonium, and pianola, took place in 1981 in Paris, conducted by Pierre Boulez.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned an arrangement by Steven Stucky for symphony orchestra and premiered it under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen on May 29, 2008, at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The arrangement retains Stravinsky's percussion parts while replacing the four pianos with a large orchestra.
The version including pianola that Stravinsky left unfinished was completed with permission from Stravinsky's heirs by the Dutch composer Theo Verbey and performed in the Netherlands in 2009.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Les Noces received a mixed reception to its early performances. While its premiere in Paris in 1923 was welcomed with enthusiasm,
The passage of time has indeed shown Les Noces to be one of Stravinsky’s finest and most original achievements. Writing in 1988, Stephen Walsh said “Although others among Stravinsky’s theatre works have enjoyed greater prestige … The Wedding is in many respects the most radical, the most original and conceivably the greatest of them all.”
Howard Goodall has pointed out the influence of the distinctive sonorities of Les Noces: “To other composers, though, as they gradually came across Les Noces, its peculiar faux-primitive, fierce sound proved irresistible… The sound world of Les Noces is, quite simply, the most imitated of all twentieth-century combinations outside the fields of jazz and popular music.” Goodall lists composers that have fallen under its influence such as Orff, Bartók, Messiaen and many others, including film composers.
In her memoir of working as Stravinsky’s agent during the final decade of his life, Lilian Libman recalls the composer’s particular fondness for the work: “Still, did he have a favorite as a father has a favorite son?...I think it was Les Noces… It drew him, it would seem, as no other work of his had done. During the time I knew him, the mention of Les Noces never failed to produce the same smile with which he greeted those for whom he felt great affection.”
