Igor Stravinskys collaborations with contemporaries including Picasso, Nijinsky, and
Cocteau are well documented. Less familiar, however, are the anachronistic collaborations
suggested in one short movement Stravinsky wrote in 1918, and involving the Germans Luther
and Bach, the Swiss Ramuz, the Russian Stravinsky, and the American Kurt Vonnegut Jr.<p>
Grand Choral, the penultimate movement of Stravinskys lHistoire du Soldatwritten
in 1918provides a key to unlocking the mysteries of construction, ideology, and by extension,
performance of the work. Grand Choral parodies J.S. Bachs Cantata 80 (1715) which, in its
turn, is based on Martin Luthers 1529 hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. C.F. Ramuz, Stravinskys original collaborator on lHistoire du Soldat, based his libretto on a Russian folk tale, but in 1993, Vonnegut wrote a new text to accompany Stravinskys music, a text inspired by the true story of Private Eddie Slovik, the last American soldier executed for desertion. In essence, Vonnegut collaborates with Stravinsky in a posthumous sense, as Stravinsky does with Bach and Bach with Luther. Vonnegut and Stravinsky each write themselves into an existing work, giving it contemporary meaning and a new poignancy.<p>
The principal aim of my paper is to document the process by which I studied and conducted lHistoire du Soldat with one libretto by Ramuz and another by Vonnegut. In the paper, I will first examine the historical context in which each of the collaborators contributed to lHistoire du Soldat. I will also present an analysis of Grand Choral with regard to the
source material by Luther and Bach. Finally, I will document the process and findings of my
study, rehearsal, and performance of each of the two versions of lHistoire du Soldat which I
conducted on March 31, 2009 in Quance Theatre, on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan with a full cast of musicians, dancers and actors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-08272009-143942 |
| Date | 16 September 2009 |
| Creators | Tysseland, Angelene Grace |
| Contributors | Gillis, Glen, Marion, Gregory, Haig Bartley, Pamela, McNeill, Dean, Langner, Gerald |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-08272009-143942/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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