View source for Symphonies of Wind Instruments

{{Short description|1920 work for winds by Igor Stravinsky}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
The '''''Symphonies of Wind Instruments''''' (French title: ''Symphonies d'instruments à vent'') is a concert work written by [[Igor Stravinsky]] in 1920, for an ensemble of [[woodwind]] and [[Brass instrument|brass]] instruments.  The piece is in one [[Movement (music)|movement]], lasting about 9 minutes.  It is dedicated to the memory of [[Claude Debussy]], who died in 1918, and was premiered in London on 10 June 1921, conducted by [[Serge Koussevitzky]].

A piano reduction by [[Arthur Lourié]] was published in 1926,{{sfn|White|1979|loc=292}} a full score appearing only after Stravinsky re-orchestrated the work in 1947.{{sfn|Howe|2006}}

==Instrumentation==
The ''Symphonies'' was originally scored for an [[Musical ensemble|ensemble]] of 24 [[wind instruments]]: 3 [[flute]]s (3rd doubling [[piccolo]]), [[alto flute]], 2 [[oboe]]s, [[English horn]], 2 [[clarinet]]s, [[alto clarinet]] in F, 3 [[bassoon]]s (3rd doubling [[contrabassoon]]), 4 [[French horn|horns]], 3 [[trumpet]]s, 3 [[trombone]]s, and [[tuba]]. The 1947 revision requires 23 players: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba.

==Analysis==
In the title of this piece, Stravinsky used the word "symphonies" (note the plural form) not to label the work as an essay in the  [[Symphony|symphonic]] form, but rather in the word's older, broader connotation, from the Greek, of "sounding together".{{sfn|White|1979|loc=292}} The music of the ''Symphonies'' draws on Russian folk elements, and is constructed of "contrasting episodes at three different yet related tempos".{{sfn|Harrison|1994}}

The [[chorale]] which concludes the piece was originally published in the magazine ''La Revue musicale'' in an edition entitled ''Le [[Tombeau]] de Claude Debussy'', which included short pieces from several composers, including [[Maurice Ravel]] and [[Manuel de Falla]], dedicated to Debussy's memory.{{sfn|Freed|2006}} It appeared as a piano score in the ''Tombeau''.{{fact|date=May 2021}}

==Reception==
The premiere at Queen's Hall, London, was greeted initially by laughter and derision from an audience unaccustomed to Stravinsky's experimental work. According to [[Arthur Rubinstein]], who attended the performance with Stravinsky, laughter broke out during the bassoon segment, and the conductor, Koussevitzky, "instead of stopping the performance and addressing the audience with a few words, assuring them that it was a serious work in the modern idiom, smiled maliciously and even had a twinkle in his eye as he looked over his shoulder at the laughing audience".{{sfn|Rubinstein|1980|loc=173}} A reviewer for the ''Times'' reported, however, that the hisses "were no sign of ill-will towards the composer", and subsided when Stravinsky stood up at the end of the performance to bow.{{sfn|Anon.|1921}}

==References==
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'''Sources'''
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* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Anon.|1921}}|reference=Anon. 1921. "The New Stravinsky Symphony". ''[[The Times]]'' (Saturday 11 June), p.&nbsp;8.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Freed|2006}}|reference=[[Richard Freed|Freed, Richard]]. 2006. ''[http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/?fuseaction=composition&composition_id=3181 About the Composition:  Symphonies of Wind Instruments (original 1920 version)] (program note written for performances by the [[National Symphony Orchestra]] in Washington DC).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Harrison|1994}}|reference=Harrison, Max (1994) ''Symphonies, Psalms, Concertos – Orchestral Works by Stravinsky''  (Liner notes for [[Philips Records|Philips]] CD 442 583-2).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Howe|2006}}|reference=Howe, Hubert. 2006. "[http://garden.qc.cuny.edu:9200/music784/Stravinsky_Works.html Works of Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)]", on class website, Music 784: Twentieth-Century Music I. New York: [[Queens College, City University of New York]] (retrieved on 11 August 2008).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Rubinstein|1980}}|reference=[[Arthur Rubinstein|Rubinstein, Arthur]]. 1980. ''My Many Years''. New York: Knopf.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|White|1979}}|reference=White, Eric Walter. 1979. ''Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works'', second edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-520-03985-8}}.}}
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==Further reading==
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* Cone, Edward T. 1962. "Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method". ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'' 1, no. 1 (Fall): 18–26. Reprinted in ''Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky'', edited by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968; reissued New York: W. W. Norton, 1972): 155–164. Also reprinted in Edward T. Cone, ''Music: A View from Delft'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989): 293–301.
* [[Robert Craft|Craft, Robert]]. 1983–84. "A. On the ''Symphonies of Wind Instruments''. B. Toward Corrected Editions of the Sonata, Serenade, and Concerto for Two Pianos. C. The Chronology of the Octet". ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'' 22, nos. 1 & 2:448–463.
* Gubernikoff, Carole. 2000. "Stravinsky: ''Symphonies d'instruments à vent''". In ''Anais do I Seminário Nacional de Pesquisa em Performance Musical. I'', edited by André Cavazotti and Fausto Borém. [Brazil]: Multimídia. (CD-ROM publication.)
* Hascher, Xavier. 2003. "De l'harmonie au timbre, vers une harmonie de timbres: L'exemple de Stravinsky". ''Analyse Musicale'', no. 48 (September): 83–98.
* Kramer, Jonathan D. 1978. "Moment Form in Twentieth-Century Music". ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'' 64, no. 2 (April): 177–195.
* [[Don Michael Randel|Randel, Don]]. 1986. ''The New Harvard Dictionary of Music''. Cambridge:  Belknap Press. {{ISBN|0-674-61525-5}}. (p.&nbsp;822 and 825).
* Rehding, Alexander. 1998. "Towards a 'Logic of Discontinuity' in Stravinsky's ''Symphonies of Wind Instruments'': Hasty, Kramer, and Straus Reconsidered". ''[[Music Analysis (journal)|Music Analysis]]'' 17, no. 1 (March): 39–65.
* Somfai, Lászlo. 1972. "''Symphonies of Wind Instruments'' (1920). Observations on Stravinsky's Organic Construction". ''Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae'' 14, fasc. 1/4: 355–383.
* Straus, Joseph N. 1982. "A Principle of Voice Leading in the Music of Stravinsky". ''[[Music Theory Spectrum]]: The Journal of the Society for Music Theory'' 4:106–124.
* Stravinsky, Igor. 1991. ''Symphonies d'instruments à vent: Faksimileausgabe des Particells und der Partitur der Erstfassung (1920)'', edited and with a commentary by André Baltensperger and Felix Meyer. Winterthur: Amadeus Verlag. {{ISBN|3-905049-46-5}}.
* [[Richard Taruskin|Taruskin, Richard]]. 1993. "Review: Igor Stravinsky. ''Symphonies d'instruments à vent: Faksimileausgabe des Particells und der Partitur der Erstfassung (1920)''". ''[[Notes (journal)|Notes]]'', Second Series 49, No. 4 (June): 1617–1621.
* Van den Toorn, Pieter C. 1998. "Metrical Displacement in Stravinsky". ''Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung'', no. 11 (April): 24–28.
* Walsh, Stephen. 1996. "Stravinsky's ''Symphonies'': Accident or Design?" In ''Analytical Strategies and Musical Interpretation: Essays on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music'', edited by Craig Ayrey and Mark Everist, 35–71. New York: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-46249-5}}
* Wason, Robert W. 1994. "Toward a Critical Edition of Stravinsky's ''Symphonies of Wind Instruments''". In ''The Wind Ensemble and Its Repertoire: Essays on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Eastman Wind Ensemble'', edited by Frank J. Cipolla and Donald Hunsberger, 121–140. Rochester: University of Rochester.
* Yuzefovich, Victor, and Marina Kostalevsky. 2002. "Chronicle of a Non-Friendship: Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky". ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'' 86, no. 4 (Winter): 750–885.
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[[Category:Compositions by Igor Stravinsky]]
[[Category:1920 compositions]]
[[Category:Compositions for orchestra without strings]]
[[Category:Funerary and memorial compositions]]
[[Category:Claude Debussy]]