Constructing Stravinsky

Overview

Researcher: Katya Grabova

My project presents an event built around sequences of excerpts from Stravinsky’s music, such as Concerto for Piano and Winds and Petrushka, shown in different arrangements made by the composer himself. By arranging these versions side by side and throughout the structure of the event, it reveals how Stravinsky constructs and develops musical material across the facilities of the instruments.

Using selected excerpts, I compare arrangements for solo piano, piano four hands and two pianos. In the Concerto for Piano and Winds, the same musical material could be regarded in an architectural way: horizontally planned and distributed across two pianos, vertically compressed into the shared space of four hands, and spatially expanded through the original arrangement for piano and wind instruments. Each version explores both performers’ and listeners’ perceptions of texture, balance and rhythms.

The project aims to show how these transformations affect the original material and what they highlight for both performers and audiences. By hearing the same music through different instrumental lenses, listeners will be able to notice melodic lines passing between parts, internal counterpoint, and rhythmic structures that are crucial to Stravinsky’s writing.

The event will include live performance as well as using historical recordings performed by Stravinsky himself.

Image: Igor Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso 31 Dec 1920, public domain