On March 17, I attended a theatrical work called The Soldier’s Tale (L’Histore du Soldat). Although this wasn’t the first time I had come across the name “Stravinsky”, it was a first for me to listen to a work of his, or any theatrical work of Russian origin for that matter, and so had little knowledge to base any sort of preconceptions on.
Unlike the Magic Flute in which a complete orchestra was present, the orchestra for The Soldier’s Tale comprised of only 7 instruments; 4 of which were woodwind instruments (clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, and a trombone), 2 of which were string instruments (violin and double bass), and a single percussion instrument. Given the scale of the orchestra, or more accurately called a “septet”, each piece throughout the performance was relatively simple in terms of texture – especially since only a handful of the instruments were played simultaneously at a time – and because of the type of instruments used, the musical numbers often gave me the sense that I was watching a marching band. However, unlike the often cheery and upbeat mood of a marching band, the pieces that played throughout the work were often in the minor key which contributed to the melancholic and sometimes downright frightening mood of the story. This tone generally carried throughout the whole performance.
In sharp contrast to the more spritely, conventional marching band tone of “Marche du Soldat”, played at the beginning and reprised at several other instances during the performance, “Pastorale” evoked a very strong sense of wistfulness. This piece begins to play when the protagonist (the soldier) learns that his three days of negotiating with the devil were in fact three years of his life gone by. The people of his village who had assumed his death now see him as a spirit and shy away in fear. It’s interesting that the tone of the music changed so drastically by simply isolating the instruments to just the bassoon and clarinet (heard in the early portion of the piece). Granted, I’ve read somewhere before that the clarinet is the saddest of instruments! Other ways in which the septet seemed to achieve this was by pairing a shrill-sounding instrument, either the violin or the clarinet, against the low-sounding bassoon that moved steadily over a very small range of pitches. While I have not studied music theory in any proper detail, it seemed to me that the instruments in “Pastorale” would sometimes “clash” in that the keys did not seem to harmonize well. This would seem to be responsible for the eerie mood of the scene.
Another interesting component of this theatrical work was the use of a narrator, sometimes speaking with the instruments in the background and sometimes without. Apart from the violinist who I thought did a rather splendid job, I found Timothy Christie, the narrator, to be one of the highlights the entire musical experience. While highly expressive and spoken with crystal clear diction, his parts were likely not sing-song enough to constitute recitatives. Even so, I found his voice to be an excellent complement to the other voices of the septet and at times, had a unique musical quality of its own.
If there is one criticism that I might have about the performance, it was the lack of a proper dancer during the “Trois Danses” segment of the performance. A real dancer would have made for an interesting visual component for the work as a whole, instead of a simple projection that was put on repeat. Regardless, I enjoyed the hour-long production enough that it has compelled me to explore other works by Stravinsky and other Russian composers. I’m interested in seeing what other common themes exist in Russian musical literature, particularly, whether many retain a similarly folky flavour to the The Soldier’s Tale, and how music might have evolved during certain important periods in Russian history (e.g., Pre-USSR, October Revolution).