Three Stravinsky Analyses: Petrushka , Scene 1 (to Rehearsal No. 8); The Rake’s Progress , Act III, Scene 3 (“In a foolish dream”); Requiem Canticles , “Exaudi”

[1] In his classic description of the relationship between theory and analysis, David Lewin states that theory describes the way that musical sounds are "conceptually structured categorically prior to any one specific piece," whereas analysis turns our attention to "the individuality of the specific piece of music under study," with a goal "simply to hear the piece better, both in detail and in the large" (Lewin 1968, 61-63, italics in original). In practice, we create theories in order to engender and empower analysis and we use analysis as a proving ground for our theories. In the field of music theory as currently constituted, theory-based analysis and analysis-oriented theory are the principal and the statistically predominant activities.[2] But in the relationship between theory and analysis, theory has long been the dominant partner. In the conference papers, journal articles, and scholarly monographs that are our principal means of communicating with each other, analysis is almost always presented in the service of theory, as demonstration or exemplification. At least in the professional literature, analysis is rarely pursued for its own sake. There are many reasons for this inequality in the relationship between theory and analysis, including some of the intrinsic features of analysis. As Kofi Agawu (2004) has argued, analysis has strong affinities with performance: "Firstly, analytical knowledge is not necessarily cumulative; secondly, analytical knowledge resists or escapes verbal summary; thirdly, analysis is a hands-on activity; and fourthly, analysis may be if not primarily then at least equally an oral rather than a written genre" (274). As a result, analysis has seemed more naturally at home in the classroom than the professional press.[3] Online publishing, however, with its ability to recreate the spontaneity and interactivity of the classroom, offers a way of making analysis a central scholarly activity, pursued not in exemplification of a theory but for its own pleasures and rewards. Of course any musical analysis involves an underlying theory, explicit or not: there is no escape from theory. Nonetheless, it is possible to shift the balance a bit and reverse the usual polarity, asking theory to move quietly to the background and permit analysis to come to the fore. In what follows, I offer a small bouquet of Stravinsky analyses, without any particular theoretical axe to grind. I will explore Scene 1 from Petrushka; Act III, Scene 3 ("In a foolish dream") from The Rake's Progress; and "Exaudi" from Requiem Canticles. My goal is simply to hear these pieces better.[4] For the most part, the works are discussed under certain recurring rubrics, including score, motive, contour, melody and harmony, recomposition, collection, symmetry, rhythm and meter, and meaning and expression:[5] Score. I have provided my own short-score reductions of these three orchestral compositions (in general, the published two-piano or piano-vocal versions concede too much to pianistic limitations). In the "Exaudi" analysis, the score reductions are combined with serial derivations from Stravinsky's row charts. Further discussion of this aspect may be found in Straus 2001, which includes additional relevant bibliography. The scores are presented in brief excerpts, corresponding to the discrete textural blocks of the music. On this persistent aspect of Stravinskian form, see Van den Toorn 1983, Taruskin 1996, and Horlacher 2011.[6] Motive. Recurring melodic motives are discussed and analyzed using basic atonal set theory, especially intervals and Tn-types (Rahn 1980; Straus 2005).[7] Contour. Melodic shapes are described with reference to contour-pitches, contour segments (CSEGs), and contour-segment classes (CSEG-classes), in the manner of Marvin and Laprade 1987 and Morris 1987. …