K039 Mavra
Opéra bouffe en 1 acte d’après A. Pouchkine. Texte de Boris Kochno – Mawra. Opera buffa in einem Akt. Text von Boris Kochno nach Alexander Puschkin – Mavra. Opera in one act after Pushkin by Boris Kochno – Mavra. Opera buffa in una atto. Testo di Boris Kochno su una poesia di Alexander Pouchkine – Mavra.
Title: The opera should have the title of Pushkin’s original (‘The House in Colomna’ or ‘The little house in Colomna’). The reasons why the title was changed to ‘Mavra’ have never been discussed, but are clear from a dramaturgical perspective. The name Mavra appears only once in Pushkin’s versions. Responding to the question posed by the mother to the man disguised as a female cook asking his name, he calls himself ‘Mavra’, a name that is not used as a first name in Russia, but which, according to its formation, is suitable for a female first name. The assumption (also in Pushkin’s version) that this could be an enigmatic play on words derived from the Russian word for ‘Moor’ is rejected by researchers of the Russian language by reason of technical linguistic arguments. Whilst in Pushkin’s version, the plot is an unfolding of the poetological concept, which he as narrator fulfills with the story played out in the ‘little’ house, Kochno only works with the plot itself. This is driven solely by the disguised female cook, Mavra, and not by Parasha, who never changes throughout the course of the piece, and certainly not by the mother or the neighbour. The location itself is just an accessory. To explain to the title figure was not pointless from a dramaturgical perspective.
Scored for: a) First editions (Opera Roles ): Параша ( Paracha, Parascha, Parasha), Soprano; Сосђдка ( Voisine, Nachbarin, The Neighbour), Mezzo-Soprano; Mать ( Mère, Die Mutter, The Mother), Alto; Гусаръ ( Hussar = Cuisinière, Der Husar = Köchin, The Hussar = Cook), Tenor; ~ ( Opera Orchestra): Flauto piccolo, 2 Flauti grandi, 2 Oboi, Corno inglese, Clarinetto piccolo in Mi b, 2 Clarinetti in Si b / in La, 2 Fagotti, Violino I, Violino II, Viola, 4 Corni in Fa, 2 Trombe in Do, 2 Trombe in La, 2 Tromboni tenori, Trombone basso, Tuba, Timpani, Violoncelli, Contrabassi [Piccolo Flute, 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, English horn, Piccolo Clarinet in E flat, 2 Clarinets in B flat / A, 2 Bassoons, Violin I, Violin II, Viola, 4 Horns in F, 2 Trumpets in D, 2 Trumpets in A, 2 Tenor Trombones, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Timpani, Violoncellos, Double Basses]; ~ (Song of Paracha): Canto, 2 Oboi, 2 Clarinetti in B, 2 Fagotti, 4 Corni in F, Tuba, 2 Violini soli, 1 Viola sola, Violoncelli, Contrabassi – 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets in Bb, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns in F, Tuba, 2 Solo Violins, Solo Viola, Cellos*, Double Basses*, b) Performance requirements: Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Alto, Tenor; Piccolo Flute (= 3rd Flute), 3 Flutes (3rd Flute = Piccolo Flute), 2 Oboes, English horn, Piccolo Clarinet in E flat, Clarinet in B flat**, Clarinet in A**, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns in F, 2 Trumpets in C, 2 Trumpets in A, 2 Tenor Trombones, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Timpani, 2 Solo Violins, Solo Viola, Strings*** (Violoncellos****, Double Basses****); Parasha-Arrangement: Soprano, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets in B flat, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns in F, Tuba, 2 Solo Violins, Solo Viola, Strings (Violoncellos, Double Basses)
* Full complement.
** B flat and A clarinets played at the same time.
*** No tutti violins and tutti violas.
**** Also divided into two parts.
Voice types (Fach): Parasha: Coloratura soubrette or light lyric, smart soprano, range d1-b2; Neighbour: Lyric or Character Mezzo with great linguistic agility, range b b-g2; Mother: Spielalto with an especially good low register, range g-f2; Hussar: Spieltenor or extremely comic lyric tenor, range d-b1. For all four roles, comic voices with great flexibility and a mastery of parlando technique are required. The ranges for the roles are consistently comfortable.
Performance practice: Between figures 5 and 6 in the score, a figure 5a, lasting six bars, was inserted. In his model performance of 7th May 1965, Strawinsky omitted a section of figure 5a. The recording transitions in the first Parasha scene from figure 57 directly to the ending after figure 5a, which is followed by the Gipsy song of the Hussar (figure 61). There are also 10 bars missing containing the last 3 lines of the Parasha song, the text of which however is printed in the accompanying booklet to the official CD recording. Strawinsky was not happy with a vinyl recording under the baton of Robert Craft, presumably because he did not like the leading lady, Phyllis Curtin. He wrote about this on 29th March 1951 to his son, Soulima. There are substantial differences between the orchestral score and the piano edition, which was the one used until 1966.
Summary: The plot takes place in a small Russian city during the reign of Charles X. according to the literature, meaning the period of Pushkin in the first quarter of the 19th century. The only set is a living-room with a window facing the street. – Young Parasha is in love with her neighbour Basilius* ((Bасилий , Wassili), a young hussar. She sits at the window where she sings a lovesong of yore, full of longing.- The happy-go-lucky hussar warbles a gypsy song outside her living-room window. A duet follows. After they quarrel a bit, her mother enters the room complaining about the recent death of her cook, Thekla** (Фëкла, Fjokla, Phiocla). She demands that Parasha ask the neighbours about a new cook, and Parasha leaves. – The mother remains alone and soliloquizes about her memories of the past ten years when Thekla had so beautifully taken care of all her needs. A neighbour woman comes by to chat about this and that. Parasha comes back bringing the new cook with her, Mavra, and her mother and neighbour check her over. After passing judgement on Mavra`s value, at the mother`s insistence it is decided that Mavra, agreeing, will get a relatively small wage. The neighbour and mother leave the living-room. – Parasha and Mavra the cook fall into each other`s arms, for Mavra is really her beloved hussar Basil, dressed in women`s clothing. – The mother calls after Parasha, re-enters the living-room, and sends the cook off to wash up. Then she leaves the house with Parasha, not without announcing that they would soon return. The hussar stays behind and sings a song in happy expectation of an hour of love that evening. Then he begins to shave. – During this occurrance the mother re-enters the room. She does not see a cook, rather a thief, and faints from fright. Parasha catches her swooning mother and wishes for some smelling salts. While Basil and Parasha do not know what to do, the neighbour suddenly comes into the room and lets out a fervent prayer. As if that were not enough, the mother comes to herself at that moment and screams for help. At that the hussar jumps out the window with an adieu (Прошай). Parasha, baffled and frightened, runs to and fro between the two women screaming for help and the window, calling after Basil. She finally leans out of the window and despairingly cries twice after the escaped one, Bасилий! (Basilius).
* German original translation
**German original translation for Fjokla
Source: The poem in verse form Домик в Коломне ("The Little House at Kolumna") is by Alexander Pushkin, who wrote it at age 30 or 31 in 1830 at the peak of his career as a poet. It consists of forty stanzas in eight lines of pentametric iambic verse in the rhyme scheme ABABABCC. The simple narrative style, told from an all-knowing perspective, is sprinkled with tiny dialogue fragments taken from recounted stories not central to the main story and begins in the middle of the ninth stanza. There is a poetilogical explanation beforehand, at the time a technique which had been a well-known one in poetical literature since the 18th century; this is realized in the story, it not being told for its own sake, rather as a development of the pre-told story explanation technique. Stanzas ten to twenty show a vivid if masked irony, as well as an inscrutable picture of Parasha`s charm. She is poor, humble, hard-working, pious, and apparently also well-brought up and full of erotic longings, living out her life in a hostile environment with a deaf, man-hating cook and a bigoted, superstitious mother who only thinks of herself. For her, the daughter is more of a servant than the child to whom she at one time had happened to give birth. Parasha has to see to it that she copes with her situation herself. She has many admirers, is aware of her charms, and is careful to be on the watch for young men whether they just walk by, pointing to humble origins, or ride by, signifying a higher rank. She lies awake nights, indulging herself in her secret fancies and happily listening to the mating calls of the cats on the roof. As a contrasting figure, Pushkin introduces a nameless young countess in stanzas 21-24. She is rich, young, and majestically beautiful, but also cold, proud, and calculating, and therefore in reality without happiness. Stanza 25 and 26 compare Parasha and the countess in favor of Parasha. Then Parasha is accidentally helped in that a part of her strict environment breaks off: The cook dies. This gives the poet another opportunity to characterise without pity the strange symbiosis on the home front, for it is the tomcat, Wasska, that mourns the deceased the longest. In the 29th stanza the mother, who is bossy and controlling and has nearly become unfit for life, sends out her daughter Parasha to inquire about a new cook at the neighbours. She is actually totally dependent upon her daughter, whose life`s happiness she blocks. The mother lies down to sleep, and shortly before midnight Parasha returns bringing the new cook with her. A financial agreement is reached upon, followed with admonitions from the mother as well as what is always discussed and talked over in such situations.At stanza 32 the story begins in earnest. The cook does not know what she is supposed to do, and so of course Parasha has to help her out, which she always had had to do with the old cook anyway. Now they go to church. The cook is also expected to accompany the daughter to Mass as part of her duties, but either she always has a toothache or suddenly has to bake a cake. While in church the mother gets suspicious of the cook`s strange behavior, thinking in her typical base manner of the only possible explanation: The cook intends to rob her. Parasha has to stay in the church while the mother runs home as fast as she can, and catches the cook in the act of scraping soap off his chin. The widow faints and the cook, rather one should say the disguised cook, escapes out of the front door. When Parasha comes home from Mass the chicken has already flown the coop. The last two stanzas serve the purpose of proclaiming a moral full of irony. That is, one should never hire a cook without a wage, and a man should never hide in women`s clothing, because if caught one would think of him only as a rogue. A number of compositions in verse, apart from Pushkin`s rhyming tales in operatic models, derive from or are attributed to Pushkin and not to Strawinsky or Kochno. An example of this is the opening scene with Parasha`s song, which goes back to Pushkin`s transcription of a Russian folksong which he later changed into a poem published in the fourth volume of the Pushkin Edition by S.A. Wengerow in 1910. Furthermore, the hussar`s song comes from an untitled poem by Pushkin from 1833.
Kochno: Boris Kochno was not a poet, but a dancer and choreographer (he would go on to direct the Monte Carlo Ballet) and an amateur man of letters with the gift of being able to write pleasant rhymes and verses. He was 18 at the time, seen as well brought-up and educated, and was part of Strawinsky’s circle through his relatively short relationship to the homosexual Diaghilev, working as the latter’s temporary secretary in Paris. After this, they lost touch with one another. Strawinsky was satisfied with Kochno’s work. He received a scenario that he could work with which offered him all manner of possibilities for interpretation, and which in this case represented an especially discreet form of parody.
Dramaturgy: Pushkin`s poetic and autobiographical story, critical about the ironies of society, was transformed by Kochno together with Strawinsky into a type of farcical cabaret. Kochno rewrote the story in direct speech using dialogue, something Pushkin did not do, added the role of the neighbour, and made the disguised cook into a hussar with the names Mavra and Basil. Strawinsky and Kochno interpreted the underlying and unclear threads of the story definitively as a clear-cut piece of realism. Pushkin`s verse structure was necessarily abandoned, and his entire poetic ways and social views, certainly not dramaturgically possible in this form, were repressed. The coarsening of Pushkin`s story-line in Kochno`s libretto does not begin with the central question about the role Parasha plays, which is whether she has brought the hussar to her home in order to follow her feelings, or if the disguised hussar has come to her in order to attain his goal at a convenient time. Rather, it begins with the way in which the poet and librettist portrays the situation. With Kochno, everything is already obvious in the first scene with the new cook. Scarcely has the mother left the room than the lovers fall into each other`s arms.The reader is now only waiting for the inevitable appearance of the catastrophe because the relation to duration cannot be concealed. Pushkin, however, only works with hints which in the end contradict Parasha`s sweetness. Parasha does not have one lover, rather, she is on the look-out for men. Parasha brings the cook home at midnight while her mother is already asleep. When the mother bolts home Parasha remains in the church, as if she did not know that her mother would discover the soldier in a compromising situation. When she realizes the state of affairs, she does not blush. The story is over. The narrator has internal knowlege; he knows where the samovar is, meaning he has visited the house. Then he awakens suspicion that he has already been her lover. Pushkin hints at this in the 38th stanza, where the narrator wishes the lover would go to the devil, and when after the disguised man`s flight he does not want to have anything more to do with him "Who replaced him in the house from this time." We see the runaway soldier has a replacement, that the game continues with the next lover, and that the narrator, certainly in love with Parasha at one time, on account of the events has turned away from the girl.The story begins with the narrator visiting the Little House. The house has been demolished. It apparently looks harmless and peaceful. Memories arise in the narrator that paralyze his reason. Pushkin gradually leads the seeming farce back to its tragic foundation. Parasha is not who she pretends to be. What has happenend here is not funny, because there is no happy end, which neither Parasha nor her disguised lover intended. Parasha and the man she brought into the house are not lovers like in the Kochno version where they want to find each other. Rather, the story is about only one of many continuously changing relationships. This is the result of the circumstances and atmosphere in which Parasha has lived: bigotry, superstition, isolation, misanthropy, helplessness, cunning, and everything which grows out of baseness and base thinking. In the end, Parasha is not much better than her mother; in any case she is indolent in our story, for she knows that the man must shave himself, and that he uses the time when she and her mother are at church to freshen up. When the mother rushes home the deception is over. Parasha remains in the church, neither trying to hold back her mother nor trying to warn the man before the mother makes her discovery. Is she tired of him? Or is the next one standing in line at her door? In the Bodenstedt paraphrase she was: “ Crazy about her guardsman like the lieutenant.” There is no lack of suitors, making Parasha kindred to the beautiful Lila in "The Faun and the Shepherdess." In the Kochno version, the story is presumably a love story with a happy ending being the most important part. The mother is confined to her commonplaceness, and the addition of the neighbour serves as a sounding-board for her prattling gossip which carries on about absolutely nothing for hours at a time.In the Kochno version Parasha really does love, but the object of her affections is as fleeting as a greyhound. That is why Kochno makes him into a hussar, a light rider, with the emphasis on light, a man who croons gypsy songs and flirts with women and perhaps more than that. A man, who neglects Parasha, but always is able to get her for a rendezvous. Parasha pays the price. But when she makes him into a cook she has got him; he is under her control. The dramaturgical mistake is that a soldier is not allowed to stay away from his unit. When the disguise is exposed before the couple can reveal their love, Parasha becomes a tragic figure.In Kochno`s version, in spite of the comedy there is a moment of despair which takes control of the young couple and particularly of Parasha, during the discovery and while the two older women are shrieking. The hussar jumps out of the window, leaving his girl in the lurch at the worst possible moment. The mother and neighbour only see a rogue in the disguised man. Their crowning stupidity is that they do not conceive of a connection between the man and the woman. If the soldier had stayed he would have had to explain himself, either scolding or laughter would have broken out, and the story would have ended with a wedding. Since the hussar has fled, Parasha must fear she has lost the stakes. How the story will end remains unknown.
Translations: Strawinsky’s Mavra has its own labyrinthine translation history. The French translation of the first printed version was surprisingly not by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz but after an absolute odyssey to find a translator, by the then 44-year-old French composer Jacques Larmanjat. Strawinsky was not satisfied with it, as it later emerged, and referred to it as mediocre. Especially bad in Strawinsky’s opinion was the English translation by Robert Burness, which he referred to point-blank as ‘bad’. It was first corrected by Robert Craft, and then finally replaced by Craft’s own version. The German translation was by Alexander Elukhen. A further English translation by Thomas Scherman also inspired confidence. Strawinsky put his foot down, so that in the end only Craft’s version remained in circulation, but with a printing error in the name, which Strawinsky found irritating, ‘Kraft’ instead of ‘Craft’.
Translation history: Larmanjat had already explained, after a real Odyssean journey for a translator, that he would translate the stage work into French. Strawinsky had been looking for a translation amongst several friends and acquaintances without success, but clearly ruled out Ramuz although the economic situation of the Swiss writer was, as always, desperate and he would have needed money urgently. This implies a deeper resentment against Ramuz or a conviction that Ramuz was not up to the task, or indeed the sober insight of his being too far away from Ramuz for a fruitful collaboration (Ramuz had not mastered Russian and thus was reliant upon instructions and comments from linguists, here: from Strawinsky. Strawinsky had moved to Anglet. There were approximately 1,000 kilometres between him and Ramuz, and Strawinsky was also readying himself to move to Biarritz. Astonishingly, he reported on the opera ‘Mavra’ to Ramuz in a very personal letter dated 18th August 1921 from Anglet, characterizing it as a sort of ‘Soldier’s Tale’ with arias, duets and trios and calling it very melodic; he wrote that he wished to see him because he missed him, but did not write a single word about the translation problems, which must at this time have been agreed very favourably with Ansermet. This can be seen from Ansermet’s letter dated 10th September 1921. In it, he shares with Strawinsky that he was no longer able to uphold his promise regarding the translation of “Mavra”. He was originally hoping for Walter Nouvel, who would help him to set the translated text correctly under the corresponding Russian words, but they were both too overloaded at the time to take on the opera. Ansermet, who at the time still had his own worries because he wished to give up his activities in Switzerland, advised that Jean Cocteau should deal with the matter, for whom such translated texts flowed easily and with whom he would be able to discuss in situ the allocation of translated and original texts to the musical text. Strawinsky tried to change Ansermet’s mind without success, and the latter continued advising in a letter dated 13th October 1921 that he use Cocteau. Cocteau was an admirer of “Mavra”, but whether he was seriously involved with the matter of the translation, and whether a translation vocabulary that he sent to Strawinsky in Autumn 1922 referred to “Mavra” remains conjecture. Cocteau was a master of polite letters and generally wrote to Strawinsky in a tone of gentle subservience; many projects however were not carried out because Cocteau himself did not want to. Strawinsky fell behind schedule. Kochno, among others, was in discussions for the task – but never Ramuz - until Strawinsky agreed on Larmanjat, who was connected, along with his wife, with the company Pleyel and who was later involved in the negotiations surrounding the pianola arrangements. What the collaboration looked like seems to be unknown. It can be seen from letters written decades later that Strawinsky was not satisfied with the translation. The linguistic issues was less pronounced for “Mavra” than for “Renard” because there were no Pribautki sections, and the cryptic atmosphere of Pushkin’s version seems to have been lost in Kochno’s version. In spite of this, the Larmanjat translation turned out so badly that Strawinsky made reference to it forty years later whilst he was making preparations for the first printed edition of the score in 1966. In a letter to Leopold Spinner dated 31st March 1966, he confirmed that the score should only contain the original Russian text and the English translation by Robert Craft. The German text and the other text, now seen as mediocre, were not required and should only remain in the piano reduction for rehearsal purposes. The German translation was by A. Elukhen, whose first name was not written out in the piano reduction printed by the Russian music publishers in 1925, unlike the first names of the other translators.
These were not the considerations of an old man. David Adams had sent the English translation by Thomas Scherman in 1953. He would never have done this if the Burness translation for the new Boosey editions had been called into question. Strawinsky ‘very confidentially’ referred to the Scherman translation by name in a letter to Adams dated 29th October 1953, but found however, being better acquainted with the English language than he was in 1952, that the game, especially in the Finale, had been changed in essence. At the time, he put forward Robert Craft as a new translator, who would translate Kochno’s text under his, Strawinsky’s, oversight, and for whom Strawinsky asked for a fee of 75 dollars.
Construction: Mavra is an opera buffo for four singers and middle-sized orchestra.; there are no recitatives, no chorus, and it is unnumbered. However, it does have arias, duets, and a quartett, parodying the russo-italian 19th century operatic style. At the same time, due to its structure and form, the work`s classification is a matter of interpretation. In the Strawinsky literature, aside from the overture there are six to thirteen sections of proven attempts at inner-connecting parts; the number of such sections is higher if one considers the placement of dialogues and their corresponding ensemble scenes. For example, the hussar`s gypsy song sounds within Parasha`s song, and after Basil and Parasha have finished speaking she continues with her song. Strictly speaking, one can see this as four parts, or it can be counted as one part, as two (Parasha aria; dialogue), as three (Parasha aria;hussar song; duet), or four parts as already said. The same thing can be said about the scene with the mother, neighbour, Parasha, and hussar; one can see it as a whole, in two parts (dialogue; quartett), or even in three parts (dialogue; quartett; dialogue). The greater parts one chooses however, the more they lose their sense of being a means of connection in analytical clarification.
Structure
The subsequent inner structure outlines according to the libretto, 9 sections including the overture, but cannot lay any claim to an overall sense of musical unity. These sections are: [No.1] the Overture, [No.2] the Chanson russe = Russian Maiden’s Song = Parasha’s Aria (Figure 1), [No.3] the Song of the Hussar and the subsequent duet between Parasha and the Hussar (Figure 7), [No.4] the Mother’s Aria (Figure 34), [No.5] the duet between the Mother and the Neighbour (figure 44), [No.6] the Quartet between the Mother, Neighbour, Parasha and the Cook (Figure 68), [No. 7] the duet between Parasha and the Hussar, called the Love Duet (figure 96), [No. 8] the Hussar’s Aria together with the Shaving Scene (figure 134) and [No.9] the Final Scene (figure 163).
[1] Overture
Crotchet = 104 (figure 2A up to figure G 3)
Semiquaver = semiquaver (figure G 4up to figure I 8)
[2] Crotchet = 69 (figure 1 1up to the end of figure 5a 5)
(Vorhang) (figure 1 1)
Занавђсъ
Curtain
[Vorhang]
(figure 1 1)
Параша за работой поëт у окна
PARASHA sitting by a window sings as she embroiders
[Parascha sitzt, mit einer Stickerei beschäftigt, am Fenster und singt]
(figure 1 2)
Гусаръ подходитъ къ окну.
Hussar appears at the windows singing a gipsy song.
[Vor dem Fenster erscheint der Husar. Er singt ein Zigeunerlied]
(figure 5a 5)
[3] Più mosso Crotchet = 120 (figure 6 1up to the end of figure 13 4)
Più lento (figure 14 1up to figure 21 4)
rallentando (figure 21 3)
Largo (figure 21 5up to 21 7)
Tempo I (figure 22 1up to the end of figure 27 12)
Гусаръ уходитъ.
Exit Hussar.
[Der Husar geht ab]
(figure 26 5)
Параша снова берëтся за работу, напђвая пђсенку.
Paracha resumes her work and continues her song.
[Parascha nimmt ihre Handarbeit wieder vor und singt ihr Lied weiter]
(figure 27 1)
Входитъ мать Параши
Enter Mother of Paracha.
[Paraschas Mutter tritt ein]
(figure 27 12)
Più mosso Quaver = 168-170 environ (figure 28 1up to the end of figure 33 4)
Параша уходитъ
Exit Paracha
[Parascha geht ab]
(figure 33 4)
[4] Andante Quaver = 88 (figure 34 1up to the end of figure 36 4)
Мать (одна)
Mother (alone)
[Die Mutter bleibt allein zurück]
(figure 34 2)
Allegretto Quaver = 132 (figure 37 1up to the end of figure 39 4)
Tempo I Quaver = 88 (figure 40 1up to figure 42 3)
Più mosso dotted Crotchet = 94 (figure 42 4up to the end of figure 43 8)
Входитъ сосђдка
Enter Neighbour.
[Die Nachbarin tritt ein]
(figure 42 5)
[5] Tempo giusto Quaver = quaver (figure 44 1up to the end of figure 67 6)
Въ дверяхъ показывается Параша
Paracha appears at the door.
[Parascha erscheint in der Türe]
(figure 67 6)
[6] Alla breve Minim = 80 (figure 68 1up to the end of figure 92 6)
Входитъ кухарка - перодђтый гусаръ.
Enter Hussar disguised as Cook.
[Der als Köchin verkleidete Husar tritt ein]
(figure 69 1)
Larghetto dotted Crotchet = 44 (figure 93 1up to the end of figure 96 4)
Cосђдка уходитъ
Exit Neighbour
[Nachbarin geht ab]
(figure 93 6)
Мать уходитъ
Exit Mother
[Die Mutter geht ab]
(Figure 96 1)
[7] Con moto Crotchet = 116 (figure 97 1up to the end of figure 104 5)
Meno mosso Crotchet = 846 (figure 105 1up to the end of figure 124 5)
Tempo commodo (Alla breve) (figure 125 1up to the end of figure 133 6)
[8] Crotchet = quaver = 168-176 environ (figure 134 1up to the end of figure 139 5)
Входитъ мать
Enter Mother
[Die Mutter tritt ein]
(figure 134 1)
Параша и мать уходятъ
Exeunt Paracha and Mother
[Parascha und die Mutter verlassen das Zimmer]
(figure 138 1)
Lento Crotchet = 80 (poco rubato) (figure 140 1up to the end of figure 146 5)
Più mosso Crotchet = 104 (tempo giusto) (figure 147 1up to the end of figure 155 7)
L'istesso tempo (figure 156 1up to the end of figure 162 5)
Брђется
Begins to shave
[Er (der Husar) rasiert sich]
(figure 161 1)
[9] Coda (L'istesso tempo) (figure 163 1up to the end of figure 172 8)
Мать (входитъ; съ недоумђноімъ)
Enter Mother (astonished)
[Die Mutter tritt ein und ist sehr erstaunt]
(figure 165 2)
(Видитъ его)
(sees him)
[sie sieht ihn]
(figure 165 4)
Параша (вбђгая, подхватываетъ мать)
PARASHA (running in, catches her Mother)
[Parascha kommt hereingelaufen, fängt ihre Mutter auf]
(figure 166 3)
Cосђдка (входя)
Enter Neighbour
[Die Nachbarin kommt herein]
(figure 168 1)
(какъ бы приходя въ себя)
(бросается въ окно)
(recovering her sens)
(leaps out of the windows)
[(Die Mutter) kommt wieder zu sich]
[(Der Husar) springt zum Fenster hinaus]
(figure 169 1)
Параша (бђжитъ къ окну)
PARASHA (runs towards the window)
[Parascha läuft zum Fenster]
(figure 170 1)
(бђжитъ къ матери)
(runs towards Mother)
[Sie eilt wieder zur Mutter]
(figure 171 1)
(перевђшивается въ окно)
(leaning out of window)
[Sie lehnt sich zum Fenster hinaus]
(figure 171 3)
Занавђсь быстро опускается.
The curtain falls quickly.
[Der Vorhang fällt schnell]
(figure 172 5)
Corrections / Errata
Full score 39-4
Figure 116: >And | I re- | pea-ted, | re-pea- | - ted the< instead of >Oft | I re- | peat-ed | fond-ly, | fond-
ly thy<
Parasha-Aria Voice-Piano 39-5
(many slurs)
1.) p. 3, bar 2 [bar 11]: Ров instead of Роз.
2.) p. 3, bar 7 [bar 16]: ВЪТЕМ instead of ВЪГЕМ.
3.) p. 3, bar 10 [bar 20] Chant: quaver ligature c#2-a1 has to be connected to the following quaver a2
by beam [quaver ligature c#2-a1-a2]; the Russian text кђ has to be moved from the last but
one to the last note.
4.) p. 5, bar 2 [bar 37]: Страсть instead of Страстъ.
5.) p. 5, bar 5 [bar 40], Piano descant: first chord quaver g1-h1-dotted crotchet d b1-d b2 instead of
quaver g1-b1-dotted crotchet d1-d2.
6.) p. 5, bar 6 [bar 41], Piano descant, 2. system: 2. three-note-chord quaver a b-b b-f1 instead of a-
b b-f1.
7.) p. 5, bar 8 [bar 43], Piano descant, 2. system: 1. three-note-chord quaver a b-b b-f1 instead of a-
b b-f1.
8.) p. 7, bar 3 [bar 60] Piano descant: 2. three-note-chord quaver a-e b1-f1 instead of b b-d b1-f1
[pencil].
Style: Mavra can be traced back to many stylistic areas, to the melodic writing of Russian Opera and Romances by Glinka and Dargomichsky, to Classical Italian bel canto, to Gipsy melodies and their game of contrasting long and short notes including cadences ending on the dominant.Like “Renard”, Mavra has thus become an artistic work for connoisseurs, the atmosphere of which the non-connoisseur can experience, but not interpret. As a result, the opera has continued to have an effect, leaving traces for example in Shostakovich’s “The Nose”, but it also experienced rejection by the communist musical aesthetic because the satire in their opinion was aimed at itself, and made no contemporary societal reference. The Parasha aria is a melancholy Romance in the Glinka manner; the hussar`s song in gypsy style is a Polonaise, and taken together with the Parasha aria forms a stylistic unit in the sense of slow tempo, fast tempo. The mother`s aria belongs to the category of Italian cavatina. The gabbing scene between the mother and neighbour becomes a Polka and imitates Dargomyshky. The quartet parodies Tchaikovsky. The final love duet crosses over into a slow salon-waltz. The degree to which one can understand the compositional style of Mavra depends on how much detailed knowledge one has in Russian operatic music dating from Dargomyschsky and Tschaikovsky. – In addition, there have been (much debated) Jazz influences recognized that are caused by echoes of Ragtime, inasmuch as Ragtime can be described as Jazz. This does not correspond to Strawinsky’s understanding of Ragtime and Jazz, especially if one, more problematically, interprets every chromatic melody and syncopation as being related to Jazz. As the wit of Strawinsky’s music exists in the alienation of Russian operatic models of developed musical forms in favour of Italian ones, the original models must be known before one can comprehend their inherent satirization. Parasha’s Aria (Parasha’s Song), in which one can hear a Glinka Romance, confronts, through the dilemma of whether one defines it as an Aria or Song, the Russian compositional dilemma between the beloved blissful New-Neapolitan opera aria and the at first unloved compositional logic of Gluck and Wagner. The result was an attempt to hold melodic lines in abeyance in order to be able to maintain effective musical scenes without sounding radical or epigonal. More difficult to answer is the question regarding the original models, whether Strawinsky had in mind specific pieces or numbers, or only took as a basis the style in itself. That he exhibited Russian and Italian operatic music in a slightly exaggerated manner remains unchallenged if one does not want to engage with the whole issue of hunting down reminiscences. Just as far-reachingly typical forms, such as Italian or Neapolitan coloratura arias or simple native folksongs develop numerous motific figures that constantly return. They are an intrinsic part of the style and their presence does not imply, that one composer copies from another. While he was composing Mavra, Strawinsky did not own a single Glinka opera score. Strawinsky was constructing a historical opposition between Russian composers who wrote in a spontaneous manner, such as Glinka, Dargomichsky and Tchaikovsky, and those that subscribed to a doctrine of aestheticism with the intention of only creating art that, coming from the people, was long a part of the people’s culture. As a consequence, this means not copying by adopting Russian models but characterizing in the sense of alienating them. The chosen character of an opera buffa made concessions to this. Strawinsky handled the four stage figures as petty bourgeois character types from Russian suburbia; the young girl looking to escape her boring everyday existence, the frivolous soldier searching for adventure and amours, and the gossip. For every character and their partner, Strawinsky develops a specific identifier: Parasha and the Hussar are allocated the Romance, the urban origin of which connects Parasha with a Russian, traditionally sentimental soundworld, and the Hussar with the opera-like theatricality of empty impetuosity. Parasha’s soundworld remains melancholy with a gently coquettish and wounded effect, for the same reason. That of the Hussar links an affected and frivolous gaiety with impatience and aural signifiers of his profession, such as fanfare motives or the large melodic leaps to express something unpleasant, here the impatience to get to the goal of the entire adventure as soon as possible, that are characteristics of Strawinsky. For the gossiping women the intonation changes into the Russian elegaic style of a lament or takes on the character of an entertaining couplet. In this way the pretended seriousness of opera stands in grotesque opposition to the banality of the events themselves, which are always neutralised. When the lovers see each other before the impending fulfilment of their wishes, they sing at first a duet in the style of a grand heroic-opera love duet, but cannot maintain its high level of pathos, and so fall back into the mustiness of their unprepossessing daily lives and end their love scene with a very miserable Waltz, a technique that Strawinsky had already employed in the Moor-Ballerina scene in Petrushka. What Strawinsky expresses at the end of the opera what he meant for these events which were for him not serious, but for the characters involved were a part of their lives: when it becomes likely that the lovers will not reach their goal this time, the composer mocks with great excess, writing funeral music behind them that is to be taken ironically. What connections with the text Strawinsky does make is always satirical or revealing in the sense of Wagnerian motific language. In the great love duet wide-ranging sequences represent to the endless blessedness in the text, and they are written as emptily and masklike as the blessedness is dishonestly exaggerated. Even before the text describes that Parasha has helped her Hussar over the cook’s back door into the house the fanfare melody reveals his military origin, as Parasha introduces her squire to her mother as the female cook. Strawinsky demonstrates that the words ‘God of Love’[=words in the text] are also not fast, despite the fact that his two volunteer victims have long decided on fast action, by bringing in the Waltz from the love duet, and then suddenly drastically slowing down the note values to minims at these words in the text. When the Hussar expresses his hope, that the mother and daughter will be satisfied with him, his melody flits from d1 up to E flat 2, the top of the range. Mother and daughter answer at the same time with the same words. The mother however has lamenting notes in her answer, because she is thinking about loyalty, honesty and cheapness, while Parasha degenerates into her Romance aria, to which Strawinsky lends a demanding feeling by means of a sudden harmonic shift. Many of these techniques of the style, which are just as meaningful as they are comic, are already recognised and articulated by Boris Assafyev and Boris Yurustovski. By doing this, Strawinsky pushes several levels of interpretation into and onto one another, in that he not only describes the separate characters, but also develops superior fields of meaning at textually appropriate opportunities. He therefore gives to the dead Thekla a separate motif that reappears in the opera several times. Thekla was ‘faithful and honorable’ and, nota bene, cheap, and she served for a long time. Her motif plays a role as the motivation of the mother in the hiring scene, and it returns again when the Hussar later boasts as a military man of ten years that he has served faithfully and honestly for that long. The contrast of the melodic and the harmonic and the coincidence of the tonic and dominant are stylistic techniques that Strawinsky had used previously to achieve grotesque effects. In Parasha’s aria for example, the melodic and harmonic writing do not go together well. Strawinsky’s bringing them into conflict means that emotionalism of this song, with its Romance-like melody that is beautiful in itself, gains an harmonic backdrop that no longer suits it, the normal relationships of which are inverted when the tonic is superimposed on the dominant and the dominant on the tonic. This interpretative multi-faceted approach is also served by the use of polytonal elements, harmonic shifts of key area and polyphony. The relationship between the events uses Classical conceptions of function as a prerequisite, because otherwise the alterations that are made to them, which characterise the text and situations, cannot be comprehended. Strawinsky mastered all of this already in the composition of Petrushka and the easy four-hand piano pieces. That he also used the traditional handling of orchestration for the purpose of characterisation but also distorted it, for example that he transfers the typical string passages into the woodwinds and vice versa as well as assigning instruments to people and situations, is also marginally understood. The trumpets for example are allocated to the Hussar, and fast woodwind writing to the gabbling, gossiping women.
Dedication: A la mémoire de / Pouchkyne, Glinka et Tschaïkovsky / Igor Strawinsky [To the memory of / Pushkin, Glinka and Tschaikowsky / Igor Strawinsky].
Duration: 27'46".Strawinsky found it annoying that early catalogues from Boosey & Hawkes contained incorrect statements of duration. A difference of opinion between the publishers and the recording company regarding the duration of Mavra, in that the company believed it to be shorter and the publishers longer, caused Strawinsky to write an irritated letter on 22nd May 1950. He wrote that these mistakes could be traced back to his corrections not being taken into account. In the case of Mavra, he specified the performance duration as 23 minutes. This figure is just as incorrect as the marking in the score of 25 minutes. In Strawinsky’s later documentation, he specified 28 minutes less 14 seconds. In the dispute over the duration of the Mass as well, the figures given by the publishers turned out to be correct, and Strawinsky’s incorrect.
Date of origin: Opera (without overture): Anglet and Biarritz, summer 1921 up to 9th March 1922*; Overture: later added in Paris shortly before the première ; Parasha Arrangement: Biarritz, begun around 9th September 1923, completed before 15th September 1923; Parasha-Arrangement (Violin Transcription): New York April 1937.
* In the autumn, he had to interrupt things as a result of the work on “Sleeping Beauty”, but during November and December 1921, he continued work on his opera without interruption in Biarritz and was certain that he was seeing himself create a good work, a masterpiece, as he wrote in quotation marks to Ernest Ansermet on 21st December 1921. Again, there were a few interruptions caused by trips in between.
First performances: The first performance took place at the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris) with Oda Slobodskaja (Parasha), Hélène Sadovène (Neighbour), Soja Rossowskaja (Mother), Bélina Skoupewski [Stefano Bielina] (Hussar). Scenery and the costumes: Léopold Survage; staging: Bronislawa Nijinska; direction: Serge Grigoriew; under the musical conduction of Gregor Fitelberg and the responsibility of Serge Diaghilew. Strawinsky presumably did not play the overture at this preliminary performance of Mavra. Which piano arrangement Strawinsky used was brought into question by Craft, because the piano version for two hands was completed in March 1924. The preliminary performance was, in contrast to the premiere, very successful. Sébastien Voirol was also among the invited guests. ( In the Strawinsky literature, the opinion, which stems from the incorrect dating in the ‘Memoirs’, is stubbornly clung to that Mavra and Renard were premiered on the same day in Paris, 3rd June 1922. This date is correct for the premiere of Mavra, but not for Renard, the premiere of which had already taken place on18th May 1922 . In his memoirs (which were not written by Strawinsky), the combination of both stage works is dressed up so as to make it appear vivid and superficially credible. Then there is the fact that Mavra was conducted by Fitelberg and Renard by Ansermet. In reality, Renard was not performed on 3rd June. The programme contained Petrushka, Mavra and Sacre. )A pre-performance was arranged on 29th May 1922 in the ballroom of the Hôtel Continental at Paris for the friends of Diaghilew who supported the project in a version for piano (played by Strawinsky) under the musical conduction of Gregor Fitelberg. The first performance of the Parasha aria was probably on the 7th November 1923 at Paris. The Hylton arrangement was performed for the first time on 17th February 1931 in the opera house of Paris with the Hylton Band.
Remarks: Immediately after the premiere, it was described as persiflage, and it is not certain whether this was a recognition of the work’s specification as Russian-Italian opera, or whether it referred to the idea that the newcomer who had become so famous with “Sacre” had hamstrung himself and moved backwards stylistically, or even not taken himself so seriously. In addition, they felt obliged to deal with the constantly reappearing dominant-seventh chords and leading-note music, which in the opinion of many contemporaries, did not suit Strawinsky. Strawinsky’s friend Francis Poulenc wrote about this in the June/July issue of “Les Feuilles Libres” and decisively stood against the claim of parody. It was in a letter to Poulenc, his New Year’s letter dated 1st January 1923, that Strawinsky finally acknowledged the defeat of his opera. The persiflage problem had experienced the most different interpretations, with the level of persiflage varying from harmless and affectionate parody to caricature of the Russian attitude to life, bordering on maliciousness. – The Parasha aria has likewise been linked back to a specific Romance by Glinka as well as a folksong collection by Daniil Kaschin from 1833 that has been verified to have been known and highly regarded by Strawinsky, and of which Strawinsky had a reprinting from 1883 in his library. He did not however have in his possession during the composition of Mavra any scores by Glinka. It was only after the premiere of Mavra that he bought, in July 1922, Glinka’s “Russlan and Ludmilla”, and in August of the same year “A Life for the Tsar”. – Strawinsky wrote very bitterly on 10th April 1964 to Stuart Pope of Boosey & Hawkes in connection with the planned vinyl recording. The music of Mavra had never been engraved, the orchestral scores (meaning the hire material) were unusable and the set of parts was in a bad condition. Of course the music had not received any success and it would also not receive. When he complained that worse music than Mavra was being performed, they replied that better music than Mavra was also not being performed. But he would certainly like to see Mavra printed. – In a letter from Nice dated 1st November 1926 to Ernest Ansermet, Strawinsky waxed enthusiastic about a performance of Mavra as part of what was at the time the Frankfurt Strawinsky festival. He would have gladly seen a performance if Ansermet used the resident singers at Frankfurt for a Strawinsky concert. He praised the voice of the only German in the ensemble, Ruth Arndt, as good but not big enough. The event never came about however, because the intended performance was to be performed in Russian and the singers could only master French and not Russian.
Nijinska’s stage direction: Not much has been said about Nijinska`s staging nor about the single stage-set of one room. Actually, the staging consisted of gesticulations and was mainly an attempt at reasonable teamwork only, all of which Strawinsky did not think much of. For on the stage there were singers with their typically heavy singer gestures, so that Nijinska`s plan for stylized movements using dance related technique were totally missing.
Subsequent productions
1928 Berlin, Kroll-Oper (Conductor and stage director: Otto Klemperer; décor: Ewald Dülberg;
Parasha: Ellen Burger)
1934 Philadelphia (stage direction and décor: Herbert Graf; conductor: Alexander Smallens)
1935, Wednesday 23rd October 1935; concert performance Association de l’Orchestre Romand
with the soloists Natalie Wetchor (soprano), Pierre Bernac (tenor), Rimathé und Goudal (alto);
conductor Ernest Ansermet
History of origin: There are diverse versions as to the genesis of " Mavra , and today it is hardly possible to determine which one is completely right. In 1921 Diaghilev fought with Bakst for various reasons which have been handed down to us; they probably were financial ones, as they ended up with no choreographer. Therefore Diaghilev arrived at the idea of bringing back Petipas` ballet, "Sleeping Beauty" with the original choreography and Tschaikovsky`s music. Strawinsky had a hand in the instrumentation. It was at this time that Strawinsky proposed his Mavra idea corresponding to Pushkin, telling the public about their reverence for Pushkin, Glinka, and Tschaikovsy. It is not believable that Diaghilev commissioned him. He was a ballet and not an opera impresario, and whenever opera was performed he gave it a dance aspect, and if possible tried to turn the piece into a ballet. We can be certain that Diaghilev took up the opera into the programme but did not commission it; one can surmise that he did that mainly to please his young friend Boris Kochno, who wrote the libretto. Strawinsky began the summer of 1921 in Anglet and received Kochno`s libretto scene by scene, supposedly making sketches of melodies and stacking them in different piles, later pulling out a melody which suited a newly arrived verse. He finished his work on April 9th, 1922, but the piano-vocal score was not ready until April, 1924; he composed the overture shortly before its first performance in Paris.
Diaghilev was due to rechoreograph Petipa’s ballet “Sleeping Beauty” with music by Tchaikovsky in 1920 or 1921. The plan was supported by Strawinsky, and furthermore he received a commission to orchestrate some of the musical numbers. Diaghilev was now looking, it is reported, for a short section of prefatory music capable of being staged, and asked Strawinsky for this. This version of the story, which was related by Kochno, cannot be correct in this form. First, Sleeping Beauty is, at a length of 2 ½ hours, a full-length and also formidable dance production, which tolerates no other piece alongside it and would not be capable of having another stage work preceding it, either in terms of time considerations or content. So Sleeping Beauty is a dance work and Mavra an opera. What sort of impresario would join two such pieces together in one programme with their enormous costs! If Diaghilev had intended to only perform a single act from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, then he would have required a 2nd and probably even a 3rd piece. But he used the ballet in its entirety, achieved an unheard-of success and was then bankrupt.
A further version of events comes from Strawinsky himself. Diaghilev and he were united in their common high regard for Pushkin and that part of Russian music which behaved artistically spontaneously. Strawinsky named Glinka, Dargomyzhsky and Tchaikovsky, and broke away from the Belayev circle with Rimsky-Korsakoff and Glazunov and his doctrinally national aestheticism. According to this version, they therefore developed a plan in London to honour these significant Russians and sourced the Pushkin material together. Even this version can only be correct in parts.
If Diaghilev had planned an evening to honour Glinka, Dargomyzhsky and Tchaikovsky, then he would have, see “Sleeping Beauty”, performed their music with the Russian Ballet, but never commissioned an opera that didn’t even last half an hour.
Yet another version of events is based on the difficulties that Diaghilev had with Léon Bakst. There are also a further two versions. The first says that Bakst engaged with a female dancer and Diaghilev fired him for it. But this is not believable given Diaghilev’s erotic nature. Bakst did not “engage himself” with the dancer in the usual sense, but fell in love with her and married her. The other version is believable. According to it, Bakst and Diaghilev had fallen out over financial matters, as Diaghilev was not willing to pay the amount demanded by Bakst. They therefore went their separate ways and Diaghilev found himself without a choreographer. This caused him to keep a lookout for works that had already been choreographed. So he came upon Sleeping Beauty. In this situation, Strawinsky offered Mavra, an opera which certainly did not require a choreographer. Diaghilev certainly did accept the opera, but did not commission it, and certainly only included it in the program for the sake of his young friend Kochno.
Parasha Aria. History of origin: It can be seen from letters written by Strawinsky in Biarritz on 9th and 15th September 1923 to Ernest Ansermet that he had completed the planning for the Parasha arrangement on 9th September and the version for voice and piano certainly before 15 thSeptember 1923. Strawinsky gave the date of the completion of the final orchestral version as 1929 in a letter dated 10th December 1947 to Betty Bean, and it was also published in the same year. Whether this is an error of memory on Strawinsky’s part cannot be easily found out. According to the documentation in the Library of the British Museum, the conducting score (disc number R.M.V. 458) was already published in 1925. The London copy, from which this date was taken, has only a copyright mark dated 1925, but the printing mark 1933, and to make matters worse, a composition date of 1922-23 is stated in the main title on the first page of music. The time of acquisition sheds no light on the matter because in this case it is a bought copy that the Library obtained on 11th February 1918. As a result, all the information can be correct and incorrect at the same time. The copyright mark 1925 could have been taken from the piano-reduction edition, the printing date 1933 from a later print run, the date of the work’s completion could refer to the completion of the piano version of the arrangement, as the complete piano version was presumably not completed before March 1924. Strawinsky also used the date 1929 for the piano version of the Parasha song. In a letter dated 28th July 1952 to Ernst Roth, he refers to a new edition by the publishers of the 1929 edition, and casually recalls the orchestral version it was made into. Strawinsky gave the piece the French title ‘Chanson de Parasha’, which was later anglicised into ‘Russian Maiden’s Song’. The reason for turning the orchestral arrangement of the first entry of Parasha into a separate aria-like scene seems not to have been ascertained. In December 1947, Strawinsky completed a revised version because the young singer Vera Bryner (Pavlovsky) had been given the task of recording his songs (J. & W. Chester Publications). The revision affected the piano version, and not the orchestral one. For the publication, Strawinsky emphasised not naming the opera of origin ‘Mavra’ because he did not trust the old copyright statement by the Russian music Publishers from 1925 and also did not trust being protected by the fake editor name, Albert Spalding. This was why the new title ‘Russian Maiden’s Song’ came about, published in the revised version of 1948.
Situationsgeschichte: In the memoirs, the conception of the First Orchestral Suite (No.2) can be traced back to the light piano piece for four hands which he wrote for an unnamed parisian music-hall.Tarushkin has proven that this music-hall was called the Théâtre de la chauve-souris à Moscow, which opened December, 1920 at the Théâtre femina on the Champs-Elysée under Nikita Balyjew and very soon enjoyed great popularity, particularly among Russian emigrées. The name chauve-souris, bat, came from the Moscow cabaret (Летучая мышь) with the same name.The idea was later transplanted with similar success to London (1921) and America (1922). The Fledermaus Theatre was soon a gathering point for presumably homesick Russian emigrants who could transport themselves back to their home via a lighter muse. Balyjev himself was an emigrant. At his theatre worked the leading Russian painter, Serge Soudeikin with his recently married wife Vera, who had been active before the Russian Revolution as one of the most significant theatre painters as well as for Diaghilev since 1906. It was via Soudeikin that Kochno came into contact with Diaghilev, and when Soudeikin invited Diaghilev to the Fledermaus Theatre to a general rehearsal on 19th February 1921, the latter brought Strawinsky along with him, who reputedly fell in love with the young, expansive, but box office-filling dancer Zhenya Nikitina, and was from then on a regular guest in the theatre. La Chauve-Souris had a favourable output of vaudeville theatre works with a Russian atmosphere, and it cannot be ruled out that the idea for Mavra was conceived in this atmosphere. Finally, Mavra was sketched in spring of the same year, in which Strawinsky first came to the Fledermaus Theatre. These possible connections can also explain why Strawinsky wrote that he was disappointed with the “Music-Hall”, but did not name its name because he had too many beautiful memories connected with it, not least with his second wife Vera Bosset, divorced as Vera Soudeikina. The Chauve-souris lived from vaudeville-theater with a Russian hue and its atmosphere may have kindled his Mavra idea. Its origin was basically not cabaret itself, rather the penchant for the grotesque which, according to Pribautki, had always belonged to the Russian soul and enabled a "bat cabaret" to come into existence.“Mavra” was not written as the result of the Fledermaus Theatre, but rather opera and cabaret were nourished by a common root.
Significance: Ergographically speaking, Mavra formed the very first step toward neoclassicism which was arrived at in the "Octet," his next work. The Parasha aria already contains a broad spectrum of neoclassical characteristics. Writing to Ernest Ansermet on December 21, 1921, Strawinsky termed his own opera a masterpiece ("chef-d`oeuvre"). The preliminary performance was a success, but opening night a disaster to the joy of Bakst, who had been done away with. For Strawinsky Mavra meant trauma, and he never got over it. Even during the revision negotiations in 1966 he spoke of his "poor" Mavra. The French quipped, "Ce Mavra, c`est vraiment mavrant," (play on words, meaning ‘that`s bad, that`s really bad), and an American journalist explained to his readers that the opening night was really a sandwich inside out, with two slices of meat on the outside and a slice of bread on the inside. "Petrouchka" and "Sacre" were meant by the meat, and "Mavra" the slice of bread between them. Indeed, the opera was in a disadvantageous clinch. In addition came the inference of a new style which one found unsuitable for Strawinsky. Furthermore, the opera was sung in Russian which the majority of the audience could not understand, and so no one had even the slightest inkling of the humor to be found in the piece.
Violin transcription: The violin transcription came out of the collaboration with Dushkin and the aims that arose as a result. The violin transcription received the double name ‘Chanson russe. Russian Maiden’s Song’. Strawinsky did not reduce the orchestra in any way for his arrangement, but used the original instrumentation from the opera score that he had selected for the Parasha entry, thus omitting Flutes, Cor Anglais, E-flat Clarinet, Trumpets, Trombones and percussion. The trumpets, trombones and timpani only play during the Parasha scene in connection with the Hussar. Strawinsky however cut his entry, and moved the required vocal writing from the tenor part into the orchestra. In this way, the entire scene could be turned into a self-standing soprano aria and transferred into a violin version.
Violoncello transcription: The violoncello transcription by Markevitch was written with consent, but not in collaboration with Strawinsky, so unlike the cases of the transcriptions by Dushkin and Gautier. Strawinsky therefore placed emphasis on a precise name. For Dushkin and Gautier, this meant that the collaboration with him be stated clearly, and for Markevitch, having the cellist’s name printed as the sole author. The contracts pending in August must have been drawn up in this context, as Strawinsky expressly demanded of the publishers in a letter dated 30th August 1950. In fact, the piano part to the cello transcription is identical to that of the Strawinsky-Dushkin violin transcription.
Hylton arrangement: Hylton had asked Strawinsky for permission to rework parts of Mavra for his jazz band and thus rework the sung sections instrumentally.
In a letter dated 9th September 1930, Strawinsky announced his forthcoming arrival in Paris. Strawinsky and Hylton came to an arrangement there, as Hector Fraggi published a message in the 23rd December 1930 edition of the magazine ‘Le Petit Marsellais’ that Hylton was preparing an arrangement of Mavra. Fraggi saw in it a connection between serious and light music. Naturally, the Russian Music Publishers took no part in this because only the piano reduction, but not the score had been published.
In a letter dated 6th February 1931 to Arthur Brooks of Columbia Grammophone in London, Strawinsky denied having any knowledge of a vinyl recording, and in a letter dated 12th February 1931, he warned Hylton against naming his name differently than that of the composer of the original for the vinyl recording, which was shortly to be released.
Versions: A printed (pocket) version in Russian and English first appeared in 1969, but only after Strawinsky`s insistant pleading, two years before his death. What the Russian music publishers published three years after the first performance in 1925, due to Strawinsky`s stalling, was a piano score with a truly fine outer design with medaillon pictures of Tschaikovsky, Glinka, and Pushkin. The handed down conductor`s score in Russian, French, German, and English remained rental material.The publishers produced it with its own serial number, R.M.V.418 and was received by Strawinsky in Paris in November of 1925.* The Overture contains rehearsal figures that are letters. Presumably the score was figured without the Overture and Strawinsky did not want to change this, and thus added the letters only in the Overture in the later edition, so that there would not have to be a correction every few bars of the main score. In the same year he had the overture in a solo piano version released, as well as the mother`s aria in a version for voice and piano. In 1929 the Parasha aria appeared as "Chanson de Parasha," and was later anglicized as "Russian Maiden`s Song." Only a few of Strawinsky`s pieces have had so many published versions as this song has had. In 1933 it appeared for small orchestra in a conductor`s score; in 1947 as a violin transcription by Samuel Dushkin and in the same year as a pocket version; in 1948 as a new edition of the piano-vocal version (contract completed with Boosey and Hawkes on May 10th, 1948); in 1951 in the Markewitsch edition for cello and piano (contract completed with Boosey and Hawkes on November 6th, 1950); and finally, as a Russian pirate of the piano-vocal version in 1968. In spite of many endeavors, the financial success of the piece was just as sobering as was its first performance. The Russian publisher had sold almost 400 piano-vocal scores until the end of 1938, about 200 overture editions, and approximately 100 Mother and Parasha arias each. The piano score of the opera with its old serial number had been newly distributed by Boosey and Hawkes starting in 1956, but in the very same year a new piano score with a different serial number appeared with none of the original Russian text, replacing the original of Burness with that of Craft. For a long time the old orchestra/rental material had become increasingly unuseable. Strawinsky had made so many changes in the printed version of the score that he believed the differences between the new orchestral score and the new piano score of 1956 could be removed only through the production of a third piano score, which he demanded of the publishers in 1966. – A problem one of a kind arose in 1930 or 1931 regarding an arrangement by Jack Hylton for jazzband using different parts from the opera, mainly from the love duet and the quartet. People at the time saw a connection between serious and light music. Strawinsky listened to the completed Hylton in a trial arrangement in London and delivered the writer the necessary instructions for synchronising the arrangement and work (Strawinsky`s) for the final recorded version. Disagreements followed, so much so that Strawinsky actually denied having known anything about a record recording. Finally, he forbid the mentioning of his name as anything other than the composer of the original; he was the composer and no one else.Robert Craft, however, did not doubt that Strawinsky had worked over the arrangement and claimed that Strawinsky also had even conducted parts of the record. The Hylton arrangement was never pressed.
* The British Library acquired an edition published in 1933 on 11th February 1958 and put the date 1925 onto the first edition, of which no copy has been located so far. It cannot be ruled out that this supposition may be correct. The plate number, however, points towards a dating of 1929, especially as in this year the accompanying piano reduction was also published. It would not be reasonable to assume that both editions are reprintings of a 1925 edition. If the latter were the case, it would probably mean the existence of two unlocateable editions of the conducting score.
Historical Recordings: 1937 Parashas Song with Samuel Dushkin (Violin) and Igor Strawinsky (Piano); in New York on 9th May 1946 Parashas Song with Joseph Szigeti (Violin) and Igor Strawinsky (Piano); on 7th Mai 1964* in Toronto (Canada) with Susan Belinck (Parasha), Mary Simmons (Mother), Patricia Rideout (Neighbour) and Stanley Kolk (Tenor), with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Igor Strawinsky.
CD-Edition: VIII-1/14 (Recording 1964*).
* Strawinsky left out a section of figure 5a (in the score, figure 5a is inserted between figures 5 and 6). The continuation runs from figure 5 7 in the first Parasha scene directly into the end after figure 5a 6, which then continues into the Hussar’s Gypsy song (figure 6 1). There are consequently 10 bars with the last 3 lines of Parasha’s song omitted.
Autograph: The autograph score is understood as being missing. A copy of the manuscript of the Overture was given to Ernest Ansermet. The autograph score of the piano reduction is stored in the Washington Library of Congress. The neat copy of the Dushkin transcription is in the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel.
Copyright: 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag Berlin; 1947 assigned to Boosey & Hawkes Inc.; 1956 for the edition with English Text by Boosey & Hawkes Inc., 1969 Pocket score by Boosey & Hawkes.
Errors, legends, colportages, curiosities, stories
During the interval on the day of the premiere, the Parisians laughed about an untranslatable play on words: ‘Ca Mavra, c’est vraiment mavrant.’ (vraiment = ; mavrant = ).
An American journalist was to explain to his readers that the programme of the premiere was an inverted sandwich, namely two slices of meat with a slice of bread in between. What this meant was Petrushka and Sacre, between which Mavra was the slice of bread.
Editions
a) Overview
39-1 1925 Oper VoSc; R-F-G-E; Russischer Musikverlag Berlin; 89 pp.; R. M. V. 411.
39-1Straw1 ibd. [with annotations].
39-1Straw2 ibd. [with annotations].
39-1561956 ibd.
39-2 1925 Ouvertüre VoSc; Russischer Musikverlag Berlin; 6 pp.; R. M. V. 411 a.
39-3 1925 Aria of the mother; Voice-Piano; R-F-G-E; Russ. Musikv. Berlin; 6 pp.; R. M. V. 411.411 b.
39-4 1925 Oper FuSc; R-F-G-E; Russischer Musikverlag Berlin; R. M. V. 418.
39-4Strawibd. [with annotations].
39-5 1929 Parasha Aria; Voice-Piano ; R-F-G-E; Russischer Musikverlag Berlin; 7 pp.; R. M. V. 467.
39-5Strawibd.
39-6 [1929] Parasha Aria; FuSc; R-F-G-E; Russischer Musikverlag Berlin; 18 pp.; R. M. V. 458.
39-633 1933 ibd.
39-7 1947 Chanson russe; Violin-Piano (Dushkin); Gutheil-Kussewitzky; 4 pp.; A. 10. 482 G.
39-7Strawibd. [with annotations].
39-7[47]ibd. Gutheil / Boosey & Hawkes London; B. & H. 17860.
39-8
39-9 1948 Parasha Aria; Voice-Piano; Boosey & Hawkes London; 7 pp. 2°; B. & H. 16360.
39-9[65][1965] ibd.
39-10 (1948) KlA; R-F-G-E; Boosey & Hawkes London; 89 pp. (4°); R. M. V. 411.
39-11 1951 Parasha Aria; Violoncello-Piano (Markewitsch); Boosey & Hawkes; 4. pp.; B. & H. 17815.
39-11[65] [1965] ibd.
39-12 1956 VoSc; R-F-G-E; Russischer Musikverlag / Boosey & Hawkes London; 89 pp.; R. M. V. 411.
b) Characteristic features
39-1 Mavra* / OPERA BOUFFE / Igor Strawinsky / [Vignette] / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE // IGOR STRAWINSKY / Mavra* / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE / d'après / A. Pouchkine / Texte de Boris Kochno* / English Version by* [#] Traduction française par / ROBERT BURNESS [#] JACQUES LARMANJAT / Deutsche Übersetzung / von / A. ELUKHEN / [°] / Réduction pour Chant et Piano / par l'auteur / [Vignette] / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays / Tous droits d'exécution réservés / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (RUSSISCHER MUSIKVERLAG G.M.B.H.)** / FONDÉE PAR S. ET N. KOUSSEWITZKY / BERLIN, MOSCOU, LEIPZIG, NEW YORK, LONDRES, BRUXELLES, BARCELONA, MADRID, / PARIS / 22, RUE D'ANJOU, 22 / S. A. DES GRANDES ÉDITIONS MUSICALES / C. G. Röder G. M. B. H., Leipzig. // (Vocal score with chant [library binding] 26.5 x 33.3 (2° [4°]); sung text Russian-French-German-English; 89 [87] pages + 4 cover pages thin cardboard black on beige [front cover title laid out with vignette 2.1 x 3 decorated ornament, 3 empty pages] + 6 pages front matter [title page laid out with vignette 1 x 1,2 sitting women playing cymbalom, empty page, page of dedication hand-written printed in line etching Russian-French with the author’s signature in the Russian text underneath three oval pictures in medallion form > Памяти/ Пушкина/ [Puschkin 4,6 x 6,2] / Глинки [#] Чайковскаго / [Glinka 4,5 x 6,1] [#] [Tschaikowsky 4,3 x 6] / Игорь Стравинскій / A la mémoire de / Pouchkine, Glinka et Tschaïkovsky / Igor Strawinsky<, empty page, page with (world) première data French, empty page] + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head >MAVRA<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 below movement title flush right centred >IGOR STRAWINSKY. / 1922.<; fictitious editor specified 1st page of the score below movement title flush left >Edited by Albert Spalding, New-York.<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Russischer Musikverlag, G. m. b. H., Berlin. / (Edition Russe de Musiques.) / Copyright 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag, G. m. b. H., Berlin.< flush right >Tous droits d'exécution réservés. / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays.<; plate number >R. M. V. 411<; end of score dated p. 89 >Biarritz, Mars 1922<; without end marks) // (1925)
° Dividing line (tilde) of 0.8 cm.
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script.
** G.M.B.H. is printed in smaller letters whereas B. and H. are printed below the G. and M.
39-1 Straw1
Strawinsky’s copy from his estate is on the front cover title below the vignette centre centred with >Piano – Chant / Igor Strawinsky / Avril I925< signed and dated and contains corrections [p. 7, figure 1 1should be repeated from 4th crotchet to p. 9, figure 5 5, bars 2 7+8= 1st Volta; p. 21, figure 32 3, Piano Bass: 1st two-note chord should be E-G instead of E-B; p. 23 figure 35 3, Piano Bass: the two last notes of the six-part semiquaver-ligature should be b b-c instead of d b-e b; p. 24-25, figure 38 1-39: voice shoul be written an octave higher; p. 38, figure 62 1, Piano descant: 1st chord should be a-c#1-e1 instead of a#-c#1-e1, 2nd chord should be b-g1-b1 instead of b-f1-g1; p. 38, figure 62 2, Piano descant: b1 should be added to the 4 two-note chords (are now three-note chords); p. 38, figure 62 3, Piano descant: minim a1 should be added to quaver e1; p. 42, figure 69 3, voice: minim a1 should be dotted; p. 42, figure 70 6, Piano descant: the last two-not chord should be d1-b1 instead of d1-b b1; p. 52, figure 88 2, Piano descant: the 1st three-note chord should be d2-f2-d3 instead of d2-f#2-d3; p. 55 figure 93 1, tempo marking behind >Larghetto.<: should be dotted crotchet = 44 instead of crotchet = 44].
39-1Straw2
Strawinsky’s copy from his estate contains next to and below the ornament flush right the handwritten annotation with pencil >With sketches for a new and cor- / rect English translation by Robert Craft<, on p. 7 at the top of the page left the annotation with pencil > Translation sketches / by Robert Craft / Oct I954 / IStr< . The copy contains no further annotations.
39-2 IGOR STRAWINSKY / MAVRA* / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE / d'après / A. Pouchkine / Texte de Boris Kochno / English Version by [#**] Traduction française par / ROBERT BURNESS [#**] JACQUES LARMANJAT / Deutsche Übersetzung / von / A. ELUKHEN / [***] / Ouverture / pour piano / [Vignette] / Propriété de l'editeur pour tous pays / Tous droits d'exécution réservés / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (RUSSISCHER MUSIKVERLAG G.M.B.H.****) / FONDÉE PAR S. ET N. KOUSSEWITZKY / BERLIN, MOSCOU, LEIPZIG, NEW YORK, LONDRES, BRUXELLES, BARCELONA, MADRID, / PARIS / 22, RUE D'ANJOU, 22 / S. A. DES GRANDES ÉDITIONS MUSICALES / C. G. Röder G. M. B. H., Leipzig. // (Vocal score with chant [library binding] 27 x 34.1 (2° [4°]); 6 [4] pages without cover + 2 pages front matter [title page laid out black on creme white with vignette 1 x 1,2 sitting women playing cymbalom, empty page] without back matter; title head >MAVRA. / Ouverture.<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 below title head flush right centred >IGOR STRAWINSKY. / 1922.<; fictitious editor specified 1st page of the score below title head flush left >Edited by Albert Spalding, New-York<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Russischer Musikverlag, G. m. b. H., Berlin / (Edition Russe de Musique) / Copyright Russischer Musikverlag, G. m . b . H., Berlin. / (Edition Russe de Musique.) / Copyright 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag, G. m. b. H., Berlin.< flush right centred >Tous droits d'exécution réservés. / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays.<; plate number >R. M. V. 411. 411 a<; without end marks) // (1925)
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script.
** Dividing ornament 2 x 2, spanning two lines.
*** Dividing line (tilde) of 1.1 x 0.3 cm.
**** G.M.B.H. is printed in smaller letters whereas B. and H. are printed below the G. and M.
39-3 IGOR STRAWINSKY / MAVRA* / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE/ d'après/ A. Pouchkine / Texte de Boris Kochno/ English Version by[#] Traduction française par/ ROBERT BURNESS[#] JACQUES LARMANJAT/ Deutsche Übersetzung/ von/ A. ELUKHEN/ Air de la Mère/ pour chant et piano/ [Vignette] / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays/ Tous droits d'exécution réservés/ ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (RUSSISCHER MUSIKVERLAG G.M.B.H.**) / FONDÉE PAR S. ET N. KOUSSEWITZKY/ BERLIN, MOSCOU, LEIPZIG, NEW YORK, LONDRES, BRUXELLES, BARCELONA, MADRID,/ PARIS/ 22, RUE D'ANJOU, 22/ S. A. DES GRANDES ÉDITIONS MUSICALES/ C. G. Röder G. M. B. H., Leipzig.// (Vocal score with chant [library binding] 26.8 x 34 (2° [4°]); sung text Russian-French-German-English; 6 [5] pages without cover + 1 page front matter [title page laid out with vignette 1 x 1,3 sitting women playing cymbalom] + 2 pages back matter [empty pages]; figuring 34-42 3; title head >MAVRA / Air de la Mère<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 2 below title head flush right centred >IGOR STRAWINSKY. / 1922.< flush left >Edited by Albert Spalding, New-York.<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Russischer Musikverlag, G.m.b.H., Berlin. / (Édition Russe de Musique.) / Copyright 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag, G.m.b.H., Berlin.< flush right centred >Tous droits d'exécution réservés. / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays.<; plate number [p. 2:] >R. M. V. 411 b<, [pp. 3-6:] >R. M. V. 411.411 b<; without end marks) // (1925)
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script.
** G.M.B.H. is printed in smaller letters whereas B. and H. are printed below the G. and M.
39-4 Mavra* / Opera buffe/ Igor Strawinsky / [Vignette] / PARTITION D'ORCHESTRE/ ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE // IGOR STRAWINSKY / Mavra* / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE/ d'après/ A. Pouchkine / Texte de Boris Kochno* / English Version by*[#] Traduction française par/ ROBERT BURNESS[#] JACQUES LARMANJAT/ Deutsche Übersetzung/ von/ A. ELUKHEN/ Partition d'orchestre/ [Vignette] / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays/ Tous droits d'exécution réservés / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (RUSSISCHER MUSIKVERLAG G.M.B.H.)** / FONDÉE PAR S. ET N. KOUSSEWITZKY/ BERLIN, MOSCOU, LEIPZIG, NEW YORK, LONDRES, BRUXELLES, BARCELONA, MADRID,/ PARIS/ 22, RUE D'ANJOU, 22/ S. A. DES GRANDES ÉDITIONS MUSICALES/ C. G. Röder G. M. B. H., Leipzig. // (Full score [library binding] 26.5 x 33.1 ([4°]); 152 [151] pages + 4 cover pages black on creme white [front cover title laid out with vignette 4.2 x 6.2 decorated ornament, 3 empty pages] + 6 pages front matter [title page laid out with vignette 1 x 1,2 sitting women playing cymbalom, empty page, page of dedication hand-written printed in line etching Russian-French with the author’s signature in the Russian text underneath three oval pictures in medallion form >Памяти / Пушкина / [Puschkin 4.6 x 6.2] / Глинки [#] Чайковскаго / [Glinka 4.5 x 6.1] [#] [Tschaikowsky 4,3 x 6] / Игорь Стравинскій / A la mémoire de / Pouchkine, Glinka et Tschaïkovsky / Igor Strawinsky<, empty page, page with (world) première data French, empty page] + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head >MAVRA<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 below movement title >OUVERTURE< flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky / 1922<; fictitious editor specified 1st page of the score below movement title flush left >Edited by Albert Spalding, New York<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Russischer Musikverlag, G. m. b. H., Berlin. / (EDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE) / Copyright 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag, G. m. b. H., Berlin.< flush right >Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays. / Tous droits d'exécution réservés.<; plate number (only 1st page of the score) >R. M. V. 418<; without end of score dated<; production indication [second last page] p. 151 flush right as end mark >Druck: Berliner Musikalien-Druckerei: G.m.b.H.<) // [1925]
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script.
** G.M.B.H. is printed in smaller letters whereas B. and H. are printed below the G. and M.
39-4Straw
Strawinsky’s copy of his estate is on the front cover title at the top of the page centred signed and dated with >Igor Strawinsky / Nov. I925 / Paris<.
39-5 IGOR* STRAWINSKY* / MAVRA* / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE / CHANSON* DE* PARACHA* / pour chant et piano / Prix / °RM.: 2.— / °Frs.: 2.50 / Propriété de l'éditeur pour tous pays / Tous droits d'exécution réservés/ ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (RUSSISCHER MUSIKVERLAG G. M. B. H.)* */ FONDÉE PAR S. ET N. KOUSSEWITZKY/ BERLIN, MOSCOU, LEIPZIG, NEW YORK, LONDRES, BRUXELLES, BARCELONA, MADRID/ PARIS/ 22, RUE D'ANJOU, 22/ S. A. DES GRANDES ÉDITIONS MUSICALES/ [°°] / Imp. Delanchy-Dupré – Paris-Asnières / 2 et 4, Avenue de la Marne. // (Vocal score with chant unsewn 26.5 x 34.4 (2° [4°]); sung text Russian-French-German-English; 7 [6] pages without cover + 1 page front matter [front cover title] + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head >CHANSON DE PARACHE / de l'opéra “MAVRA“; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 2 below title head flush left partly in italics centred >Texte russe de B. KOCHNO, d'après A. P ouchkine/ Version française par J. LARMANJAT/ English version by R. BURNESS / Deutsch von A. ELUKHEN< flush right centred >Musique de / IGOR STRAWINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Propriété de l'Editeur pour tous pays / (Edition Russe de Musique) / Russischer Musikverlag G.m.b.H. Berlin< flush right >Tous droits d'exécution de reproduction et / d'arrangements réservés pour tous pays. / Copyright 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag, Berlin<; plate number >R. M. V. 467<; production indications as end marks p. 7 flush left >Imp. Delanchy-Duprè – Asnières-Paris. / 2 et 4, Avenue de la Marne – XXIX< flush right >GRANDJEAN GRAV.<) // 1929
° T he prices in different currencies are set below one another.
°° Dividing horizontal line of 0.9 cm.
* Hatched hollow font.
** G.M.B.H. is printed in smaller letters whereas B. and H. are printed below the G. and M.
39-5 Straw
Strawinsky’s copy is on the front cover page between >IGOR STRAWINSKY< and >MAVRA< flush right signed and dated >IStrawinsky / 1929<.
39-6 IGOR STRAWINSKY° / MAVRA°° / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE°°° / CHANSON DE PARACHA° / PARTITION D'ORCHESTRE / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE // IGOR STRAWINSKY / Chanson de Paracha / tirée de l'opéra-bouffe / MAVRA / Musique arrangée et transcrite par l'Auteur / pour une voix de soprano / accompagnée de 2 Hautbois, 2 Clarinettes, / 2 Bassons, 4 Cors, 1 Tuba, 2 Violons solo, / 1 Alto solo et plusieurs Violoncelles / et Contrebasses. / PARTITION d'ORCHESTRE / EDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / RUSSISCHER MUSIKVERLAG (G.M.B.H.)* / FONDÉE PAR S. ET N. KOUSSEVITZKY / BERLIN · LEIPZIG · PARIS · MOSCOU · LONDRES · NEW YORK · BUENOS AIRES / [°°°°] / S. I. M. A. G. - Asnières-Paris. / 2 et 4, Avenue de la Marne – XXXIII // (Full score [library binding] 27.7 x 37.2 (2° [gr. 4°]); sung text Russian-French-German-English; 18 [18] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper black on light greybeige [ornamental front cover title] + 2 pages front matter [title page, empty page] without back matter; title head partly in italics >Chanson de Paracha / tirée de l’opéra bouffe / Mavra / d’Igor Strawinsky / Musique arrangée et transcrite par/ l’auteur pour petit orchestre<; authors specified with translator specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below title head flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky / 1922/1923< flush left centred partly in italics >Texte russe de B. KOCHNO, d'après A. P ouchkine/ Version française par J. LARMANJAT/ English version by R. BURNESS / German von A. ELUKHEN<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left centred >Propriété de l'Editeur pour tous pays / (Edition Russe de Musique) / Russischer Musikverlag G. m. b. H. Berlin< flush right centred >Tous droits d'exécution, de reproduction et / d'arrangements réservés pour tous pays. / Copyright 1925 by Russischer Musikverlag Berlin<; plate number >R. M. V. 458<; production indications p. 18 below type area flush left >S. I. M. A. G. - Asnières-Paris. / 2 et 4, Avenue de la Marne – XXXIII< flush right as end marks >GRANDJEAN GRAV.<) // (1933)
° Hatched hollow font .
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script.
°°° Line of text in curly ornaments.
°°°° Dividing horizontal line of 0.8 cm.
* G.M.B.H. is printed in smaller letters whereas B. and H. are printed below the G. and M.
39-7 IGOR STRAWINSKY / CHANSON RUSSE / Transcription pour Violon et Piano / par l’AUTEUR et S. DUSHKIN / A. GUTHEIL // IGOR STRAWINSKY / CHANSON RUSSE / RUSSIAN MAIDEN’S SONG / Transcription pour Violon et Piano / par l’AUTEUR et S. DUSHKIN / Prix: RM.* 2= / Frs* 2.50/ A. GUTHEIL / (S. et N. Koussevitzky) / S téA medes Grandes Éditions Musicales, PARIS / Boosey & Hawkes Ltd., London – Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig – Galaxy Music Corporation, New York. // (Edition for violin and piano unsewn 27.1 x 34.6 ([4°]); 4 [4] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper grey blue on light beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] without front matter and without back matter + violin part enclosed in identical text; 3 [2] pages [empty page, 2 pages of the score paginated, empty page] with name of the instrument >VIOLON< above type area centre; title head >CHANSON RUSSE [**] RUSSIAN MAIDEN’S SONG<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below title head flush right centred partly in italics >IGOR STRAWINSKY / 1937< flush left >La partie de violon de / cette partition est établie / en collaboration avec / Samuel Dushkin<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left centred >Propriété de l’Editeur pour tous pays. / A. GUTHEIL (S. & N. Koussevitzky)< flush right partly in italics > Copyright 1938 by S. & N. Koussevitzky / Tous droits d’exécution, de reproduction / et d’arrangements réservés pour tous pays.<; plate number >A. 10. 482 G.<; without end of score dated p. 4; production indications p. 4 below type area flush left >Imp. S. I. M. A. G. Asnières< flush right as end mark >GRANDJEAN GRAV.<) // (1938)
* T he prices in different currencies are set below one another.
** A vertical, wavy separating line.
39-7Straw
The copy in Stravinsky’s estate is dated >Paris / Sept. 38<. It contains numerous legato slurs entered in pencil which are present in the small-format neat copy but not in the printed version. The copy also lists a Columbia recording with Szigeti under the date Hollywood, 9th May 1946. This entry could be misleading; on this day the recording took place, but not in Hollywood, rather in New York.
39-7[47] igor stravinsky / chanson russe / Transcription pour Violon et Piano/ par l'Auteur et S. Dushkin / edition a. gutheil · boosey & hawkes // Igor Stravinsky / Chanson Russe / Russian Maiden's Song/ Transcription pour violon et piano/ par l'Auteur et S. Dushkin / Edition A. Gutheil . Boosey & Hawkes / London . Paris . Bonn . Johannesburg . Sydney . Toronto . New York // ( Edition for violin and piano stapled 23 x 31 (4° [4°]); 4 [4] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper light tomato-red on green beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 2 pages front matter [title page, empty page] + 2 pages back matter [empty pages] + eingelegte Violinstimme 4 [2] pages + 1 page front matter [empty page] + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head >CHANSON RUSSE [°] RUSSIAN MAIDEN’S SONG<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 [part: unpaginated [S. 2]] below title head flush right centred partly in italics >IGOR STRAWINSKY / 1937<; collaborator specified 1st page of the score below title head flush left score >La partie de violon de / cette partition est établie / en collaboration avec / Samuel Dushkin< part >La partie de violon est / établie en collaboration / avec Samuel Dushkin<; name of instrument [exclusively part] 1st page of the score below collaborator specified and author specified centre >VIOLON<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Copyright 1938 by S. & N. Koussevitzky / Copyright assigned 1947 to Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.< flush right >All rights reserved<; plate number >B. & H. 17860<; production indication 1.Notentextseite below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; without end mark) // (1947*)
° A vertical, dividing line spanning several lines of text in a zigzag-wave form.
* The dating is according to that in the British Library for the copy purchased on 30th September 1976 >g.1056.a.(1.)<. This dating is questionable because both the order of the branches in the advertising and the spelling with ‘v’ point towards the time after 1957.
39-9 igor strawinsky / russian maiden's / song / voice and piano/ boosey & hawkes // (Edition for voice and piano [library binding] 25.8 x 32.3 (4° [4°]); sung text Russian-English; 7 [5] pages + 2 pages front matter [front cover title, empty page] + 1 page back matter [page with publisher’s >ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (S. et N. KOUSSEWITZKY) / BOOSEY & HAWKES< advertisements > Igor Strawinsky<* production data >No. 453<]; title head >RUSSIAN MAIDEN’S SONG / дђвичьи пђсни <; author specified in connection with translator specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 flush left centred >Lyrics by B. K ochno/ after A. S. POUSHKIN / English translation by R. B urness< flush right centred >Music by / IGOR STRAWINSKY<; legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left partly in italics >Copyright 1948 in U.S.A. by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. / All rights of reproduction in any form reserved<; plate number >B. & H. 16360<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area flush right >Printed in England<; without end of score dated; without end mark) // (1948??)
* In French, compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers and without price informations >Piano seul° / Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka / Suite de Pétrouchka ( Th. Szántó) / Marche chinoise de “ Rossignol ” / Sonate pour piano* / Ouverture de “ Mavra ” / Serenade en la / Symphonie*°° pour°° instruments à vent / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Partitions pour piano°* / Le Chant du Rossignol / Apollon Musagète / Le Baiser de la Fée / Orpheus / Piano à quatre mains° / Le* Sacre du Printemps / Pétrouchka / Deux Pianos à quatre mains° / Concerto pour piano* / Capriccio pour piano* et orchestre / Chant et piano°* / Deux Poésies de Balmont / Trois Poésies de la lyrique japonaise / Trois petites chansons / Chanson de Paracha de “ Mavra ” / Introduction, chant du pêcheur, air du / rossignol / Choeur°* / Ave Maria (a cappella) / Credo (a cappella) / Pater noster (a cappella) // Partitions pour chant et piano* / Rossignol. Conte lyrique en 3 actes / Mavra. Opéra bouffe en 1 acte / Œdipus Rex. Opéra-oratorio en 1 acte* / Symphonie de Psaumes / Perséphone / Violon et Piano°* / Suite d’après Pergolesi / Duo Concertant / Airs du Rossignol / Danse Russe / Divertimento / Suite Italienne / Chanson Russe / Violoncelle et Piano°* / Suite Italienne ( Piatigorsky) / Musique de Chambre° / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Partitions de poche° / Suite de Pulcinella / Symphonies pour°° instruments à vent / Concerto pour piano* / Chant du Rossignol / Pétrouchka. Ballet / Sacre* du Printemps / Le Baiser de la Fée / Apollon Musagète / Œdipus Rex* / Perséphone / Capriccio* / Divertimento / Quatre Études pour orchestre / Symphonie de Psaumes / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Concerto en ré pour orchestre à cordes< [* different spellings original; ° centre centred; °° original spelling]. The following places of printing are listed: London-New York-Sydney-Toronto-Cape Town-Paris-Buenos Aires.
39-9 [65] igor stravinsky / russian maiden's song / voice and piano/ boosey & hawkes // (Edition for voice and piano [library binding] 23.8 x 30.8 (4° [4°]); 7 [5] pages without cover + 1 page front matter [title page] + 1 page back matter [page with publisher’s advertisements >Igor Stravinsky<* production data >No. 40< [#] >7.65<]; title head >RUSSIAN MAIDEN’S SONG / дђвичьи пђсни <; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 below title head flush right centred >Music by / IGOR STRAVINSKY< flush left centred with translator specified >Lyrics by B. KOCHNO / after A. S. POUSHKIN / English translated by R. BURNESS<; legal reservations 1st page of the score next to and above title head flush right in the text box contained >IMPORTANT NOTICE / The unauthorized copying / of the whole or any part of / this publication is illegal< below type area >© Copyright 1948 by Boosey & Hawkes Inc.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 60360<; without end marks<) // [1965]
* Compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers, without price informations and without specification of places of printing >Operas and Ballets° / Agon [#] Apollon musagète / Le baiser de la fée [#] Le rossignol / Mavra [#] Oedipus rex / Orpheus [#] Perséphone / Pétrouchka [#] Pulcinella / The flood [#] The rake’s progress / The rite of spring° / Symphonic Works° / Abraham and Isaac [#] Capriccio pour piano et orchestre / Concerto en ré (Bâle) [#] Concerto pour piano et orchestre / [#] d’harmonie / Divertimento [#] Greetings°° prelude / Le chant du rossignol [#] Monumentum / Movements for piano and orchestra [#] Quatre études pour orchestre / Suite from Pulcinella [#] Symphonies of wind instruments / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine [#] Variations in memoriam Aldous Huxley / Instrumental Music° / Double canon [#] Duo concertant / string quartet [#] violin and piano / Epitaphium [#] In memoriam Dylan Thomas / flute, clarinet and harp [#] tenor, string quartet and 4 trombones / Elegy for J.F.K. [#] Octet for wind instruments / mezzo-soprano or baritone [#] flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets and / and 3 clarinets [#] 2 trombones / Septet [#] Sérénade en la / clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola [#] piano / and violoncello [#] / Sonate pour piano [#] Three pieces for string quartet / piano [#] string quartet / Three songs from William Shakespeare° / mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and viola° / Songs and Song Cycles° / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine° / Choral Works° / Anthem [#] A sermon, a narrative, and a prayer / Ave Maria [#] Cantata / Canticum
sSacrum [#] Credo / J. S. Bach: Choral-Variationen [#] Introitus in memoriam T. S. Eliot / Mass [#] Pater noster / Symphony of psalms [#] Threni / Tres sacrae cantiones°< [° centre centred; °° original mistake in the title].
39-10 Mavra* / OPERA BOUFFE/ Igor Strawinsky / [vignette] / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / BOOSEY & HAWKES // IGOR STRAWINSKY / Mavra* / OPERA BOUFFE EN 1 ACTE/ d'après/ A. Pouchkine / Texte de Boris Kochno*/ English Version by[#**] Traduction française par/ ROBERT BURNESS[#**] JACQUES LARMANJAT/ Deutsche Übersetzung/ von/ A. ELUKHEN/ [ ornamental tilde ] / Réduction pour Chant et Piano/ par l'auteur/ [ ornamental tilde ] / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (S. et N. KOUSSEWITZKY) / BOOSEY & HAWKES / LONDON · NEW YORK · SYDNEY · TORONTO / CAPE TOWN · PARIS · BUENOS AIRES // (Vocal score with chant sewn 26.5 x 32.9 (2° [4°]); sung text Russian-French-German-English; 89 [87] pages + 4 cover pages flexible cardboard black on creme [ornamental front cover title with 2.1 x 3. 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s >ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (S. et N. KOUSSEWITZKY) / BOOSEY & HAWKES< advertisements > Igor Strawinsky<*** production data >No. 453<] + 6 pages front matter [title page, empty page, page of dedication hand-written printed in line etching Russian- French with the author’s signature in the Russian text underneath three oval pictures in medallion form [°] > Памяти/ Пушкина/ [°] / Глинки [#] Чайковскаго / [°] [#] [°] / Игорь Стравинскій / A la mémoire de / Pouchkine, Glinka et Tschaïkovsky / Igor Strawinsky<, page with legal reservations centre centred >Copyright 1925 by Édition Russe de Musique (Russischer Musikverlag). / Copyright assigned 1947 to Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., New York, U.S.A. / Copyright for all countries. / [#] / All rights of theatrical, radio, television performance, mechanical reproduction in / any form whatsoever (including film), translation of the libretto, of the complete / opera or parts thereof are strictly reserved.<, page with (world) première data French, list of forces required without headline + legend > Orchestre< French] + 3 pages back matter [empty pages]; title head >MAVRA<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 below movement title flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky. / 1922.<; fictitious editor specified 1st page of the score below movement title flush left >Edited by Albert Spalding, New-York<; legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Copyright 1925 by Edition Russe de Musique (Russischer Musikverlag), / for all countries. / Copyright assigned 1947 to Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., New York, U.S.A. / All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area flush right >Printed in England.<; plate number >B. & H. 16304<; without end of score dated; end mark p. 89 flush right >H.P.B104.148.<) // (1948)
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script.
** A dividing ornament spanning two lines which is identical to the ornamental vignette on the outer titles.
*** In French, compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers and without price informations >Piano seul° / Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka / Suite de Pétrouchka ( Th. Szántó ) / Marche chinoise de “ Rossignol ” / Sonate pour piano* / Ouverture de “ Mavra ” / Serenade en la / Symphonie*°° pour°° instruments à vent / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Partitions pour piano°* / Le Chant du Rossignol / Apollon Musagète / Le Baiser de la Fée / Orpheus / Piano à quatre mains° / Le* Sacre du Printemps / Pétrouchka / Deux Pianos à quatre mains° / Concerto pour piano* / Capriccio pour piano* et orchestre / Chant et piano°* / Deux Poésies de Balmont / Trois Poésies de la lyrique japonaise / Trois petites chansons / Chanson de Paracha de “ Mavra ” / Introduction, chant du pêcheur, air du / rossignol / Choeur°* / Ave Maria (a cappella) / Credo (a cappella) / Pater noster (a cappella) // Partitions pour chant et piano* / Rossignol. Conte lyrique en 3 actes / Mavra. Opéra bouffe en 1 acte / Œdipus Rex. Opéra-oratorio en 1 acte* / Symphonie de Psaumes / Perséphone / Violon et Piano°* / Suite d’après Pergolesi / Duo Concertant / Airs du Rossignol / Danse Russe / Divertimento / Suite Italienne / Chanson Russe / Violoncelle et Piano°* / Suite Italienne ( Piatigorsky) / Musique de Chambre° / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Partitions de poche° / Suite de Pulcinella / Symphonies pour°° instruments à vent / Concerto pour piano* / Chant du Rossignol / Pétrouchka. Ballet / Sacre* du Printemps / Le Baiser de la Fée / Apollon Musagète / Œdipus Rex* / Perséphone / Capriccio* / Divertimento / Quatre Études pour orchestre / Symphonie de Psaumes / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Concerto en ré pour orchestre à cordes< [* different spelling original; ° centre centred; °° original spelling]. The following places of printing are listed: London-New York-Sydney-Toronto-Cape Town-Paris-Buenos Aires.
39-11 igor strawinsky / russian maiden's / song / violoncello and piano/ boosey & hawkes* // (Edition violoncello and piano with enclosed-piano score [library binding] 23.3 x 30.2 (4° [4°]); 3 [2] pages violoncello part without cover [Title page as front matter, 2 pages of the score, page with publisher’s >ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / (S. et N. KOUSSEWITZKY) / BOOSEY & HAWKES< advertisements > Igor Strawinsky<** production data >No. 453<] + 4 [4] pages enclosed score without cover, without front matter, without back matter; title head >Russian Maiden’s Song / CHANSON RUSSE<; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 [part paginated p. 2] below title head flush right >IGOR STRAWINSKY< flush left centred >Arranged for / Violoncello and Piano by / DIMITHRY MARKEVITCH<; name of the instrument >Cello< centre between authors specified ; legal reservations score and part below type area flush right >All rights reserved< [/] flush left >Copyright 1951 by Boosey & Hawkes Inc. New York.<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area centre inside right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 17815<; end number [exclusively score] p. 4 flush left >5. 51. E<) // (1951)
* The title is located on the 1st page of the violoncello part, the 4th page of which contains the advertisements. The piano part does not have its own titles, and was therefore inserted into the violoncello part, because there was no space on the score for any titles.
** In French, compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers and without price informations >Piano seul° / Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka / Suite de Pétrouchka ( Th. Szántó ) / Marche chinoise de “ Rossignol ” / Sonate pour piano* / Ouverture de “ Mavra ” / Serenade en la / Symphonie*°° pour°° instruments à vent / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Partitions pour piano°* / Le Chant du Rossignol / Apollon Musagète / Le Baiser de la Fée / Orpheus / Piano à quatre mains° / Le* Sacre du Printemps / Pétrouchka / Deux Pianos à quatre mains° / Concerto pour piano* / Capriccio pour piano* et orchestre / Chant et piano°* / Deux Poésies de Balmont / Trois Poésies de la lyrique japonaise / Trois petites chansons / Chanson de Paracha de “ Mavra ” / Introduction, chant du pêcheur, air du / rossignol / Choeur°* / Ave Maria (a cappella) / Credo (a cappella) / Pater noster (a cappella) // Partitions pour chant et piano* / Rossignol. Conte lyrique en 3 actes / Mavra. Opéra bouffe en 1 acte / Œdipus Rex. Opéra-oratorio en 1 acte* / Symphonie de Psaumes / Perséphone / Violon et Piano°* / Suite d’après Pergolesi / Duo Concertant / Airs du Rossignol / Danse Russe / Divertimento / Suite Italienne / Chanson Russe / Violoncelle et Piano°* / Suite Italienne ( Piatigorsky) / Musique de Chambre° / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Partitions de poche° / Suite de Pulcinella / Symphonies pour°° instruments à vent / Concerto pour piano* / Chant du Rossignol / Pétrouchka. Ballet / Sacre* du Printemps / Le Baiser de la Fée / Apollon Musagète / Œdipus Rex* / Perséphone / Capriccio* / Divertimento / Quatre Études pour orchestre / Symphonie de Psaumes / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Octuor pour instruments à vent / Concerto en ré pour orchestre à cordes< [* different spelling original; ° centre centred; °° original spelling]. The following places of printing are listed: London-New York-Sydney-Toronto-Cape Town-Paris-Buenos Aires.
39-11 [65] igor stravinsky / Russian Maiden's / Song / Violoncello and Piano/ boosey & hawkes* // (Violoncello-Piano-edition [library binding] 23.5 x 31 (4° [4°]); 4 [3] pages + 4 cover pages dark red on grey green [front cover title, 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s advertisements >Igor Stravinsky<* production data >No. 40< [#] >7.65<] without front matter, without back matter, + 3 [2] pages violoncello part [empty page, 2 pages of the score, empty page]; title head >Russian Maiden's Song / CHANSON RUSSE<; name of the instrument [exclusively] part above type area centre >Cello< 1st page of the score unpaginated [S.2]; authors specified 1st page of the score + part unpaginated [p. 2] below title head flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY< flush left centred >Arranged for / Violoncello and Piano by / DIMITHRY MARKEVITCH<; legal reservations 1st page of the score above title head flush right [part: flush left] in the text box contained >IMPORTANT NOTICE / The unauthorized copying / of the whole or any part of / this publication is illegal< score + part below type area flush left >© Copyright 1951 by Boosey & Hawkes Inc.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication score + part 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 17815<; without end marks) // [1965]
* Compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers, without price informations and without specification of places of printing >Operas and Ballets° / Agon [#] Apollon musagète / Le baiser de la fée [#] Le rossignol / Mavra [#] Oedipus rex / Orpheus [#] Perséphone / Pétrouchka [#] Pulcinella / The flood [#] The rake’s progress / The rite of spring° / Symphonic Works° / Abraham and Isaac [#] Capriccio pour piano et orchestre / Concerto en ré (Bâle) [#] Concerto pour piano et orchestre / [#] d’harmonie / Divertimento [#] Greetings°° prelude / Le chant du rossignol [#] Monumentum / Movements for piano and orchestra [#] Quatre études pour orchestre / Suite from Pulcinella [#] Symphonies of wind instruments / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine [#] Variations in memoriam Aldous Huxley / Instrumental Music° / Double canon [#] Duo concertant / string quartet [#] violin and piano / Epitaphium [#] In memoriam Dylan Thomas / flute, clarinet and harp [#] tenor, string quartet and 4 trombones / Elegy for J.F.K. [#] Octet for wind instruments / mezzo-soprano or baritone [#] flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets and / and 3 clarinets [#] 2 trombones / Septet [#] Sérénade en la / clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola [#] piano / and violoncello [#] / Sonate pour piano [#] Three pieces for string quartet / piano [#] string quartet / Three songs from William Shakespeare° / mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and viola° / Songs and Song Cycles° / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine° / Choral Works° / Anthem [#] A sermon, a narrative, and a prayer / Ave Maria [#] Cantata / Canticum
sSacrum [#] Credo / J. S. Bach: Choral-Variationen [#] Introitus in memoriam T. S. Eliot / Mass [#] Pater noster / Symphony of psalms [#] Threni / Tres sacrae cantiones°< [° centre centred; °° original mistake in the title].
39-12
Mavra° / OPERA BOUFFE°° / Igor Strawinsky / [vignette] / ÉDITION RUSSE DE MUSIQUE / BOOSEY & HAWKES // Igor Strawinsky / MAVRA /
Opera in one Act after Pushkin
by Boris Kochno/
Opera en un acte d'après Pouchkine par Boris Kochno/
Oper in einem Akt nach Puschkin von Boris Kochno/
English version by Robert Kraft°°° /
Traduction française par
Jacques Larmanjat/ Deutsche
Übersetzung von A. Elukhen/
Vocal score by·
Réduction pour
piano par·
Klavierauszug von/
Igor Strawinsky/ Edition Russe de Musique / (S. et N. Koussewitzky) / Boosey & Hawkes /
London · Paris · Bonn · Capetown · Sydney · Toronto · Buenos Aires ·New York// (Vocal score with chant [library binding] 23 x 31 (4° [4°]); sung text English-French-German; 89 [87] pages + 4 cover pages
orange red
on
beige orange
[front cover title with coloured in fancy letters, 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s advertisements >
Igor Strawinsky<* production data >No. 692< [#] >12.53<] + 6 pages front matter [title page, page with legal reservations justified text >Copyright 1925 by Edition Russe de Musique (Russischer Musikverlag)
</ >Copyright assigned 1947 to Boosey & Hawkes Inc., New York, U. S. A. / Edition with English words, Copyright © 1956 by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. / Copyright for all countries.< / >All rights of theatrical, radio, television performance, mechanical / reproduction in any form whatsoever (including film), translation of / the libretto, of the complete opera or parts thereof are strictly reserved.<, page with dedication [exclusively on French] hand-written printed in line etching >A la mémoire de / Pouchkine, Glinka et Tschaïkovsky / Igor Strawinsky<, empty page, page with (world) première data French, index of rols >Characters
·Personen< English-French-German + legend >Orchestra< Italian + duration data [25'] English-French-German] + 3 pages back matter [page with publisher’s advertisements >Symphonic Music /
Selected Works for/
Soli, Chorus and Orchestra<** production data >No. 741< [#] >11.55<, page with publisher’s advertisements >Symphonic Music /
A Selected List of/
Light Compositions<*** production data >No. 743< [#] >11.55<, page with publisher’s advertisements >
Igor
Strawinsky<**** production data >No. 693< [#] >12.53<]; title head >MAVRA<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 3 below movement title >Overture< flush right centred >IGOR STRAWINSKY / 1922<; fictitious editor specified 1st page of the score below movement title flush left on the level of 1. line author specified >Edited by Albert Spalding, New-York.<; legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Copyright 1925 by Edition Russe de Musique (Russischer Musikverlag) for all countries / Copyright assigned 1947 to Boosey & Hawkes Inc., New York, U.S.A. / Edition with English words, Copyright 1956 by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. / All rights of reproduction in any form reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 16304<; end of score dated p. 89 >Biarritz, Mars 1922<; without end mark) // (1956)
* Quasi-handwritten decorated script, light red on light orange.
°° Line of text in a mirror-like frame light red on light orange.
°°° Original spelling.
* Compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers and without price informations, in part multi-lingual and assigned (unstimmig) to genres >Stage Works° / Oeuvres Théatrales · Bühnenwerke° / The Rake’s Progress [#] Le Rossignol / Le Libertin Der Wüstling [#] The Nightingale Die Nachtigall / Opera in three acts Opéra en trois actes [#] Musical tale in three acts after Anderson°° / Oper in drei Akten [#] Conte lyrique en trois actes d’apres Anderson°° / [#] Lyrisches Märchen in drei Akten nach Anderson°° / Mavra [#] Oedipus Rex / Opera buffa in one act after Pushkin [#] Opera - Oratorio in two acts after Sophocles / Opéra Buffe en un acte d’apres°° Pushkin [#] Opéra – Oratorio en deux actes d’apres°° Sophocle / Oper°° Buffa°° in einem Akt nach Puschkin [#] Opern - Oratorium in zwei Akten nach Sophokles / Persephone [#] Pétrouchka / Melodrama in three parts by André Gide [#] Burlesque in four scenes / Melodramé°° en trois parties d’Andre°° Gide [#] Burlesque en quatre tableaux / Melodrama in drei Teilen von André Gide [#] Burleska°° in vier Bildern / Le Sacre du Printemps [#] Le Chant du Rossignol / The Rite of Spring [#] The Song of the Nightingale / Pictures from pagan Russia in two parts [#] Symphonic poem in three acts / Tableaux de la Russie paienne en deux parties [#] Poème symphonique en trois parties / Bilder aus dem heidnischen Russland in zwei Teilen [#] Symphonische Dichtung in drei Teilen / Pulcinella [#] Apollon Musagète / Ballet with chorus in one act after Pergolesi [#] Ballet in two scenes / Ballet avec chant en un acte d’apres Pergolesi [#] Ballet en deux tableaux / Ballett mit Chor in einem Akt nach Pergolesi [#] Ballett in zwei Bildern / Le Baiser de la Fée [#] Orpheus / Ballet - Allegory in two scenes [#] Ballet in thre scenes / Ballet - Allégorie en deux tableaux [#] Ballet en trois tableaux / Ballet°° - Allegorie in zwei Bildern [#] Ballett in drei Bildern / Symphonic Works° / Oeuvres Symphoniques · Symphonische Werke° / Pétrouchka Suite [#] Apollon Musagète / Pulcinella Suite[#] Symphonies pour°° instruments a°° vents°° / Le Sacre du Printemps [#] Symphonies of Wind Instruments / The Rite of Spring [#] Symphonien für Bläsinsrumente°° / Le Chant du Rossignol [#] Piano Concerto / The Song of the Nightingale [#] Capriccio / Divertimento [#] Quatre Etudes°° pour Orchestra°°/ Orpheus [#] Four Studies for Orchestra/ Symphonie de Psaumes [#] Vier Etüden für Orchester/ Symphony of Psalms [#] Concerto in D ( Basle Concerto) / Psalmensymphonie [#] Messe°° / Voice and Orchestra° / Chant et Orchestre · Gesang und Orchester° / Trois poésies de la Lyrique japonaise [#] Chant du Rossignol (tiré du “Rossignol”) / Three japanese Poems [#] The Nightingale’s Song (from “The Nightingale”) / Trois petites chansons [#] Mephistopheles Lied vom Floh / Three little Songs [#] The Song of the Flea / Two Songs (Paul Verlaine)° / Sagesse · Sleep · Ein dusterer°° Schlummer° / La bonne Chanson · A Moonlight Pallid · Glimmernder mondschein°°+°< [° centre; °° original spelling; In the opposite column slightly displaced between >Mavra< and the >Burlesque in four scenes<, likewise there is a dislocated line spacing after >Apollon Musagète< in the section for Symphonic Works ]. After London the following places of printing are listed: Paris-Bonn-Capetown-Sydney-Toronto-Buenos Aires-New York.
** Compositions are advertised from >J. S. Bach< to >Leslie Woodgate<, amongst these >Igor Strawinsky / Cantata for Soprano and Tenor Soli, Female Chorus,/ Two Flutes, Oboe, English Horn( doubling Oboe 2) / and Violoncello / Mass for Chorus and Double Wind Quintet / Symphony of Psalms ( Revised 1948) / for Soli, Chorus and Orchestra<. After London the following places of printing are listed: London with Paris-Bonn-Capetown-Sydney-Toronto-Buenos Aires-New York.
*** Compositions are advertised from >Arthur Benjamin< to >Haydn Wood<, Strawinsky not mentioned. The following places of printing are listed: with Paris-Bonn-Capetown-Sydney-Toronto-Buenos Aires-New York.
**** Compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers and without price informations, in part multi-lingual >Pocket Scores° / Partitions de Poche · Taschenpartituren° / Apollon Musagète / Le Baiser de la Fée ( The Fairy’s Kiss) / Cantata / Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra/ Le Chant du Rossignol ( The Song of the / Nightingale) / Concerto in D for String Orchestra/ Divertimento / Messe°° / Octet for Wind Instruments / Oedipus Rex / Orpheus / Perséphone / Pétrouchka / Pulcinella Suite/ Four Studies for Orchestra / Quatre Etudes pour Orchestre / Vier Etüden für Orchester / Le Sacre du Primtemps°° ( The Rite of Spring) / Septet 1953 / Symphonie de Psaumes / Symphony of Psalms / Psalmensymphonie / Symphonies pour instruments à vents°° / Symphonies of Wind Instruments / Symphonien für Blasinstrumente / Piano Solo° / Piano Seul · Klavier zweihändig° / Apollon Musagète / Le Baiser de la Fée ( The Fairy’s Kiss) / Le Chant du Rossignol / ( The Song of the Nightingale) / Marche Chinoise de ”°° Chant du Rossignol ” / Mavra Overture°° / Octet for Wind Instruments ( arr. A. Lourié) / Orpheus ( arr. L. Spinner) / Serenade en la / Sonate / Symphonies pour instruments à vents<°° / Trois Mouvements de “ Pétrouchka ” / Piano Duets° / Piano à Quatre Mains · Klavier vierhändig° / Pétrouchka / Le Sacre du Printemps ( The Rite of Spring) / Two Pianos° / Deux Pianos · Zwei Klaviere° / Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra/ Concerto / Madrid / Septet 1953 / Trois Mouvements de “ Pétrouchka ” ( Babin) // Violin and Piano° / Violon et Piano · Violine und Klavier° / Airs du Rossignol and Marche Chinoise ( Le/ Chant du Rossignol) / Ballad ( Le Baiser de la Fée) / Divertimento ( Le Baiser de la Fée) / Duo Concertant / Danse Russe ( Pétrouchka) / Russian Maiden’s Song / Suite after Pergolesi / Violoncello and Piano° / Violoncelle et Piano · Violoncello und Klavier° / Suite italienne ( Piatigorsky) / Russian Maiden’s Song ( Markevitch) / Chamber Music° / Musique de Chambre · Kammermusik° / Octet for Wind Instruments / Septet 1953 / Three pieces for String Quartet/ Vocal Scores° / Partitions Chant et Piano · Klavierauszüge° / Cantata / Le Rossignol / Mavra / Messe°° / Oedipus Rex / Perséphone / Symphonie de Psaumes / The Rake’s Progress / Voice and Piano° / Chant et Piano · Gesang und Klavier° / The Mother’s Song ( Mavra) / Le Rossignol / Introduction . Chant du Pedieur°° . Air du Rossignol / Paracha’s Song ( Mavra) / Russian Maiden’s Song / Two Poems of Balmont / Blue Forget-me-not . The Dove / Trois Poésies de la lyrique japonaise / Akahito . Mazatzuum°° . Tsarajuki°° / Trois petites chansons / La petite . Le Corbeau . Tchitcher-tatcher / Choral Music° / Musique Chorale · Chormusik° / Ave Maria ( Latin) S.A.T.B. a cappella/ Pater noster ( Latin) S.A.T.B. a cappella/ Credo ( Latin) S.A.T.B. a cappella< [° centre; °° original spelling]. After London the following places of printing are listed: Paris-Bonn-Capetown-Sydney-Toronto-New York.
K Catalog: Annotated Catalog of Works and Work Editions of Igor Strawinsky till 1971, revised version 2014 and ongoing, by Helmut Kirchmeyer.
© Helmut Kirchmeyer. All rights reserved.
http://www.kcatalog.org and http://www.kcatalog.net