K23 Байка [Bajka]
Веселое представленіе съ пђніемъ и музыкой — Renard. Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée, faite pour la scène d’après des contes populaires russes – Reinecke [Reineke*]. Burleske Geschichte zu singen und zu spielen, nach russischen Volkserzählungen von Igor Strawinsky für die Bühne eingerichtet — Reynard. A burlesque story about the fox, the cock, the cat and the goat, to be sung and played on the stage. Text adapted by Igor Stravinsky from Russian popular tales – Renard. Storia burlesca essere cantata e rappresentata, compilata da popolari racconti russi, allestita per il palcoscenico di Igor Strawinsky* The misspelling >Reinecke < instead of the correct>Reineke < appears throughout.
Title: Renard does not have a definitive original title – the sketches, autograph score, printed editions and various other oral and written pronouncements all use differing versions. Strawinsky’s ‘barnyard fable’ was originally intended to be called Сказка о петухе, лиса, коте и баране (Die Geschichte vom Hahn, von der Füchsin, vom Kater und vom Widder = Histoire du coq, du renard, du chat et du bélier = Tale about the Cock, the Fox, the Cat, and the Ram).Strawinsky expressed himself in this way in English with regard to the recordings after the Second World War. In Strawinsky’s contemporary correspondence with the Princesse de Polignac, which was conducted in French, we find only the French title Renard. Given the nature of the word-setting, together with the ambiguity of the title and the fact that there are passages in the text that are quite literally untranslatable, the Russian version of the title may be considered the most useful, not least because the Russian word Байка (pronounced baika) does not mean ‘fox’ but is a literally term for a fable. A loan word from Polish, it originally meant ‘loosely spun matter’. In this sense, it is related with the word “Bei”, which has since died out inGermany , which even the brothers Grimm in 1860 knew as the “un-German naming of a lightly woven woolen item”. The technique of light weaving was carried over into light speaking = chattering, and made the original word into a term for a light story, and in the end in the Ukrainian, a term for a fable and a fairytale. In the Polish, Bajka has become a technical literary term for a fable, especially for a fable about animals, and gains by way of a diversion through fiction and invention, the secondary meaning of gossip and lies. With this, the circle of meaning closes, which through its identification with an animal, which stands for a human character feature in the fable, suggests the Fox. Strawinsky refers to it superficially as a fable in the title, although in the background he means lies, from a moral perspective (in the sense of a web of lies, in German the still used word “Lügengespinst”), which received its personification in the Fox, whom the translator, simplifying the context, also includes in the title.With the exception of the cockerel, the list of animals, moreover, varies from language to language: the cat is both male and female, the ram appears variously as a wether and also as a goat or billy goat, and the fox, according to the Russian tradition, is a vixen.
The Austrian pocket score edition of 1930 gives the title on the outer and inner cover page only in French-German-English. The Russian version states the main title first on the first page of music together with the 3 languages used in the edition (Russian-French-German). In the German-writing world, either the French title is retained or else it is given as “Reineke” or “Reineke Fuchs”, with Reineke often being spelled incorrectly with a -c-( Reinecke), as it is in the Austrian pocket score edition (in the sung text correctly spelled ‘Reineke’). In the English-writing world, instead of the original title The Fox, the tautological title “Renard the fox” (as Renard is not an actual name, and thus this means “Fox the Fox”) has been used more recently, such as for the official Strawinsky CD edition by Sony; otherwise, the French title “Renard” is retained, now often anglicised as Reynard.
Scored for: a) First edition: Silent roles: Fox, Cock, Cat and Goat (Wether); Singers: 4 solo singers (2 tenors and 2 basses); instruments (according to nomenclature): Flauto piccolo, Flauto grande, Corno Inglese, Clarinetto piccolo in Mi b , Clarinetto in A, Clarinetto in Si b , Fagotto, 2 Corni in F, Tromba in A, Tromba in Si b , Cimbalum, Timpani, Piatti e Gran Cassa, Tamb.[our] d.[e] B.[asque] avec grelots, Tamb.[our] d.[e] B.[asque] sans grelots, Caisse claire, Triangolo, Violino I (Solo), Violino II ( Solo), Viola (Sola), Violoncello (Solo), Contrebasso (Solo) [Piccolo Flute, Flute, English horn, Piccolo Clarinet in E flat, Clarinet in A, Clarinet in B b , Bassoon, 2 Horns in F, Trumpet in A, Trumpet in B flat, Cimbalom, Timpani, Cymbals, Big drum, Tambourine with jingles, Tambourine without jingles, Snare drum, Triangle, Solo Violin I, Solo Violin II, Solo Viola, Solo Violoncello, Solo Double bass]; b) Performance requirements: 4 Mimes, 2 Solo tenors, 2 Solo basses, 7 wind sections (flute alternating with piccolo, oboe alternating with english horn, B flat clarinet alternating with clarinets in A and E flat, bassoon, 2 horns in F, trumpet in B flat alternating with trumpet in A), cimbalom [may be replaced by piano], timpani, percussion (cymbals, bass drum, tambourine with jingles, tambourine without jingles, side drum, triangle), solo string quintet (1st and 2nd violin, viola, violoncello, double bass).
Voice types (Fach): Tenor I: tending towards the characteristics of a lyric tenor, range B# to b1 ¢ ; Tenor II: character tenor, d# to g#1; Bass I: (bass-)baritone or buffo bass, F to e1, in falsetto up to g1; Bass II: low black bass, D to d1. Lyric or buffo voices may be used according to the singers’ particular vocal aptitudes and in keeping with the various types of characterization that they are required by the work to adopt. Inasmuch as they are not required to play consistent roles and to the extent that the work contains numerous epic passages, concert singers may also be used. In the 6th bar after figure 25, the first tenor, who was previously heard as the Cock, joins in. All 4 singers argue through the following narration, and the verbal speech from figure 32 is given to all 4 singers, the 1st tenor preferred for the Fox, and the 2nd tenor now for the Cock. It is for this reason that the singers do not take up positions on the stage during the play, but are brought down into the orchestra.
Performing practice: The C-string is not used for the double bass. – Two percussionists are required in addition to the timpanist. The percussion instrument required in the March that frames the action is almost certainly a bass drum with a cymbal fixed to it, so that when the two instruments are later used separately an extra suspended cymbal is needed.The percussionist James Blades, who played the “Soldiers Tale” in 1957 under Strawinsky’s direction, recommended for the new version of the score a side drum with snares as an instrument equivalent to the caisse claire. – The C-string is not used for the double bass. A different kind of problem is posed by the cimbalom intended to replace the gusli. It was at the invitation of Ernest Ansermet that Strawinsky first heard a cimbalom in Maxim’s Bar in Geneva at the end of 1914. The instrument was played by Aladar Racz, who was evidently an impressive performer. Strawinsky was enthralled and, having learnt its performing technique, included a cimbalom in Renard, but soon encountered practical difficulties in terms of the work’s performance, difficulties that played a significant role in preventing the work from finding a wider audience. There were neither adequate cimbaloms nor enough performers capable of meeting the classical demands of the music. In general, the instrument did not catch on, which was all the more regrettable in that the sound of the cimbalom cannot really be replaced in Renard. Strawinsky got to know the cimbalom in its most typical Hungarian form, with a range from D to e ¢¢¢ , and it was for this instrument that he wrote the work, whereas the instruments with which he found himself faced in practice had a far more limited compass, principally lacking the low D, which conductors peremptorily transferred to the double bass, a decision that did not have the composer’s approval. He himself adopted a more diversified solution depending on the situation onstage. At fig. 63 1(bar 390) he indicated that if the cimbalom lacked the low D, the note should be played pizzicato on the double bass, while the cello should play the note sul ponticello (i.e., with a bowstroke close to the bridge, thus producing a thinner sound). And, finally, he added the timpani. Taken together, this achieved the desired sound, a sound like something on the border between scratching, plucking and striking the instrument and intended to suggest a caricature of the Goat playing the gusli. But none of these three instruments is to be used here if the cimbalom has the necessary low D. At fig. 67 1(bar 421) the missing D should be played solely by the timpani. This state of affairs obliged Strawinsky to write more and more new variants in an attempt to make up for the deficiencies of the cimbaloms used in performances of the work. Worn down by this, he finally rewrote the cimbalom part for piano between 12 and 16 March 1953, while continuing to pine for the older version, as the piano is no substitute for the original sound of the cimbalom.In his New York sample performance for the final disc recording on 26th January 1962, which was included in the CD edition, he used the cimbalom version again (sung in a non-Russian language). Pierre Boulez also used the cimbalom for his recording, rather than the piano. They were however exceptions. Even before Strawinsky had revised the part, conductors had ignored his request for a cimbalom and given the part to a piano*.Incidentally, the cimbalom was also only a replacement for the gusli, which is what Strawinsky actually intended but it had long since fallen out of fashion by Strawinsky’s time. In fact, Strawinsky would prefer to have written the part for a gusli rather than a cimbalom. The gusli (not gusla: in Russian, the word ‘gusli’ is a plural form and can only be used as such) is a psaltery in the shape of a trapezoid with rounded corners. It is carried by the player by means of a sling round his or her neck. Difficult to play, it requires great digital dexterity**.The Gusli were originally built to be diatonic, but since the second half of the 18th Century, they also became chromatic, and from 1900 even with a dampener function. By the time that Strawinsky wrote Renard, it had become so rare that he felt unable to include it in the score, hence his decision to fall back on the cimbalom, while continuing to insist on the gusli’s symbolic value: on the reappearance of the Cat and Goat to rescue the Cock, the gusli is played by the Hegoat. In order to appreciate the joke here, one needs to remember that the Hegoat has hooves and is unable to play the gusli but produces the most hideous scraping sound. It was presumably for this reason that Strawinsky did not correct Ramuz when the latter turned the Ram of the original into a Goat in the French translation: after all, the Goat, too, is an ungulate, so that the joke is not lost.
* This is according to Leopold Stokowski on the occasion of the legendarily successful American premiere in the Vanderbilt Theatre in New York on 2nd December 1923. Stokowski was called back onto the stage seven times after “Renard” and had to repeat the piece (as well as Schoenberg’s “Herzgewächse”). The evening was celebrated in America as a triumph of contemporary music and Stokowski’s performance of Renard was preferred by witnesses present over the Paris premiere. The piano part was played by Carlos Salzedo.
** It is therefore understandable as to why in one of Afanasyev’s fairytales, a swineherd, who plays the gusli masterfully, rises to become the husband of the Princess.
Summary: The Fox, dressed as a monk), sees the Cock proudly strutting to and fro on its perch. Much against its better judgement, the Cock is tempted down to the ground with a ‘salto mortale’ to confess to his sin of polygamy, so that he does not die unshriven. The Fox immediately seizes him and drags him away. The Cock desperately tries to fight off his attacker and calls for help from the Cat and Goat, who duly come to his assistance. The Fox is driven off, and the Cock, Cat and Goat perform a dance of joy. – The Cock is walking at the head of his harem of hens. Reynard suddenly reappears, greeting him with apparent civility and, ignoring the Cock’s suggestion that he eats one of his wives instead, had seizes him again. On this occasion no one comes to help him. The Cat and the Goat withdraw. – The Cock climbs back on to his perch and makes himself comfortable. The Fox now reappears and this time drops his disguise. With a mixture of compliments and grains of corn he again tempts the Cock down to the ground, and the latter, after lengthy resistance, again performs a ‘salto mortale’ and lands at the Fox’s feet. The Fox once again seizes him and drags him across the stage, while the Cock resists and again calls for help. The Fox starts to pluck out the Cock’s feathers. Just as the Cock faints, the Cat and Goat appear and pay homage to the Fox with an attractive little song accompanied on the gusli, tempting him out of his lair. They pretend they want to protect the Fox from other animals that are coming to kill him. The Fox is alarmed and waves his brush, which the Cat and Goat seize, dragging him out of his house and strangling him. The piece ends with a dance for the Cock, Cat and Goat.
At the beginning of the piece, the protagonists move onto the stage to the sounds of a three-section March (A-B-A form) [1]. We see the Cock running back and forth on his perch, desperately worked up and calling ‘Kuda’, whilst underneath him, the Cat and the Ram get hold of a knife and a rope with the intention, announced with a great cry, of breaking the Cock’s bones, stabbing him and hanging him [2]. The scene ends without a resolution of the plot, and the first story begins with the self-conscious wake-up cry of the Cock to protect this house. Then the Fox, disguised as a monk, enters. He (she) gives God’s greeting to that splendid singer, the Cock, as is in Strawinsky’s version, using puffed-up, pompous language and pseudo-liturgical phrases, and invites him to confession. The Cock answers roughly, seeking to drive him away. The Fox does not get flustered, but continues into a sermon about having not eaten anything and having travelled great, arduous distances to come here for his sake to save his soul, which can naturally be understood with a double meaning. The Cock evidently feels that he is being taken very seriously. He becomes boisterous (in the Russian text, the word is Пђтухъ съ задоромъ, which means ‘high spirits’ = ‘with high spirits’; the word associated with this characteristic задорный also means ‘saucy’, among other things. Ramuz translates it as “arrogance” [„Le coq avec arrogance“] = conceited and represents the situation of the conceited, boastful and at the same time stupid Cock very accurately. The German translation gives “witzig” [„Der Hahn witzig“] and thus does not make the contexts very clear) and apologises to the “honourable Father” that he really has no time today. When the Fox accuses him of the mortal sin of polygamy with a long justification, retaining his religious phrases, and causes him to think that he might well die without having his sins forgiven, the animal, deceived and as a result of the previous scene, still afraid of death, flutters down from the wire onto the ground, where the Fox immediately grabs him by the armpits and in spite of his despairing resistance, drags him off. Now the Cock calls for help. He and his beautiful plumage, of which he is so proud, threaten to be torn to pieces; he calls to the Cat and Ram, whom he calls brothers, promising them eternal gratefulness if they just free him from the violence of the Fox. Of course, they end up coming, get annoyed with the good man, who is looking to get hold of a cheap Sunday roast entirely for himself, and force him (in the threatening Pribautki at figure 254-5 = bars 156/157: “Do you know, that Farmer Yermak made rude noises with his empty stomach?” and to continue: “and you can’t escape him!”) to let the Cock, captured with so much cunning and effort, go free. The Cock, Cat and Ram perform a dance of joy and shout mocking words behind him. If you were to hear the Fox speak, they say, you would think that he only had sharp teeth for biting [3]. The following narration serves as an Intermezzo between the 2 stories. The events between the Cock and Fox are transcended departing openly from the level of the plot onto a narration level. In it, the Cock goes walking and encroaches on the fox’s hunting grounds. The latter finds him promptly and greets him with a mocking gesture of subservience, touching his forehead to the ground like a petitioner before the tzar and asking the Cock with a high voice in a caricature of politeness why he has come into his territory. The Cock naturally knows what awaits him and asks the Fox to spare him and to eat one of his hens instead of him. He rejects this as he wants the Cock and not the hen. What happens next is accompanied by a vocalise to -O- sung in 4 parts, which conceals what one might imagine. The Fox has grabbed the Cock and drags him over rough and smooth ground. From behind a white fence, the Cock shouts pitifully for help, but no one hears him, and no one helps him. The interlude story ends here at bar 259 [4]. The second story begins at bar 260. The stage direction at bar 258 “Cat and Ram withdraw” certainly does not refer to the interlude narration, which one must imagine as an intermezzo narrated by the animals themselves, and rather serves to lead back to the exit position on the stage for the following second story; this is because the hen, as it says in bar to 60, “climbs upon his perch and makes himself comfortable”, without, as the following events show, having been affected in the slightest by the moral of the interlude narration. He sings his now well known song again. The Fox enters and throws his friar’s robe away. He no longer attempts to deceive with religious promises, but seeks to confuse the Cock with flattery: “Cock, golden comb, combed hair, silken beard” an address taken almost word-for-word from Afanasyev. The Fox offers the Cock peas, but he does not want any. He eats his broth and does not listen. Now the Fox invites him into his large house. There are grains of wheat in every corner. But this also does not work. The Cock is full. At the third attempt, the Fox promises the Cock flatbread to get him to come down from the wire to the ground, but the hen responds that he is not so stupid as to fall for his promises. The Fox now finds a successful method of religious pretence for the first time. If he comes down, he will carry him to heaven. Now the Cock starts the second Salto mortale, but the Cock, speaking through the first tenor, warns the Fox not to break his fasting restrictions; as soon as the Cock has jumped down however, the Fox immediately sets upon him and responds through the second tenor. For some, this means breaking the fast, but for him, he needs it for his health. Just like in the first story, the Fox grabs the Cock under his armpits and drags him across the stage. The cries for help from the Cock match those in the first story. At first they go unheard, and the Fox begins to pluck the Cock’s feathers. In his hour of need, the Cock grasps for the pseudo-religious motivation of the Fox. He addresses him as “sinless sister” (in the original, the Fox is a vixen) and invites him (her) to go to the father, where there is better food: pancakes with butter. Finally, the Cock prays to God, that he might think of his family. Even this prayer is a scurrilous nonsense, as the names show that appear in the Russian original are names rhyming on -a-, as well as the strange meanings of the names, such as grandfather “World-eater” or his relative “white womb”. Then the Cock falls unconscious. Now the Cat and the Ram enter and sing the vixen a gentle song, for which the ram accompanies on the Gusli (the German translator makes for the sake of rhyme the Gusli into a fiddle [Fiedel]). The song becomes increasingly dense and contains calls asking whether the vixen in her golden nest is at home with her daughters, to whom, more and more loudly, offensive names are given, such as “scarecrow”, “give me a little cake” or “make the fist”. The German translator, like Ramuz (Mamsell Torchon, Mamsell Cornichon, Mamsell Tend-la-Main, Mamsell Fait-le-Poing) translates them in rhyming synonyms (“Lügenmaul”, “Ohne Herz”, “Stehl nicht faul” and “Kenne keinen Scherz”). The Fox indicates from the side of the stage to where he dragged the hen, and asks who is singing and calling, to which the Cat and Ram reply that they want to chop up the Fox with a scythe up to the shoulders. The following hunt scene, not described as one in the score, is a dialogue on three levels between the Vixen, who starts questioning her body parts, and the Cat and Ram, who answer her and then kill her. The Vixen asks her eyes what they have seen, and the Cat and Ram answer in place of the latter that they would have looked around so that animals would not eat the Vixen. Then the Vixen asks her legs what they would have done, and again the Cat and Ram answer in the place of her legs, that they would have run so that the animals do not tear her to pieces. Now the Vixen calls to her tail, asking it why it grew, because she got it caught in the bush. She now receives the answer that the tail grew so that animals could catch the vixen and kill her. The vixen now becomes angry, curses her tail with “Aas” and “Kanaille” and curses it that it might be eaten by the animals. The latter fall on her, grab her by her tail and pull her out of the house. They then strangle the Vixen. The attack scene is not portrayed by Strawinsky, but is inferred in a general pause (bar 505). In the following 7 bars of figure 80, both tenors and both basses let out a frightful howling. To the sound of these noises, the Fox dies [5].
The song of mockery: The song of mockery aimed at the dead Fox performed by the Cat, Ram and rescued Cock consists of a series of Pribautki over 61 bars which jump about from one to the other “in hair-raising chains of association” (Schreiber). The Pribautki in the song of mockery of the dead Fox from figure 82 to the end of figure 89 begin at the house of the farmer, who loves pancakes and who devours vast quantities of food, which are listed precisely, starting with soup, proceeding to fresh bread, which is baked for the boyars, to the boyars themselves and via their angry hunting dogs back to the dead Fox. Each of them has nothing to do with any of the others and all of them together have nothing to do with the plot, and in spite of this it is all plot, because even wordplay, to be performed by acrobats and clowns, can gain a deeper meaning. Compositionally, these Pribautki are based on a single motif which consists of a central note with intervals of a 2nd above and below played around it and is related to the A section of the March by means of a downward leap of a 4th. At the end of the mockery song, the protagonists turn to the audience with spoken, but rhythmically delievered words and ask for a pot of butter as a reward for their story [6]. The piece ends with a literal repeat of the A section of the introductory March, to which they leave the stage, [7].
Source: Strawinsky wrote his own libretto, drawing on a number of animal stories from Alexander Afanasyev’s collection of popular Russian fairy tales Народные русские сказки (Russian Folktales) in the 1871 revised edition. The composer adopted the Russian tradition of the fox as a loser, while eschewing the anticlerical interpretation occasionally found in Russia.
The Traditions of the Fox: The fox has its own specific role in all the fable traditions in the world. For the Dogon in Mali, it is even seen as the ‘Pre-Creator’ of our world as a world of disorder who preceded God, so that we, according to the Dogon, are not living in God’s world today but in the world of the Fox. The European tradition of the fox, as Horst Klitzing brought together in an exhibition of the Goethe-Museum in Düsseldorf >“Reynke de vos“ 1498 / Der Beginn der neuzeitlichen Tradition in Deutschland“< (20. September bis 25. Oktober 1998) , begins between 1174 and 1250 with ‘ Roman de Renard ’, which was written by several French authors whose names are unknown to us and with the incunabulum ‘Reinke de vos’ (of which there are only three remaining copies worldwide), formed the beginning of a modern tradition for the first time in Germany in 1498. The work is a verse narration with a didactic aim, presumably translated by a Fransiscan monk from the Netherlands, with an extensive prose commentary, the so-called ‘Catholic gloss’, in which the depravity of the powerful (as well as the spirituality) of this world is portrayed and at the same time the believers in Christ are warned, not to behave in that way and not to become a slave to the Devil, who appears as a cunning red fox. Behind the (apparent) Burlesque of Reineke Fuchs , there is, hidden from the very beginning, both a moral doctrine and a criticism of the Church; small wonder then that the North-German printed version Reinke Vosz de Olde of 1529 from the Protestant stronghold Rostock rewrote the Catholic gloss into a Protestant one, turning it into a cutting invective against Catholicism. This edition became the basis of the numerous books of folk tales from the low- and high-German tradition of the following period, and led in 1752 to the high-German translation of the Hackmann edition, which itself was written in 1711, by Johann Christian Gottsched, who with philological thoroughness also published the low-German original text and with it both the Catholic and the Protestant glosses. Gottsched’s translation was the main source for Goethe’s hexameter edition in 12 songs, which was published in 1794 as Reinecke Fuchs in the second volume of his new writings, with which he bade farewell to the corrupt Ancient régime through his experiences of the campaign in France in 1792. The European Reineke poem reached its zenith at that time with Goethe’s commentary and its bitter proclamation of the final victory of all perfidious forces.* The collection “ Kinder- und Hausmärchen ” by the Brothers Grimm published in 1812 which fractions of contemporaneous German scholars were hostile to, led to a Russia collection of fairy tales by Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev Íàðîäíûéå ðóññêèéå ñàçêû in 1855 to 1864 compiled in several volumes in which the stories of the fox were cronicled for the public alongside of numerous other Russian faiy tales. This collection of fairytales was much loved in Russia in the same way as the Grimms’ fairytales were much loved in Germany, and appeared not only in numerous new editions and translations in its own century, but was also included in numerous anthologies of fairy tales in different languages as a collection of examples of Russian fairy tales. Afanassiev’s collection is also the source for Strawinsky’s libretto.
Afanasyev’s Fox stories: The question of which edition Strawinsky used cannot be answered at present for several reasons. On the one hand, there are too many single editions and part issues, and on the other, the answer cannot be supposed for certain by relying on Strawinsky’s comments on matters that were for him less important. He certainly did not use the original edition because this did not have an ordering system for the fairy tales as the collection of the Brothers Grimm does not have one on purpose of variety. It was only in the new edition of 1873 that Afanasyev, who had died on 5th October 1871 in Moscow, followed the tale type index by A. Aarne and classified his collection. This system has been retained up to the present day, and is also used for the currently used three-volume Russian edition of 1985, which is related to the 1873 edition. This methodical process was significant for Strawinsky’s libretto and scenario, because Strawinsky, contrary to his original intention, tells not only one but three tales of the Fox, which he had come to know via Afanasyev, because a single story would not have been sufficiently long for a stage work. Strawinsky later explained that there were at least four different versions of the fairy tale about the Fox that he ended up using. The new two-volume German translation by Svetlana Geier in the Winkler Publishing House in Munich translates the original version of tales 14 and 15, and relegates the other two versions and the alternative version to the index. The Russian edition from 1985 catalogues substantially more than five fairy tales about the Fox, but only four of them were important for Strawinsky’s libretto and can therefore be identified as sources. They have the historic numbers 14, 15 and 16. Number 17, which in the Russian edition appears together with numbers 15 and 16 under the identical title Лиса-исповедница (The Fox as Confessor), was taken out from Strawinsky’s scenario. – There is first the story of an old man who lived with a cat and a rooster. When he went to work in the forest, the cat would take care of the food and the rooster would guard the house. Both warn the rooster about the vixen. Scarcely have they gone, then the latter appears and seeks to lure the rooster out of the house with peas. She succeeds and drags the rooster off. But the cat hears the rooster’s cries for help and frees him. The game is repeated. Now the vixen lures the rooster out of the house with seeds. Again the cat hears the rooster crying for help and is again able to set the rooster free. But on the third time, when the vixen has lured the rooster out with the promise of showing him the world, the cat is too deep in the forest to hear the rooster’s cries for help, and the vixen eats the rooster. – Number 14 Лиса заяц и петух (The Vixen, the Hare and the Rooster) tells the story of an encounter with the vixen which is at first disastrous for the hare. Once upon a time, there was a hare and a vixen. The vixen had a hut made out of ice, and the hare a hut made out of wood. When Spring comes, the vixen’s house melts, while the hare’s house stands firm. The hare takes the vixen in, and the latter ends up driving the hare out of the house. The hare goes into the forest and cries. Then some dogs come across him and ask the hare why he is crying. The hare tells them that he had had a house made out of wood and the vixen a house made of ice, and that the vixen’s house had melted so he had taken the vixen in and the vixen had driven him out. Then the dogs say ‘Don’t cry. We will chase away the vixen’. ‘No, no’, says the hare’, ‘you won’t be able to’. ‘Yes we will’, say the dogs. They go to the vixen and begin to shout, ‘Go away from here!’. Then the vixen says,’ I will come out now and tear you to pieces’. The dogs become afraid and run away. The hare goes on a bit further and cries. Now the hare meets a bear, and the story repeats itself like a litany. Then the hare meets a bull, who also ends up running away. The crying hare finally meets a rooster, who is carrying a scythe on his shoulder. There then follows the same dialogue as before. The rooster also says to the hare that he need not cry, as he, the rooster, will drive the vixen out. ‘No, no’, says the hare, you won’t manage it, the dogs couldn’t do it, not could the bear or the bull. ‘But’, says the rooster, ‘I will manage it’. And the rooster goes to the vixen and shouts, ‘Kikeriki! I am carrying a scythe over my shoulder and I’ll cut the vixen into little pieces’. The vixen calls back, ‘Wait! I’m changing my clothes’. The rooster continues shouting, ‘Kikeriki! I’m carrying a scythe over my shoulder. I will cut the vixen into little pieces.’ The vixen called again, ‘Wait, I’m putting on my fur coat’. The rooster calls out for a third time. Finally the vixen comes out and the rooster cuts her into pieces; he ends up staying with the hare. The tale ends with a final call from the narrator: you have therefore earned yourselves a story and I have earned a can of butter. – Story number 15 brings in the motif of confession, while story number 16 is a variant of it. One autumn night, the vixen runs through all the villages. She is very hungry, as she has had nothing to eat for three days. She then breaks into a hen coop. While she is in the process of catching a chicken, the rooster wakes up and alerts the guard, and the vixen scarcely manages to get away. She needs three weeks to recover from the shock. The rooster goes for a walk in the forest and comes across the vixen, who tries to get him. The rooster escapes into a high tree. The vixen waits and waits, but the rooster does not come down. The vixen greets the rooster and speaks to him very politely: ‘Good day, Peter.’ The rooster thinks: ‘What is the vixen doing now?’ She says very slyly to him: ‘Peter, I would like to help you unburden your soul and to do something good for you. You have forty wives, but you haven’t once made confession. Come down from the tree, confess, and I will forgive you all your sins. The rooster eventually goes down and lands directly in the mouth of the vixen. ‘Now I have you and my revenge. I was so hungry and all I wanted to do was to catch myself a chicken. You stopped me. I hadn’t eaten anything for three days, and you raised the alarm.’ ‘Ah’, said the rooster, ‘do you know what? I have another solution. What do you need me for? In a couple of days, there will be a great feast at the house of our bishop, and I am invited to it. You should come with me. There will be a lot of tasty food to eat there, food much tastier than I.’ The vixen believes the rooster and lets him out of her mouth. – In the variant story, no. 16, which belongs with the preceding story, the vixen spends a long time in the desert, and on her way back, she notices the rooster in a high tree. She greets him very slyly. ‘You sit up in a high tree and your thoughts are not good; you roosters are so bad! One of you has ten wives, another twenty, thirty, forty, and whenever you meet each other, it always ends up in a quarrel because of the wives. Come to me, confess your sins. I come from far away. I have not eaten or drunk anything for three days, but I can forgive you all your sins.’ But the rooster says: ‘You are very nice, and I value everything that you say, but no confession with violence is valid. I know that you want to save my soul, but you also want to eat my body’. ‘No, what are you thinking? You are mistaken’, said the vixen. ‘I am not capable of doing such a thing. Have you not read the story of x y z? Come down to me’. And they talk for a long time, until the vixen manages to lure the rooster down from the tree. She then wants to tear him to pieces immediately. The rooster offers her his hens, but the vixen doesn’t want them. ‘Ah’, says the rooster,’ What do you need me for? In a couple of days, there will be a great feast at the house of our bishop, and I am invited to it. You should come with me. There will be a lot of tasty food to eat there, food much tastier than I.’ The vixen believes the rooster and lets him out of her mouth. As soon as she realizes her mistake, she feels hugely embarrassed and goes into the forest, crying bitterly. ’I have lived for so long and such shame has never befallen me.’
Strawinsky’s libretto montage: Strawinsky compiled his libretto from these four fairy tales, and expanded the original with the Pribaoutkitexts. He took the middle section of his story from the first tale for his second story with the death of the rooster and the items used by the vixen to lure him out. He used the killing scene from the second story to form the end of the fable, in which the killing is carried out by strangling rather than cutting into pieces. Originally, it may have been a drawer scene in the manner of early legal practice. The dogs, bear and bull ask the vixen to leave. The vixen responds by threatening them with being cut to pieces. After the three vain attempts, the rooster enters as an executioner and turns the tables. He is the only one who does not talk of driving the vixen out, referring rather to dismembering her and prepares the fate of the vixen, who has not up till now complied with the requests of the dogs, bear and bull to leave the house but threatened to kill them, which same fate she herself had thought to prepare for the unfortunate messengers. With the third fairy tale, Strawinsky challenged the entire existence of the confession scene in the first story, including the move into archaic religious language and the request of the actors to the listeners at the end of the show, to give them something edible for their efforts, in this case a jar of butter. The fourth fairy tale rounds off the stories with subtler points, the journey out of the desert, the numbers, the rooster’s unwillingness to make confession in the first story, the rooster’s attempt in the central scene to buy his freedom with the blood of his hens at their expense, and for the second story, the rooster’s knowledge about the intention of the vixen to want to eat him.
Comments on the Russian tradition of the Fox: The lack of glorification of the Fox seems to be significant for the Russian Fox. Unlike in the other European interpretations of the Fox, especially the modern German one, the cunning of the deceitful Fox, which is always portrayed as female, is of no use to her in the end in the Russian fairy tale. She is defeated. The German ‘Reineke’ on the other hand contains, unlike the Russian ‘Lissa’, a different moral message. Where ever the fox joins forces with another animal, it goes badly for this animal. In addition to the horror at the behaviour of the fox, the surprising twist at the end of ‘Reineke’ is like a trick arising from this same insuperable cunning. The victim is sacrificed for a second time at the end. The fox is of no benefit in anyway or to any person or thing, it is devious and scurrilous and unites in itself all conceivable bad characteristics; she is however always victorious, and to call someone her name is to praise them with awe, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The Russian tradition of the fox only follows this precise image to a certain extent. Also many of the Russian, Siberian and Ukrainian fox stories not passed on by Afanasyev, which still exist, reveal at the end that the deceiver is in fact the deceived. Tales such as ‘Of the Fox, how it made friends with the Stork’ or ‘Of farmers, of bears and of foxes’, at the end of which the bear and fox are the tricked, or ‘How the sly fox fooled the animals, until it smashed its impudent head against a rock’ or the Siberian fairy tale ‘Again of the fox, how it raced with the carp’, a reworking of the German fairy tale of the race between the hare and the hedgehog, shows a tendency that differs in principle from the German conception of Reineke by Goethe. In the Russian, there are stories in which the Fox triumphs, but there is as well a strand of the tradition in which the fox is beaten not only morally, but, in spite of its slyness, also physically in the end.
The interpretation of the Fox for Strawinsky: Strawinsky took up the strand of tradition in which the Fox does not triumph. Unlike in the German tradition, it is not a misleading lie that wins, rather a moral force which has become powerful, even though the opponent of the fox, in this case the vain cock, is so stupid that one does not feel any sympathy for him at all. The story of the Fox being killed helps us to answer the question of whether the Joker in the ballet Jeu de Cartesdies after the third deal or only collapses, beaten; in this case too, the Joker wins, like the Fox, in the second story only. In the third story (deal), he is finally eliminated.
Anti-clerical interpretation: The satire of the Church, which comes across strongly in Afanasyev’s version and which is in the material belonging to the Russian tradition, does not appear in Strawinsky’s version. Afanasyev himself often had difficulties with synodal censure. The publication of non-canonic legends of the saints for example was looked on with suspicion. The stories of the Fox had much to offer as anti-Church, polemic material. The topos of dissimulation as a monk draws attention to the lack of belief of those who preach religion to others for their own personal benefit without actually believing it themselves. The rooster, a representation of religious people, in effect simple church-going folk, is taken in by someone who is ostensibly a worshipper of God and the latter serves them for the sole purpose of turning them into a roast dinner. The redemption of the soul, which will supposedly carried to heaven, exists in the coarse acts of being killed and eaten. Strawinsky had a comprehensive knowledge of this tradition, but did not use it for his version. The issue of the Church does not feature in his piece, as he explained. The strains of Church-music modality, with their capacity for creating a distancing effect, only serve a hearty bit of humour on the stage. For the German listener, this can be noticed at any time. The German proverb ‘ Wenn der Fuchs zu predigen beginnt, dann gib auf deine Hühner Acht! ’ [‘When the fox begins to preach, watch out for your hens!’] connects with the age-old wisdom of Thomasin of Zirclaria, that a wolf, even if you pray to him non-stop with the Our Father , at the end will only say ‘Lamb’ ( ez ist verlorn / swaz man dem wolf gesagen mac / pâter noster durch den tac, / wan er spricht doch anders niht / niwan lamp ), thus remaining unchanged from its inherent nature. The Fox presents herself in this way as she is hoping to achieve the greatest success. The Fox does and promises any and all things possible to get the rooster to come down to the ground, which is necessary for her to be able to eat him. None of the Russian anticlericalism remains in the manner in which Strawinsky tells his stories. Strawinsky only takes on the topos of the Fox and introduces it, despite its predacious teeth, as an animal that is actually very small and mostly very timid as well, whose innate cunning alone enables it to adapt itself to its environment and thus to survive. The Fox offers seeds, bread, lard, prayer , as and when it comes and the need arises, in order to reach its goal, and this in several stories, which are all of a turbulent nature, Anything other than this would not have suited Strawinsky even at the time, as he had formally distanced himself from the Church.
* According to Monika Stark: Thomasin von Zirclaria, scientific paper, University Bonn, 1990, unpublished.
On the Russian Skomorochi tradition: As in other European countries, Russia also had its own distinct tradition of wandering stage theatre. What we call a minstrel is known in Russia as скоморох ( Skomorotsch , with the emphasis on the last syllable, plural Skomorochi ). This minstrel is always a multi-talented person who is an actor, musician, juggler and acrobat in one person, and also combines typical circus and funfair elements. He acts, dances, executes acrobatic feats and magic tricks, sings, plays several instruments, presents little animal performances, works with animal masks, can eat fire, tell fortunes and appear as a clown; in short, he does everything he can to stir up excitement amongst the simple people who are his audience, and in exchange for a life which is socially and in many respects free and, with respect to the ruling code of ethics at the time, often without responsibility, he puts up with a lifetime of hardship in finding his daily bread, the drudgery and strain of forever moving from place to place, as well as the contempt and persecution that threaten those in their profession. Strawinsky knew this tradition well, like other Slavic composers before him, and it definitely had an effect on the stage conception of both Renard and the Soldier’s Tale , as well as the idea of having a stage appear on the stage of Petrushka .
Translations: No other work by Strawinsky poses its translator as many problems as Renard, with the result that the number of translators who have turned their hand to the piece is correspondingly great: the French translation is the work of Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, the German that of Rupert Koller, while English versions have been produced by Gregory Golubev, Harvey Officer and Rollo H. Myers. The countless puns, the examples of onomatopeia, the twisted meanings, the shifting stylistic registers, the scintillating jokes and instances of whimsy that give the text its life and strength and that Strawinsky exploits both textually and musically render the work untranslatable: for non-Russians, whole passages are simply unintelligible. The first translator, Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, after the torture of making the translation, which was made with Strawinsky’s help, later voiced the opinion that certain nonsense lines, the charm of which only comes from the piling up of similar-sounding words, made no sense in the Russian and could not therefore be translated on principle, and had to be newly created from scratch in the other language. This is particularly true of the two pribaoutki passages in the fourth and fifth bars after Fig. 25 and the Fox’s answer at Fig. 52, as well as the series of pribaoutki between Fig. 81 and Fig. 89 containing the song mocking the now dead Fox. –
The word-for-word translation supposedly becomes incomprehensible at these and similar points, because there is no furthering of the plot development in the original version. Ramuz, as he wrote, decided upon using only happy troves of images, for which he abandoned any pretence of rational logic. According to him, the freshness of the encounter with the sound was the most important thing. The (out-of-necessity) free translation does however destroy the comic nature of the situation that Strawinsky intended. In the Pribaoutki of the first story for example, the Fox is not caused to set the rooster free by physically threatened, as all the German translators imply by using a free-standing ‘ sonst! ’, but because tomcat and ram mention the farmer Jermak, who could produce indecent noises with his empty stomach, so they would do with their backside to avoid a vulgar expression which suggests itself at this point. Although the term used in the original language is of a literary register and stylistically neutral, and describes crashing, cracking, rattling, creaking, clattering, snapping, rustling, chirping, chattering, going to pieces, breaking down, and making loud, incessant noise, it suggests a multitude of processes that create noise; the sense at this point is thus vulgar to Russian ears, although paraphrased with friendly words. Even the name Yermak, who does not appear in the original fairy tales that Strawinsky used and whose name does not exist as an actual name in Russia, refers to a separate tradition. A Cossack (the Russians say ‘Cassack’) with bearlike strength who conquered Siberia a long time ago once had this name. The childish humour of the situation is based on the improbable idea only the fox, who stinks like only a few wild animals do, in spite of his battling nature that is superior to that of the tomcat and ram, is looking for an open space because she is afraid of the flatulence or belching (most probably the former) that has been announced by her enemies. The dance of joy by the three animals later on thus gains a particular meaning that cannot be conveyed in any translation, as the Fox has a fatal bite, with which he could bite, tear apart and devour the others, but in spite of this, the other animals are superior to her thanks to their ‘chemical weapons’. What lies behind this is fairy-tale and child psychology that even the greatest danger can be warded off by the clever exploitation of sometimes very strange circumstances that are unfavourable to the adversary. In the narration, what manifests itself is also the lasting joy of the grown-up Igor Strawinsky at the earliest experience of sound of the little Igor Strawinsky, a description of which he begins his memoirs with, the story of the dumb, red-haired farmer, who delights children with a melancholy, two-syllable song with sounds that were indescribably suspicious, which he makes by means of fast, rhythmic movements of his left arm in the armpit of which he has pressed the palm of his right hand. The quick-to-learn Igor practiced assiduously and with success. When he mastered his, to put it politely, smacking noises and demonstrated them to his horrified parents, he experienced for the first time that his music was forbidden. Naturally, Ramuz was a good enough poet and translator to convey this Pribaoutkiin all its Skomorochi coarseness, but this would certainly not have been appropriate for a performance in the exclusive, refined Parisian Salon of the Princess Edmond de Polignac. He therefore came up with a superficially comprehensible version that is by threatening the Fox with a bludgeoning puts the latter to flight, of which there is however nothing in the Russian text. As a result, all translators, including Ramuz, have come to grief over Renard, as have all those of Strawinsky’s biographers, analysts and interpreters who have failed to address this aspect of the work. Aside from these relationships, which are not entirely house-trained, Ramuz afforded himself considerable freedoms. When the rooster is caught by the Fox for the first time, he cries out several times ‘ Mon Dieu! ’ in Ramuz’s version. Koller translates this part as ‘ Mein Gott! ’, so following Ramuz, and Myer has ‘Help!’ four times. This does not exist in the Russian original. In it, the rooster asks the fox anxiously as to where he is being taken. The familiar translations of the pribaoutki passages divest the original of all its wit and in places may even appear somewhat silly to listeners with a particularly serious view of the world. In the prayer of the cock, who sees Death before his eyes, in the second story at figure 61, the humour arises, among other things, from the uniformity of the endings of the names of the relations listed. The names Tüscha, Kathüscha and Matrüscha are given, Jean, Félicie and Sidonie by Ramuz, by Myers Blyematka, Katyusha and Matrusha, who become Marie, Kathrin and Peter in Koller’s version. The translators found a better solution for the fox-daughters’ insults from figure 67 onwards. The original Russian titles are taken, whilst observing the rhyme scheme, into the other languages, but the meaning is kept by means of inventing curious forms of the names. Writers who appeal to existing translations without taking account of the original run the risk of seriously misinterpreting the work, especially if they propose intellectual readings of passages that were never intended as anything more than a joke. The Scherzando beginning at figure 62 with the song of the Tomcat and the Ram about the Fox, ostensibly accompanied by the Gusli, outlines a ‘cunning plan’ in bar 399. Naturally, it is their intention to lure the fox out of his den. In Ramuz’s version, the subtleness is kept by the fact that it is not said out loud. He writes it, as in the Russian original, as a quiet love song. The text acts out an event. In Koller’s version, the physical event, which Strawinsky puts directly playfully before one’s eyes, is removed onto a level of intention alone, rationalised with explanations and as a result, trivialised according in the manner of an opera text. Furthermore, there are points that depart from the original to such an extent that they become incomprehensible. Between figures 73 and 79, the fox calls to her eyes, legs and finally tail. In the German translation, Koller turns the eyes at figure 73 3+6(bars 469 + 472) into ‘ Allerliebste ’, and the legs at figure 75 3+6(bars 481 and 484) into ‘ Allertreu’ste ’. Avoiding the original nouns, upon which everything depends, he turns the adjective into a noun and places the onus on the listener to ascertain what ‘ Allerliebste ’ and ‘ Allertreu’ste ’ might be. The end of the show is also coarsened in all the translations, worst of all in the English. In the original, the actors ask for a can of butter so that they might have something to eat. This sounds merry and human. The German translation makes this into a concealed demand (‘ Unser Lohn, bitte, wenn’s gefiel ’ = ‘Our fee, please, if you please’), while the French refers to it as owing what is due (‘ Payez-moi c’qui m’est dût!’ – ‘Pay me what is owed to me!’) and the English talks of the necessity of paying for one’s fun (‘You must pay for your fun’). – Ramuz was translating the work into French with Strawinsky’s help parallel to the composition of the piece. According to witnesses at the time, Strawinsky was so satisfied with the work that on 5th October 1916, he pressed the Princess de Polignac successfully for a better fee for Ramuz, who was living on the breadline and in constant financial difficulties; instead of the 300 Francs that had previously been agreed, Ramuz then went on to receive a thousand Francs and the Princess gained the assurance that Ramuz was a worthy man, that his translation was a fantastic achievement that was the best possible response to the original, and that the collaboration between Ramuz and Strawinsky had found an ideal solution to the exasperating, difficult problem of declamation in translations from sung Russian that was sung so little in other countries. Almost 40 years later however, one reads this differently and can draw conclusions, such as the awe for Ramuz being the result of his timely, welcome help at a difficult time, but one can also see this as being mixed with the friendly provision of help in the form of a targeted financial recommendation to an art-loving and above all, moneyed lady. In the end, Strawinsky engaged Ramuz for a translation which came to fruition with his own help, giving him a ¼ portion of the performance income; this was certainly a generous arrangement, which also in fact used for his other collaborations with Ramuz. In the letter to Nabokov dated 10th May 1953 however, he was against having a performance using Ramuz’s text, which, according to him, had no value as song and took the artistic and literary quality out of the piece with different words, because the translation of the wordplay falls short of the original, resulting in the creation of a separate literary work which does not sufficiently relate to the original, and was clearly no longer highly regarded at that time. – While there was obviously no other translation into the French made during Strawinsky’s lifetime (the CD edition also reproduced Ramuz’s text), there were several English translations produced. In October 1946, Strawinsky showed great enthusiasm for a translation into English by his then agent, Gregory Golubev, and sent it to Balanchine for the then-imminent new performance in New York in January 1947, which Strawinsky wanted to be sung in English. He backed off when he learnt that Lincoln Kirstein had already commissioned Harvey Officer. He also seems to have liked the Officer translation; indeed, he incorporated it in the simple reworking of certain points which he adjusted to the English declamation, modifying the rhythm and phrasing and establishing a definite rhythm for certain passages that had previously been freely spoken, such as at figure 79. He was in the end however not satisfied with this translation by Officer, because as he was monitoring back the test pressings of the Dial production on 14th April 1950 in New York, he made further adjustments to the text, especially again in the Pribaoutki of the mocking lines from figure 81 following, and made modifications without bothering with the Officer translation any more. Strawinsky was a keen visitor of Broadway musicals at this time, and was looking to convey something of their lightness into the fable when he had rhymes such as ‘dime’ with ‘time, or ‘snappy’ with ‘happy’ follow one another. – The official English translation that is currently printed is by Rolo M. Myers, and the German version is by Rupert Koller, which follows the French text by Ramuz and not the Russian original. The musical editions produced during Strawinsky’s lifetime, also those by Chester, contain only the Russian, French and German texts and not the English, unlike the trilingual, quasi-official CD edition, which is sung in English but, in spite of Strawinsky’s original demand for the Russian original language, leaves out the Russian text entirely. – Strawinsky was tireless in his attempts to improve these translations and was ultimately satisfied with none of them. In spite of this, he consented to the change of gender in the translations because in the French-German-English cultural worlds, the animal of the fable, Reineke, only appears in his male form (whereas, unlike in the German, the French ‘Renard’ and the English ‘Fox’ mean the same as the Russian ëèñà , which can refer to both genders, and the gender is only specified through the use of articles, pronouns or additions. In the disguise scene, having the Fox appear as a nun instead of a monk in order to incorporate the Russian origin of a female Fox, is in fact an error, because a nun traditionally cannot hear someone’s confession. Should such a disguise convey additional wit, it would turn a burlesque into a farce. Craft’s observation on the rejected Paris choreography by Béjart from 1965 that the part of the Fox was played by a woman because this is what the ballet world was used to is not entirely comprehensible.
Corrections: Strawinsky made a number of corrections to the score in the course of his preparations for the 1962 gramophone recording of the work. These were collated by Robert Craft in a brief sketch of his own, although not all of them were subsequently retained. The score also contains a considerable number of printing errors that need correcting. In bar 137, for example, the quaver on the trumpet in B b (notated as e b ) needs removing and adding instead on the fourth quaver in bar 136 above the c#1 on the cimbalom. The same is presumably true of bars 346 and 345, which are a repeat of the earlier passage. The same note in bar 357 then needs to be removed. In bar 155 the first note of the second horn in F should not be b b (notated as f) but b (notated as f#). In bar 157 the final note in Bass II should be sung b b , not b. In bar 318 the sharp sign is missing before the second quaver in the trumpet part, which is notated as c rather than as c#. The whole of the bassoon part in bars 348–54 is notated in the bass clef, whereas it should be in the tenor clef. The reversion to the bass clef needs to be made clear at the end of bar 354. In bar 423 the first note in the viola part must be e, not e#. Four bars before the end of the piece (bar 17 of the closing March) the second horn in F does not play two quavers notated as e but doubles the first horn in F and plays two quavers notated as f-e. This is correctly notated in the opening March.
Construction: Scored for chamber resources and cantata-like in character, this brief stage work falls into several sections dictated by the action onstage. None of these sections is individually titled. The work is sung, spoken, played and danced without a break. It can be divided into five or seven sections depending on the way in which they are numbered: either as two episodes with an intermediary narrative and a March that both opens and closes the action; or as two episodes with an intermediary narrative, an entrance March followed by a prelude, and a closing March preceded by a postlude (the song mocking the Fox). The five or seven sections are all internally structured. The plot – but not the music, which does not reflect the plot structurally – thus reveals a pleasing formal symmetry, regardless of whether it is subdivided into five or seven sections. Both are possible. Between the entry and the departure, there is a group of 3 sections, featuring the 2 stories with a narration in between; added to the first of these is the prefatory Allegro section before the entry of the Fox, with the Cat and Ram hunting the Cock, and added to the second, as a postlude, the mocking Pribautki of the now dead Fox – both of these can be seen either as separate units or as parts of their sections (1. March, 2. Prelude, 3. First story, 4. Interlude story, 5. Second story, 6. Postlude (mocking song), 7. March).
Structure*
[1.] ШЕСТВІЕ подъ звуки котораго актеры входятъ на сцену.
MARCHE aux sons de laquelle les acteurs entrent en scène
MARSCH / Einzug der Darsteller
MARCH to accompany the entrance of the players
(Crotchet = 126) (figure 6I up to figure V 4with dacapo from figure 5I up to the end of figure
II = II 7= 55 bars = bars 1-36 + 2-20)
[2.] [Prelude] Allegro (Crotchet = 126) (figure 61 up to the end of figure 8 = bar 1-62)
Пђтухъ суется на своей вышкђ
Le coq s'agile sur son perchoir
Der Hahn, auf seiner Stange hin und herlaufend
(figure 61 = bar 1)
[3.] [First tale] (figure 9 up to the end of figure 28 = bar 63-177)
[a. Song of the cock]
Meno mosso crotchet = 63 (figure 9 to figure 10 8= bars 63-75)
[b.] Приходитъ лиса въ одђяніи монахини.
Arrive Renard en costume de religieuse
Der Fuchs kommt als Mönch verkleidet
Enter Renard dressed as a monk
[Auftritt Fuchs] figure (10 9= 111 = bars 76/77)
[Aufforderung zur Beichte] (figure 11 up to the end of figure 18 = bars 78-126)
Quaver = quaver (figure 11 up to the end of figure 12 = bars 78-90)
Пђтуъ въ сердцеахъ
Le coq, impatiente
Der Hahn voll Unruhe
(figure 12 2= bars 85)
Più mosso (Tempo I) crotchet = 126 (figure 13 = bars 91-99)
Meno mosso Viertel = 63 (figure 14 uo to the end of figure 18 = bars
100-126)
[Hahnensprung Salto mortale mit Vorbereitung] (Ziffer 19 1-2= Takt 127/128)
Пђтухъ готовитъ „salto mortale“
Le coq se prépare à sauter „salto mortale“
Der Hahn bereitet sich zum “Salto mortale,”
(figure 19 1= bars 127)
Спрыгнулъ
Il saute
er springt.
(figure 19 2= bar 128)
[c. Hilferuf des Hahns] (figure 20 up to the end of figure 23 = bars 128-147)
Stringendo punktierte Viertel = 126
Лиса схвативаетъ пђтуха и носится съ нимъ по сценђ,
держа его подмышкой
Renard saisit le coq et turne autour de la scène en le tenant sous le
bras
Der Fuchs stürzt sich auf den Hahn, ergreift ihn unter den Achseln
und schleppt ihn über die Szene
Пђтухъ отчаянно отбивается
Le coq se débattant dés espérément
Der Hahn wehrt sich verzweifelt
(figure 20 1= bar 129)
punktierte Ganznote = punktierte Halbe (Viertel = 84) (Ziffer 23 1= Takt 144)
dotted semibreve crotchet = 84 (figure 23 2= bar 145)
dotted crotchet = crotchet = 84 (figure 23 3= bar 146)
[d. Rettung des Hahns] (figure 24 up to the end of figure 28 = bars 148-177)
Con brio minim (42) = dotted minim (= 42) = crotchet = 126 (figure 24 up to the end of figure 26 = bars 148-165
Появляются котъ да баранъ
Apparaissent le chat et le bouc
Kater und Bock treten auf
Enter the cat and the goat
(figure 24 1= bar 148)
Лиса выпускаетъ пђтуха и быстро убђгаетъ. Пђтухъ,
котъ да баранъ пляшутъ
Renard lâche le coq et s’en fuit. Le coq, le chat et le bouc dansent
Der Fuchs läßt den Hahn los und entflieht. Hahn, Kater und Bock
tanzen einen Freudentanz
(figure 26 1= bar 159)
Sempre l'istesso tempo (crotchet = 126) (figure 27 up to the end of figure 28 = bars 166-177
[4.] [Between the two tales or Second tale] (figure 29 up to the end of figure 40 = bars 178-259)
grazioso (29 1= bar 178)
Котъ да баранъ удаляются
Le chat et le bouc se retirent
Kater und Bock ziehen sich zurück
The cat and the goat retire
(figure 40 3= bar 258)
[5.] [Third tale] (figure 41 up to the end of figure 80 = bars 260-511)
[a. Song of the cock
Meno mosso (Crotchet = 63) (figure 41 up to the end of figure 42 = bars 260-
270)
Пђтухъ взбирается на свою вышку и усаживается поудобнђе
Le coc remonte sur son perchoir et s'installe commodément
Der Hahn besteigt seinen Sitz und macht es sich bequem
The cock climbs onto his perch again and settles down comfortably
(figure 41 1-3= bars 260-262)
[b.] Приходитъ лиса. Она сбрасываетъ съ себя монашеское одђяніе
Arrive Renard. Il laisse tomber son costume de religieuse
Der Fuchs erscheint, er läßt das Mönchskleid fallen
Enter Renard. He throus off his monk’s disguise
(figure 42 7= bar 270)
Sempre l'istesso tempo* * (crotchet 63) (figure 43 up to the end of figure 51 = bars 271-335
Colla parte [Salto mortale] figure 52 1/2= bars 336/337)
Пђтухъ готовитъ „salto mortale“
Le coq se prépare à sauter „salto mortale“.
Der Hahn bereitet sich zum “Salto mortale”
(figure 52 1= bar 336)
Пђтухъ спрыгнулъ. Лиса схватываетъ его
Le coq saute / Renard s'empare de lui.
Der Hahn tut den Sprung, der Fuchs bemächtigt sich seiner.
(figure 52 2= bar 337)
[c. Der Hilferuf des Hahns]
Stringendo (dotted crotchet = 126) (figure 53 up to the end of figure 56 = bars 338-356)
Лиса носится съ пђтухомъ по сценђ, держа его подмышкой.
Пђтухъ отбивается
Renard tourne autour de la scène en tenant le coq sous le bras. Le
coq se débattant despérément
Der Fuchs schleppt den Hahn über die Szene, den er unter den
Achseln hält. Der Hahn wehrt sich verzweifelt
(figure 53 1= bar338)
dotted semibreve = dotted minim = crotchet = 84 (figure 56 1= bar 355)
dotted crotchet = 84 (figure 56 2= bar 354)
dotted crotchet = crotchet = 84 (figure 56 3= bar 355)
Лиса уноситъ пђтуха въ сторонку и общипыаетъ его
Renard emporte le coq sur le côté de la scène et commence à le
déplumer
Der Fuchs schleppt den Hahn nach der Seite und beginnt ihn zu
rupfen
(figure 56 3= bar355)
[d. Bitte und Gebet des Hahns]
Moderato crotchet = 84 (figure 57 up to the end of figure 61 = bars 357-384)
Пђтухъ скулитъ
Le coq se lamente
Der Hahn singt klagend
(figure 57 1= bar 357)
Poco a poco accelerando al crotchet = 112 (figure 59 1-5= bars 368-372)
Viertel = 112 ( figure 59 5= bar 372)
Пђтухъ скисаетъ
Le coq défaille
Der Hahn wird ohnmächtig
( figure 61 1= bar 384)
[e. Rettung des Hahns und die Tötung des Fuchses]
Scherzando (crotchet = 152) (figure 62 up to the end of figure 70 = bar 385-
447)
Появляются котъ да баранъ. Они играютъ на
гусельцахъ любезнку лисђ
Apparaissent le chat et le bouc. Ils chantent, en s’accompagnant sur
la guzla, une aimable chanson à Renard
Kater und Bock erscheinen. Sie singen dem Fuchs ein gefälliges
Liedchen und begleiten sich auf der Guzla
(figure 62 1= bar 385)
Poco meno mosso crotchet = 126 (figure 71 uo to the end of figure 79 = bar
448-504)
Лиса высовываетъ кончикъ своего носа
Renard montre le bout de son nez
Der Fuchs läßt seine Nasenspitze sehen
(figure 71 1= bar 448)
Molto rit. e pesante (figure 72 10= bar 465)
a tempo ( figure 72 11= bar 466)
Звђри машутъ косою
Les bêtes sortent le arand couteau
Die Tiere schwingen eine Sense
( figure 72 11= bar 466)
ritard.
( figure 78 4= bar 502)
Лиса свирђпђетъ и размахиваетъ хвостомъ. Она . . .
кричитъ хвоту: . . .
Звђри хватаютъ лисій хвостъ, выволакиваютъ ее
самою и душатъ ее
Renard pris du fureur, agite la queue. Il crie en s’adressant à celle-ci: .
. .
Les bêtes attrapent la queue de Renard, tirent Renard hors de sa
maison, et l’étranglent
Der Fuchs, von Wut erfaßt, wedelt mit dem Schweif, er schreit ihm zu
. . .
Die Tiere fassen den Fuchs beim Schweif, ziehen ihn aus dem Hause
heraus und erwürgen ihn
(figure 79 [= 79 1] = bar 504)
Vivo dotted crotchet = 84 (figure 80 up to the end of figure = bar 505-511)
Лиса издыхаетъ
Renard expire
Der Fuchs stirbt
(figure 80 1= bar 505)
[6] [Postlude = satirical song] Allegro crotchet = 126 (figure 81 up to the end of figure 90 1 = bars
512- 572)
Пђтухъ, котъ да баранъ пляшутъ
Le coq, le chat et le bouc se mettent à danser
Der Hahn, der Kater und der Bock tanzen
(figure 81 1= bar 512)
[Übergang:] Enchaïner
[7] ШЕСТВІЕ лодъ звуки котораго актеры покидаютъ сцену
MARCHE aux sons de laquelle les acteurs quittent la scène
MARSCH bei dessen Klängen die Schauspieler die Bühne verlassen
MARCH played while the actors make their exit
crotchet = 126 (figure 6I up figure II 8= bar 1-20)
* divided up by bar numbers into groups of 5 bars.
** The marking Sempre l’istesso tempo is misleading at this point, because only the first and third attempts by the fox to get the hen from his tree are in the slow tempo Meno mosso of the hen; for the second and fourth attempts however, Strawinsky doubles the tempo, in that he keeps the metronome marking the same but has quavers as the basic metrical unit.
1. March or 1. March
2. Prelude
3. First story 2. First story
4. Interlude story 3. Interlude story
5. Second story 4. Second story
6. Postlude (Mocking song)
7. March 5. March
Corrections / Errata
Pocket Score 23-4
1.) p. 5, figure 11, bar 6, Bass 1: dotted crotchet shoiuld be e b instead of e.
4.) p. 45, figure 128, bar 171, 2. Violine und Bratsche: statt >con sord.< muß es >murte< heißen.
5.) p. 53, figure 33 7, bar 210, Bass I: 2nd crotchet a should be dotted.
6.) p. 79, figure 2+151, bar 327+328, Oboe: 2nd note should be f#2 instead of f2, the same applies to
pp. 80 und 81, bart 331,332,334, figure 4,3,252.
7.) p. 98, figure 62 2, bar 386: metre indication 5/8 has to be removed; the same applies to p. 99,
figure 263, bar 388; the same applies to p. 101, figure 64 1, bar 397.
9.) p. 103, figure 165, bar 407, Horn: 2nd note should be quaver e1 instead of quaver d1.
10.) p. 106, figure 67 3, bar 423, Viola: 1st semiquaver should be e1 instead of e#1.
11.) p. 108, figure 68 2, bar 429: metre indication 5/8 has to be replaced by 4/8.
12.) p. 108, figure 68 3, bar 429: metre indication 3/8 has to be removed.
14.) p. 126, figure 81 2, bar 513, Timpani: all the eintries should be removed and replaced by a minim
rest.
15.) p. 127, figure 81 1, bar 514, Timpani: minim rest should be removed and replaced by quaver A +
dotted crotchet rest.
16.) p. 127, figure 81 6, bar 517, Cimbalom: 1st quaver should be removed and replaced by quaver rest;
Timpani: minim rest should be removed and replaced by quaver A + dotted crotchet rest.
17.) p. 127, figure 81 7, bar 518, Cimbalom: 2nd note should be quaver d + quaver rest; Timpani: all the
eintries should be removed and replaced by a minim rest.
18.) p. 130, figure 2130, bar 523, Cimbalon: should be bass clef instead of treble clef.
19.) p. 131, figure 183 2, bar 525, Cimbalom: 2nd note should be quaver d + quaver rest; Timpani: all
the eintries should be removed and replaced by a minim rest.
20.) p. 131, figure 83 3, bar 527, Timpani: minim rest should be removed and replaced by quaver A +
dotted crotchet rest.
21.) p. 131, figure 83 5, bar 529, Cymbalom: 2nd note should be quaver d + quaver rest; Timpani: all
the eintries should be removed and replaced by a minim rest.
23.) p. 131, figure 83 6, bar 530, Timpani: minim rest should be removed and replaced by quaver A +
dotted rest.
24.) p. 136, figure 86 1, bar 545, Timpani: quaver rest and quaver c should be removed and replaced
by crotchet rest; after quaver A should be added quaver rest + crotchet rest.
26.) p. 140, figure 87 2, bar 555, Cymbalom: 3rd note should be quaver d; Timpani: all the eintries
should be removed and replaced by a minim rest.
27.) p. 141, figure 87 3, bar 556, Timpani: minim rest should be removed and replaced by quaver A +
dotted crotchet rest.
28.) p. 141, figure 87 2, bar 555, Cymbalom: 3rd note should be quaver d; Timpani: quaver c should be
removed and replaced by crotchet rest + quaver A + quaver rest.
29.) p. 143, figure 88 3, bar 563, Timpani: crotchet should be quaver + quaver rest; the same applies to
p. 144, figure 89 1, bar 566).
Style: Even by Strawinsky’s standards, the work is unusually fast-flowing and dominated entirely by the rhythms of the text. At the same time, the instrumental jokes are so elaborate that lengthy reflection is needed to grasp them. Motifs based on church modes, major and minor modal scales and free tonality are constantly played off against each other for the purposes of characterization; enharmonic relationships are used to express disguise; and imitative devices are a means of sounding caricature culminating in the circus-like drum roll before the Cock’s ‘salto mortale’. All of this presupposes a basic understanding of the theoretical principles of music, without which all attempts to interpret the work miss the point. An analysis of Renard is a matter for specialists in the field of compositional technique and word-setting comparable to an analysis of the musical figures found in Schütz and Bach. The Fox’s siciliana motif at the start of the first episode, for example, appears six times, but in four different versions, with the individual notes constantly subjected to enharmonic change as a way of illustrating the animal’s ability to disguise itself. But, as if this were not enough, Strawinsky also relates the various triads of this sequence of notes to other keys: in bar 260, for example, the first three notes can be analysed as a chord of the dominant seventh in C flat major or minor, while the fourth, fifth and sixth notes produce a chord of the dominant seventh with flattened fifth that can resolve to either B flat major or B flat minor. And the last three notes, finally, may be regarded as a chord of the dominant seventh with raised fifth that may resolve in the direction of A flat major. Each of these sequences of notes ends in the siciliana triplet, which thus remains harmonically indeterminate, so that the harmonic mutability of the motif becomes a symbol of the Fox’s ability to disguise himself. When he appears as a monk and tries to trick the Cock with his sham religion, Strawinsky’s text adopts the language of the early Russian Church, thereby caricaturing the situation onstage. At the same time, fragments of church modes contribute to the comedy and help to expose the Fox’s deception. Even the formulaic prayers that the Fox uses to lure the Cock down from his perch are derived from the formulaic language of Byzantine music. The pseudo-liturgical phrases on the tonic of c sharp produce an oscillating movement between the tonic and the second above it. Its falseness is revealed in the way in which it is instrumented by clarinet, violin and double bass: whereas the violin supports the word-setting, the clarinet rewrites the c sharp as d flat and uses it as the minor third of B flat minor, while the double bass for its part interprets the b flat as belonging to B flat major. This type of procedure extends beyond this individual scene and affects others, too. As in all of Strawinsky’s other ballets, the animal movements are retraced with extreme care and precision wherever it makes sense to do so. The low bow that the Fox contemptuously offers the Cock in the intermediary narrative is a masterpiece of characterization in terms of its musical delineation. The text speaks only of the Fox’s low bow, whereas the music accorded to the two basses, especially Bass I, in bars 190–96, beginning at Fig. 31, makes it clear that Strawinsky was thinking of three bows, the first of which occurs right at the beginning of the Fox’s encounter with the Cock. The solemnity engendered by the repetition of the bow invests the ceremony with the utmost contempt. Where the text refers to numerical relationships, Strawinsky takes account of this in his music, while never merely doing so on principle. In the first episode, for instance, the Fox accuses the Cock of leading a polygamous lifestyle. Some men have ten wives, says the hypocritical Fox in a quatrain, while others may have as many as twenty, and that number may double in no time at all. Strawinsky sets the first of the four lines to a ten-note vocal line. The second line is not, however, set to a twenty-note vocal line. But the third and fourth lines, which go together and in which the number forty is mentioned, are set to a forty-note vocal line.
Gesture: The interpretive allocations of harmony and gesture are known and expressed by the Russian interpreters from Glebov to Yarustovsky, but not by the English and German ones. That already begins in the introductory scene. All the animals want to kill the Cock, who despairingly runs back-and-forth on his branch does not know to where he might flee. He cries out 5 times one after the other Куда (kuda = pronounced kudá). This means “To where?”, but it creates an untranslatable play on words, because the Russian Cock crows thus: кукуреку (kukureku, in the score at figure 43¹, it reads кукуареку = kukuareku – but here it is not the Cock who crows but the Fox, who crows in greeting to the Cock and can naturally only do it in “foxish”. In French, it crows cocorico and in German, kikeriki. But the Russian one knows a word to characterise the entire tumult in a henhouse of chickens, hens and chicks and Cock. He speaks the word Kuda as кудакуда rapidly twice one after the other, and associates with it the chaos of running in all directions and shouting (the word associated with it is кудахтатъ = cluck). This is the reason why Strawinsky uses the call “To where?” 5 times. This is because to Russian ears, the two sets of “To where-To where, To where-To where” suggests the clamour of the henhouse, out of which, for the fifth call, the actual “to where ” is articulated. The rhythm proves that it is intended in this way and not otherwise. The first 3 calls of Kudá are on equal quavers on the note g2, and the fourth is on a quaver f2 followed by a dotted crotchet b flat1. The last call, significantly set apart from the previous ones, is a pair of semiquavers g2-b flat1 with a c2 then held for 2 bars. The characteristic motif of the Cock consists of the repetition of a note a 5th above, a leap from the 4th above down to the 2nd below, and a leap from the 5th above via the 2nd below to the tonic. The other animals take up this motif and with this and their constant leaping up and down, they bring the hen to despair and finally caricature the original form of the motif in falsetto.
In order that the Cock’s leap of death, marked in the score expressly as Salto mortale, not to be taken seriously, Strawinsky reaches for circus music. As is usual in the circus as a psychological preparation for a particularly dangerous main attraction, there is the standard drum roll on the side drum followed by a crash on the bass drum and cymbals. The cry of despair made by the Cock being dragged off by the Fox is reflected in the fluttering meter of the rhythm, which changes from bar to bar (3/4, 7/8, 5/8, 6/8, 2/4, 8/8) with rhythmically broken-up chords and a bassoon figure at the end of figure 21, the repetition of which at different pitches serves to illustrate the plucking of the Cock’s feathers.
When the fight is taken to the Cock at the end of the central narration, this takes place in the form of a vocalise on -o- at figures 36-38. But the killing of the Fox at the highpoint of the plot is also without text. With another Salto mortale by the Cock, the wit of the first scene is intensified by a Pribautki that follows it. The Pribautki in the song mocking the dead Fox works using a single musical motif which appears to have been taken from a section of the March to which the protagonists leave the stage after they have asked the audience for a pot of butter as a reward for their performance.
As to how exactly Strawinsky represents these movements in the musical text is shown by bar 270 = figure 42 7. The Fox drops his monk’s habit here. Strawinsky varies the Fox motif in the cimbalom in that he transforms it into a movement for the divestment of a monk’s cowl. The cowl is taken over the head, which generally requires the use of two hands. With the first, one takes the cowl up to somewhat over half height, and with the second, one grabs upwards and pulls it back, at which point the cowl between the two hands would slide down a little way and after the second, come to rest on a level. All four events are depicted gesturally in the demi-semiquaver nonuplet stretched across a crotchet beat of a 3/4 bar.
Word-setting: Strawinsky claimed that there were four of his works that could be performed only in one particular language: German for his arrangement of Bach’s Vom Himmel hoch, Hebrew for Abraham and Isaac, Latin for Oedipus rex and Russian for Renard. But he himself never stuck to this demand if it seemed expedient to him not to do so. (Later he even expressed the opposite point of view and argued that in the interests of intelligibility pieces – including his own – that were written in foreign languages should be performed in the language of the audience.) His own gramophone recording, which he made in New York City on 26 January 1962, was sung in English. Yet the word-setting in Renard is so closely bound up with the original Russian that the extent to which the music is intelligible depends on the extent to which the original accentuation of the text is intelligible. But even while he was working on the piece, Strawinsky had already accepted that Renard would not be performed in Russian as a matter of course, and so he included in the vocal line numerous variants intended to accommodate other languages and thus avoid unwanted melismas. These variants are indicated in the score in the form of smaller notes. None of the early editions includes an English text but gives only the original Russian, together with translations into French and German, with the result that the variants are limited to these two languages. Not until 1957 was English included in printed editions of the work. The corrections to the vocal line that Strawinsky made in January 1962, principally in bars 291, 321, 322, 325 and 329, were intended above all to improve the accentuation of the text.
Dedication: >Très respecteusement dédié à Madame Princesse Edmond de Polignac< [Most respectfully dedicated to the Princesse Edmond de Polignac].
Duration: 15 ¢ 29 ¢¢ .
Date of origin: Strawinsky began work on the score at Château d’Oex in the spring of 1915, drawing on sketches dating back to the spring of 1914. He completed it at Morges towards the end of the summer of 1916.
First performance: The original stage version (with cimbalom) was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 18 May 1922 (not: 22nd June) with Bronislava Nijinska (Fox), Stanislas Idzikowski (Cock), Jean Jasvinsky (Cat), Mikhail Fedorov (Goat) and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sets and costumes were by Michel Larionov, the director was Serge Grigoriev, the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska and the conductor Ernest Ansermet. A concert performance of the revised version, with a piano replacing the cimbalom, was first heard on 30 March 1953 in Los Angeles within the framework of the city’s Monday Evening Concerts. The conductor was Robert Craft.
Remarks: Renard was conceived for the salon of the Princesse de Polignac. Strawinsky had taken a particular interest in Russian song texts and fairy tales between 1912 and 1914, thereafter his interest diminushed. For Renard he began by selecting one of Afanasyev’s five tales and by early 1915 had completed a version of the libretto that is now regarded as the first. He had already started work on the score when it became clear to him that a single tale would not produce a meaningful stage work, and so he expanded the libretto by adding two more tales. The first number to be written was the gusli-accompanied scherzando song sung by the Cat and Goat in the second episode and intended to lure the Fox from his den, Тюкъ, тюкъ (Pink, Pink = Tiouc, tiouc = Plinc, plinc) at Figs. 62 et seqq. (bars 385–400). Strawinsky was staying at Château d’Oex at the time, giving a terminus ante quem for his start of work on the score as 2 January 1915, the date on which he moved into the Hôtel Victoria, initially in order to be able to spend the vacation with his family. He remained at the hotel until some date between 4 and 7 March. (This date is supported by other evidence.) In short, he began work on Renard immediately after completing his Three Easy Pieces and must already have been working on the new score when he played the Three Easy Pieces to Diaghilev in Rome in February 1915. As with many of his other works, Strawinsky had recourse to earlier sketches intended for other, abortive projects. In the present case, these sketches can be traced back to the spring of 1914. In short, he must already have made considerable progress on the score by the time that the Princesse de Polignac’s commission reached him. According to Strawinsky himself, he met the Princesse and received her commission after the Ballets Russes’ gala for the Red Cross, a concert originally planned for 18 December 1915 but in the event delayed until 29 December – a memorable day in Strawinsky’s life as this was the first time that he appeared before Parisian audiences as a conductor. Evidently, then, Strawinsky was keen to receive a commission, the Princesse de Polignac was equally keen to mount a private performance, and so the composer suggested the libretto on which he was already working. We can only speculate on whether his decision to score the work for chamber resources reflected the Princesse’s wishes or whether he proposed this work because it seemed ideally suited to the Polignac salon. On receipt of her commission, Strawinsky broke off work on Les Noces, which was already half finished, and devoted himself exclusively to Renard, completing it in Morges on 1 August 1916. It was nine o’clock in the morning, he noted in Russian in the manuscript vocal score, and there were no clouds in the sky. But the framing March must have been added later. At all events, it is missing from the vocal score, an absence that has led commentators to conclude that, for whatever reason, it was the last number to be written.
Significance: Renard is probably the first significant stage work of the twentieth century to combine several theatrical genres. As such, it was a type of piece that Strawinsky was systematically developing at almost the same time in Les Noces and Histoire du Soldat and to which he later returned in Pulcinella. At best, Eric Satie’s mixture of opera and puppet show named “Geneviève de Brabant” could be compared. Whether Strawinsky had any knowledge of this piece, which was created in 1899, is therefore questionable because in 1918, he denied knowing Satie’s play with music “La Piège de Méduse”, written in 1913, a musical section of which has a similar orchestration to that of the “Soldier’s Tale”. Satie’s unconventional anti-dogmatism was definitely comparable to Strawinsky’s way of thinking, and led in artistically incomparable significance to an identity of conclusions of comparable approaches.None of these four stage works can be unambiguously ascribed to a single genre. Renard is as much a ballet as an opera and a cantata, a mixed form made up of different genres or formal models. Strawinsky himself spoke of Renard as a ‘dance cantata’, just as he preferred to think of Les Noces as a ‘divertissement’ rather than a ballet. Another innovatory aspect of Renard is the fact that, although written for the stage, the four vocal soloists are not allotted named roles. Although the four animals are represented by four male voices, there is no consistent correlation between them. Tenor I sings the words of the Cock from Fig. 10, while those of the Fox are entrusted to Tenor II, but at Fig. 23 Tenor II joins Tenor I to sing the Cock’s cry for help, with the two soloists singing in fourths. Whereas this might be interpreted as one of the composer’s many ironies, other passages preclude such an interpretation. Moreover, the vocal parts are integrated into the action. At Fig. 52 (bars 336–7), for example, Tenor I addresses the Fox directly during the Cock’s ‘salto mortale’, telling him to stop and adding that this is no Lenten fare. Tenor II provides the Fox’s answer: each man fasts in his own way. In 1923, furthermore, Strawinsky even toyed with the idea of rewriting the four vocal lines for two singers, thereby reducing the operatic character of the work and turning it into more of a cantata. Nothing came of this plan.
Choreography: Renard and Les Noces were both intended to be staged in a similar way. In both works, stage performers, orchestral players and singers form a single entity in a sense that also includes unity of place, so that ideally the singers, orchestral players and dancers should all be onstage together. The work requires no corps de ballet but only four solo dancers and offered its audiences not the radiant oriental magnificence hitherto associated with Strawinsky’s name but a farcical piece that seemed almost banal in the context of the other ballets that were premièred that same evening and that was so short as to raise the question whether it really fitted into Diaghilev’s by then traditional programme of ballet performances, which were always the high point of the season in Paris.Diaghilev’s solution emphasised in an unbalanced way the choreographic events on the stage, regarding the voice parts as an ingredient, and thus did the piece a disservice. In keeping with the libretto, Larionov kept the designs very simple, providing no more than a kind of chicken run in winter. A palisade was open at the back, revealing a view of a tree-grown field. A thick vertical pole surmounted by a simple platform served for the acrobatic antics of the Cock and Fox. Both the plot and the limited playing time precluded a change of scene. The choreography was an example of the new Ausdruckstanz with acrobatic elements, so dominating the staging that the vocal aspect was regarded as relatively secondary.Although Strawinsky found Nijinska’s choreography of 1922 particularly suited to his work and later let no opportunity pass him by to praise the quality of the choreographer to a great extent, the connection between stage, orchestra and voice did not correspond to his ideas. These instructions probably reached Diaghilev too late. In any case, the quartet of voices was brought into the orchestra pit and the actors on stage had to mime to the voices. Strawinsky however wanted something completely different. In later productions, including Lifar’s 1922 version, the acrobatic element became even more pronounced, so taxing the dancers that professional circus acrobats were engaged instead. Carefully respecting the words and the stage directions, they mimed the text and lent support to the singers, whose importance to the piece was now brought out more fully. Diaghilev had mixed feelings about Lifar’s acrobatic choreography. Although it may have come closer to Strawinsky’s idea of the work, it represented a departure from Diaghilev’s notion of ballet. Strawinsky himself was not so uncritical as to be unable to see that Renard was something of a foreign body within the wider context of Diaghilev’s ballet productions.
Stage marking: Only in the piano edition (from 1917) is a stage marking added in French, which is expanded in later editions by the addition of an English translation placed before the French text.
ОБЩЕЕ ЗАМЂЧАНIЕ. „Байка“ разыгрывается шутами, балетными танцорами или акроба- / тами, предпочтительнђе всего на голыхъ подмосткахъ, причемъ / оркестръ помђщается позади. Въ случађ постановки „Байки“ на / театральной сценђ ее слђдуетъ разыгрывагь передъ занавђсомъ, / причемъ оркестръ занимаетъ свое обычное мђсто. Дђйствующія / лица сцены но покидаютъ. Они занимаютъ ее, появлятсья на виду / у публики подъ звуки „Шествія“, служащаго вступленіемъ и поки- / даютъ ее такимъ же образомъ. Ихъ роли нђмы. Голоса (2 тенора и / 2 баса) помђщаются въ оркестрђ.
REMARQUE GÉNÉRALE. / La pièce est jouée par des bouffons, des danseurs ou des acrobates,/ de préference sur des tréteaux, l'orchestre placé derrière. Au cas/ où la pièce serait montée au théâtre ou la jouera devant le ri- / deau. Les personnages ne quittent pas la scène. Ils viennent l'oc- / cuper en présence du public, aux sons de la petite marche qui/ sert d'introduction, et sortent de la même façon. Les rôles sont/ muets. Les voix (2 ténors et 2 basses) sont dans l'orchestre.
NOTE/ The play is acted by clowns, dancers or acrobats, preferably on/ a trestle stage placed in front of the orchestra. If performed in a/ theatre it should be played in front of the curtain. The actors remain on the stage all the time. They come on in view of the/ audience to the strains of the little March, which serves as an/ introduction , and make their exit in the same way. The actors/ do not speak. / The Singers (2 Tenors and 2 Basses) are placed in the orchestra.
Productions: On 5th June 1965, Strawinsky and Craft saw at the Paris Opéra the choreographies by Maurice Bejart, who had brought “Sacre” together with “Les Noces” and “Renard” in one evening, under the baton of Pierre Boulez. Craft’s judgements of all three choreographies was devastating, and surely matched that of Strawinsky himself, who had already in October counted the recording of Sacre made by Boulez for the “Internationale Guilde du disque”, together with the recordings by Karajan and also by Craft, as amongst the performances which should not be preserved. The leaflet, lowered down by half, shows a photo collage. There are several notable personalities alongside Strawinsky: Diaghilev, Astruc, Groucho and Marx. The orchestra and singers were positioned behind the stage on a mountain of car tyres, with audience members behind them and at their sides. The animals were played by human representatives, who were “dressed in swimwear from the 20’s”, and the Fox was played by a woman. There was obviously no connection between the choreography and Strawinsky’s libretto. The quartet of singers were apparently vocally extremely poor.
Film Project Walt Disney: In 1940, negotiations took place between Disney and Strawinsky regarding an entirely instrumental version of Renard for an animal film planned by Disney. Strawinsky began work on this in October 1940. It started at the beginning of the 2nd story, figure 41 = bar 260. Only the 35 bars up to figure 46 4= bar 294 were completed, for which Strawinsky moved the tenor part into the trumpet part in the bass part into the bassoon part. Like all Strawinsky’s other film projects, this one also failed.
Versions: The vocal score of Renard was published in 1917 by the small Geneva firm of Adolphe Henn (1873–1955). Henn was first and foremost a bookseller, rather than a publisher. He was Chester’s foreign representative. On the basis of an agreement dated 26 January 1917 Henn produced an initial print run of 500 copies and was required to pay Strawinsky the sum of 1700 francs by 15 September 1917. Sales were negligible: by the end of 1917 Henn had sold only seven copies. Between then and 27 November 1919, when he itemized his stock and balanced his books, he had sold a total of only fifty-eight copies and given away another twenty-four. By this date he still had 380 copies in stock. The discrepancy of forty-two copies can presumably be explained by reference to trade copies, some of which may have been in London. Following Chester’s acquisition of the rights to the work, Henn sent Chester 300 copies on 29 November 1919, retaining eighty for sale on Chester’s account. Chester reprinted the vocal score, replacing Henn’s name with its own and adding a new plate number; the firm may, however, have given a new title-page only to the residue of Henn’s stock. Renard was part of the takeover package from Henn for which Otto Kling paid Strawinsky a total of ten thousand francs – under the terms of an agreement dated 7 December 1919 he received it in two instalments. The appearance of a pocket score in 1930 was again thanks to the Austrian Philharmonischer Verlag, which had already taken over many of Strawinsky’s works from Chester and added them to its collection of full scores. During the summer of 1929 Strawinsky had to be specially photographed for this new edition. It is clear from the plate numbers and the fact that the text appears here in three languages that Chester took over the Austrian edition and used it as the basis of two editions of its own. The edition was produced as a parallel German-English edition, for which the German edition was not allowed to be sold in England, as was guaranteed by Chester. As a result of its being distributed by Schott, it received the edition number >Edition Schott 3493<. It was almost identical to the Austrian edition, while the other suppressed the reference to Vienna as the place of publication. All three editions included the sung text in Russian, French and German but not in English. According to the copyright notice, the English translation was prepared in 1956 for an edition of the vocal score. The Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig gives 1957 as the date of publication. No conducting score was available for purchase during Strawinsky’s lifetime, although the performing parts could be hired. Presumably Henn would have been financially incapable of bringing out such a score, even if the piece had proved more successful than it did. Instead, Henn published only Strawinsky’s own vocal score for voices and piano with the words in Russian and French. This edition appeared in 1917. Only after the rights had passed to Chester in London was a pocket score published in 1930. This was also published under licence by the Philharmonischer Verlag in Vienna, and it was presumably this last-named edition that prompted preparation of a German translation, which was printed beneath the Russian and French texts. The Philharmonia pocket score was redesigned in 1964, in connection with Hansen, with a different layout, but still retaining the same incorrect German spelling (Reinecke instead of Reineke). Even after Strawinsky’s death, the Russians continued with their illegal printings. In 1973, they edited the Fox as well under the plate number 7675. This time they included the German text along with the Russian and French texts.
Historical recording: 11 May 1929; a later recording, sung in English, was made in New York City on 26 January 1962 with the tenors George Shirley and Loren Driscoll, the baritone William Murphy, the bass Donald Gramm, the cimbalom player Toni Koves and the Columbia Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Igor Strawinsky.
CD edition: 1-3/5.
Copyright: 1917 by Adolphe Henn, Geneva; taken over by J. & W. Chester, London.
Autograph: The piano score and a rudimentary version of the original full score are both in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.
Editions
a) Overview
23-1 1917 VoSc; R-F; Henn Genf; 63 pp.; A. 66 H.
23-2 [1922] VoSc; R-F; Chester London; 63 p.; J. W. C. 9716.
23-3 1930 PoSc; R-F-G; Philharmonischer Verlag Wien; 148 p.; W.Ph.V. 176 J.W.C. 60 a.
23-3 [50] [1950] ibd,
23-4 [1930] PoSc; R-F-G; Chester London; 148 p.; W.Ph.V. 176 J.W.C. 60 a.
23-4 Straw1 ibd. [with annotations]
23-4 Straw2 ibd. [with annotations]
23-4 [54] [1954] ibd. [Schott: 3493].
23-5 [1930] FuSc; R-F-G; Chester London; 148 p.; W.Ph.V. 176 J.W.C. 60 a.
23-5 Straw ibd. [with annotations]
23-6 [1957] VoSc; E-F; Chester London; 63 p.; J. W. C. 9716.
23-7 [1964] PoSc; R-F-G; Chester-Hansen; 148 p.; W. Ph. V. 176 J. W. C. 60 a.
b) Chararacteristic features
23-1 RENARD / HISTOIRE BURLESQUE CHANTÉE ET JOUÉE / FAITE POUR LA SCÈNE / D'APRÈS DES CONTES POPULAIRES RUSSES. / MUSIQUE ET TEXTE / DE / IGOR STRAWINSKY / MIS EN FRANÇAIS / PAR / C. - F. RAMUZ / RÉDUCTION POUR CHANT ET PIANO / PAR L'AUTEUR. / Edition A. HENN, Genève. [#] Propriété de l'auteur pour tous pays. / Copyright 1917 by Ad. HENN. [#] Tous droits d'exécution, de repro- / Réduction pour chant et piano net Fr. 15.–. [#] duction et d'arrangement réservés / Partition d'ensemble [#] } en location.** [#] pour tous pays, y compris le Dane- / Parties d'ensemble*** [#] mark, la Suède et la Norvège. [#****] // [1. title page = front cover title included stamp mark without Net indication] // БАЙКА / про / ЛИСУ, ПЂТУХА / KОТА ДА БАРАНА / веcелое представленіе / съ пђніемъ и музыкой / соч. / (по русскимъ народнымъ сказкамъ) / ИГОРЯ CТРАBИНCКАГО / переложеніе для ф-п съ пђніемъ / автора / RENARD / histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / faite pour la scène / MUSIQUE / ET TEXTE (D'APRÈS DES CONTES POPULAIRES RUSSES) / DE / IGOR STRAWINSKY / Mis en français par / C. - F. Ramuz / Réduction pour Piano et Chant par / L'AUTEUR // ( Piano reduction with Gesang sewn in later 19 x 27 (8° [Lex. 8°]); sung text Russian-French; 63 [63] pages + 4 cover pages black on beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 8 pages front matter [1. title page, empty page, 2. title page, empty page, preface >ОБЩЕЕ ЗАМЂЧАНIЕ. < Russian + >REMARQUE GÉNERALE.< French, empty page, dedication handwritten printed in line etching Russian-French in Strichätzung > Почтительнейше посвящается / Кня ж не / Е . де Полиньякъ < / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame la princesse / Edmond de Polignac<, empty page] + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head in connection with author specified and translator specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 >БАЙКА. [#] RENARD. / Веcëлое представленіе [#] Histoire burlesque /съ пђніемъ и музыкой [#] chantée et jouée, / Слова (по русскимъ на- [#] Musique et texte de / роднымъ сказкамъ) и музыка [#] IGOR STRAWINSKY. / ИГОРЯ CТРАBИНCКАГО. [#] Texte français de C. F. Ramuz.<; legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Edition Ad. Henn, Genève (Suisse) / Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn.< flush right >Propriété de l’auteur. / Tous droits d'exécution, de traduction, d'arrangement et de reproduction / réservés pour tous pays, y compris le Danemark, la Suède et la Norvège.<; plate number >A. 66 H.<; end of score dated p. 63 centred >Morges / 1917<; production indication p. 63 flush left as end mark >Imprimerie H. Jarrys, Genève.*****<) // (1917)
* Dividing vertical line spanning six lines.
** >en location< with a two-line bracket in the middle between this and the preceding line.
*** >en location< with a two-line bracket in the middle between this and the preceding line.
**** The copies in Munich >4 Mus.pr. 7149< and >4 Mus.pr. 5316< contain on the outer page and 1 stinner title page at the bottom flush left centred the [blue] stamp >COPYRIGHT / for all countries. / J. & W. CHESTER, Ltd. / LONDON, W. 1.<. On the outer title page at the bottom flush right, there is an additional [black] stamp >NET. 15/-<.
***** 3 circles arranged in a triangular form, each containing a capital letter; the two upper circles contain the letters C and G respectively, and the lower circle the letter R.
23-2 RENARD / HISTOIRE BURLESQUE CHANTÉE ET JOUÉE / FAITE POUR LA SCÈNE D'APRÈS DES CONTES POPULAIRES RUSSES. / MUSIQUE ET TEXTE / DE / IGOR STRAWINSKY / MIS EN FRANÇAIS / PAR / C.-F. RAMUZ / RÉDUCTION POUR CHANT ET PIANO / PAR L'AUTEUR. / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD., LONDON. // [1st title page = front cover title] // БАЙКА / про / ЛИСУ, ПЂТУХА / KОТА ДА БАРАНА / веcелое представленіе / съ пђніемъ и музыкой / соч. / (по русскимъ народнымъ сказкамъ) / ИГОРЯ CТРАBИНCКАГО / переложеніе для ф-п съ пђніемъ / автора / RENARD / histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / faite pour la scène / MUSIQUE / ET TEXTE (D'APRÈS DES CONTES POPULAIRES RUSSES) / DE / IGOR STRAWINSKY / Mis en français par / C.-F. RAMUZ / Réduction pour Piano et Chant par / L'AUTEUR // (Piano reduction with voice sewn 22 x 28.5 (8° [Lex. 8°]); sung text Russian-French; 63 [63] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper black on brown beige [front cover title, 2 empty pages, page with legal reservation + price centre gekastet partly in italics > Propriété des éditeurs pour tous pays / J. & W. CHESTER, Ltd., / 11, Great Marlborough Street, / LONDON, W. 1. / PRICE 15s (FR. 22.50) NET<] + 8 pages front matter [1st title page French, empty page, 2nd title page Russian-French, empty page, page with preface >ОБЩЕЕ ЗАМЂЧАНIЕ.< Russian + >REMARQUE GÉNERALE.< French, empty page, page with dedication manually written printed in line etching Russian-French > Почтительнейше посвящается / Кня ж не / Е . де Полиньякъ < / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame la princesse / Edmond de Polignac<, empty page] + 1 page back matter [page with publisher’s advertisement > LES GRANDS SUCCES DES / BALLETS RUSSES <*; title head in connection with author specified and translator specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 >БАЙКА. [# **] RENARD. / Веcелое представленіе [#**] Histoire burlesque / съ пђніемъ и музыкой [#**] chantée et jouée. / Слова (по русскимъ на- [#**] Musique et texte de / роднымъ сказкамъ) и музыка [#**] IGOR STRAWINSKY. / ИГОРЯ CТРАBИНCКАГО. [#**] Texte français de C. F. Ramuz.< legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn. / J. & W. Chester Ltd. London.< flush right >Tous droits d'exécution, de traduction, d'arrangements et de reproduction / réservés pour tous pays, y compris le Danemark, la Suède et la Norvège<; plate number >J.W.C. 9716<; marked sheet below type area left (partly without dot) pp. 1 >B.<, 9 >C<, 17 >D.<, 25 >E.<, 33 >F.<, 41 >G<, 49 >H.<, 57 >J<; end of score dated p. 63 >Morges / 1917<) // [1922]
* Compositions are advertised with price information behind fill character (dots in groups of three) in part trilingual centre laid out by > Rossini-Respighi< [>La Boutique Fantasque.]<, > Scarlatti-Tommasini< [>Les femmes de bonne humeur.<], > Manuel de Falla<[>El Sombrero de Tres Picos.<] and >IGOR STRAWINSKY / Pulcinella (d’après Pergolesi). / Partition pour piano seul° 15 s . 0 d . net. / Renard. / Partition pour chant et piano° 15 s . 0 d . net.< [° fill character (dots in groups of three) ].
** Dividing vertical line spanning six lines.
23-3 PHILHARMONIA / PARTITUREN .SCORES .PARTITIONS / STRAWINSKY / RENARD / REINECKE / THE FOX / No. 176 / WIENER PHILHARMONISCHER VERLAG // PHILHARMONIA / PARTITUREN · SCORES · PARTITIONS / [*] / IGOR STRAWINSKY / RENARD / REINECKE [#] THE FOX / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / Gesungene und gespielte Burleske / A burlesque in song and dance / [Vignette] / Eigentum des Verlages / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD., LONDON / und mit dessen Genehmigung in die / „PHILHARMONIA“-Partiturensammlung aufgenommen / Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn / J. & W. Chester, Ltd. / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten - Performing rights reserved - Droits d'exécution réservés / No. 176 / [*] / WIENER PHILHARMONISCHER VERLAG A. G. / WIEN 1930 / Printed in Austria // [Text on spine : ] No. 176 STRAWINSKY RENARD // (Pocket score sewn 1 x 13.4 x 18,3 (8° [kl. 8°]); sung text Russian-French-German; 148 [148] pages + 4 cover pages black on grey [front cover title in a decorative circular ornamental frame width 2 cm with a circular vignette ø 1.7 cm of plucked instruments and a stylized face as the middle point in a rounded centred triangular frame like a coat of arms 3 x 3 cm at the centre of the ornament at the bottom and the initials >W< >PH< >V< arranged at the points of a star shape, page with publisher’s advertisements >PHILHARMONIA / TASCHEN-PARTITUREN / MINIATURE SCORES /° PARTITIONS DE POCHE<** without production data, page with publisher’s advertisements PHILHARMONIA / TASCHEN-PARTITUREN / MINIATURE SCORES /° PARTITIONS DE POCHE<*** without production data, page with publisher’s advertisements PHILHARMONIA / TASCHEN-PARTITUREN / MINIATURE SCORES /° PARTITIONS DE POCHE<**** production data >1.II.23.<] + 6 pages front matter [empty page, picture page with a photograph 14 x 9.3 of Strawinsky [rotated by 90°] of Strawinsky sitting at a grand piano looking to the right, with the acknowledgement > Photo Lipnitzki < in quasi-handwritten script, centred in cursive underneath > Igor Strawinsky <, title page with circular vignette ø 2 cm of plucked instruments and a stylized face as the middle point centre , empty page, page with dedication hand written printed in line etching Russian-French >Почтительнейше посвящается / Княжне / Е. де Полиньякъ< / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame la princesse / Edmond de Polignac<, empty page]; [without legend, without introductory text]; withput back matter; title head >БАЙКА / Веcелое представленіе / съ пђніемъ и музыкой / RENARD [#] REINECKE / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée [#] Burleske in einem Akt<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement titles ШЕСТВІЕ / лодъ звуки котораго актеры входятъ на сцену / MARCHE [#] MARSCH / aux sous de laquelle [#] Einzug der Darsteller / les acteurs entrent en scène [#]< flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky / ( * 1882)<; legal reservations 1st page of the score next to 1. line title head flush left >Droits d'exécution réservés / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten< below type area flush left italic > Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn / J. & W. Chester, Ltd., London <; note 1st page of the score below type area and legal reservation centre centred >In die „Philharmonia“ Partiturensammlung aufgenommen<; plate number [in connection with e dition number ] >W. Ph. V. 176 J. W. C. 60 a<; end of score dated p. 148 centred >Morges / 1916<) // 1930
° Slash original.
* Dividing horizontal line of 8.5 cm, i.e., text width, centrally thickening to 0.1 cm.
** Compositions are advertised in two columns with edition numbers from >G. F. ALFANO< to >HAYDN<, Strawinsky not mentioned.
*** Compositions are advertised in two columns with edition numbers from >A. HONEGGER< to >ROSSINI<, Strawinsky not mentioned.
**** Compositions are advertised in two columns with edition numbers from >SCHÖNBERG< to >ZEMLINSKY<, amongst these >294 STRAWINSKY Histoire du Soldat /° Ge- / schichte vom Soldaten † ) / 291/92 — Ragtime /° Berceuses du chat † ) / 293 — Pribaoutki † ) / 172 — Suite Nr. 1 pour petit orch. † ) / 295 — Suite Nr. 2 pour petit orch. † ) / 296 — Les Noces † ) / 176 — Renard † )< with miniature cross below advertisement > † ) Not available in the British Empire< [° slash original].
23-3[50] PHILHARMONIA / PARTITUREN .SCORES .PARTITIONS / STRAWINSKY / RENARD / REINECKE / THE FOX / Philharmonia 176 / WIENER PHILHARMONISCHER VERLAG // PHILHARMONIA / PARTITUREN · SCORES · PARTITIONS / [*] / IGOR STRAWINSKY / RENARD / REINECKE [#] THE FOX / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / Gesungene und gespielte Burleske / A burlesque in song and dance / Eigentum des Verlages / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD., LONDON / und mit dessen Genehmigung in die / „PHILHARMONIA“-Partiturensammlung aufgenommen / Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn / J. & W. Chester, Ltd. / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten - Performing rights reserved - Droits d'exécution réservés / No. 176 / [*] / WIENER PHILHARMONISCHER VERLAG ● WIEN / Printed in Austria // [spine:] No. 176 STRAWINSKY RENARD // (Pocket score sewn 1.2 x 13.5 x 18.4 (8°); sung text Russian-French-deutsch; 148 [148] pages + 4 cover pages black on grey [front cover title in a decorative circular ornamental frame width 2 cm with a circular vignette ø 1.7 cm of plucked instruments and a stylized face as the middle point in a rounded centred triangular frame like a coat of arms 3 x 3 cm at the centre of the ornament at the bottom and the initials >W< >PH< >V< arranged at the points of a star shape, 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s advertisements >PHILHARMONIA / TASCHEN-PARTITUREN / MINIATURE SCORES /° PARTITIONS DE POCHE<** production data in connection with production indication on the advertised page] + 6 pages front matter [empty page, picture page with a photograph 14 x 9.3 [rotated by 90°] of Strawinsky sitting at a grand piano looking straight ahead with the acknowledgement > Photo Lipnitzki < in quasi-handwritten script centred in cursive underneath > Igor Strawinsky <, title page without vignette, empty page, page with dedication handwritten printed in line etching Russian-French >Почтительнейше посвящается / Княжне / Е. де Полиньякъ< / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame la princesse / Edmond de Polignac<, empty page]; [without legend, without introductory text]; without back matter; title head >БАЙКА / Веcелое представленіе / съ пђніемъ и музыкой / RENARD [#] REINECKE / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée [#] Burleske in einem Akt<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement titles ШЕСТВІЕ / лодъ звуки котораго актеры входятъ на сцену / MARCHE [#] MARSCH / aux sous de laquelle [#] Einzug der Darsteller / les acteurs entrent en scène [#]< flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky / (* 1882)<; legal reservations 1st page of the score next to 1. line title head flush left >Droits d'exécution réservés / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten< below type area flush left italic > Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn / J. & W. Chester, Ltd., London <; note 1st page of the score below type area and legal reservation centre centred >In die „Philharmonia“ Partiturensammlung aufgenommen<; plate number [in connection with edition number] >W. Ph. V. 176 J. W. C. 60 a<; end of score dated p. 148 centred >Morges / 1916<) // [1950]
° Slash original.
* Compositions are advertised in two columns from >J. S. Bach< to >Hugo Wolf<, Strawinsky not mentioned. Production data in connection with production indication below type area left-centre-right >No. 160< [#] >Printed in Austria< [#] >I/50<.
23-4 RENARD / IGOR STRAWINSKY / J.& W. CHESTER, LTD., LONDON // IGOR STRAWINSKY / RENARD / THE FOX [#] REINECKE* / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / A burlesque in song and dance / Gesungene und gespielte Burleske / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD. / 11, Great Marlborough Street, London, W. 1. // (Pocket score sewn 13,5 x 19 (8° [8°]); sung text Russian-French-German; 148 [148] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper black on dark yellow beige [front cover title, 2 empty pages, empty page with the price mark >PRICE SIX SHILLINGS NET<**] + 6 pages front matter [without introductory text] [empty page, picture page with a photograph 14 x 9.3 [rotated by 90°] of Strawinsky sitting at a grand piano looking straight ahead with the acknowledgement > Photo Lipnitzki < in quasi-handwritten script centred in cursive underneath > Igor Strawinsky <, title page, empty page, page with dedication handwritten printed in line etching Russian-French >Почтительнейше посвящается / Княжне / Е. де Полиньякъ< / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame Princesse / Edmond de Polignac<] without back matter; title head Russian-French-German >БАЙКА / Веcелое представленіе / съ пђніемъ и музыкой / RENARD [#] REINECKE / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée [#] Burleske in einem Akt<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 above type area below movement titles ШЕСТВІЕ / лодъ звуки котораго актеры входятъ на сцену / MARCHE [#] MARSCH / aux sous de laquelle [#] Einzug der Darsteller / les acteurs entrent en scène [#]< flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky / (* 1882)<; legal reservation 1st page of the score next to first line Russian title head flush left > Droits d'exécution réservés / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten< below type area flush left italic > Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn / J. & W. Chester, Ltd., London <; plate number >W.Ph.V. 176 J.W.C. 60 a<; end of score dated p. 148 centred >Morges / 1916<; without production indication; without end mark) // [1930]
* The misspelling >Reinecke< is original, presumably based on the precedent of the Austrian score ® 23-3.
** T he London copy >C. 915.(g.)< has the stamp >TEMPORARY INCREASE / IN CATALOGUE PRICES / 2d IN 1/-<.
23-4 Straw1
The copy in the estate is complete.
23-4 Straw2
The copy in Strawinsky’s estate was, according to an entry made by him, sent to him by Chester in 1943/44. It is full of annotations and has on the empty back of the picture page a handwritten design sketch 9.7 x 7with the date 20 thNov. 1955 and the text >Sitting in my Chamber / music orchestra<.
23-4 [54] RENARD / IGOR STRAWINSKY / MINIATURE SCORE / PRICE 10/- NET.* / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD., LONDON / PRINTED IN AUSTRIA / [*] // IGOR STRAWINSKY / RENARD / THE FOX [#] REINECKE / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / A burlesque in song and dance / Gesungene und gespielte Burleske / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD. / 11, Great Marlborough Street, London, W. 1. // (Pocket score sewn 13,5 x 18,4 (8° [kl. 8°]); sung text Russian-French-German; 148 [148] pages + 4 cover pages black on orange beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 6 pages front matter [empty page, picture page with a photograph 14 x 9.3 [rotated by 90°] of Strawinsky sitting at a grand piano looking straight ahead with the acknowledgement > Photo Lipnitzki < in quasi-handwritten script centred in cursive underneath > Igor Strawinsky < , title page, empty page, page with dedication hand written printed in line etching Russian-French >Почтительнейше посвящается / Княжне / Е. де Полиньякъ < / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame la princesse / Edmond de Polignac<] without back matter; title head trilingual >БАЙКА / Веcелое представленіе / съ пђніемъ и музыкой / RENARD [#] REINECKE / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée [#] Burleske in einem Akt<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement titles >ШЕСТВІЕ / лодъ звуки котораго актеры входятъ на сцену / MARCHE [#] MARSCH / aux sous de laquelle [#] Einzug der Darsteller / les acteurs entrent en scène [#]< flush right centred >Igor Strawinsky / ( * 1882)<; legal reservation 1st page of the score next to Russian main title flush left > Droits d'exécution réservés / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten< below type area flush left italic > Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn / J. & W. Chester, Ltd., London <; plate number >W.Ph.V. 176 J.W.C. 60 a<; end of score dated p. 148 centred >Morges / 1916<; production indication p. 148 flush right as end mark >Waldheim-Eberle, Wien VII.<) // [1954]
* T he Darmstadt copy > G / 4830/54 < has the stamp > EDITION SCHOTT No 3493 <.
23-5 Straw
The copy in Strawinsky’s estate contains numerous annotated corrections in red, blue and in pencil, as well as a handwritten English translation.
23-6 RENARD / A burlesque for the stage to be sung and acted / based on popular Russian folk-tales / MUSIC & WORDS / by / IGOR STRAWINSKY / French text by C.–F. RAMUZ / English text by ROLLO H. MYERS / Arranged for Voice and Piano by the composer / Vocal Score / J. & W. CHESTER, Ltd. / 11 Great Marlborough Street, London. W. 1 // RENARD / A burlesque for the stage to be sung and acted / based on popular Russian folk-tales / MUSIC & WORDS / by / IGOR STRAWINSKY / French text by C.–F. RAMUZ / English text by ROLLO H. MYERS / Arranged for Voice and Piano by the composer / Duration of performance, approx. 15 minutes / Orchestral material on hire / J. & W. CHESTER, Ltd. / 11 Great Marlborough Street, London. W. 1. // [without text on spine] // (Vocal score sewn 0.5 x 22 x 28 ([Lex 8°]); sung text English-French; 63 [63] pages + 4 cover pages thinner cardboard black on orange yellow [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 4 pages front matter [title page, empty page, page with playing instruction >NOTE< englisch >REMARQUE GÉNÉRALE.< French, page with dedication centre manually written printed in line etching Russian-French >Почтительнейше посвящается / Княжне / Е. де Полиньякъ< / >Très respectueusement dédié / à Madame la princesse / Edmond de Polignac<] + 1 page back matter [page with publisher’s advertisement >IGOR STRAVINSKY / Over 25 years ago the House of Chester was the first English music publishing house to / recognise the importance of, and to issue in their own edition, the compositions of this / world famous composer. / It will be noted that these works contain many of his most important contributions / to music of this century.<* production data >LB. 624<; title head >RENARD / A burlesque for singing and acting<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below title head flush right centred >Music and Words by / IGOR STRAWINSKY<; translators specified 1st page of the score below title head flush left >French translation by C. F. RAMUZ / English translation by ROLLO H. MYERS<; legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn. / J. & W. Chester Ltd. London. / English translation copyright, 1956.<; flush right >All rights reserved< plate number >J. W. C. 9716<; end of score dated p. 63 >Morges / 1917<; printers’ marks partly with dot p. 1 >B.<, 9 >C<, 17 >D.<, 25 >E.<, 33 >F.<, 41 >G<, 49 >H.<, 57 >J<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England< p. 63 flush right as end mark >Lowe and Brydone Printers Limited, London<) // [1957**]
* Compositions are advertised in alphabetical order of works with Zweierdistanzpunkten, without edition numbers and without price information >A SELECTED LIST OF WORKS / Berceuse du Chat° Four Songs for Contralto and Three Clarinets / *° Miniature Score / *° Voice and Piano / Berceuse and Finale (L’Oiseau de Feu)°° Arranged by M. Besly.°°° Organ / Les Cinq Doigts—Eight easy pieces° Piano Solo / Cinq Pieces Faciles (Right hand,°° easy)° Piano Four Hands / L’Histoire°° du Soldat° To be read, played, and danced.°°° Miniature Score / *° Vocal Score / * Suite arranged by the Composer for / [#] Violin, Clarinet, and Piano / Les Noces—Ballet with Chorus° Miniature Score / *° Vocal Score / L’Oiseau de Feu (1919)—Suite from the Ballet° Miniature Score / Piano Rag Music° Piano Solo / Pribaoutki for Medium Voice and Eight Instruments° Miniature Score / *° Voice and Piano / Pulcinella, Ballet after Pergolesi° Piano Score / Quatre Chants Russe°° for Medium Voice° Voice and Piano / Ragtime for Chamber Orchestra° Miniature Score / * arranged by the Composer° Piano Solo / Renard—A Burlesque in one act° Miniature Score / *° Vocal Score / Ronde des Princesses (L’Oiseau de feu)°° Arranged by M. Besly.°°° Organ / Song of the Haulers on the Volga, arranged for Wind Instruments.°°° Score and Parts / Trois Histoires pour Enfants for Medium Voice° Voice and Piano / separately: Tilimbom—with orchestral accompaniment. / Trois Pieces Faciles (Left Hand Easy)° Piano Four Hands / Trois Pieces° Solo Clarinet< / > All Orchestral Materias are available on Hire from the Chester Orchestral Hire Library. < [° F ill character (dots in group(s) of two) ; °° spelling original; °°° without fill character (dots in groups of three) ; * double quotation („)].
** D ating according to the information in the Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig.
23-7 RENARD / IGOR STRAVINSKY / J. & W. CHESTER, LTD., LONDON / 11, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, LONDON, W. 1. // IGOR STRAVINSKY / RENARD / THE FOX [#] REINECKE / Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / A burlesque in song and dance / Gesungene und gespielte Burleske / NORSK MUSIKFORLAG A/S [#*] WILHELM HANSEN, MUSIK-FORLAG / OSLO [#*] COPENHAGEN / A. B. NORDISKA MUSIKFORLAGET [#*] WILHELMIANA MUSIKVERLAG / STOCKHOLM [#*] FRANKFURT a. M. / Made in Great Britain // (Pocket score [library binding] 13,5 x 18,3 (8° [kl. 8°]); sung text Russian-French-German; 148 [148] pages + 4 cover pages black on beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 4 pages front matter [title page, empty page, dedication Russian-French manually written >Почтительнейше посвящается / Княжне / Е. де Полиньякъ< / >Très respectueusement dédié à Madame Princesse Edmond de Polignac<, legend English + duration data [20'] English] without back matter; author specified 1st page of the score [p. 1] below movement title flush right >Igor Stravinsky / (* 1882)<; legal reservation 1st page of the score below type area flush left >Copyright 1917 by Ad. Henn< >Droits d'exécution réservés / Aufführungsrecht vorbehalten<; plate number >W. Ph. V. 176 J. W. C. 60 a< ;without Ende-Vermerke) // [1964**]
* Separating round vignette made up of letters spanning four lines.
** D ating according to the information in the Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig.
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