Absolutist Creed vs.

Nostalgia:
Stravinsky’s Setting of Four Russian Peasant Songs
by Desiree Fowler, August 2009

While Igor Stravinsky states “music is, by its very nature essentially powerless to
express anything” (Autobiography 53), his choice of text in Four Russian Peasant Songs
shows a microcosm of his own personal life and experiences. This research paper will
use Four Russian Peasant Songs (Podblyudnïye) to examine two camps of thinking in
hopes of providing a more balanced way of relating to Stravinsky’s music, so that both
the “cognitive” and the “romantic” listener have a home in their appreciation.
Schonberg writes, “Stravinsky was never reticent about his belief that music is
primarily form and logic. His anti-Romanticism extended to fierce attacks on performers
and conductors who misinterpreted his music. . . . His main interest continued to be in
structure, in texture, in balance, in rhythm. His music is the work of one of the supreme
logicians” (486). Stravinsky’s childhood exposed him to a rich musical world, his father
a famous operatic bass at the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg, and his mother a teacher
of piano. At age nine his parents gave him a “piano mistress” who trained him to read
very well and discouraged his natural inclination to improvise. Stravinsky’s musical
potential was not particularly recognized until he met Rimsky-Korsakov who became
Stravinsky’s mentor and eventually persuaded Stravinsky to focus his attention onto
composition rather than his studies in law school. Before Stravinsky began to study with
Rimsky-Korsakov, he took to studying counterpoint with the aide of a manual. “I set
myself with heart and soul to the task of solving the many problems it contains”
(Autobiography 15). Stravinsky spoke often of his lack of interest in school and in
lessons. He “describes his parents as cold or even malicious” (Griffiths 3). Suffice it to
say, Stravinsky’s passion lay in putting his “heart and soul” into the logic and reasoning
of music.
Stravinsky, like most quality composers, selected the notes and rhythms in ways
that are dictated by the text with which he chose to work. Klien’s article on the declining
performance of quality choral literature describes Stravinsky’s choral music as “equally
divided, having subtle conflict between macro and micro rhythms, and having a keen
regard for vocal timbres” (35-6). Four Russian Peasant Songs is no exception from
Stravinsky’s other compositions in that it contains explicit directions and markings. This
might suggest that Stravinsky intentionally left very little, if any, room for the conductor
or performer to freely interpret or romanticize his work. Also, Stravinsky’s use of
irregular meters and rhythmic figures, as well has his constructs of form and structure, are
often used to characterize him as being form-driven, unemotional and anti-Romantic.
Notable also is how Stravinsky composed. Ramuz, in awe of Stravinsky’s
worktable remarked, “Stravinsky’s scores are magnificent. He is above all a calligrapher.
. . . His writing desk resembled a surgeon’s instrument case. Bottles of different colored
inks in their ordered hierarchy each had a separate part to play in the ordering of his art”
(qtd. in Schonberg 486). Stravinsky sent his compositions in for publishing with specific
colors, codifying various attributes of his music. According to Schoenberg, Stravinsky’s
tidy and extravagantly organized work habits give away to his treatment of composing as
a systematically run occupation.
 Fowler 2

In Stravinsky’s Autobiography he gives the impression that the sole purpose of

even having an autobiography is to be avoid being misinterpreted. “There are still further
reasons which induce me to write this book. In numerous interviews I have given, my
thoughts, my words, and even facts have often been disfigured to the extent of becoming
absolutely unrecognizable” (Forward). He also spends five of the last seven paragraphs
of the book explaining how he has “deliberately avoided any lyrical outpourings or
intimate confessions” (174). Stravinsky is communicating that his intention of being
correctly portrayed involves the deliberate omission of his personal feelings and of his
private life.
Thanks to Robert Craft, we have documentation of correspondence from
Stravinsky from as far back as 1911, until about three years before his death.
Stravinsky’s discourse is supremely cordial and friendly and only makes delicate mention
of any illness or hardship on the behalf of himself or his acquaintances. Much of the
correspondence revolves around his music— in functional, professional, even business
transactional manners. One might note that the letters and commentaries that we have
from Stravinsky, while eloquent, fail to be poetic or have resemblance to a diary entry.
And as far as music history goes it is perhaps also notable to compare Stravinsky’s
writings that to the historical letters of Beethoven and his “Immortal Beloved.” Last,
Stravinsky sustained close friendships, especially with Serge Diaghilev and with Craft,
and one might point out that these two gentlemen had very much to do with Stravinsky’s
career and success.
Specifically around the time that Stravinsky composed Four Russian Peasant
Songs, he first corresponded with Edwin Evans. The letters from both parties were very
business oriented. It is evident that a friendship of sorts emerged but that the nature of
their relationship, or at least their reasons for writing one another, revolved around selling
the pieces. “I would like to sell the Four Russian Songs for children (French text by
Ramuz, with the right to translate into English) as Four a cappella choruses
(Podblyudnye). . . . It is understood that I retain all performance rights, as well as my
reproduction rights for all of my works” (Craft 121). Twelve years later Stravinsky
writes to Ramuz, “I am glad it occurred to me last time I was in London, to speak to you
about my a cappella choruses which have been in the safe at the glorious Chester Ltd. for
10 solid years now. Had you not intervened, they brandashing fleabanes, would have
come to revive my choruses in the name of that triumhpant decade. . . . Attached you
will find the corrected proofs of the choruses” (Craft 303).
Richard Taruskin’s seventeen–hundred page biography on Stravinsky makes an
argument to suggest that there is a fifth Russian Peasant Song. He goes further to claim
that this fifth song is perhaps still residing “with the heirs to Mme Khvoshchinskaya’s
estate. This musical material may have been reworked into the “Podblyudnaya” from the
Quatre chants russes, which would account for its never having been published” (1158).
This assertion will be examined more closely at a later point; however, Walsh suggests
that the fifth Russian Peasant song most likely did not exist and makes a claim that
Stravinsky often added a chorus to improve his chances of advanced publication when he
writes:
After getting the brush-off from Benois, however, Stravinsky settled down to
work on Les noces and its attendant pieces (Pri- baoutki, Berceuses du chat and
the Women's choruses), and poured his excitement into them instead, as is clear
 Fowler 3

on every page of Taruskin's exhaustive and brilliantly serendipitous discussion,

which even comes up with the (one happily accepts) precise locus of Stravinsky's
'rejoicing discovery' about the mobile accent in Russian folk verse, in Sakharov's
scansion of 'The Pike' in his third volume of Russian Folk Tales. What is so
typical and satisfying about this part of the book is the quantity, clarity and
aptness of Taruskin's exemplification, which enables the reader to, for instance,
verify every step in the account of the evolution of the text and music of Renard
and Les noces, but which also alerts him to those occasional moments when the
author presses his evidence too far, as when he claims it to be 'unassailable' that
Stravinsky must have composed a fifth women's 'Podblyudniye' chorus (because
an unknown fifth one is listed on a calligraphic title-page he sent to Chesters; but
this would not have been the first time Stravinsky exaggerated the number of
pieces in a set for the benefit of an advance-paying publisher (“Rev.” 452).
Taruskin’s two-volume biography had a significant amount of information devoted to
Four Russian Peasant Songs and Walsh’s review was specifically on this section of
Taruskin’s work. Walsh clearly asserts that Taruskin overstepped his bounds with the
conclusion that there must be a fifth song. Walsh probably holds this view in the sheer
spirit & essence of what Stravinsky would have wanted?
A popular quote from Victor Hugo is, “Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
Hanning points out, “In the course of a long career, Igor Stravinsky not only
participated in, but also actually began, some of the most significant musical
developments of the first half of the twentieth century. As a result, his influence on three
generations of composers has been enormous” (481). “Hanslick, in his treatise The
Beautiful in Music, had based his entire argument on the theory that music was a
completely abstract art, incapable of painting pictures or conveying anything except
broad emotions. His, and Stravinsky’s remarks are probably accurate, though
aestheticians have devoted much study to the meaning in music and have never been able
to come to a satisfactory answer” (Schonberg 486). The second half of this paper will
examine the opposite end of Schonberg’s “probably accurate” contention.
Both Morgan and Griffiths begin their writings on Stravinsky by referencing the
opening paragraphs of Stravinsky’s Autobiography where Stravinsky depicts his “earliest
memories of sound” (3). He generously describes two memories of peasants singing, the
first, an “enormous peasant” who sang and made clicking noises to amuse the children
that gathered; and the second, women returning from their work day singing in unison.
As a child Stravinsky, to a highly satisfactory degree, musically imitated both
experiences. Regarding the later memory, “To this day I clearly remember the tune, and
the way they sang it, and how, when I used to sing it at home, imitating their manner, I
was complimented on the trueness of my ear. This praise made me very happy” (4).
Stravinsky begins chapter four of his Autobiography with “My profound emotion
on reading the news of war, which aroused patriotic feelings and a sense of sadness at
being so distant from my country, found some alleviation in the delight with which I
steeped myself in Russian folk poems” (53). Four Russian Peasant Songs were
composed from 1914–1917. In June 1914, Stravinsky spent ten days in Ustilug and Kiev
gathering Russian folk verse that he needed to work on commissions such as Le noces.
 Fowler 4

The outbreak of war the following month made traveling throughout Europe impossible.
Stravinsky settled in Switzerland and did not return to Russia again until 1962.
These folk verses, specifically the works of Ivan Sakharov, were the textual
source behind Four Russian Peasant Songs. These choruses were not commissioned, and
after more than ten years, the Four Russian Peasant Songs were still not published.
During these years of the war Stravinsky’s Four Russian Peasant Choruses often took
precedence despite his current commissions.
Stravinsky's compositions on Russian texts began to emerge. For the first year or
so of the war, Stravinsky worked away at his little songs and choruses, with their
tight distillation of the cellular and harmonic field techniques of The Rite of
Spring, and at The Wedding . . . The Russian texts, taken from the 19th-century
collections were a crucial part of the new idiom. Stravinsky was experimenting
with an idea he later claimed to have extracted from Russian folk verse of a
moveable accent, which could be played off against the natural accents of speech,
as well as against the musical metre, to make yet an extra rhythmic tier, somewhat
like the stresses superimposed on the regular patterns of The Rite, but less
arbitrary” (Walsh Second Exile 112).
What would be known as the musical characteristics of Stravinsky’s Russian period had
emerged. Stravinsky was in the midst of war, in a foreign country writing music that
carried, at least on some level, childhood and native land nostalgia. These years marked
one of significant compositional changes that occurred in Stravinsky’s long career. The
compositional transformations would present themselves not only in Four Russian
Peasant Songs, but also in works such as Le noces and Petrushka.
“While emphatically asserting that “tonality is my discipline,” Stravinsky himself
remarked in his Poetics of Music (published in 1942): “My chief concern is not so much
with what is known as tonality as what one might term the polar attraction of sound, of an
interval, or even a complex of tones.” This new and more broadly defined sense of tonal
centricity transformed what had been basically a dynamic, and essentially diatonic,
concept into a largely static one that was equally applicable to diatonic or chromatic
contexts” (Morgan 94).
In Twentieth Century Music, Morgan analyzes the better-known works from
Stravinsky’s Russian period noting many of the commonalities between them. The basic
concepts he outlines are all found in the choruses of Four Russian Peasant Songs. They
are: (1) Minimal motivic content, (2) Tonal centricity, and (3) Melodic fragments. Four
Russian Peasant Songs melodic rhythm patterns are also very similar to those found in
the “March” movement of Soldier’s Tale, and to the opening theme in the Rite of Spring.
Further, the fore-mentioned pieces also contain folk-like melodies treated in Stravinsky’s
characteristic tonal and rhythmic style.
The first chorus in Four Russian Peasant Songs, “On Saints’ Days in Chigisakh”
is based on a simple Stravinsky-invented folk-like melody sung unison interspersed with
a chorus. The piece does this four times and the ends by adding in a short harmonic
segment at the end of the soloist’s phrase. The tonal language is very simple, basically
from G –E, a six-note tonal hexachord. Although it is basically a G major scale without
the leading tone, there are many aspects that indicate D Mixolydian or Dorian (without
the third, the two scales are identical). “On Saints’ Days, the first of the Four Russian
Peasant Songs (‘Saucers’), in 1917, Stravinsky’s 1954 addition of fanfare like flourishes
 Fowler 5

(with four horns) implicates the D-scale on D, this song outlines an alternation of (0 4 7)
triads at G and F; (this G B D)–(F A C) alternation naturally yields the (D C B A G F)
hexachord, which is inferable from within the fully accredited diatonic D-scale-on-D
music framework” (Van Den Toorn 477). Moreover, there is the repetition of the D as a
recitation note. The horn accompaniment (added thirty-eight years later) also held a D
pedal.
The melody of “On Saints’ Days in Chigisakh” has two basic themes, with the A
theme lasting for roughly nine eighth notes and outlining the fifth G-D. The B theme
lasts roughly thirteen eighth notes (sometimes longer depending on the text, since the
repetition of the D changes based on the words) and extends the range to the E. The
chorus (C theme) consists of the most tonally harmonic-sounding material of the piece,
giving the impression of a simple plagal cadence sung twice (I- IV-I, I- IV-I). This
cadence functions traditionally, serving to wrap up the phrase; however, the chords are
not as traditional, with the tonic missing the third and the IV chord having an additional
color of a fourth added (C at first, then C# in the second, adding extra chromaticism).
The addition of the C and C# can be seen as creating pull back towards the D tonal
center, with the C# increasing the pull. In collaboration, the rhythmic values on the
second iteration are shortened, creating a drive to the phrase ending. The entire form of
the movement is thus:
A B C B C B C A B C C’. The only changes are rhythmic and based on the text. Also,
the final chorus adds an extra iteration as well as lengthening of note values, slowing
down time for the finale.
There are basically two contrasting ideas in second song, “Osven,” the word
“Ovsen” itself, and the rest of the text. The text is treated musically in different ways,
much like the first song but in reverse. In this one, the repeated chorus “Ovsen,” have the
intertwined duet that is repetitive in nature whereas the changing lyrics have a fuller
harmonic sound created through the use of larger intervals and tessitura. During the
“Ovsen” sections, because of the nature of the SSA range limitations, they constantly
have dissonances such as the minor second and major second mixed in with unisons and
thirds. Although the voices rarely cross, they give the impressions of intertwining. In
fact, the parts move like a mirror, albeit a cracked one, since the shifting of tones happens
at different times, thus causing the dissonances.
“Ovsen,” second chorus’ upper voice, uses the pitches G#, A#, B, C# D#. The
lower voice stays mainly in the same range, although with F# as its low pitch and only
extending up to B. The pitch content leads to a tonal center of C#, but much like the first
piece, leaving out a note which would be the third of the scale and would determine if it
was Dorian or Mixolydian.
In the text sections of “Ovsen,” the parts similarly move in contrary motion like
an inversion, but the range is expanded, giving the larger intervallic quality and sound,
with fourths and fifths giving impressions of tonal harmonic goals. This is particularly
evident in the last three notes of the first phrase, where we get the diads F# - C# and G#-
C#, leaving the feeling of a V – I in C#, only to be completely erased by the final
syllable, an almost toss off minor second right before the breath and end of phrase. This
transitions us back to the lighter and more transparent “Ovsen” phrase. One peculiarity
of this movement is the way the A and B themes change. They are constantly different,
especially the A theme, and although the words are the same, they are treated differently.
 Fowler 6

The B theme on the other hand gives a lot more tonal contrast, with the goal of expanding
the tonality and ideas of the song.
The text setting implications for “Ovsen” are as follows: (referenced with the
English translation) Text: “She has hid ‘neath a bush” extends the range down to E at
first, giving the major seventh (E – D#) which sounds even more dissonant since it is
such a wide interval compared to what we have already heard. The lower part then
descends to E# and then to D#. The theme is being developed, providing a new color.
The mode would seem to be decided, with the addition of the E making the Dorian likely;
however, the E# a few beats later implies Mixolydian, leaving it uncertain. Text: “I’ve
caught her fast,” repeats the earlier melody only shortened (faster). Text: “And a handful
of money too,” starts just like the last two, but on the words “of money too,” there are
dramatic changes. The upper part makes a leap up to E, and the lower part introduces an
A natural, giving us a large open fifth in an unfamiliar tonal area. This is followed by a
G –B major third, thus reinforcing the new tonal area. This temporary shift resolves to a
nice E# - C#, reinforcing a C# Mixolydian tonality. The last two B sections are a da capo
repeat of the first and second. This is differentiated in the original from the later version.
In the original, there is no da capo ending, and the whole piece itself is a major third
lower. The only differentiation in pitch, however, is in the most dissonant section, the
phrase “handful of money.” In the later version this phrase was made even more
dissonant and also added rest at the end of the line bringing additional tension and
attention for a dramatic climactic phrase.
The third chorus “The Pike,” essentially shares its form with the first chorus,
differing in that a trio (or duet in the later version with the other part being played in the
horn) is on the text contrasting with the full chorus on the text “Glory.” Appropriately,
“Glory” is a loud and harmonically colorful declamation. The trio is similar in nature to
the A section of the “Ovsen.” The upper two voices move between the notes F and C,
completing a 5 note F Lydian segment, whereas the lower voice just alternates between A
– B – C#, creating the dissonant cross relation between the top voices C. This contrasts
greatly with the large F# minor seventh chord for the first syllable of “Glory” (which
changes slightly on the second). “The Pike” includes dynamic tonal contrast between
sections moving from F to F#, a technique of half-step movement, which will be
elaborated on in the fourth song, “Master Portly.” In the second A section, the range is
expanded in the upper voice with a C# thrown in for coloration near the end, briefly
giving the impression of a move to G Lydian. The form would be A B A’ B A B A’ B A
B A’ B coda, A and B. The coda A extends the note values of the original, whereas the
Coda B adds a completely new tonal feel and a third chord. The three chords end on
what sounds like a B major tonal center. Therefore tonally, it seems to alternate between
F and G Lydian in the A sections, F# in the B section, and ends a tritone away in B. This
gives a very bright sound, perhaps setting an impression of this great beautiful fish,
setting the text: “flash’d silvery white; glittering gem; crown’d with a pearl set diadem;
instead of eyes two diamonds blaz’d!”
The fourth song, “Master Portly” is the most diverse in form basically setting four
separate parts repeated three times total. Its form would be best represented by: A A’ B
C A A’ B C A A’ B C’. The first A theme is once again a short modal idea with a note
range of a fifth, A to E, but with a tonal center of D, either Dorian or Mixolydian. The A’
has the choir join in with a peculiar three part counterpoint, filling in the scale by adding
 Fowler 7

an F, implying Dorian. This is quickly canceled out in the B section, changing the
texture from 3 part to two part, with the upper voice using Bb – Db – E-flat – F and the
lower part using the added tonalities of Gb, Ab and G natural. The C theme reinforces
the B themes’ E-flat tonality.
Whimsical in nature, the idea of this “portly” Master with his sacks of fleas and
lice, are used to evoke the idea of “Glory.” For this fourth song of the set, “Glory” is
treated more jovially, especially after the previous setting’s use of “Glory” for the
beautiful pike. The humor of this song is evinced in the tonality. The constant switch
between D and E-flat and the change in texture help push the sarcastic tone of the words.
The B theme is a mimic of the A. It resembles a childlike call and response nursery
chant, with a leader creating an insult and the rest of the group then repeating it. The
humor is arranged in how the response gets ‘uglier’ each time, firstly by the slight
dissonant setting of the A’, and then the change of tonality to the B. The C theme’s
“Glory” comes off like a taunt or a laugh.
In all four of the Four Russian Peasant songs, Stravinsky uses a mixolydian or
dorian mode without a third, leaving ambiguous tonality but with a tonal center, as if it
would have a major or minor third. Stravinsky alternates soloist (or duet) sections and
full harmonic sections, usually treated as verse and chorus often times breaking up the
melody into fragments. Lastly, Stravinsky, mostly in the chorus of each of the fours
songs, evokes a motive idea that is treated differently each time it is used, implying that
there be no escape from the repetition of the text being sung differently each time.
The setting of the text in Four Russian Peasant Songs has now been touched upon
in its analysis, as well as the origin and reasoning behind Stravinsky’s use of Sakharov’s
folk verse. Stravinsky’s choice of text and subject matter will now be considered. The
title used by Stravinsky on the calligraphic title page he sent to Chesters is Podblyudnïye.
There has been much commentary on the translation of the title because of a
correspondence with Craft and Stravinsky where Stravinsky speaks of “saucers.”
Yet, discussing these choruses with Robert Craft in Expositions and
Developments (New York, 1962, rpt. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), pp. 118-
19, Stravinsky stated: "Choruses of this sort were sung by the 240 peasants while
fortunetellers read their fingerprints on the smoke-blackened bottoms of saucers."
This is either an aberration of memory or an ad hoc invention. No such method of
fortune-telling is associated with podblyudnïye songs by any Russian poet or
student of folklore (nor does it seem likely that reading fingerprints was known to
Russian peasants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). The saucers, whose
mention by Stravinsky has saddled these choruses with their unsuitable English
title, may have come from his confusing the Russian word for "dish," bliudo, with
the one for "saucer," bliudtse. Or Stravinsky may have been thinking that the
English "saucer" had the same meaning as the French sauciere (Karlinsky 233-4).
Karlinsky goes on to say that it would not have been likely for Stravinsky to have
program notes of any original performances indicating the folk stories behind the text.
Also, the original text was translated, often anonymously from Russian into French,
German, and English. Therefore, according to Taruskin, Walsh and Karlinsky, the
documented comments regarding Four Russian Peasant Songs, made by Stravinsky were
commonly misunderstood.
 Fowler 8

The source of the text is best studied through the works of Sakharov himself where
Podblyudnïye, is better translated as “dish-divination songs.” Note also that Stravinsky
worked on Podblyudnïye over the course of four years and most of that time was during
the winter months.
As outlined by Propp in Russian Agrarian Holidays (p. 108), dish-divination
songs were sung during Yuletide by young women in rural areas as an
accompaniment to a special fortune-telling game. A large dish filled with
water was put on the table and each participant would place her ring, comb or
some other small trinket in it, after which the dish was covered with a towel.
Next came the singing of the Podbliudnye (lit. "in the presence of the dish")
songs, whose texts dealt with allegorical descriptions of agricultural activities,
gigantic symbolic animals, and possession of gold, jewels, and other treasures.
Most of these songs featured the obliga- tory refrain of "slava!" or "slavna!"
("glory!" or "glorious! "). During the singing, the trinkets were extracted one
by one from under the towel over the dish and the fortunes of their owners
were predicted in accordance with the imagery of the line that was sung while
it was withdrawn. In addition to its documentation by folklorists such as
Propp, this divination game was described in two of the best- known Russian
literary works of the early nineteenth century" (Walsh “Obscuring” 693–4).
To be noted, Stravinsky did not arrange folk songs or even borrow from their
melodies. When Robert Craft specifically asked about russian folk melodies Stravinsky
replied, “To my knowledge, none of my Russian songs- Pribaouti, the Four Russian
Peasant Choruses, The Four Russian songs, the Berceuses du Chat- contains folk
material. If any of these pieces sound like aboriginal folk music, it may be because my
powers of fabrication were able to tap some unconscious folk memory. In each case,
however, the syllables and words of the songs dictated the music” (Stravinsky, Craft 91).
Stravinsky therefore drew text from Sakharov and created his own four Podbliudnïye
songs: (1) U Spasa v Chigisakh, (2) Ovsen, (3) Shchuka and (4) Puzishche. Translated
for our purposes as (1) Saints' Day in Chigisakh, (2) Ovsen (celebratory of the New Year
noted in the score as “A beneficent solar deity honored in Russian mythology”), (3) The
Pike, and (4) Master Portly.
The following summaries of the text in Four Russian Peasant Songs is largely
credited to Taruskin (1159-62), the original a capella score published in French (1938),
(with the English translation underneath), and the English score that Stravinsky published
in 1954 with the addition of four horns. Taruskin’s findings match those of Walsh in
that Podblyudnïye is best described as “dish divination songs” that celebrated “old
Russian Yule” where there were activities centered on fortunetelling and luck. Taruskin
cited his research on Podblyudnïye songs from Nobokov’s Eugene Onegin: A Novel in
Ceris by Aleksandr Pushkin (1153).
All four songs have to do with the Russian folk celebrations and the symbolism
that that revolved around luck and good fortune. It is likely that these ideas are what
Stravinsky perceived as the very livelihood that encapsulated peasant life. The text in
song II of Four Russian Peasant Songs, “Ovsen” is about a successful hunting excursion
that ends with the added luck of the hunter finding a handful of money. Ovsen is a term
associated with the New Year and originates from the Pagan worship or belief that Ovsen
is the god that lights the solar wheel every year providing the gift of light. In addition to
 Fowler 9

the Podblyudnïye songs, Ovsen appears in “ceremonial or calendar songs of the solar
cycle” (Taruskin 1161). Ovsen became a New Year’s carol sung door to door in
exchange for presents. “Ovsen, whose name is derived from Oves (oats, pronounced
avyos), like the Teutonic Sun-god, is supposed to ride a pig or a boar. Hence the
sacrifices of pigs’ trotters, and other pork products, were offered to the gods at New-
Year, and such dishes are still preferred in Russia at that season” (Hapgood 12).
The text translated in English for Song I, “Saints' Day in Chigisakh”, without
repeats, is as follows: “So it is said, that on Saints’ Days in Chigisakh on Yaouzoi, all the
lucky peasants roll in riches, gathering golden pieces by the shovelful and silver by the
basketful.” “This song foretells a marriage to a wealthy man” (Taruskin 1159). The
maidens that practiced dish-divination ceremonies in Sakharov’s folk verse were highly
interested in the fate of their love life (marriage) and whether or not that included any
inherited wealth. The ceremony involved a matchmaker that sang while the “trinkets”
were drawn from the dish.
Song IV, “Master Portly” is about the harvest and spreading seeds throughout a
turnip field. What is odd about this is that “sacks of fleas and lice” are metaphors for the
“seeds” that Master Portly sows while trampling through the fields that are being
harvested. Musically Stravinsky toys with the text’s use of fleas and lice even though it’s
roots are again, referencing the lives and cares of the Russian peasant. At the end of each
phrase, Stravinsky inserts the exclamation of “Glory!”
Song III “The Pike” is about a fish that is made of gems and jewels. The song is
again foretelling of riches and fortune with the scattering of the text of “Glory!”
The text in the chorus sections of “The Pike” is Glory in English, and Vivat in
French. This is interesting because the text Glory in the song IV “Master Portly” is
written in French as Hourrah, which is also, the French text used to ascribe ‘so’tis said’
in “On Saints’ Days in Chigisakh” (song I). “Hourrah” used in song I and IV, while
“Glory!” appears in song IV translated from “Hurrah!” in Song III. The literal French
translation of vivat to English is cheer, while the translation of glory to French is glorie.
The word slava means Glory in Russian and in appears at the end of each phrase for all
three songs. So the assumption is that Stravinsky wrote “Slava!” in all three songs yet it
somehow was lost in translation.
What Taruskin and Walsh fail to mention, or focus on rather, is the connection
between Podblyudnïye song’s mixing of the “Glory” text with the other settings of
Ovsen-related songs. “One of the most prominent and interesting of the Christianized
carols is the Sláva, or Glory Song. . . . This Glory song is used in the following manner:
The young people assemble together to deduce omens from the words that are sung,
while trinkets belonging to each person present are drawn at random from a cloth-
covered bowl, in which they have deposited. This is the first song of the series:
Glory to God in Heaven, Glory!
To our Lord on this earth, Glory! . . .
(12 more stanzas, each phrase ending in ‘Glory!)
But this song we sing to the Grain, Glory!
To the Grain we sing, the Grain we honor, Glory!” (Hapgood 11).

Hapgood goes on to say, “Another curious old song connected with the grain is sung at
the New-Year. Boys go about from house to house, scattering grain of different sorts,
 Fowler 10

chiefly oats, and singing ‘O, Ovsen’” (12). It is hard to say whether Stravinsky knew of
Sakharov’s sources or whether this connection was made inadvertently through
Stravinsky’s own study. Suffice it to say, it is possible that Stravinsky, in his priority of
verse, made his own connections across many folk verses and songs, resulting in his own
original amalgamation of song; spanning across quite a variety of folk sources. Perhaps
there is more to this. Perhaps Stravinsky’s deliberate choice of text within his Four
Russian Peasant Songs, written while away from his beloved native country during the
First World War, was an effort to preserve Russian heritage while finding “alleviation in
the delight with which I steeped myself in Russian folk poems” (Stravinsky
Autobiography 53).
Taruskin’s makes a claim to the existence of a fifth Russian Peasant song based
on several factors. Chester was scheduled to publish Four Russian Peasant Songs along
with all of Stravinsky’s wartime compositions in 1920; however, Chester did not publish
them until 1932. These publications included translations in Russian, English, and
French but were never given a Russian title. (German rights were assigned in 1930 and
the choruses were give a German title.) Consequently, Taruskin refers to a copy of a
“Calligraphic title page of a lost fair copy of Stravinsky’s peasant chorus, listing a fifth
setting titled “Na korïte sizhu” . . . The title page is on the Morgan Library Manuscript is
the only one we have in Stravinsky’s hand for the set as it stands, and should be regarded
as definitive” (1156–7). The text is found in Sakharov’s Skazaniya russkogo naroda and
also follows the Glory song pattern. Taruskin affirms, “(as usual, the exclamation
‘Slava!’— ‘Glory’— follows each line of the text): I’m sitting on an overturned trough,
I’m looking for some advantage, I’ll sit some more, I’ll look some more; I glance here
and there, And advantage came to [our] homestead,” (1156).
Taruskin then relates “Na korïte sizhu” to another of Stravinsky’s dish-divination
songs, “Sidit varabey na chuzhoy garadbe”, which was the second song of the Quatre
chants russes of 1919. This text of “Sidit varabey na chuzhoy garadbe” also includes the
use of “Glory!” at the end of each phrase, and Taruskin persists further, suggesting the
two are really about Stravinsky’s feelings of isolation as an alien away from his home
country. This text of “Sidit varabey na chuzhoy garadbe” goes on about a sparrow that is
perched on a stranger’s fence, in a stranger’s home. Taruskin writes “One can hardly
imagine anything more fitting than this text as a metaphor of Stravinsky’s own condition.
The song set is about the closest thing we have to an autobiographical confession from
this most tight-lipped of composers. It is precisely the aptness of his textual choices that
proves—however little he may have remembered or cared about the texts he set when it
came time to give his most widely noticed testimony about them—that at the time of
writing Stravinsky’s interest in his sources was lively and his knowledge of them detailed
and accurate” (1160–1).
Stravinsky writes, “The Phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose
of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between
man and time. To be put into practice, its indispensible and single requirement is
construction. Construction once completed, this order has been attained, and there is
nothing more to be said” (Autobiography 54). Stravinsky irrefutably composed with a
sense of structure and balance and there are many indicators to suggest that he valued
order in his life and in his work. If we conclude that his music was not composed to
express or emote anything, then Stravinsky— as one of the most well renowned
 Fowler 11

composers of all time— has then most likely created a greater emotional connection for
his audience than he gives credit of having experienced himself.
As a private yet public figure, many things apparently annoyed Stravinsky, such
as the misinterpretation of his music, his audiences’ lack of understanding his forward
movement, and others asserting their own interpretation of meaning onto his work. Is it
conceivable that he resented the notion that his music could be valued only the unfounded
opinions of those whom would just simply listen and try to draw out some sort of raw
emotion? Was his ideal of being fully understood better derived out of one’s
appreciation for the depth of his craft and invention? Did he desire to be separated from
a level of unsophisticated irrational, emotionality? Stravinsky may not have composed
Four Russian Peasant Songs to share express feelings of nostalgia for his childhood and
his native country. His choice of text could very well be happenstance. It is feasible to
reason why, “many aestheticians have devoted much study to the meaning in music”
(Schonberg 486), because that is how we are biologically hard-wired to experience it.
Stravinsky insisting that it is “futile to look for, or expect anything else from” (54), music
outside of its construction, is to suggest that so many of us are trying to synthesize
something that is plausibly inherent in us from a very young age. Inherent in Stravinsky,
unquestionably was his function as a composer. “For me, as a creative musician, I
compose as a daily function that I feel compelled to discharge. I compose because I am
made for that and cannot do otherwise” (174).

Works Cited

Craft, Robert. Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence. Vol. 2. New York: Knopf, 1984.

Griffiths, Paul. The Master Musicians: Stravinsky. New York: Schirmer, 1992.

Hanning, Barbara R. Concise History of Western Music. 5th ed. New York: Norton, 1998.

Hapgood, Isabel. A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections. New York:

Chautauqua, 1902.

Karlinsky, Simon. "Stravinsky and Russian Pre-Literature." 19th Century Music 6

(1983): 232–40.

Klien, Lothar. “Choral Publications: Standards, Suggestions, and Stravinsky”

Music Educators Journal. MENC. 49.3 (Jan. 1963): 35–36. 30 July 2009

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3389872>.
 Fowler 12

Morgan, Robert P. Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Music Style in Modern

Europe and America. New York: Norton, 1991.

Schonberg, Harold C. The Lives of the Great Composers. 3rd ed. New York: Norton,

1997.

Stravinsky, Igor & Robert Craft. Memories and Commentaries. Garden City: Doubleday,

1960.

Stravinsky, Igor. Four Russian Peasant Songs. London: Chester, 1938.

—. Four Russian Peasant Songs: For Equal Voices with Four Horns. London: Chester,

1954.

—. Igor Stravinsky: An Autobiography. New York: Norton, 1936.

Taruskin, Richard. Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works

Through Mavra. Vol. 2. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996. 2 vols.

Van Den Toorn, Pieter. The Music of Igor Stravinsky. New Haven: Yale U P, 1983.

Walsh, Stephen. "Rev. of Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the

Works Through Mavra, by Richard Taruskin." Music & Letters 78.3 (1997): 450–

55.

—. “Obscuring Stravinsky. Reviewed work(s): Stravinsky Retrospectives by

Ethan Haimo; Paul Johnson." The Musical Times 128.1783 (1987): 693–4.

—. "Stravinsky's Choral Music." Tempo New Series. 81 (1967): 41–51.

—. Stravinsky: The Second Exile. New York: Knopf, 2006.

—. "Stravinsky, Igor." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 28 July 2009.

<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52818pg4>.
 Fowler 13

APPENDIX

Further sources referenced but not cited:

(A) Chœur de Jeunes Filles. Four Russian Peasant Songs: “Pres de L'Eglise A

Chigisak,” Mikrokosmos. Cond. Loïc Pierre. By Igor Stravinsky. Prod.

Musique chorale du XX siécle. Triton, 1997.

(B) Chœur de Jeunes Filles. Four Russian Peasant Songs: “Ovsen." Mikrokosmos.

Cond. Loïc Pierre. By Igor Stravinsky. Prod. Musique chorale du XX

siécle. Triton, 1997.

(C) Chœur de Jeunes Filles. Four Russian Peasant Songs: “Le Brochet"

Mikrokosmos. Cond. Loïc Pierre. By Igor Stravinsky. Prod. Musique

chorale du XX siécle. Triton, 1997.

(D) Chœur de Jeunes Filles. Four Russian Peasant Songs: “Monsieur Ventru."

Mikrokosmos. Cond. Loïc Pierre. By Igor Stravinsky. Prod. Musique

chorale du XX siécle. Triton, 1997.

(E) Kaminsky, Peter. "An Analysis of Stravinsky's Three Japanese Lyrics." U

of Rochester Libraries. 1983. 12 July 2009

<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/handle/1802/2085>.

(F) Shepard, John. "The Stravinsky Nachlass: A Provisional Checklist of Music

Manuscripts." Notes, Second Series 40.4 (1984): 719–50.

(G) White, Eric Walter. Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works. 2nd ed. Berkeley:

U of California P, 1985.