Listening to Tchaikovsky's fourth.

[Enrique]

There is a part where the theme, one of them (first movement), is in the strings and woodwinds and the brasses underline the harmony by means of violent chords in selected beats or parts of the beat. Thus the brasses play a harmonic role but, more importantly, they give the passage a rhythmic structure. And I then remembered that other passage in the Rite, Danses des adolescentes, where the horns have a similar role, only that this time the accents seem erratically scattered with respect to the metrics.

Stravinsky was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakof and, this, must have suffered the influence of Tchaikovsky, as every body did in that Russia in spite of winds of nationalism blowing from some quarters. Tchaikovsky the Europeist! But it is clear that he taught all of them and, by one way or the other, even Stravinsky could be called one of the master's pupils.

[Peter]

Stravinsky's neoclassical ballet 'La baiser de la fée' (The Fairy's Kiss) uses material from minor Tchaikovsky pieces and the influence is very apparent in Stravinsky's early Symphony in E flat. Both composers of course made use of Russian folk music.

Stravinsky's father Fyodor Stravinsky was a Russian bass opera singer, well known to Tchaikovsky, creating a number of roles in his operas - His Royal Highness in 'Vakula the Smith', Dunois in 'The Maid of Orleans', Mamirov in 'The Enchantress'.

[Enrique]

I may have exagerated a little but you've made me see, through your interesting words, I was not far from the truth. I did not know Stravinsky's father was a major figure in the scene, only knew he was a singer.

By the way, did any of Stravinsky's compositions prior to The Firebird get a performance before The Firebird premiere? If not, that is, if Diaghilev could not hear any of his music, what could made him make up his mind to choose Stravinsky when the failure with the other composer? I'm thinking I should read a bit more instead of overwhelming you with these questions.