A Weak Response to Stravinsky’s “Rite”

Cover of the album being discussed

Today Pyroclastic Records released a new album entitled The Rite of Spring – Spectre d’un songe. The full title is an enumeration of the two-piano compositions performed by Sylvie Courvoisier and Cory Smythe. The first part of the title is the name of a ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company, setting an original score by Igor Stravinsky. This music for large orchestra was given a two-piano version prepared by the composer himself.

Courvoisier is best known as a jazz musician and improviser. She decided to provide an arrangement of Stravinsky’s score that would reflect jazz interpretation with both notated and improvised music. Unfortunately, the Stravinsky family would only allow his music to be performed in his two-piano version or in a version for four hands on a single keyboard.

Courvoisier’s response was to create a new work, “Spectre d’un songe,” which would serve as a “response” to Stravinsky’s “call” without explicitly citing that “call.” The title translates as “spirit of a dream;” but, in all probability, it is also a nod to “Le Spectre de la rose” (the spirit of the rose). This was the title of a ballet created by Michel Fokine in which Nijinsky danced the title role. However, it is worth noting that the music for “Le Spectre de la rose” (piano music by Carl Maria von Weber orchestrated by Hector Berlioz) is as far removed from “Spectre d’un songe” as the Stravinsky score is.

Thus “Spectre d’un songe” is very much a unique composition. The problem is that the music is not particularly compelling. One reason may be that Courvoisier never really created a thematic repertoire that would stand on its own merits without any explicit nods to Stravinsky. To be fair, such an undertaking is clearly a tall order; and, at the very least, Courvoisier deserves points for trying. However, when one listens to her music in the wake of Stravinsky’s score (the first two tracks on the album), it is clear that she could never set her own bar high enough.

Personally, I am more that happy with how Courvoisier and Smyth play the first two tracks of the album. I have been giving both piano versions of the ballet score considerable time, going all the way back to October of 2009, when I heard the ZOFO duo play the single-keyboard version. The Courvoisier-Smyth version is right up there with other four-hand and two-piano performances I have encountered for over a decade. However, if Courvoisier wishes to exercise her own chops as a composer, I suggest that she do so in a way that will avoid even a remote association with Stravinsky!