SYMPHONIES FOR SCHOOLS

The Firebird
Study Guide

WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL February 7, 2013, 10:00 a.m. (Middle School Concert) February 8, 2013, 10:00 a.m. (High School Concert)

Writers: Lindsay Strand-Polyak Jonathan Beard Benjamin Cadwallader Design The Kent Studios Cover art Javier Beltrn
For more information about the Los Angeles Philharmonic Education Department, visit our website www.laphil.com/education Questions, comments? Write us at education@laphil.org

Symphonies for Schools is supported by grants from the Max H. Gluck Foundation and The Walt Disney Company.

Leadership support for the LA Phil's Educational Initiatives is provided by Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, Amgen Foundation, Rose Hills Foundation, Anonymous, William Randolph Hearst Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Eisner Foundation, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., Target, JPMorgan Chase, Los Angeles Philharmonic Committee and Los Angeles Philharmonic Affiliates.

2013 Los Angeles Philharmonic. All rights reserved.

LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

Dear Teachers,
We are delighted that you and your students will be attending the Symphonies for Schools concert and we look forward to welcoming everyone to Walt Disney Concert Hall. As we explore

Firebird, we hope you and your students will enjoy exploring rhythm,
meter, and composition within the context of Stravinsky's brilliant examples throughout Firebird. It is our hope that you will use this study guide to prepare your students, making the concert experience far more rewarding. Talking about the performance in advance and going through these exercises will enhance the students' expectations and deepen the impact of the experience. After the concert, we encourage you to have a post concert reflection which will spark new conversation and curiosity, making the concert a catalyst for further learning. As always the Los Angeles Philharmonic promises a guided listening experience filled with beautiful music that will enliven imaginations. We look forward to seeing you and your students at Walt Disney Concert Hall!

Yours truly, Los Angeles Philharmonic Education Department

LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

Table of Contents
About the Conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla About the LA Phil About Gustavo Dudamel About Walt Disney Concert Hall About the Composer Igor Stravinsky About The Firebird Study Guide Part 1 Study Guide Part 2 Bibliography 3 4 5 6 11 13 14 17 21

LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

About the Conductor

Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla was discovered by the German Conducting Forum Deutscher Dirigentenforum in April 2009 and has since benefitted from their conducting program and support. Starting with the 2011/12 season, she became second Kapellmeister of the Theater Heidelberg for two consecutive seasons, which enabled her to conduct many opera productions and symphonic concerts. In April 2012, she won the Nestl and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award, selected from 91 applicants by a jury chaired by Ingo Metzmacher, giving her the opportunity to conduct the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in August 2012. Praised as a dynamic, profound, and extremely talented young conductor, Grazinyte-Tyla was one of the revelations of the 2009 Kurt Masur Conducting Seminar in Bonn, Germany on The Art of Conducting Beethoven. As a result she was invited back to Bonn in December 2009 by the Beethoven Orchester and its music director Stefan Blunier to participate in the Beethoven Night. In addition, Kurt Masur invited her to share the podium with him and two other conductors for Beethovens Ninth Symphony in December 2010. Highlights of Grazinyte-Tylas career include productions at the Theater Heidelberg such as Aida and Carmen, and Las cartas de Frida by the renowned Mexican composer Marcela Rodrguez; La traviata in Osnabrck; performances with the MDR Orchestra Leipzig of Stravinskys Firebird, with the Philharmonie Sdwestfalen and with the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra, as well as a collaboration with the Camerata Salzburg and the Bergische Symphoniker, Remscheid, Germany. A native of Vilnius, Lithuania, Grazinyte-Tyla was born into a musical family. Before pursuing her studies at the Music Conservatory Felix MendelssohnBartholdy in Leipzig in 2008, she graduated with a bachelors degree in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Music and Fine Arts, Graz, Austria. From 2007 to 2008, she furthered her studies at the Music Conservatory in Bologna, Italy. She has participated in numerous master classes and conducting workshops and worked with conductors and professors such as Christian Ehwald, George Alexander Albrecht, Johannes Schlaefli, and Collin Metters.

LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

A brief history of the

Los Angeles Philharmonic

The Los Angeles Philharmonic was founded in 1919 by William Andrews Clark, Jr., a 42-year-old amateur musician, lawyer, and art patron. Ninety-four musicians met for their first rehearsal Monday morning, October 13, 1919. Eleven days later, on Friday, October 24, the Philharmonic played its first concert at Trinity Auditorium, before a capacity audience of 2,400 who were hearing the largest orchestra that had ever appeared in Los Angeles. That concert was led by the orchestra's first Music Director, Walter Henry Rothwell, who remained in that post until his death in 1927. Since then, the orchestra has had ten subsequent Music Directors: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Georg Schnevoigt (1927-1929) Artur Rodzinski (1929-1933) Otto Klemperer (1933-1939) Alfred Wallenstein (1943-1956) Eduard van Beinum (1956-1959) Zubin Mehta (1962-1978) Carlo Maria Giulini (1978-1984) Andre Previn (1985-1989) Esa-Pekka Salonen (1992-2009) and Gustavo Dudamel (2009-present)

The Los Angeles Philharmonic today

It takes about 100 people to manage the Los Angeles Philharmonic all year round. Deborah Borda began her tenure as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association in January 2000. She is responsible for all administrative aspects of the organization. Through a wide range of innovative programs and new partnerships with other leading cultural organizations and community groups, Borda has moved the institution towards a transformational era of growth and development on local, national, and international levels. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association presents the finest in orchestral and chamber music, recitals, new music, jazz, world music and holiday concerts at two of the most remarkable places anywhere to experience music Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. In addition to a 30-week winter subscription season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents a 12-week summer festival at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and home of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the Associations involvement with Los Angeles extends to educational programs, community concerts and children's programming, ever seeking to provide inspiration and delight to the broadest possible audience.

The Philharmonic gave concerts in Philharmonic Auditorium from 1920 through the end of the 1963/64 season. In 1964, the orchestra moved to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center. In October 2003, the Philharmonic opened its new concert hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, in downtown Los Angeles, across the street from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, the Hall is among the most modern concert facilities in the world. In addition to being an extraordinary venue in which to hear beautiful music, it is an international tourist attraction.

LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

About Gustavo Dudamel

Gustavo Dudamel began his first season as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in October 2009. Music has always been Gustavos passion. When he was very young, he would line up his toys and conduct them as if they were making beautiful music. He says he was conducting great orchestras! Dudamel grew up in Venezuela, where he began studying music when he was only four years old. He says he loves the orchestra because When you are in the orchestra, you are in a community. Since it has been so important in his own life, Dudamel wants all young people to have the opportunity to study music. Along with his mentor, Dr. Jos Antonio Abreu, he was granted the 2008 Q Prize from Harvard University for extraordinary service to children. When he was asked what it takes to be a good conductor, Dudamel said, You need to feel that you are only a bridge between the composer and the orchestra, and you have to have humility.

About

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Youre about to visit Walt Disney Concert Hall, the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In these next few pages, youll learn a bit about this incredible building about the people who helped build it, about the building itself, and about some things to look for on the day of your visit. We hope you have a great time at Walt Disney Concert Hall!
Walt Disney Concert Hall

The people behind the building

She wanted to do something for the community where they (Lillian and Walt) met, married and spent their lives.
Diane Disney Miller, on her mother, Lillian Disney Lillian Disney: You might be wondering about the name: Walt Disney Concert Hall. Is the Hall a part of Disneyland? Do they show Disney movies there? The building is not a part of Disneyland. The building got its name from Lillian Disney, the wife of Walt Disney, who made a generous donation in 1987. She wanted to build a concert hall as a gift to the people of Los Angeles, and in memory of her late husbands love of music. Vocabulary Word ARCHITECT: a person who creates the plans used to build a building. Frank Gehry: Frank Gehry is an architect who lives here in Southern California. Gehry believes that a building is also a sculpture, that it is a work of art that people move through and experience. Gehrys buildings often transform different ideas and shapes. In creating Walt Disney Concert Hall, Gehry met with Lillian Disney. The two had conversations about what the new building should look like. Gehry loves to sail boats, and a lot of his buildings are inspired by the ocean. Ultimately, his design for Disney Hall incorporated images of fish, wind, and ships.

I just fell in love with this lady.

Frank Gehry, on Lillian Disney

Gehrys original sketch for Walt Disney Concert Hall

Arriving at WDCH
Like people, buildings have personalities. Think of a building you know: a store you go to, your school, your home. How would you describe that buildings personality? Serious and cold? Warm and happy? In designing Walt Disney Concert Hall, Gehry wanted to create a warm, open environment. He feels that buildings should be good neighbors. But how does an architect do that?

You can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.
Lillian Disney When you get to Walt Disney Concert Hall, look at the building from the outside. Theres a restaurant and a gift shop. There are many different ways to get inside. From the sidewalk, you will notice that the walls are made of glass so you can see inside. The building is open to the public during the day. These are all ways that the architect created a space that is open and inviting. Did you know? To create plans for the building, the architect used CATIA, a three-dimensional computer modeling program originally designed for the aerospace industry. Frank Gehry loves to sail boats, and his design is inspired by boats, the ocean, and fish. When you get to Walt Disney Concert Hall, look at the outside of the building. Look at how the building curves. Gehry wanted the building to look like the sails of a ship being filled with wind. Vocabulary Word The faade is the face of a building. There are over 6,000 steel plates covering the faade of the Hall. The plates shine in the California sun but theyre also meant to suggest the scales of a fish. Because of the curving shape of the building, almost no two of the plates are the same. When they arrived on the site, each plate had a number on it telling the construction workers where exactly it should go.

The Lobby of Walt Disney Concert Hall

Entering the Hall

Once you enter Walt Disney Concert Hall, here are a few things to look for: Tree columns: Spread throughout the Hall are several columns that look like trees with spreading branches. These tree columns arent just for decoration. They also do a lot of work. The columns carry vents for air conditioning. They also contain steel girders that help support the weight of the building. Try to find branches that look like theyve been cut. There are lights hidden inside these branches that help to light the hall at night. Wood panels: Look at the wooden panels that line the walls. This kind of wood comes from a Douglas Fir tree. The architect chose this kind of wood because it looks like the wood on a viola or cello. The Mancini Staircase: Try to find the staircase. In creating this staircase, the architects wanted a place where you can see and be seen! They imagined women in fancy gowns sweeping up the curve of the stairs. One of the designers calls it The Cinderella Staircase.
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The Auditorium of Walt Disney Concert Hall

Entering the Auditorium

There is a lot to see in the entryway, the gardens, and from the street level. But the reason Walt Disney Concert Hall is here is to give you a great place to hear live music. A lot of care went into making sure that the acoustics in the hall are as good as they can be.

The most valued advantage of the vineyard configuration is that every seat is as close to the stage as could possibly be, resulting in a sense of intimacy and connectedness between the audience and the music created on stage.
Yasuhisa Toyota Acoustician, Walt Disney Concert Hall The Hall has what is called a vineyard structure. A vineyard is a field in which grapes are grown. In a vineyard hall, the hall is divided into different terraces or areas. This means that there are a lot of vertical (or up-and-down) walls that reflect sound back into the hall, allowing you to hear the orchestra better. For Gehry, the inside of the building was just as important as the outside. Remember, Gehry is a sailor. Look at the interior of the building, at the curving sides of the auditorium. Do they remind you of the sides of a ship? As you go into the auditorium, heres something to look for: The Lillian Carpet: Take a look at the brightly colored carpet. What does the pattern remind you of? The pattern is called Lillian after Lillian Disney, and is inspired by the flowers she loved so much. Did you know? FACT: Walt Disney Concert Hall contains 2,265 seats.

The pipe organ: When you get into the hall, look above the stage floor at that strange jumble of wooden and metal columns. What youre seeing are the pipes of Walt Disney Concert Halls pipe organ. Some people have said that the organ pipes look like a box of French friescan you see that? In general, the organ has been called The King of Instruments for its power and ability to mimic different parts of the orchestra. But the principle behind the organ is really quite simple; an organ works much like a flute air is forced through a pipe, which then vibrates. The pitch (how high or low a note is) depends on how large the pipe is. You can create this effect by taking a water bottle, filling it up part way, and blowing across the mouth of the bottle. The air for this organ is supplied by three mechanical blowers, with the combined power of thirteen horses. The organ is the product of a true collaborationit was designed by Los Angeles designer Manuel Rosales, along with Frank Gehry, and was built in Germany by a company called Glatter-Gtz Orgelbau.

Did you know? INTERESTING FACT: The Disney Hall organ is made up of 6,134 pipes, ranging in size from a telephone pole to a pencil.

The Garden
If you have a moment before or after the concert, make sure you take a walk through the garden. The garden is a perfect place to meet with friends and to talk about the concert youre seeing. The garden was designed to change colors throughout the year, shifting from pink to red to green as the seasons change. From the garden, look to the north. You can see the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion across the street. This is where the Philharmonic used to play. On a clear day you can see the San Gabriel Mountains, and maybe even the Hollywood sign. If you look south, try to spot a building with a mosaic pyramid on top of it. This is the Los Angeles Central Library. The Rose Fountain: One thing to look for is the fountain. This fountain is shaped like a rose, Mrs. Disneys favorite flower. The petals of the rose are covered in broken pieces of Delftware. Delftware is a kind of pottery from Holland that Mrs. Disney loved to collect. Workers broke hundreds of tiles and vases into pieces and created a mosaic covering the fountain. See if you can find the piece of pottery with this inscription: A Rose for Lilly. Exposed structure: Want to see whats behind all those steel panels? Go to the north end of the garden, and find a metal staircase on your right. In this part of the building, Gehry left part of the buildings skeleton exposed so you can see. Go and look at the steel girders that attach the panels to the building.
The Garden of Walt Disney Concert Hall

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About the Composer

Igor Stravinsky was born near St. Petersberg, Russia, June 5th, 1882 and died in New York on April 6th, 1971. Although he was born a Russian citizen, he later became a French and then American citizen. He was one of the most influential and widely performed composers of the entire 20th century. Almost by his own design, Stravinskys overall style music is hard to define largely due to the fact that he changed his writing style about every 20 years. He lived through and experimented with many different styles of composition over his 89 years, and wrote for all kinds of ensemblesfrom small chamber music pieces to oratorios, ballets, symphonic, and choral works. He gained overnight fame and success with The Firebird (1910), which allowed him to meet some of the top composers, artists, and writers in Paris at the time such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Marcel Proust, and Pablo Picasso. Three years later, the controversial premiere of The Rite of Spring (also composed for the Ballet Russes) caused a near-riot during the concert. When asked about his high fees for compositions, Stravinsky once replied I do it on behalf of my colleagues Mozart and Schubert, who died in poverty.

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Stravinsky and Los Angeles

Did you know Stravinsky was an Angeleno? He moved to Los Angeles in 1939. Right at the same time that famous Russian pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff also relocated to the Southland. At the time, however, even though Stravinsky was more popular in Europe, he wasnt as famous in the US yet, and Rachmaninoff received all the celebrity buzz. He lived the rest of his life in SoCal, and even became a US citizen. Like many European composers emigrating to Los Angeles in the 1940s, Stravinsky moved to Hollywood. He had a house north of Sunset Boulevard on 1260 Wetherly Drive. The house is still there today. Former Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen once looked into buying Stravinskys old house, but pianist Paul Crossley cautioned him: Imagine trying to write a note in this room. Isnt life hard enough already? Salonen agreed it maybe wasnt the best idea for his creative inspiration At the time Disneys movie Fantasia was created (1940), Stravinsky was the only living composer featured in the film, and living in Los Angeles, where the movie was made! Firebird was featured in Fantasia 2000 (1999) in homage to Stravinskys work in the first film.

Walt Disney and Igor Stravinsky looking at images for the Rite of Spring segment for Disneys Fantasia

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About The Firebird

Stravinsky was only 28 when he composed music for the Firebird ballet in 1909-1910. Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballet Russes, chose Stravinsky after hearing a piece he wrote in Russia called Fireworks. The plot of the ballet is drawn from Russian Folklore, as part of the Ballet Russes aim was to present Russian art and culture abroad to foreign audiences. Originally over an hour long, Stravinsky himself later arranged several different condensed versions, or Suites, of the Firebird. When you visit Walt Disney Concert Hall, you will hear the LA Phil perform the 1919 version. Igor Stravinsky was the first living composer who the Ballet Russes commissioned to write new music for one of their productions. They had previously used music by Alexandr Borodin and Stravinskys former teacher, Nikolai RimskyKorsakov. Diaghilev and the rest of the members of the Ballet Russes were looking to push boundaries and create new sounds, movements and experiences that no one had seen before, something with shock value to make a name for themselves in Paris. The Firebird was a smashing success, making Stravinsky a superstar in Paris virtually overnight. One writer, Henri Gheon, writing in the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, called the Firebird The most exquisite marvel of equilibrium we have ever imagined between sounds, movements, and forms. Firebirds Phoenix Firebird later came to have a crucial role in the history of popular music. The opening orchestral stab chord from the Infernal Dance of King Kaschei was sampled on the first digital sampler called the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument. The clip was given the name ORCH5 and the original recording was from 1965 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Josef Krips. From there, it has turned up on countless songs and tracks, and was particularly ubiquitous throughout hip-hop in the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa, Kraftwerk, Michael Bolton, The Jacksons, Bobby Brown, and producers Teddy Riley and Babyface were among the many artists who used this sample at some point. To watch someone playing the ORCH5 on an actual Fairlight, check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQLKgyYrfH4

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LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

Part 1
Stravinskys Firebird Context and Background Cast of Characters:
Igor Stravinsky, the composer, (June 17th, 1882-April 17th, 1971) [See About the Composer] Sergey Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872-1929), a Russian Impresario, and founder of the Ballet Russes. He was the most famous for commissioning some of Stravinskys most famous works: Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and Rite of Spring (1913). Incidentally, the work that Diaghilev commissioned for the season in between Petrushka and Rite of Spring was Maurice Ravels Daphnis and Chloe (1912) and Debussys Jeux (1914) the year after. Diaghilev also encouraged modern artists to collaborate with him on ballet works, including Pablo Picasso on Parade, (1917) and Pulcinella (1920). Michel Fokine [pronounced MEE-shell, yes, its a mans name]: Choreographer of the Firebird for Ballet Russes; one of the co-founders of the group. The Ballet Russes: A dance troupe, founded by Diaghilev and Fokine, built on expanding and extending the kinds of dancing and performances traditionally understood as classic ballet, based in Paris, France (No, they were NOT in Russia). Paris, as a hotbed of cultural experimentation with a large artistic community, was the perfect environment to experiment with new kinds of dance performance styles. Diaghilev commissioned numerous new works for the Ballet Russes, working with some of the most famous composers and artists of the era such as Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Manuel Da Falla, and Pablo Picasso. They sought to find new connections between visual art, movement, design, and music, inspired by the total art work experience concept popularized by Richard Wagner in the 19th Century. Two of Stravinskys other most famous ballet works, Petrushka (1911) and the Rite of Spring (1913) were also written for the Ballet Russes.

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Group Exploration
Framework: Stravinskys innovative use of rhythm helped propel him to international fame, and became a defining characteristic of his aesthetic. In these activities, well explore how Stravinskys simple technique of beat dropping and disguising of meter serves to create and intensify drama in the action of the ballet.

Step 1: Stravinskys Use and Manipulation of Rhythm and Meter

(A recording of Firebird is required for this section; the complete suite is available here.)

Objective:
Through listening and physical movement, students will explore Stravinskys different uses of rhythm and meter in Firebird, identify elements of rhythmic stability vs. instability, and reflect on the correlation between music, movement, and creation of dramatic meaning.

Directions:
We have suggested two listening excerpts. You can find countless other examples in Firebird where Stravinsky masks, fools, or warps our sense of meter or rhythm, but these are two of the most well known. Example A: Infernal Dance movement, opening. CHARACTERISTICS: This example is notable for its complete obfuscation of the meter. If you were to have five people listen to this portion of Firebird, you could quite likely get five different answers on what meter it is in, or where the meter changes (i.e. where beats are dropped). But it is quite possible that none of the five would ever think that the passage is written in 3/4 the entire time.

Example B: Finale (also known as the Second Tableau in the full ballet version), Allegro non troppo. CHARACTERISTICS: This famous 7/4 passage is notable for its creative beat groupings. Stravinsky groups the first bar 3-2-2, and the second bar 2-2-3. (The rest on beat one of the phrase further obfuscates the grouping, and the meter.) By grouping every other set of seven beats in retrograde to the first set, the result is an almost super-phrase of 14 beats: 3-2-2-2-2-3 / 3-2-2-2-2-3 etc.

1) Have your students listen to each excerpt one at a time. They should just listen the first time through, but encourage them to think about the mood of the piece, and to listen for the pulse. Possible Starter Questions: What is the Mood of the piece? What do you imagine happening on stage? 2) Now play the previous excerpts again, specifically listening for the Rhythm and Meter. Have students physically and vocally participate, clapping and counting, toe-tapping, etc., but try not to actively do the clapping/counting yourself. The goal is to have them listen to and internalize the excerpt, not follow the conductor. At whatever point feels appropriate to you as youre asking the starter questions, slowly reveal to your students the metrical and/or rhythmic characteristics of the excerpt (summarized above).
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Possible Starter Questions: What kind of meter is the music in? Is there another way to hear it other than what Stravinsky wrote? Why did you pick one possibility over another? What is the rhythm? Are there other rhythmic elements affecting how you can/cant hear what is going on metrically?

Discussion/Exploration Questions:
! Is the meter clear to your ear, and how does this clarity (or lack thereof) affect your emotional response to the music? ! How does the rhythm help underscore or create action or tension in the music? ! Do you hear any other rhythmic motion, other than the top layer (which may be implied by the meter)? How do different rhythmic layers help highlight or obscure the overall pulse of the music? *All the above questions are starter questions to facilitate class discussion. Alter the sections or suggest your own favorite snippets to help your students hear that the pulse of the piece matters. When students follow along physically (clapping, dancing), listening to pulse and rhythm with their bodies and not just their ears, they will be tapping into a physiological experience akin to how Stravinskys dancers might have listened to his music when they heard Firebird the first time.

For Fun: This year the London Symphony Orchestra is commemorating the 100th anniversary of Rite of Spring by teaching Londoners all over the city to clap along with Stravinskys most notorious example of rhythmic instability. Can you follow along? Click here for the NPR article and example.

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Part 2
Stravinsky and Rhythm Innovative Manipulation
Throughout his long compositional career, Stravinsky used and manipulated rhythm and pulse as an integral part of his compositional process. He organized his composing work in terms of writing and improvising on what he called rhythmic units, and used them as building blocks. Scholars during and after his lifetime commented on how crucial rhythm was to understanding Stravinskys musical aesthetic. Stravinsky is perhaps the only composer who has raised rhythm in itself to the dignity of an art. He has shown us that rhythm is not merely the division of time into equal beats, but a pulse animating the whole of time in music. AJ Browne, Music and Letters, (1930) Stravinskys rhythm is entirely unfixed. It sweeps through the music, giving it an extraordinary sense of motion and vitality. Stravinskys genius for rhythm lies in his ability to combine insistence with variability. ibid Much of what is characteristic of Igor Stravinskys music may be defined rhythmically in terms of displacement, shifts in the metrical alignment of repeated motives, themes, and chords. Pieter C. van den Toorn, Stravinsky, Adorno, and the Art of Displacement, The Twentieth Century and Beyond, 2004

Huntley Dent. The One and Only Igor. Berkshire Review, 7 June 2010. http://berkshirereview.net/2010/06/07/stravinsky_les_noces_oedipus_rex_gergiev/#.UPA64aX40bY
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For more on Firebird and its afterlife as ORCH5, read: Robert Fink The Story of ORCH5, or, the Classical Ghost in the hip-hop machine. Popular Music (2005) Volume 24/3

LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

Step 2: Altering Rhythm and MeterYou Be Stravinsky!
(Instruments and pencils are required for this section)

Objective:
Students will through arrangement and performance actively create instability in rhythm and meter, by altering one or two of Stravinskys rare predictable melodies from Firebird.

Directions:
Make sure every student has a worksheet with the two melody examples from Firebird (see activity worksheet). These two melodies are taken from Round Dance of the Princesses movement. The students will all need pencils to write on the page. You can choose two directions with this exercise: 1) Tutti: All-Class Activity. With your class, perform the examples several times, as time allows, altering where they place ACCENTS, or where they DROP BEATS entirely from the melody. We recommend that you play the examples first as-is and then do two more versions, where you can take student suggestions as to where and what to alter in the melody. 2) Divisi: Small Groups. Break your class into manageable groups (this could be members of the same section, or a mixing of instruments). Then have each group work on one or both of the examples, creating variations of their own, using the worksheet provided. Bring the class together again and have each group perform their versions.

Summary of options to consider and experiment with:

! Students can add/alter the placement of accents ! Students may remove notes or beats ( beats can also be removed!) ! Students can vary the use of different articulations: staccato/slurred/etc. ! Students can experiment with tempo (does choosing a faster tempo heighten instability?)

NOTE: We have intentionally left the examples without bar lines so as not to bias anyone towards one pulse or another. On the worksheet, your students have the freedom to alter the written excerpt by adding accents, scratching out deleted notes, adding bar lines, etc. Or, they may choose to fully write out their own variation on the blank staff, if their idea is too complex to superimpose on the preexisting version of the phrase.

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Sample Discussion Questions:
Here are some sample questions to get you started; you can add/subtract any of your own thoughts and insights as you go through this exercise. ! What happens to the melody when you drop beats? ! What do you notice when you are playing the altered excerpts? ! Do you need to think differently about how you are playing? If so, how? ! Why are some versions with different dropped beats more difficult than others? ! Drawing on your own new experience, how do you think Stravinskys use of rhythmic manipulation/variation serves his music?

Step 2.5: Going Deeper

Two options to take your exploration to an even deeper level: 1) Play the entire Finale movement as a group, and identify where Stravinsky has increased tension via rhythmic manipulation. Are there places where like in popular genres such as dubstep he increases the length between rhythmic pulses to build tension? 2) Play sections as a group where the printed meter is different from the sounding meter (e.g. Infernal Dance), or where two meters are played simultaneously (e.g. the Magic Carillon movement in the 1910 version, where he notates music simultaneously in 12/4 and 4/2). Discuss the effect of such notation, and the benefits (e.g. no need to use triplets) vs. challenges (e.g. following the conductor). Here are links to Scores and Parts for the 1910 and 1919 versions of the Firebird, and the Rite of Spring (1913). http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring_(Stravinsky,_Igor) http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Firebird_(Stravinsky,_Igor)

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Step 3: Final Thoughts
You may want to discuss how these rhythmic concepts have lived on past Stravinsky. Feel free to bring in recordings of works that you admire, or will play later in the year with your ensembles. Historically, many other composers were inspired by Stravinskys techniques of rhythmic manipulation and took it further into their own music. They approached Stravinskys aesthetic in dramatically different ways, but all were inspired by his innovations in injecting rhythmic variance and vitality into concert music. Other Musical Examples: ! Silvestre Revueltas: Sensemay ! John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine ! Aaron Copland: Sonata for Violin and Piano, Third Movement ! Maurice Ravel: Duo for Violin and Cello, Second Movement ! Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet no. 8, Fourth Movement

From Film Music: ! Don Davis: Main Titles-Trinity Infinity from The Matrix (2:30-3:30) ! Howard Shore: The Shadow of the Past from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ! John Williams: Bens Death / TIE Fighter Attack from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

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LA Phil: Symphonies for Schools Secondary Study Guide

Bibliography:
Browne, AJ. Aspects of Stravinskys Work. Music and Letters 9, no. 4 (1930): 360-366. Dent, Huntley. The One and Only Igor: Gergiev conducts Les Noces and Oedipus Rex. Berkshire Review. 7 June 2010. http://berkshirereview.net/2010/06/07/stravinsky_les_noces_oedipus_rex_gergiev/#.UPA64aX40bY Fink, Robert. The Story of ORCH5, or, the Classical Ghost in the hip-hop machine. Popular Music 24/3 (2005): pp. 339-356. DOI: 10.1017/S0261143005000553 Harnisch, Larry. The Daily Mirror: Stravinsky Turns 75. Los Angeles Times, 3 June 2007. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror /2007/06/stravinsky_turn.html Levitz, Tamara. "Igor the Angelino: The Mexican Connection." Stravinsky and His World, ed. Tamara Levitz. Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2013. Reveaux, Tony. Disney Museum. Cinesource Magazine. 13 December 2012. http://cinesourcemagazine.com/index.php?/site/comments/disney_museum/ Walsh, Steven. "Stravinsky, Igor." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed January 11, 2013. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52818pg2 Van den Toorn, Pieter C. Stravinsky, Adorno and the Art of Displacement. Musical Quarterly (Fall) 87, no. 3: 468-509. DOI:10.1093/musqtl/gdh017

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Los Angeles Philharmonic: Nurturing curiosity, creativity, virtuosity

Through the LA Phil's thriving education and community programs, the LA Phil displays its commitment to the future of music and the very well-being of our city. We support the next generation of artists through our mentorship and community and school-based orchestras and highschool aged composers. We ignite the first spark of interest in symphonic music when school buses take over Grand Avenue and more than 13,000 children stream into Walt Disney Concert Hall. As a result, our community is becoming vibrant in the arts. Together we listen, we learn, and we make music. As Music Director Gustavo Dudamel has said, "The orchestra is a perfect metaphor for community." Please visit www.laphil.com/education or call 213.972.8082 to learn more about the ways teachers, students, and families can be involved in the LA Phil.

Teachers: dont forget to schedule a field trip to visit the Hollywood Bowl!
This is a place full of history and hidden treasures. You can become a part of its history. Legend has it that in 1864 a group of men traveling from Mexico carried a war chest toward San Francisco. In that chest was nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of gold, diamonds and jewels! Upon arriving in San Francisco, the men discovered that the city was teeming with French spies! So, they immediately buried the treasure for safekeeping. Soon after, a stranger found the treasure and headed for Los Angeles. The stranger stopped to spend the night in the hills north of the city. That night he dreamed the treasure was cursed! He quickly buried it in the hillside and never returned. Meanwhile, the men who had first carried the treasure to San Francisco had already fallen under the treasures curse and died. Years later, knowing the treasure remained buried in the hillsides north of Los Angeles, a group of men began a search. They believed the treasure to be here at the Hollywood Bowl! In 1939, they received permits from the County to dig, but soon cancelled the dig for fear of the curse. Another man continued the dig, but he never found the treasure and became so depressed he felt he could not go on. He too fell under the treasures curse. The treasure has never been found! If you are brave enough, you may begin your treasure hunt here! Plan a field trip to the Hollywood Bowl and Hollywood Bowl Museum. Please call 323.850.2058 for more information.