K098 Die Flut
K98 The Flood
A Musical Play for tenor solo, two bass soloists, and chorus, with speaking parts, a Narrator, and a Caller, and for orchestra — Die Flut.* Ein musikalisches Spiel für Soli, Sprecher, Chor und Orchester, Text von Robert Craft ausgewählt und bearbeitet nach der Schöpfungsgeschichte des Alten Testaments und altenglischen Mysterienspielen des 15. Jahrhunderts — Le Déluge. Jeu musical. — Il Diluvio. Azione musicale per tenore e due bassi solisti, recitante, coro ed orchestra. Testo compilato e rielaborato die Robert Craft dalla storia della Creazione nell’Antico Testamento e da ‘misteri’ inglesi del XV secolo
* not Die Sintflut.
Title: Originally planned as a Dance-Drama for television with the title Biblical allegory of Noah and the Flood, it was changed for the LP recording to The Flood, a Biblical Allegory based on Noah and the Ark. It was broadcast on television as Noah and the Flood, with the subtitle Dance-Drama, after a strenuous protest from Strawinsky against Rolf Liebermann’s renaming the work, from Noah to Die Sintflut (described by the composer as ‘senseless’) in his Hamburg production. Die Flut therefore became the actual title (with its eschatological symbolism), which had already been established at an early stage in its composition, according to a letter from Ernst Roth of 27th February 1961. Strawinsky repeated his instruction regarding the title ‘The Flood’ instead of ‘Noah’ in a further, very irritated letter to Roth dated 11th April 1961 with complaints about Liebermann’s actions, so almost two months after starting work on the composition. He told the same to David Adams in a letter dated 22nd April. Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, premiered in 1957, certainly was factor in Strawinsky’s departure from his original title, causing him to discard his original ideas on the matter, as he did not wish the work to be seen as an imitation of Britten’s work. It is however certain that he had for a long time been considering taking on the antediluvian events, with their strong plotline and theologically meaning, planning not to set it in the past, rather in the future. Thus the title Sintflut, referring as it did to the historical flood, became unfeasible, because the historic flood can take on a new form, at once being accepted as a result of the unreasonable actions of man and also as a provoked and foreseeably repeatable disaster in the future, under the Christian interpretation of disaster as the result of human sin. The title, The Flood, according to Strawinsky, also stands, among other things, for the great destructive event of our time, the Atom Bomb, and for catastrophe per se. An ‘obvious explanation’ of the ever-witty Strawinsky is, on the other hand, evidently persisting. The Strawinskys and Robert Craft stayed in Venice on 15th October 1960 and experienced a flood, during which the water rose above half a meter in their hotel. It was at that time, as Strawinsky joked, that it occurred to him to name the television piece The Flood.
Scored for: a) First edition: Parts : Narrator [Sprecher, Narrateur], Caller [Rufer, Annonceur] (Speaking Part); Lucifer/Satan (Tenore Solo); God (2 Bassi Soli); Noah, Noah’s Wife, Noah’s Sons (Speaking Parts); the three wives of the sons of Noah (silent roles); Coro (Soprani, Alti, Tenori); Orchestra: 3 Flauti grandi (3° anche Fl. Picc.), Flauto alto, 2 Oboi, Corno inglese, 2 Clarinetti, Clarinetto basso, Clarinetto contrabasso, 2 Fagotti, Contrafagotto, 4 Corni, 3 Trombe, 2 Trombone tenori (1° anche Trombone alto, Trombone basso, Tuba contrabassa, Timpani, 3 Tom-toms, Xylophone-Marimba, Piatto, Gran Cassa, Celesta e Pianoforte, Arpa, Archi [3 Flutes (3° also Piccolo Flute), Alto Flute, 2 Oboes, English Horn, 2 Clarinets, Bass Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, Contrabassoon, 4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, 2 Tenor Trombones (1st also Alto Trombone), Contrabass Tuba, Timpani, 3 Tom-Toms, Xylophone-Marimbaphone, Cymbal, Bass Drum, Celesta and Piano, Harp, Strings]; Performance requirements: 5 Narrators, 3 silent roles, Tenor Solo; 2 Bass Soloists); 4 male, 4 female Dancers; mixed chorus for three voices (Soprano, Alto, Tenor), Piccolo Flute ( = 3rd Flute) 3 Flutes (3rd Flute = Piccolo Flute), Alto Flute, 2 Oboes, English Horn, 2 Clarinets*, Bass Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, Contrabassoon, 4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, Alto Trombone ( = 1st Tenor Trombone), 2 Tenor Trombones (1st Tenor Trombone = Alto Trombone), Contrabass Tuba, Timpani, 3 Tom-Toms, Marimbaphone, Cymbal, Bass Drum, Celesta, Piano, Harp, 2 Solo Violins, Solo Viola,Solo Violoncello, Solo Double Bass, Strings (1st Violins**, 2nd Violins**, Violas**, Violoncellos***, Kontrabässe**).
* The D or E flat clarinet is preferred in parts for the 1st Clarinet.
** Divided in two.
*** Divided in three.
Score: All instruments are notated in C and sound as written. The layout of the score is in staggered blocks with empty staves removed from the systems as appropriate. At bar 285 in the scene of the Building of the Ark, Strawinsky gives the 1st-Clarinet player the choice of a D or an E-flat clarinet. This is the first occasion that Strawinsky uses a Contrabass-Tuba in his orchestra. The complex rhythmic beaming, which poses great difficulty even to many professional orchestras, makes The Flood one of the most technically difficult of Strawinsky’s orchestral works.
Summary: [I.] (Prelude:) After the Latin Te Deum, which acts as a type of overture, the Narrator recites short extracts from the extremely eclectic biblical Creation story, from the separation of the water and the land up to the creation of humans as man and woman in God’s own image. God himself raises his voice and breathes their souls into the two humans. The Narrator speaks of the uproar which is in Heaven. We again hear God’s voice, as he charges a high angel with the task of bearing light, and he gives the angel the name Lucifer. Lucifer however, as the Narrator describes, was vain, proud and ambitious and calls himself the highest in Heaven. He is overthrown however, changes from Lucifer to Satan, and, as the Narrator concludes, nurtures his smouldering revenge. The overture ends with Satan’s vow to destroy mankind in order to have his revenge himself against God. – [II.] (Melodrama:) Satan appears, disguised as a snake, and announces his presence in his falsetto voice, and proceeds to tempt Eve. The Caller recounts the story of the temptation, how Eve tempted Adam, how God cursed the snake and the earth, and how Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise. God then calls upon his servant Noah and announces the destruction of all living creatures except Noah and his family. He, with God’s help, must build a ship and with it should save his wife, his three sons and their wives. And Noah, in dialogue with God, obeys him. – [III.] (The Building of the Ark:) [Dance scene without text] – [IV.] (The Catalogue of Animals:) Noah explains, that the Lord has ordered him to bring a pair of each animal and singing bird onto the ark. A Caller proceeds to count each of them separately in a long row. – [V.] (The Comedy – Noah and his wife:) Noah, who attentively observes his surroundings, calls to his wife to come onto the Ark. She does not understand the situation at all and thinks that he should keep looking on stupidly. Noah gets impatient and orders her on board. She refuses once again. She says that he might just flee to safety with another wife. Once her sons ask her to do it, she comes on board the ark. Noah greets her and, instead of thanks, she boxes his ears. Noah sees that the Earth is covered by the flood. – [VI.:] (The Flood:) [Textless dance scene] – [VII.] (The Covenant:) God speaks for the final time. He makes a covenant with Noah and gives to his kinsmen a new homeland and a new beginning, with the task that they worship God in good degree. Satan bemoans his fate; for him, nothing has been worthwhile. Adam’s guilt is drowned in the salt of the flood and in the healing blood of the coming Saviour. The chorus sings ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ from the Sanctus and ends the work with the Te Deum, intoned anew as if for eternity.
Source: The form of the play conforms to the genre of Miracle Play in the broadest sense, as they were known in France and England since the 14th Century as a specific genre of play. In the Middle Ages, they would normally end with a popular Te Deum, which encompassed the sub-cultural element, in so far as the play was produced in a Gregorian style. Depending on the purpose and the function, they contained grand, impressive, pathetic and comic elements alongside scenes of slapstick, which are even present in The Flood . The Text of the play, as one can hardly talk of a libretto in this context, was compiled by Robert Craft. His sources were, apart from Genesis I from the Old Testament, Old-English Mystery Plays from the period 1430-1500, taken from the York and Chester Cycles of Miracle Plays collection. These he presumably took from the Pocketbook Edition of Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays, published by A. C. Cawley in 1959 from the New York publishers, Dutton & Co. The collection contains 15 plays in 225 pages, including prefaces, introductions and an index of characters, of which some are extremely short and only consist of one scene. Presumably, several were performed one after the other in the biblical order of the scenes. He mostly used just two of the plays ( The Creation and The Fall of Lucifer from The York Cycle and Noah’s Flood from The Chester), and from a further York play ( The Fall of Man) he took a few lines for the Snake’s call to Eve and her reply. The Redemption, recognized by Satan, with which Strawinsky’s Flood closes, appeared to have been developed by Craft from the adaptation of other plays contained in the edition. Craft assigned all the Old-Testament Bible stories to the Narrator and shortened the originals to fit the required running length for the television opera. The 7 lines from the first of Lucifer’s arias, for example, correspond to lines 50, 52, 53, 56, 91, 93 and 97 of the York Lucifer Play. Likewise, the 12 lines (the printed lines 6 and 7 make up one line of the original verse) of God’s speech to Noah, ‘I, God, that all the world have wrought’, correspond to lines 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 (= Craft 6+7), 14-20 from the Chester original. As a rule, Craft alters the verses a certain amount, but also adapts them, such as the three lines in Eve’s scene, which correspond to lines 25-27 of the original. He replaced antiquated words, using the words of explanation printed in the margin by the editor.
Translation: The Flood was originally composed in English and during Strawinsky’s lifetime, it was only translated into German, by Ernst Roth. His accuracy suffers from his attempt to replicate in part the naive rhymes of the original and to capture the atmosphere of a simple play made up of various characteristics.
Construction: The Flood is a seven-part play, with some titled scenes which are not numbered, with a feeling of timelessness. It is made up of song, melodrama, play, opera, dance and pantomime, which, as a through-written allegorical play of multiple genre-types, has as its precedent in the catalogue of Strawinsky’s work The Soldier’s Tale, with which it also shares the possibility of multifarious theatrical interpretations. Irrespective of a definition of systematically developing pictorial construction, The Flood is probably like no other late work of Strawinsky, bearing religious symbols of form and meaning. These can only be uncovered through very precise analysis in so far as one can construct a relationship between formal and structural events on the one hand and biblical and cosmic notions on the other, which is exclusively a question of theological knowledge and theoretical music aesthetics. That starts with the extreme formality of the seven-part structure, which corresponds to the creation story from Genesis, and the logical internal structure of the separate sections. It is deepened in the interval relationships in the first bar with the bare fifth, used as a symbol of the biblical wilderness and emptiness of Chaos in the beginning, and in christological ideology, it is internalised into the future several times in the chiasmatic figures. The problem of God’s voice, solved by the use of the chorus in Babel, is shared out as two voices and is located in the low register of the bass, who here takes the role of the safe ground out of which everything else unfolds. According to that the voice of Lucifer, which stands against God’s orders, is a symbol of vanity, the entirety of which is in the higher voice of the tenor. The ponticello effect represents the beam of light which encircles God. The subject of the play is not the Noah story, but sin itself; the former was for Strawinsky a Christian Old-Testament character in the manner of the priest Melchisedech, whereas the composer saw the latter as the precondition for the spiritual and physical downfall of man and his world („ The subject of The Flood is not the Noah story, however, but Sin”) –
The introductory Prelude in the seven-part cycle is itself divided in seven parts (Introduction, Te Deum, Narration, The Word of God, Lucifer’s Aria, Narration, God’s Final Word) and it begins for its part with an instrumental introduction of seven bars. bar 1 opens as an image of Chaos with a bare fifth which is an important symbol throughout the entire work. The following twelve-tone chord, as it contains the entire chromatic scale, represents all the materials of the world brought into order. Surely it is no coincidence that in bar 6, the twelve-tone row is presented in its original [prime] form (on the sixth day of the creation story, God created man in his own image), and thus in a famous intervallic construction which stretches up into the heights, in which low and high notes respectively form a row, Strawinsky creates an image which he uses in reference to Jacob’s Ladder, by which Jacob first climbed to Heaven. The image displays Strawinsky’s subtle humour; the prime row is presented only in the harp, while in the woodwind it is exposed in crabwise motion. Strawinsky’s ironic conclusion, (he was always putting in clever witticisms in such situations), is to let him who goes into Heaven without having died, climb down again, as Jacob once did. The seventh bar contains a long, held chord, just as the seventh day was God’s rest day. The creation is complete and now rejoices in the creation, praising God with the words of the Te Deum. The Te Deum is based on the inversion of the row and is as clearly rhythmically defined as the previous portrayal of chaos was diffuse. –
The entry of God’s double-voice, heralded by drum beats, should suspend itself positionless in the room and is based upon a complicated alternating game between the different inversion forms of the row in both voices, which simultaneously serve the characterisation of the situation yet still leave it open to interpretation. When God gives Adam his wife, Strawinsky inverts the order of the tones but with the same melodic shape: Eve is not only the God-given woman, she is Adam’s counterpart. –
Also, the transformation of Lucifer to Satan is aurally noticeable. The clear voice of Lucifer becomes Satan’s falsetto hissing which leads Eve astray. That Strawinsky chose to portray Satan’s movements as a snake slithering on the ground by means of the character while laying on his belly is unequivocal. The exchange between God and Noah with which the melodrama closes, is an antiphonal duettino, back and forth between double-voice and speech, using high and low as symbols for Heaven and Earth; this is not without its humorous moments. At the end, Noah bows to the will of God. At the oboe entry in bar 247, the last bar before the building of the ark begins, we recognise that Noah, who thus far has bent his knee, now looks up towards God. –
The building of the ark is a character piece in a structure which rotates inside itself. The famous bar 185, which is four quavers long, has many rhythmic layers: flutes, clarinets and horns play over each other, so that practically no single note sounds together with another. The first flute plays one quintuplet semiquaver over two quaver beats, four demi-semiquavers and one semiquaver triplet; against that, the second flute plays four demi-semiquavers, one semiquaver triplet and one quintuplet; the first clarinet begins with the triplet, followed by the quintuplet, and the four semi-demi quavers; the second clarinet begins with a tied-over quaver, which is further tied to a septuplet, followed by two semiquavers with a trill; the two horns play four tied semiquavers, the second note of each is always tied to the following note, where the two horns resolve by step. Such complex rhythms can normally only be accurately realised electronically. This device, much favoured by Strawinsky, of different rhythmic permutations simultaneously played in different voices, is above all that of stasis, but with strong inner movement. In The Flood, it gives the effect of a unified movement of diverse impulses running next to one another in one direction, and suggest the image of a group of people which, running around energetically, all do the same thing. –
The Catalogue of the Animals is one of the simpler tableaux in the play. The narrator is not called upon to read, rather a single caller is used, who must speak as energetically and as quickly as he can. He effectively acts as a customs officer who lets a column of animals pass by him and, with a loud voice, reads out their names in time like a catalogue (and stretches out into the reality of work) in order to suggest that at the end, everyone who was on the list reached the ark. The music adds drama to the reading-out of the groups. –
The slapstick scene is just as clearly characterised. Noah’s wife doesn’t think to come on board the ark. The text, in connection with the subsequent action, gives the impression that the wife changes her mind in response to her children’s pleading, for which her slapping Noah round the face would not be entirely appropriate. Strawinsky meant something quite different. The children ask her to go on board, but she fears for her own life. The wife doesn’t come back of her volition, rather she is almost taken on board by her sons against her will, effectively as the last of the animals that must be taken on board. Strawinsky speaks of the ‘kicking mother’ in the directorial instructions, who, to use naval language, is hoisted on board, and he portrays the action in bars 387-389 with his idiosyncratic, biting humour. The staccato dots over the semiquavers suggest the kicking which she makes in all directions; the rising, upper voice in marcato minims forcefully portrays the hoisting motion which is completed with a final jerk. It then goes back downwards onto the deck of the ark where Noah greets his enraged wife, probably with a gentle, mocking remark. She thanks him in her own way by giving Noah a slap across the face, which is commented on in the orchestra. –
Strawinsky characterises The Flood with undulating wave figures which are interrupted and intentionally monotonous, and whose deathly horror intrudes into your consciousness over the other tone colour. The constant staccatissimo of the flutes and their flutter-tongue effect, the flautando of the violins, the metrical irregularity (the time signature, with only three exceptions, effectively changes every bar), the long, held harp and piano chords, the low notes of the contrabass tuba and the constant irregularity all gradually begin to fray one’s nerves. The interruptions between the wave figures should awake hopes that are not fulfilled. The flood is not yet over. Strawinsky consciously imitates neither wind nor storm, indeed he even denies himself that he was thinking of wave shapes. The wave shapes should not be taken to suggest the rocking motion of the water, rather the passing of time, and the interruptions answer the sudden question after the end of the test in the negative. – In the last scene, in which the tone colour changes as a sign of renewal and also Satan’s voice is heard differently, the rainbow stands for the biblical sign of the new covenant between God and Man. New Man once again climbs to heaven. Strawinsky comments on the events by inserting the Jacob’s Ladder motif in bar 496. The piece closes after the choral Sanctus in the standard way for a Mystery Play with the Te Deum. Strawinsky invents a musical symbol for the song, which reaches out into eternity, in that, in the repetition of the Incipit, the second syllable of ‘De-um’ is not sung, rather exhaled. The actual end of the piece is therefore the lightly rescored repeat of bar 6 of the Prelude with the Jacob’s Ladder motif as a sign of the reunification of Man with God.
Structure
Prelude
[Vorspiel]
[Prélude]
Crotchet = 63
(bar 1-5)
Quaver = 192 circa
(bar 6-59)
Tempo Io Crotchet = 63
(bar 60-67)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 61)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 62)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 63)
[Speaking part]
(bar 64)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 65)
[Speaking part]
(bar 66)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 67)
Quaver = 120
(bar 68-82)
[Speaking part]
(bar 68-82)
[Speaking part]
(bar 82)
Crotchet = 86-80
(bar 83-115)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 115)
Crotchet = 86-80
(bar 116-126)
Crotchet = 104
(bar 127-151)
[Speaking part]
(bar 127)
[Speaking part]
(after bar 151)
Meno mosso Crotchet = 68*
(bar 152-167)
[Speaking part Satan]
(bar 167)
MELODRAMA
[Melodram]
[Mélodrame]
Quaver = 116
(bar 168-178)
[Speaking part]
(bar 168)
[Speaking part]
(bar 170)
[Speaking part]
(bar 172)
[Speaking part]
(bar 177 + 178)
Crotchet = 60
(bar 179-247)
[Speaking part Noah]
(after bar 215)+
[Speaking part Noah]
(bar 222)+
[Speaking part Noah]
(bar 234)+
[Speaking part Noah]
(bar 247)
The Building of the Ark / (Choreography)
Der Bau der Arche / (Choreographie)
[La Construction de l'arche / (Orchestre-ballet)]
Quaver = 152
(bar 248-334)
The Calalogue of the Animals
Der Katalog der Tiere
[Le Catalogue des animaux]
[Speaking part Noah]
(before bar 335)+
Crotchet = 69
(bar 335-370)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 338)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 342)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 345)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 348)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 354)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 356)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 362)
[Speaking part Caller]
(bar 365)
The Comedy / (Noah and his wife)
Die Komödie / (Noah und sein Weib)
[La Comédie / Noê et sa femme]
Crotchet = 66
(bar 371-382)
[Speaking part Noah]
(bar 371)
[Speaking part Noah's wife]
(after bar 373)
[bar 382] She [Noah's wife] walks away
[bar 382] Sie [Noahs Weib] geht ab
[Speaking part Noah-Sons]
(after bar 382)
Crotchet = 112
(bar 383-386)
4 semiquavers = 90
(bar 387-390)
[bar 387] Noah's wife enters the Ark
[bar 387] Noahs Weib besteigt die Arche
Meno mosso Crotchet = 66
(bar 391-392)
[Speaking part Noah]
; (bar 391)
Vivo Crotchet = 112
(bar 393-394)
[Speaking part Noah's wife]
(bar 393)+
[bar 393] she boxes his ears
[bar 393] sie gibt ihm eine Ohrfeige
Lento Quaver = 74
(bar 395-398)
[bar 395] he [Noah] surveys the whole scene about him
[bar 395] er [Noah] betrachtet die Szene rings umher
[Speaking part Noah]
(bar 395)+
The Flood / (Choreography)
Die Flut / (Choreographie)
[Le Déluge / (Orchestre-ballet)]
Quaver = 96
(bar 399-456)
The Covenant of the Rainbow
Der Bund
[Le Pacte de l'arc-en-ciel]
Crotchet = 86
(bar 457-478)
Crotchet = 96
(bar 479-489)
[Rhythmic spoken text Noah]
(bar 479)+
Quaver = 63
(bar 490-495)
Quaver triplet = quaver = 192 circa
(bar 496)
Quaver = 102
(bar 497-581)
[Speaking part]
(bar 520)
Meno mosso[#] rallentando
(bar 582)
* The metronome mark M.M. 68 must be a printing error; Mälzel’s metronome has only the values 60, 63, 66 and 69 in the 60’s; see also the metronome marks in bars 371, 391 and 335.
Row: c#2-b1-c2-f#1-d#2-f2-e2-d2-b1-a1-g1-g#1.
Corrections / Errata
Full score 98-3
1.) Bar 255 (p. 29): the bar number 255 should be moved one bar to the right.
2.) Bar 266 (p. 30), 1st Violins: The chord a-c1 should be added between the first note, c1, and the second note, f#2. These three should also have a triplet bracket added to them.
3.) Bar 413 (p. 56) 1st Flute: 6th semiquaver d3 instead of d#3.
4.) Bar 413 (p. 56) 1st/2nd Violins: 6th repeat-note semiquaver d3 instead of d#3.
5.) Bar 4448 (p. 66) 1st. Flute and 1st/2nd Violins: a bracket natural has to be added to the 5th semiquaver g3.
Style: In The Flood, the symbolic-objective serial style of late Strawinsky, with echoes of the processes in The Owl and The Pussy Cat, is combined with the emotional weight of the spoken melodrama and the picturesque nature of the dance scenes; these, as is not the case in Agon, are not conceived as abstract, rather as a real event on stage. The Flood can be seen as a mixture of genres, from opera, cantata, melodrama, pantomime and ballet and is just as Renard, Les Noces, The Soldier’s Tale or Pulcinella, difficultly to be defined, therefore the title ‘Musical Play’. Strawinsky himself came to the conclusion (letter to Roth, 11th April 1961) that The Flood was “ perhaps not a theatre piece at all”. – Strawinsky did not use any Gregorian melodic models. With reference to the Te Deum, he made a simple pun in English, that it was ‘ no Gregorian but Igorian chant’.
Dedication: no dedication known.
Duration: 22' 44" [6' 05" (Prelude), 4' 50" (Melodrama), 2' 33" (The Building of the Ark), 1' 33" (The Catalogue of the Animals), 1' 43" (The Comedy), 2' 32" (The Flood), 3' 28" ( The Covenant of the Rainbow)].
Date of origin: From February 1961 up to 14th March 1962, with corrections till mid of April.
History of origin: Apparently before Autumn 1960, Robert Graff of The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists gave Strawinsky a commission for a television piece for the Columbia Broadcasting System Television Network. On 27th February 1961, the final title was settled upon, but the composition had not yet been finished. Graff had communicated to David Adams about the new composition and suggested a possible date for completion. Strawinsky openly dispelled all of Graff’s expectations in a letter of 22nd April 1961 to Adams. At first, he began briefly with the composition and didn’t have the slightest idea when he would complete it and when taping would take place. Strawinsky worked for a year on his new piece starting February 1961, interrupted several times by concert tours. He was obviously pressurised by Graff as is evident from an irritated observation in a letter to Roth of 24th July 1961 from Santa Fé. Strawinsky called Graff’s idea, that they would be able to start the video recording by 1st January 1962, ‘more than naïve’. Evidently, Graff had no idea of the manner in which Strawinsky composed his music, the density of which required more time to compose than more simple music. Aside from that, he spared no thought for the state of his life, the concert tours which robbed him of 5-6 months a year of the time he could devote to composition. On 5th March 1962, he sent 15 pages of the orchestral score to Roth. The text from a letter with the date of 8th March ‘my last 15 pages of The Flood’, could at first have tempted him to assume that the work was finished. But from the continuation of the letter it becomes clear that Strawinsky didn’t mean the last 15 pages of the score, but rather the last 15 pages that he had completed. He wrote that he hoped to be able to send more in a week, but on 15th March 1962 he informed his publishers joyfully of the completion of the score and that he had already discussed matters of the staging with Balanchine. The score was published on 14th March 1962 and was printed with this date. In fact, Strawinsky had made some corrections that were inserted in April. In any case, he sent alterations for a series of bars after bar 489 to Ernst Roth in a letter of 13th April 1962, which he called ‘an important change’. It must have all happened quite quickly. Since the recording was scheduled for 28th March 1962 in Hollywood, Strawinsky could not wait any longer for the published material; rather, he decided to produce the necessary orchestra and choral parts himself. The conversations with Balanchine took place on the 15th and 16th of March 1962 in Strawinsky’s Hollywood flat and again after the television recording on the 11th and 12th of April.
First performance: Television Première*: 14th Juny 1962, Columbia Broadcasting System Television Network U.S.A., Laurence Harvey (Narrator), Sebastian Cabot (Noah), Elsa Lanchester (Noah’s Wife), Paul Tripp (Caller), John Readon and Robert Oliver (Voice of God), Richard Robinson (Lucifer), Columbia Symphony Orchestra and allied choir (Choirmaster: Gregg Smith), Stage Design and Costumes: Rouben Ter-Arutunian; Choreography: George Balanchine, Stage Direction: Kirk Browning, conductetd by Robert Craft under Strawinsky’s supervision; First stage performance: Tuesday, 30th April 1963, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Helmut Melchert (Lucifer/Satan), Vladimir Ruzdak and Ernst Wiemann (Voice of God), Heinz Klevenow (Noah), Helga Pilarczyk (Noah’s Wife), Horst Bethe, Hans Lederer, Harald Staar (Noah’s Sons), Kurt Ehrhardt (Narrator and Caller), Philharmonisches Staatsorchester and Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper ( rehearsed by Günter Schmidt-Bohländer), the Ballet of the Hamburg State Opera, with the stage design and the costumes by Teo Otto (the costumes were made by Anneliese Meier), lighting by Günther Metzeld, masks by Arthur Schlichting. Choreography: Peter van Dyk; Stage direction (production): Günther Rennert; Musical direction: Robert Craft.
* According to the ‚Neue Zürcher Zeitung’ (20 June 1962), 185 American television stations connected to the >Columbia Broadcasting System< have transmitted the first performance.
Remarks: The American television premiere took place with the normal advertisement breaks for a commercial, private television company, with many breaks for adverts for the Breck shampoo company (which belonged to the financial backers of the project). The performance lasted one hour and contained a biographical feature about Strawinsky with sound clips from other works. After his arrival in Hamburg in April 1963, Strawinsky made a statement about the American production, and could only find words of disgust for it, although he owed to it the realisation of his composition. The impact of the dance section was small, although Strawinsky had begun the work with great expectations and was of the opinion that it could be the first serial composition to reach a large number of social classes. The press reaction in New York was unpleasant and also later in Hamburg, he received only half-hearted applause and even isolated booing. There was no follow-up production in Strawinsky’s lifetime of which we are aware. Obviously the Santa Fé opera house, which was less well disposed to him than he had thought, offered to put it on as an after-play. John Crosby was working there, and he had commended himself to Strawinsky through many performances ( The Nightingale; Oedipus Rex; The Rake’s Progress; Perséphone). With Crosby in mind, Strawinsky asked Ernst Roth (letter of 13th of April, 1962) not to handle the discussions with Rolf Liebermann in such a way that a performance in Santa Fé would be prevented.
Significance: The Flood ties into Babel and is Strawinsky’s last stage-work. He subsequently composed only texts of death rituals, apart from the Abraham and Isaac (which is slightly different) and the last song for piano. Strawinsky himself claimed that bar 177 of The Flood, with its allegory of the Garden of Eden and the curse of original sin, was the centre and highpoint of the play; it is at the same time the densest piece of music that he had ever composed. Strawinsky called The Flood the first television opera in modern music history. The so-called space-based opera Aniara by the Swedish composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl, which uses electronic instruments among others does not call Strawinsky’s claim into question. This is because Aniara was an opera-house opera with its premiere on 31st May 1959 in Stockholm; this was broadcast from Sweden, with great expense spent on public adverts, by the only German television company at that time, but it had certainly not been composed for television.
Production: Scarcely had Strawinsky started work on The Flood, Rolf Liebermann, from the Hamburg Staatsoper , was active in trying to bind the work to his opera house. Strawinsky at first withdrew from Liebermann’s advances and he did not show up to a meeting with him (and Chagall) because he had drunk himself silly*. He was outraged at the prospect of the Hamburg Opera trying to make a performance of Noah , as it was being discussed as a certainty for June 1962. Strawinsky vented his anger in a letter to Ernst Roth of 11th April 1961 , previous calling the Liebermann’s method of negotiation ‘ aggressive and tactless’ in the face of the commissioner Robert Graff, and made it clear that the work was still far from completion and that a date for its performance could not yet be discussed. In spite of it, Liebermann’s obstinacy won the day. His stage put on The Flood for the first and last time in Strawinsky’s lifetime and thus was the opera house , in the face of the unfortunate American television performance , which , with an exceptional cast , earned the reputation of being the place of the actual premiere. The first Hamburg performance should have been recorded by Deutsche Fernsehen within the context of a Eurovision broadcast. At the last minute , the television company pulled out on the grounds of supposedly irresolvable technical difficulties (lighting problems) which caused a great deal of displeasure.* The first Hamburg performance was statically and archaically designed. The participants, soloists and choral singers entered wearing masks. B efore the first note had even been played, a certain sort of pantomime was the played out. On the bar e, propless stage with a three-part climbing frame, there was a coat-rack. The participants, in everyday clothing, walked about the stage with their large demon masks and took them off by the coat-rack. Whoever was singing or speaking firstly picked up his mask, then sang or spoke from the middle of the stage while the others emerged in the role of audience members. Following that, the mask would be returned to the rack. Only the Narrator, who in the Hamburg production was also the Caller, was unmasked. The voice of God was amplified by a loud-speaker and the text spoken by God was additionally shown on hanging boards. The chorus were brought into the audience seats at the sides of the orchestra pit and sang from there. The ballet for the building of the Ark was set in mousy grey, the Flood scene was under a gold-painted, shimmering pyramid of human bodies and animals in zebra-striped costumes. The stage designer, Teo Otto, (born Theo Otto on 4th February 1904 in Remscheid in the Rhineland, who was Technical Director of the Prussian State Theatre by 1933) started out as a painter and was regarded as a master of human depiction in painting. His 800 and more designs have significantly determined the history of theatre in the Twentieth Century. – The Hamburg Staatsoper performed The Flood in 1963/64 twelve times in total. Robert Craft conducted the premiere on 30th April 1963 at 7.30pm, likewise the subsequent performances on 4th May and 12th June. The premier of The Flood was programmed with Dallapiccola’s first Hamburg performance of Der Gefangene in the order Stravinsky – Dallapiccola, apart from the 12th June performance when Strawinsky himself conducted Oedipus Rex as the second piece of the evening. All further performances in the run of 1963/64 were programmed with Dallapiccola’s opera (24th May, 31st August, 3rd October 1963 and 19th June 1964), and were overseen by Horst Stein. Craft further directed the guest play in Zagreb (13th May 1963) and Milan (24th, 25th, 27th and 28th June 1963) at which Strawinsky conducted Oedipus Rex as the second item. The Zagreb cast was identical to that used in Hamburg; in Milan, Tom Krause sang in place of Vladimir Ruzdak. Craft had made his debut as conductor of the ballet Agon at the Hamburg Staatsoper on 24th June 1962 and directed further performances of Agon on the 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th June 1962.
* On 1st December 1960 , Mark Chagall, Rolf Liebermann, Vladimir Nabokow and Robert Craft were engaged to meet with Strawinsky and his wife for the afternoon in Nabokow’s house. Chagall had come from Rouen, Liebermann from Hamburg. At midday , the Strawinskys, with Nabokow and Craft, went to look for a restaurant between Boule d’Or and Nabokow’s house, where Strawinsky drunk himself silly to the point where he was unable to speak. Even Craft was so drunk that Vera Strawinsky had to take it upon herself to break the unpleasant news of Strawinsky’s unconsciousness. Liebermann laughed loudly during the explanation , and the matter should not have gone on to its tragic conclusion , but the Chagalls , especially Mme Chagall , were quite shocked , to which Vera Strawinsky, making an allusion to Chagall’s controversial painting techniques, asked her, perhaps a little too ironically, whether her husband had ever been as drunk and, if not, how she could explain Chagall’s pictures of chickens standing on their heads. The Chagalls never forgot the episode as they later related it to Karlheinz Stockhausen when he was visiting Chagall. There is good reason to assume that the meeting was about a project planned by Liebermann for Hamburg , with Chagall as set designer , and which Strawinsky wanted to get out of ; this project could have been The Flood, but with this set designer , Strawinsky could not at first approve.
Ideas for scenery: Strawinsky and Balanchine’s ideas for scenery were drawn up over a period of four days, between the 15th and 16th March and 11th and 12th April 1962 in Hollywood and consist of sixteen sets of pictures through-numbered in the publication, of which only half alone were for the Prelude, a sign of its symbolic importance in the work. In a seventeenth, Strawinsky expressed his opinions about music and on television in his characteristically biting humour. Inevitably, both artists went for a separation of sung and danced roles for the television work. In addition to the Lucifer-singer, there was also a Lucifer-dancer, who represented him conceptually in the manner of a pantomime, which added the expression to the song. –
(1) The Prelude stands for chaos. The vacuum of the opening was symbolised by black linen and the camera-work was done in such a way that the audience could not perceive bodies nor faces but wings. One learns that one is in a church and ones view is attracted to the three-winged altar with a monogram of Christ at the top. The Te Deum is sung from a great distance and swells up, whilst the stage gets lighter and is finally filled with a celestial effulgence, which obliterates all details of the scenery (bars 1 – 59). –
(2) The iconostasis is faded out. The narration of the creation of the world can either be accompanied by a procession of creation symbols, such as pictures of the moon, sea and desert, or by animations and graphics and structures of roots and stones in the manner of Tschelitschew, or alternatively through the medium of quickly changing forms and figures. Preferably, it should not be perceived as a stage in the view (bars 60 – 67). –
(3) Out of the recitative comes an arioso. It should be danced to, but not by human characters, and they should perform uncoordinated movements, movements which should appear as if the dancers so were discovering themselves and their bodies. This sequence was conceived as a choreographic support to the artistic Sprechgesang (bars 68 – 82). –
(4) The voice of God must enter as if in infinite space and accompanied by crystal light. A shower of golden dust should pass over the screen as long as the voice lasts. The picture itself is very problematic, two ellipses perhaps in parallel with the two voices, or an eye, an embryo or a swirl. The bass drum gives the signal to open the top of the screen and to show the divine radiance. For the narration of the creation of man, two human characters are to be seen from above. They stand motionless until the expulsion out of the Garden of Eden, when they lose their solemn demeanour. They should be shown in profile, or, because the television picture is unclear, from behind (bars 83 – 115). –
(5) When God gives Lucifer his name, the latter must stand motionless as a statue, in a shining costume of reflective metal, with a face like a jewel, with golden hair and amazing sequins. According to Balanchine’s concept , he should only be portrayed, where possible, in a mirror with prism effects (bars 116 – 126). –
(6) At the entry of Lucifer’s recitative, the Lucifer dancer begins to move. He jumps higher at every chord from rock to rock but doesn’t manage to reach the top of the rock, slipping down and beginning, at the arioso (bar 130) to dance a lithe, athletic ‘twist’ on the stage floor. Lucifer’s transformation takes place at bar 146. He becomes Satan his ‘negative version’. White becomes black, the colours rotate and his face works distortedly. At the end of bar 151, a small pause is inserted in order to give the camera the opportunity to insert special effects. The Fall of Lucifer can also just be symbolised in pictures, such as the collision of two atoms. Lucifer’s cries for help and of anger can be heard from an increasing distance with each cry, with echo effects and spiral-like decay. Because the Fall happens at that moment, the listener must be given time to comprehend Satan’s rage (bars 116 to 152). –
(7) The transformation of Lucifer into Satan, which is also accomplished musically in the transformation of trumpet sound in sweetly sibilant noise, must be visually accessible to the camera. Strawinsky backed an artistic depiction of the three levels, Heaven, Earth, and Hell, through respective visual clues. The Satan-dancer can sit during Satan’s aria or can stand afterwards; but he must, when he appears as the snake, remain visible. Strawinsky called the parallel music for two hand-stopped horns for the entry of the snake ‘Tarnhelm music’ and meant it to be his first and last attempt to compose a dance to be performed while laying on one’s belly. (bars 153 to 167 [168]). –
(8) Instead of the depiction of Adam and Eve being led to the tree by the snake, they came upon the idea of depicting the tree itself as the snake, which embraces Adam and Eve. The snake-tree should at first be brightly coloured and visually beautiful. Balanchine imagined a willow tree rather than the apple tree, which , as soon as the fruit had been picked , should get dark. The picking of the fruit should be depicted only by mimed gesture and no real apple should be brought into the play, whilst the narrator describes what is happening. The events around the first curse must be brought to a conclusion shortly before the chord from the heavy brass in bar 177, and the same for the second curse before the entry of the second chord. With the entry of the first note of the contra-bassoon in bar 178, Adam and Eve realise their nakedness and flee from Paradise in shame. In bar 179, the voice of God sings, the Jacob’s Ladder music returns, and clouds and light dominate the scene. Strawinsky calculated for this section that it would take 15 seconds to get from lowest to the highest. God’s voice should be combined with lights sweeping around the stage . During God’s song, the camera discovers some movement in the blackness far below. The camera travels downwards in a spiral motion and falls on the frail and humble Noah. He is wearing a patriarchal toga and a tulle cloak, which magically swells and shimmers around him, shining with light at the tremoli, which accompany his conversation with God. The dancing members of his family wear white gym clothes and crooked masks and should only be shown in profile. Balanchine saw a problem in the decision of the period in which the play should be set , whether it should be set in to biblical times, in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance manner or Byzantine or otherwise. Strawinsky and Balanchine knew only that they were looking for something completely new for which there was as yet no name. God is a person but devoid of personality. He is not born as man. Lucifer/Satan on the other hand, is not a person but appears as many people. He can be a conductor, a genius, a highly-esteemed sports personality, a film star or an ex-astronaut (bars 168 to 207). –
(9) Balanchine conceived the dialogue between God and Noah as a form of ball game, a constant switching between the earthly perspective of Noah and of the g odly perspective in the light of the iconostasis. Balanchine wanted his audience to identify themselves with Noah’s family. Therefore he wanted to show Noah as closely as possible and make the dancers into audience members on their own platform. Up to this point the great Flood should be something like a fantasy, a myth, a forgotten framework of symbols. Now, however, it collapses (bars 208 to 247). –
(10) Until the Building of the Ark, Noah is alone on stage. He speaks to God like one on a deserted island, bows to him, but tries to protect himself from his light. Noah speaks slowly and in broken fashion; he is an old man and is afraid. Strawinsky imagined using a moving beam of light for the radiance surrounding God in the conversation between God and Noah (bars 208 to 247). –
(11) The fear of Noah and the Hebrews must be made comprehensible. In contrast to the Greeks, the Jews were no seafarers. The farmers therefore were very afraid of water catastrophes . In bars 248 and 249, the dancers stand together in a united line. The building of the ark so begins. According to Balanchine’s vision, the dancers should make their movements mechanically like clockwork, and their arms should work like semaphore. Noah appears on the stage not before the coda from bars 328 to 334, in order, together with the builders of the Ark, to take a look at the work and to confirm its seaworthiness. Strawinsky attached great importance to not showing the actual Ark, only its shadow, and he said that the Ark should be unreal like the Trojan horse (bars 248 to 334). –
(12) During the scene in which the animals are loaded onto the Ark, Noah’s sons should stand next to one another like harbour workers. As the Caller, he imagined there should be a man with an American accent in the manner of a tobacco auctioneer or a dance caller, with paper in his hand or a Jew’s harp. The animals should be spread out on the screen with quickly changing camera angles in the form of figures, for example toy figures, each shown in its own way. T here should also possibly be the image that the animals are brought on a conveyer belt and that Noah’s sons pick them up and bring them into the Ark, just like children put play things into a box (bars 335 to 370). –
(13) Strawinsky imagined Noah’s wife as an alcoholic harridan with a bottle in her hand. She hasn’t paid any attention to the building of the Ark and is on the way to a pub when the flood starts. At the last minute, the kicking woman is taken by her sons into the Ark. Strawinsky refrained from having the choir speak in unison or using the narrator (bars 371 to 394). –
(14) In addition to Noah’s confirmation that the world has been flooded, Strawinsky wanted electronic effects or pure noise, such as a sine wave , to illustrate the atmospheric disturbances (bars 395-398). –(15) The depiction of the flood begins with light shining upwards from the side. When Balanchine sets the climax of the storm at bar 427, Strawinsky did not agree because he neither wanted to portray waves nor a storm. Balanchine then employed a ground-covering made of black shiny material which looked like a bubbling oil field. The dance movements should be synchronised with exploding black wrappers and balloons. The male dancers represent the waves and, on their knees, they move their upper bodies up and down. The female dancers represent the people floating in the water. The choreography planned at this point was for the male dancers to throw the female dancers and to spin round. The audience watching the screen should feel the events very closely and thus should know through that that they are not aboard the life-s aving Ark themselves (bars 399-456). – (16) The changing colours on the screen onstage must correspond to the changing colours in the music assigned to God. Balanchine would have preferred to use dancers dressed in costumes symbolising arks or bridges to depict the Rainbow, if he was not wary of the effect of publicity on the local radio. At end of the Rainbow, Noah kneels in thankfulness, directly opposite him black objects can be seen which can be recognised as the tips of Satan’s wings. In addition to that, the chaos music of the Prelude is heard, an idea of Balanchine. Since Satan’s falsetto aria is an anticipation of the Coming of Jesus Christ, Satan must stay as a future antichrist in the play. According to Balanchine, Satan should be represented as a spider in human form in its web, without a recognisable face, or as a face with lips, but without other facial features. Adam and Eve appear ephemeral in the background or in shadow. During the final narration, the camera pans across the allegorical scene. Satan’s last gesture in the direction of Adam and Eve signifies that the end is in reality a beginning. The camera pans once again towards the altar where there are choirs of angels, and during the last bar containing the Jacob’s Ladder motif, the screen is flooded with eternal radiance.
Versions: The publishing contract with Boosey & Hawkes was settled on 10th April 1962. – There exist four basic editions of The Flood, piano reduction, conductor score and a pocket score as well as a choral edition of 1963 from Boosey & Hawkes in London. The vocal score is also available to hire. Apart from the choral edition, all editions appeared in English-German, piano reduction and vocal score in January 1963, the conductor’s score in the April of that year and the pocket score in June (entries in the British Library 15th January, 17th April and 25th June). The piano reduction was newly edited in September 1963.
Historical record: Hollywood, 28. - 31. March 1962, Laurence Harvey (Narrator), Sebastian Cabot (Noah), Elsa Lanchester (Noah’s Wife), Paul Tripp (Caller), John Readon and Robert Oliver (Voice of God), Richard Robinson (Lucifer), Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Choirmaster: Gregg Smith), conducted by Igor Strawinsky.
CD edition: X-1/3-9.
Autograph: none traceable.
Copyright: 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited; German translation 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited; Orchestral Score 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited.
Editions
a) Overview
98-1 1963 VoSc; Boosey & Hawkes London; 50 pp.; B. & H. 18939.
98-1Straw(1963) ibd. [with corrections].
98-163(1963) ibd.
98-1[64][1964] ibd.
98-1[65][1965] ibd.
98-2 1963 ChoSc; Boosey & Hawkes London; 6 pp.; B. & H. 19067.
98-3 1963 FuSc; Boosey & Hawkes London; 80 pp.; Pl.-Nr. 19057.
98-3Straw [with corrections].
98-4 1963 PoSc; Boosey & Hawkes London; 80 pp.; 19057; HPS 746.
b) Characteristic features
98-1 Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play / Vocal Score / BOOSEY & HAWKES // Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play / Vocal Score / BOOSEY & HAWKES / Music Publishers Limited / London · Paris · Bonn · Johannesburg · Sydney · Toronto · New York[*] // (Vocal score with chant sewn in red 23.4 x 30.9 ([4°]); speaking text English-German, sung text English-German + Latin; 50 [50] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper tomato red on grey-beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 6 pages front matter [title page, page with legal reservations centred >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited / German translation ©1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited< / justified text > All rights of theatrical, radio, television performances, / mechanical reproduction in any form whatsoever / (including film), translation of the text, of the / complete Musical Play or parts thereof are strictly / reserved. Full information can be obtained from the / Publishers.<, page with text acknowledgments >The text of The Flood, chosen and arranged by Robert Craft, / is derived principally from the Book of Genesis and the York / and Chester cycles of miracle plays (set down between 1430 / and 1500)< + list of roles (including choir) without headline Italian-English, empty page, legend >Orchestra< Italian + duration data [24'] English, empty page] without back matter; title head >THE FLOOD / DIE FLUT<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement title >Prelude< flush right centred >IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1961-62<; without translator specified; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 18939<; without end mark) // (1963)
* One copy of the Münchner Musikbibliothek >95 / 502340< has a blue stamp >CURRENT PRICE / 12/6 NET / BOOSEY & HAWKES, LTD.<, not imprinted straight, on the lower edge of the page on the right. This copy ended up in the possession of the library in 1966 [Inventory number >1103/66<].
98-1Straw
Copy front cover page next to and below name >Igor Stravinsky< signed with initials and dated right >IStr / April 1 st/°63< [° slash original]; front matter title page above and next to name >Igor Stravinsky< signed with initials and dated >IStr / Febr /°63< [° slash original]. The copy contains corrections in red in the orchestral legend. >3 Tom Toms< is entered underneath Tuba contrabassa; Zilafone is crossed out (because Zilafone-Marimba already appears above it); the crossing-out of >Celesta< is countermanded with the note >this is right<. There are otherwise no other corrections made.
98-163 Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play/ Vocal Score/ BOOSEY & HAWKES // Igor Stravinsky / THE FLOOD / A Musical Play / Vocal Score/ Boosey & Hawkes / Music Publishers Limited / London · Paris · Bonn · Johannesburg · Sydney · Toronto · New York// (Vocal score with chant sewn in red 23.5 x 31 ([4°]); speaking text English-German, sung text English-German + Latin; 50 [50] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper puce on dark beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 6 pages front matter [title page, page with legal reservations centred >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited< justified text > All rights of theatrical, radio, television performances, / mechanical reproduction in any form whatsoever / (including film), translation of the text, of the / complete Musical Play or parts thereof are strictly / reserved. Full information can be obtained from the / Publishers.<, page with Text acknowledgments >The text of The Flood, chosen and arranged by Robert Craft, / is derived principally from the Book of Genesis and the York / and Chester cycles of miracle plays (set down between 1430 and 1500).< + list of roles (including choir) without headline English-Italian, empty page, legend >Orchestra< Italian + note on performance centred >All instruments are written / at actual pitch< + duration data [24’] English, empty page] without back matter; title head >THE FLOOD / DIE FLUT<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement title >Prelude< flush right centred >IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1961-62<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.< flush right >All rights reserved <; plate number >B. & H. 18939<; end number >9. 63. E.<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right centre >Printed in England<) // (1963)
98-1[65] Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play/ Vocal Score/ BOOSEY & HAWKES // Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play/ Vocal Score/ BOOSEY & HAWKES / Music Publishers Limited / London · Paris · Bonn · Johannesburg · Sydney · Toronto · New York// (Vocal score with chant [library binding] 23.4 x 30.9 ([4°]); speaking text English-German, sung text English-German + Latin; 50 [50] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper tomato-red on grey-beige [front cover title, 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s advertisements >Igor Stravinsky<* production data >No. 40< [#] >7.65<] + 6 pages front matter [title page, page with legal reservations centred >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited / German translation ©1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited< / Blocksatz > All rights of theatrical, radio, television performances, / mechanical reproduction in any form whatsoever / (including film), translation of the text, of the / complete Musical Play or parts thereof are strictly / reserved. Full information can be obtained from the / Publishers.<, page with Text acknowledgments >The text of The Flood, chosen and arranged by Robert Craft, / is derived principally from the Book of Genesis and the York / and Chester cycles of miracle plays (set down between 1430 / and 1500)< + list of roles (including choir) without headline Italian-English, empty page, legend >Orchestra< Italian + duration data [24'] English, empty page] without back matter; title head >THE FLOOD / DIE FLUT<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement title >Prelude< flush right centred >IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1961-62<; without translator specified; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area flush right below legal reservation >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 18939<; without end mark) // (1965)
* Compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers, without price information and without specification of places of printing >Operas and Ballets° / Agon [#] Apollon musagète / Le baiser de la fée [#] Le rossignol / Mavra [#] Oedipus rex / Orpheus [#] Perséphone / Pétrouchka [#] Pulcinella / The flood [#] The rake’s progress / The rite of spring° / Symphonic Works° / Abraham and Isaac [#] Capriccio pour piano et orchestre / Concerto en ré (Bâle) [#] Concerto pour piano et orchestre / [#] d’harmonie / Divertimento [#] Greetings°° prelude / Le chant du rossignol [#] Monumentum / Movements for piano and orchestra [#] Quatre études pour orchestre / Suite from Pulcinella [#] Symphonies of wind instruments / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine [#] Variations in memoriam Aldous Huxley / Instrumental Music° / Double canon [#] Duo concertant / string quartet [#] violin and piano / Epitaphium [#] In memoriam Dylan Thomas / flute, clarinet and harp [#] tenor, string quartet and 4 trombones / Elegy for J.F.K. [#] Octet for wind instruments / mezzo-soprano or baritone [#] flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets and / and 3 clarinets [#] 2 trombones / Septet [#] Sérénade en la / clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola [#] piano / and violoncello [#] / Sonate pour piano [#] Three pieces for string quartet / piano [#] string quartet / Three songs from William Shakespeare° / mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and viola° / Songs and Song Cycles° / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine° / Choral Works° / Anthem [#] A sermon, a narrative, and a prayer / Ave Maria [#] Cantata / Canticum
sSacrum [#] Credo / J. S. Bach: Choral-Variationen [#] Introitus in memoriam T. S. Eliot / Mass [#] Pater noster / Symphony of psalms [#] Threni / Tres sacrae cantiones°< [° centre centred; °° original mistake in the title].
98-2 Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play/ Choral Score/ Boosey & Hawkes // (Choral score [library binding] 18.2 x 26.2 (8° [Lex 8°]); sung text Latin; 6 [6] pages without cover, without front matter and without back matter; title head >THE FLOOD<; title of the score below title head flush left >CHORAL SCORE<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below title head in height of the title of the score flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19067<; without end marks) // (1963)
98-3 Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play/ Full Score/ BOOSEY & HAWKES // Igor Stravinsky / The Flood / A Musical Play/ Full Score/ Boosey & Hawkes / Music Publishers Limited / London · Paris · Bonn · Johannesburg · Sydney · Toronto · New York// (Full score sewn 26.5 x 34.2 (2° [4°]); sung text English-German + Latin; 80 [80] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper orange on light green beige [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 4 pages front matter [title page, legal reservations >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited / Orchestral Score © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited< [#] [justified text] >All rights of theatrical, radio, television performances, / mechanical reproduction in any form whatsoever / (including film), translation of the text, of the / complete Musical Play or parts thereof are strictly / reserved. Full information can be obtained from the / Publishers.<, page with text acknowledgments >The text of The Flood, chosen and arranged by Robert Craft, / is derived principally from the Book of Genesis and the York / and Chester cycles of miracle plays (set down between 1430 / and 1500).< + list of roles (including choir) without headline English-Italian, legend >Orchestra< Italian + note on performance >All instruments are written / at actual pitch< + duration data [24'] English] without back matter; title head >THE FLOOD / DIE FLUT<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement title >Prelude< flush right centred >IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1961-62>; without translator specified; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Orchestral Score © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19057<; end of score dated p. 82 next to last bar oblong >March 14, 1962<; without end number; without end mark) // (1963)
98-3Straw
Strawinsky’s copy of his estate is above name and ending next to >The Flood< IStr / April 1 st/° / 63< signed and dated and contains corrections.
98-4 HAWKES POCKET SCORES / ^IGOR STRAVINSKY / THE FLOOD / A MUSICAL PLAY^ / BOOSEY & HAWKES / HPS 746 // HAWKES POCKET SCORES / IGOR STRAVINSKY / THE FLOOD / A MUSICAL PLAY / BOOSEY & HAWKES / MUSIC PUBLISHERS LIMITED / LONDON : PARIS : BONN : JOHANNESBURG : SYDNEY : TORONTO : NEW YORK / MADE IN ENGLAND [#] NETT° PRICE // (Pocket score sewn 13.6 x 18.7 ([8°]); speaking and sung text English-German + Latin; 80 [80] pages + 4 cover pages thicker paper dark green on beige grey [front cover title with frame 9.7 x 4.2 beige grey on dark green, 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s advertisements HAWKES POCKET SCORES / An extensive library of miniature scores containing both classical works / and a representative collection of outstanding modern compositions<* production data >No. I6< # >I/6I<] + 4 pages front matter [title page, page with legal reservations >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited.° / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers / Limited° / Orchestral Score © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers / Limited.° / All rights of theatrical, radio, television performances, mechanical / reproduction in any form whatsoever (including film), translation / of the text, of the complete Musical Play or parts thereof are / strictly reserved. Full information can be obtained from the / Publishers.<, page with Text acknowledgments centre centred >The text of The Flood, chosen and arranged by Robert / Craft, is derived principally from the Book of Genesis / and the York and Chester cycles of miracle plays (set / down between 1430 and 1500).< + list of roles (including choir) without headline English-Italian, legend >ORCHESTRA< Italian + note on performance centred >All instruments are written / at actual pitch< + duration data [24'] English] without back matter; without translator specified; title head >THE FLOOD / DIE FLUT<; author specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below movement title >Prelude< flush right centred >IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1961-62<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1962 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / German translation © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Orchestral Score © 1963 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.< flush right >All rights reserved<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H.19057<; end of score dated p. 80 next to last bar oblong >March 14, 1962<; end number p. 80 flush left >4. 63. E.<;) // (1963)
^ ^= Text in frame.
° Original spelling.
* Compositions are advertised in three columns without edition numbers from >Bach, Johann Sebastian< to >Wagner, Richard<, amongst these >Stravinsky, Igor / Agon / Canticum Sacrum / Le Sacre du Printemps / Monumentum / Movements / Oedipus Rex / Pétrouchka / Symphonie de Psaumes / Threni<. After London the places of printing are listed: Paris-Bonn-Johannesburg-Sydney-Toronto-New York.
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