Les Noces
| Les noces | |
|---|---|
| Choreographer | Bronislava Nijinska |
| Music | Igor Stravinsky |
| Premiere | June 13, 1923 |
| Original ballet company | Ballets Russes |
| Genre | Neoclassical ballet |
| Type | Classical ballet |
Les noces (French; English: The Wedding; Russian: Свадебка, Svadebka) is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title: "Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices." Though initially intended to serve as a ballet score, it is often performed without dance. It premiered under the musical direction of Ernest Ansermet at the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska on June 13, 1923, in Paris. Several versions of the score have been performed, either substituting orchestra for the percussion and pianos or using pianolas in accordance with a version of the piece that Stravinsky abandoned without completing.
Stravinsky first conceived of writing the ballet in 1913 and completed it in short score by October 1917. He wrote the libretto himself using Russian wedding lyrics taken primarily from songs collected by Pyotr Kireevsky and published in 1911. During a long gestation period its orchestration changed dramatically. Stravinsky first planned to employ an expanded symphony orchestra similar to that of The Rite of Spring. His thinking went through numerous variations, including at one point the use of synchronised roll-operated instruments, including the pianola, but Stravinsky abandoned that version when only partially completed because the Parisian piano firm of Pleyel et Cie was late in constructing the two-keyboard cimbaloms, later known as luthéals, that he required.
Stravinsky settled on the following forces: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass soloists, mixed chorus, and two groups of percussion instruments: pitched percussion, including four pianos, and unpitched percussion. This orchestration exemplifies Stravinsky's increasing proclivity for stripped down, clear and mechanistic sound groups in the decade after The Rite, although he never again produced such an extreme sonic effect solely with percussion.
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