Stravinsky Was Influenced By Rimsky-Korsakov

Another way that Stravinsky was influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov involves his use of diatonic and octatonic scales. Rimsky-Korsakov in his writing would often use diatonic scales to represent human characters while the octatonic scales would represent supernatural beings. As a result, Stravinsky utilises this technique in many of his works in the Russian period. This is seen in his ballets, The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, all of which contain the two representations of “diatonic” human characters and “octatonic” supernatural beings (Griffiths; Burkholder, Grout & Palisca 2014, p. 832).

Other important features that are characteristic of Stravinsky’s work in the Russian period include musical forms and structures that are practical for story and stage considerations as well as the use of folk material for thematic content. The former often comes as a result of the latter as the folk material was used to support what is occurring on stage. This meant that considerations of swift scene changes on stage needed to be made in terms of musical structure (Szabo 2011, p. 3). Stravinsky also produced large-scale works in this time period which “developed public expectations for the grandiose, the intensely dramatic, and the
(Griffiths; Burkholder, Grout & Palisca 2014, p. 833) Because of the nature of scene changes in the ballet, stage considerations in relation to musical structure needed to be made. As a result, the ballet has a tableau (or mosaic) form structure which essentially means the ballet is pieced together with singular, distinct sections. The transitions between these sections would often be quite sudden. Some examples of the way these transitions occurred in The Rite of Spring include sudden introductions of motifs into a new section or sudden changes in tempo (Szabo 2011, p.