Histoire du soldat, or Tale of the Soldier (as it was first published),[1] is an hour-long 1918 theatrical work to be "read, played and danced (lue, jouée et dansée)" by three actors, one or more dancers, and a septet of instruments.
Its music is by Igor Stravinsky, its libretto, in French, by Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz; the two men conceived it together, their basis being the Russian tale The Runaway Soldier and the Devil in the collection of Alexander Afanasyev.
[2] Histoire du soldat is scored for clarinet, bassoon, cornet (often played on trumpet), trombone, percussion, violin and double bass.
Ramuz relates the parable of a soldier who trades his violin to the Devil in return for vast economic gain by means of three actors: the Narrator, who both narrates and impersonates several minor characters; the Devil, who assumes various guises; and the Soldier himself, Joseph, from no army identified.
Stravinsky was helped greatly in the work's production by Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart, who sponsored and underwrote its premiere.
[6] Reinhart continued his support of Stravinsky's work in 1919 by funding a series of concerts of his recent chamber music.
[7] These included a suite of five numbers from Histoire du soldat arranged for clarinet, violin and piano, in a nod to Reinhart who was an amateur clarinetist.
[8] This was first performed on 8 November 1919, also in Lausanne, long before a larger suite employing all seven original instruments became available to other musicians.
From his pack he takes out his lucky St. Joseph medallion, then a mirror, next a picture of his fiancée, and finally his violin.
He arrives at an inn where he hears the news that the king's daughter is sick, and whoever can raise her from her bed will be given her hand in marriage.
Over the Grand choral / Great Chorale, the Narrator states the moral: Il ne faut pas vouloir ajouter À ce qu'on a, ce qu'on avait; On ne peut pas être à la fois Qui on est et qui on était.
Il faut savoir choisir; On n'a pas le droit de tout avoir: C'est défendu.
(Marche triomphale du diable / The Devil's Triumphant March): violin and percussion entwined in a rhythmic duel, the final measures played solely by the percussionist; here the score is marked decrescendo to the end, although this may be changed crescendo when performing the Suite.
The original French text by Ramuz has been translated into English by Michael Flanders and Kitty Black, and into German by the poet Hans Reinhart.
[10] Histoire du soldat shows Stravinsky's absorption of a wide range of musical influences: the pasodoble in the Marche royale; the tango, the waltz and ragtime, as played by Joseph to cure the Princess; klezmer in the instrumentation and textures; Luther's Ein feste Burg in the Petit choral; and Bach in the Grand choral.
According to the musicologist Danick Trottier, these influences are linked to a certain extent to Stravinsky's experiences and first successes in the cosmopolitan Paris of the early 1910s, since the capital of France was a confluence-point for a variety of artists and musicians during La Belle Époque.