Comparing The Firebird And A Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra

Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird and Benjamin Britten’s A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra have some similarities while they also have their differences. Igor Stravinsky premiered his piece in 1910 and the work was an instant success. Stravinsky’s The Firebird is composed of two sections that consist of a full orchestra. The Firebird starts off with a French horn playing in a slow melody creating an andante tempo while more instruments enter soon leading to the full orchestra. Stravinsky repeats one melody over and over while creating alterations in rhythm, tone color, and dynamics. In the second section Stravinsky begins his piece off softly but then the music crescendos. Additional instruments begin to play and the melody continues to

repeat at a higher octave. The music then becomes quiet after the buildup to the climax. To conclude the piece the music grows louder one more time leading to the end. Britten’s A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was premiered several years later in 1946. Unlike Stravinsky, Britten’s piece was first stated by the full orchestra creating allegro tempo then restated by different sections of the orchestra in order from woodwinds to brass then to strings and lastly percussion. Britten also made variations differ in speed, tone color, and dynamics like Stravinsky’s The Firebird. In the next section of Britten’s piece he offers variant forms of the theme-featured instruments from each family. He begins with the highest-pitched instruments in each family and proceeds to the lowest. In the last portion of the work, Britten combines all the sections of the orchestra in a complex fugue on a new, dancelike theme. For the concluding section, the original theme reappears in its entirety.