MUSIC.
STRAVINSKY AT THE QUEEN'S HALL.
THE first concert performance of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring was heard at the Queen's Hall on June 7th, and two days later, at the last of the Russian Festival COncerts, M. Kusevitaky conducted the new Symphony for wind instruments. Londoners • thus had an unusual opportunity of estimating Stravinsky's development. The Rite of Spring was composed in 1913, and during the seven years which separate it • from the Symphony, his experiments in' " timbre " and rhythm have had an incalculable influence on music. Judged by the standards of Mozart and Beethoven, The Rite of Spring is a meaningless cacophony. Its themes, when they are not ugly, are merely- weak. They receive no regular development, but are repeated with dynamic variations in outlandish keys; in one instance a melody first played on the bass flute is answered by clarinets playing in major sevenths. Compared with Stravinsky, the harmonies even of Strauss are childish. Successions of major- and minor triads sounded simultaneously ; chords— according to the old system of harmony—in many keys at once reverberates, amid- a. clash of tonal- combinations- never heard
before. Ten years ago Stravinsky had in his orchestration one definite link—through Rimsky-Korsakov—with the past, but in accordance with his new theories even that is severed. The voice of affronted convention might indeed complain of this' composer, who, " . . . scorning beauty as a snare insidious, Salutes the abnormal and acclaims the hideous, With pious ululation ushering in The unassailed dominion of unbridled din."
Alas for the reactionary ! The traditions he would preserve, the square-cut rhythms, the harmonies and formalities and limitations of music as we know it are hardly three hundred years old. His art may have progressed during that period, but it has progressed in one direction to the comparative neglect of all others. M. Stravinsky is merely recovering the lost provinces of music. The freedom of rhythm that existed in the seventeenth century, and which was probably the soul of Greek music, has, it is true, been employed of late. Stravinsky simply uses rhythm more freely. Instead of the diatonic system of Western music, whose harmonic possibilities must sooner or later be exhausted, " timbre "—the quality of tone as opposed to melody and harmony which depend upon quantity—has become-one of his most important resources. " Timbre " has been the chief element in Asiatic music from the very beginnings of history, and, inevitably, it has crept back into the Western world through the Russian mind. Chinese music, of course,
depends almost entirely upon "timbre." Melodically, rhythmi- cally, and harmonically it is elementary ; its whole effect lies in the tonal quality of flutes and bells and gongs. With this music it is related that Confucius on a certain occasion became- so enraptured that' for ,three months he could eat no food.
In The Rite of Spring Stravinsky attempts to express the worship of natural forces practised amongst primitive peoples, culminating in human sacrifice. Everything is reserved for
this final climax. There is only one short break in the series of dances which prepare for the consummation of the Rite. And in some way Stravinsky has succeeded in writing music that expresses the idea of growth and the worship of sun and earth in the primitive mind. A lapse into the romantic conception of spring would have been fatal to his purpose, and throughout
the work Stravinsky has neglected:the strings, with their romantic associations, in favour of the more austere " timbre " of the wood-wind. The Rite of Spring is scored for an exceptionally large orchestra. For this reason a comparison with Strauss and Mahler is inevitable, but it is to the disadvantage of them both. Stravinsky is not only able to make more " noise " than even the battle scene in Ein Heldenleben, but his range of expres. sion is infinitely more subtle than that of either of the Germans. Strauss might be likened to Dickens in the matter of style : he has the same tendency to underline everything he says, the same habit of emphasis ; important thoughts must be shouted, unimportant thoughts must be made to look important with the big drum. Stravinsky, on the other hand, has a lightness
of touch and a pregnant turn of phrase- which suggest the language of Meredith or Kipling. Mr. Eugene Goossens con- ducted The Rite of Spring on this occasion, and M. Stravinsky was called to the platform many times at its conclusion.
The Symphony for wind instruments, " To the Memory of Claude Debussy," was composed in 1920. In it Stravinsky has confined himself to some twenty instruments with remarkable results. Space will not permit of a full description of this exceptional work, and any dogmatic expression of opinion would be unwise upon so slight an acquaintance. The naked directness of the opening bars provoked an audible protest from all parts of the hall. The old tradition " sticks." The emptiness of the orchestration and the incessant clash of hollow melodies may be ugly compared with the music of Mozart, but as an expression of grief this Symphony is psychologically true. Later it has passages of an elegiac nature so suggestive of Debussy's style that they could be taken as reminiscences. Time will decide the ultimate value of this new music. We- may still worship at the shrine of Beethoven, but it is_ not possible to appreciate Stravinsky if we persist in thinking. that music must be limited to the idiom in which Beethoven, wrote.
The Rite of Spring will be performed again at the Queen's Wall on June 23rd, and we hear that all Stravinsky's ballets are to be produced shortly under M. Diaghileff at the Prince's Theatre. C. H.
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