STRAVINSKY NOW
327
later work
is
little known and rarely played. A great composition,
his
Symphony in C
written in 1940, has to my knowledge never been
thoroughly discussed and is comparatively seldom hemd.
The question that arises in one's mind is whether Stravinsky is
not, after all, a good Russian composer with Parisian overtones who
has now outlived
his
time. But what if, after a serious and careful
study of his latest compositions, we should come. to the conclusion
that his "artistic ideology" makes sense and that
his
new music is
consistent with his former genius, that it is quite as "radical" as it was
at the time of the
Rites of Spring?
If
this should be our conclusion,
then we would be forced to admit that something has gone wrong
w~th
ourselves and that our present "state of music" is indeed a low
one, reflecting the general levelling of culture and
embourge'oisement
of society which the modem world is now experiencing.
To understand what Stravinsky has been trying to do one must,
first, inquire into the nature and aim of musical
art
and, second, into
the meaning and value of what is called "tradition" in music. Only
thus is it possible to measure Stravinsky's achievements. Fortunately,
the composer has himself given coherent and complete answers to
these questions both in
his
autobiography and in his admirable book–
let,
Poetique Musicale,
which is a collection of six lectures delivered
at Harvard two years ago.
Music, for Stravinsky,
is
neither a language in which we express
our emotions nor an alternate means of describing our environment
or stating philosophical and moral concepts. Music neither teaches nor
expresses anything at all. "It is the only domain," Stravinsky writes,
"where man realizes the present and orders the elements of sound and
of time." Thus music is primarily and essentially a structural organ–
ization devoid of any conceptual meaning "except that which is im–
plicit in its very structure." Stravinsky considers that "the
raison
d'etre
of music is in no way conditioned by the power of expression.
If,
as is nearly always the case, music seems to express something,
this is but an illusion. . . . This is simply an additional [or super–
imposed
J
element which we assume in music through silent and
inveterate agreement. It is imposed upon music as an 'etiquette,'
a protocol, in short a
tenue
which by habit or unconsciousness we have
confused with its essence." Yet at the same time "the phenomenon of
music is given to us" as a kind of mean term or "order" between our–
selves and the element of time. Once the "construction" of "sound–
time"
is
achieved, it arouses in us "an emotion of a very special
