Again Stravinsky

A Belgian soldier had a vision during the last German attack. He saw the whole earth, uprooted, dancing madly and monotonously to the music of Igor Stravinsky. Thus terrific, thus awful a genius does the Stravinsky of today appear to a handful of those who pretend to understand him.

His Petrushka was the beginning--a master's tale of an individual tragedy made fittingly little to suit a puppet.

His Sacre du Printemps came next. To some people it was just a crazy progression of noises. But to others it was the primitive cry of a great horde.

Then came Les Noces and Stravinsky plunged into the realm of the absolute. Music hereafter was to be utterly objective, to stand alone, to find inspiration for itself within itself, for its own sake, not for the sake of those who should listen, not even for his, Stravinsky's, sake.

Last week for the first time in the U. S., Serge Koussevitzky's Boston Symphony Orchestra presented Stravinsky's (Edipus Rex, an opera-oratorio which had its world premiere last spring in Paris.

Sophocles told the story 2,000 years ago of (Edipus, the kindly King of Thebes, Fate's most luckless victim. Jean Cocteau took the Greek, made a text of it for Stravinsky, gave it to Monsieur J. Danielou who put it into Latin. In Latin, then, scorning all theatrical device, Stravinsky presented his (Edipus. He had a speaker (in Boston last week it was Paul Leyssac), to tell the story step by step. He had specific soloists--Charles Hackett for (Edipus, Margaret Matzenauer for Jocasta, Fraser Gange for Tiresias--and the Harvard Glee Club for his chorus. But they wore only conventional concert dress. They were forbidden to do any business, or to create any illusion. Illusion was to be the monopoly of the self-sufficient music. His music was to be absolutely untranslatable into program notes.

(Edipus, Stravinsky holds, is his nearest approach to pure music, the expression of his most complete emancipation from "story" music. But like most men who set formulas for themselves, he has overlooked the divine spark within himself, the spark that made the Sophoclean drama the greatest of human tragedies. In spite of himself, Stravinsky's (Edipus music is dramatic, tragedy-telling, alarming, dreadsome--in short, as exciting as any catastrophe, as comprehensible as any of the passions by which Fate works its will upon the simple soul of man.

Last week, Boston comprehended Stravinsky and shuddered. Said Philip Hale, dean of U. S. critics: "Stravinsky's greatest composition? Is it not the most important work that has appeared since Pelleas et Melisande?"