Igor Stravinsky: Some Ideas About My Octuor [PDF]

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The Arts 5 (January–June 1924) SOME IDEAS ABOUT MY OCTUOR By

IGOR STRAVINSKY

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These two elements, which are the object for the musical execution, can only have a meaning if the executant follows strictly the musical text. My Octuor, as I said before, is an object that has its own form. Like all other objects it has weight and occupies a place in space, and like all other objects it will necessarily lose part of its weight · and space in time and through time. The loss will be in quantity, but it can not lose in quality as long as its emotive basis has objective properties and as long as this object keeps its "specific weight." One cannot alter the specific weight of an object without destroying the object itself. The aim I sought in this Octuor, which is also the aim I sought with the greatest energy in all my recent works, is to realize a musical composition through means which are emotive in themselves. These emotive means are manifested in the rendi­ tion by the heterogeneous play of movements and volumes. This play of movements and volumes that puts into action the musical text constitutes the impelling force of the composition and determines its form. A musical composition constructed on that basis could not, indeed, admit the introduction of the element of "interpretation" in its execution without risking the complete loss of its meaning. To interpret a piece is to realize its portrait, and what I demand is the realization of the piece itself and not of its portrait. It is a fact that all music suffers, in time, a deformation through its execution; this fact would not be regretted if that deformation were done in a manner that would not be in contradiction to the spirit of the work. A work created with a spirit in which the emotive basis is the nuance is soon deformed in all directions; it soon becomes amorphous, its future is anarchic and its executants become its interpreters. The nuance is a very uncertain basis for a musical composition because its limitations cannot be, even in particular cases, established in a fixed manner; for nuance is not a musical fact but a desideratum. On the other hand, a musical composition in which the emotive basis resides not in the nuance but in the very form of the composition will risk little in the hands of its executants. I have arrived at this conclusion: when the center of gravity finds itself in the form considered as the only emotive subject of the composition, when

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y Octuor is a musical object. This object has a form and that form is influenced by the musical matter with which it is composed. The differences of matter determine the differ­ ences of form. One does not do the same with marble that one does with wood. My Octuor is made for an ensemble of wind instruments. Wind instruments seem to me to be more apt to render a certain rigidity of the form I had in mind than other instruments-the string instruments, for example, which are less cold and more vague. The suppleness of the string instruments can lend itself to more subtle nuances and can serve better the individual sensibility of the executant in works built on an "emotive" basis. My Octuor is not an "emotive" work but a musical composition based on objective elements which are sufficient in themselves. The reasons why I composed this kind of music for an octuor of flute, clarinet, bassoons, trumpets and trombones, are the following: First, because this ensemble forms a complete sonorous scale and consequently furnishes me with a sufficiently rich register; second, because the difference of the vol­ ume of these instruments renders more evident the musical architecture. And this is the most impor­ tant question in all my recent musical compositions. I have excluded from this work all sorts of nuances, which I have replaced by the play of these volumes. I have excluded all nuances between the forte and the piano; I have left only the forte and the

piano.

Therefore the forte and the piano are in my work only the dynamic limit which determines the func­ tion of the volumes in play. The play of these volumes is one of the two active elements on which I have based the action of my musical text ( which is the passive element of the composition), . the other element being the movements in their reciprocal connections.

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According to his temperament, the executant will bring out, more or 'less plainly, the sensations which have created that form. They will establish a sort of bond between the executant and the author through the form of the composition. In this case the deformation that music will inev­ itably suffer through time, by the numerous succes­ sive manners of execution, will follow its normal path; and this path will be pointed out by the form of the composition. Then the deformation will not be in contradiction to the spirit of the music be­ cause its form will be the only guiding point for the executant. Form, in my music, derives from counterpoint. I consider counterpoint as the only means through which the attention of the composer is concentrated on purely musical questions. Its elements also lend themselves perfectly to an architectural construc­ tion. This sort of music has no other aim than to be sufficient in itself. In general, I consider that music is only able to solve musical problems; and nothing else, neither the literary nor the picturesque, can be in music of any real interest. The play of musical elements is the thing. I must say that I follow in my art an instinctive logic and that I do not formulate its theory in any other way than ex post facto.

the author puts into it such a lorce of expression that no other force coufd be added to it · ( such as the will or personal predilection of the executant) without being superflous, then the author can be considered as the only interpreter of his musical sensations, and he who is called the interpreter of his compositions would become its executant. I admit the commercial exploitation of a musical composition, but· I do not admit its emotive exploi­ tation. To the authot belongs the emotive exploitation of his ideas, the result of which is the composition; to the executant belongs the presenta­ tion of that composition in the way designated to him by its own form. It is· not at all with the view of preserving my musical work from deformation that I turn to form as the only emotive basis of a musical composition; deformation is always fatal and inevitable. I turn to form ·because I do not conceive nor feel the true emotive force except under co-ordinated musical sensations. These sensations only find their objective and living expression in the form which, so to speak, determines their nature. To understand, or rather to feel, the nature of these sensations according to that form ( which is, as I said, their expression) is the task of the execu­ tant.

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