Abstracts - American Musicological Society

L4
ThursdaY afternoon
,rhe waves of rhe vo1ga,,(K6t'a Kabanov6), -"things and
shadows " (Makropolus ) , and convicts (E4m-jtE-!'9'gE-c---9E
the Dead), these ll-s't'ant and usually wordless "no::::'
share a common (and even commonplace) musical protrre:
the simple :I-4-5 interval pattern. This is not
fortuitous, since the careful dramatic placement , of
these choruses makes explicit their symbolic function
in representing the central theme of Jan56ek's operas:
the restoratlon of natural cycles.
GREAT-RAG-SKETCHES
Tom Gordon, Bishop' s University, Qu6bec
Unl ike its straightforlrard companlons,
Stravinskyt s Piano-Rag-Music is neither parody nor
genre portrait. Rather, as the hyphens in the tiCle
inply, it is a collage of quasi-improvisatory
fragments , an anomoly in Stravinsky' s oeuvre for its
rej ection of meter and its eccentricities of structure.
The evolution of Piano-Rag-Music is documented in a
disproportionately large quantity of sketches. Close
examination of these substantiates the very particular
nature of the work and certain hypotheses on
Stravinsky' s compositional process.
The earliest sketches for Piano-Rag-Music date
from the winter of 1918. By the time the twelve-page
holograph was inked in June 1919, the composer had
fi1led 55 pages in two sketchbooks. Comparison of the
work's published form with these sketches leads to the
following conclusions :
1) Stravinsky's pre-occupations in Piano-Rag-Music
rrere essentially rhythmic. While pitch configurations
vary 1itt1e from the earliest sketches, as many as five
variants can be found for each rhythmic form.
2) The work's opening motto evolved through a process
of distillacion across the sketches. Rather than
generating the composition, the work's opening
measures, virtually the last to appear in the sketches,
were generaced by it.
3) The abrupt disjunctions which articulate the work
veil a fundamental unity. Continuity was "composed
out" of the materials in the course of sketching, as
fragment order was continuously realigned'
4) A collage form is suggested at every stage of
composition. The sketches indicate an
interchangeability of rhythmic motives, I'hile the
holograph implies that the materials may be performed
in other than the Published order.
The "Great-Rag-Mus1c" sketches (one nf +L
composer' s worklng titles ) reweal Stravinskv
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the possibllities of composed improvisait;'"'.:iliC
deweloplng the central techniques that
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style from P6trouchka
---*vLcr
onward
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