He plays with its elements as
capriciously as the child plays with paper and crayons. He amuses
himself with each instrument of the band careless of its customary uses.
There are times when Strawinsky comes into the solemn conclave of
musicians like a gamin with trumpet and drum. He disports himself with
the infinitely dignified string-quartet, makes it do light and acrobatic
things. There is one interlude of "Petruchka" that is written for
snare-drums alone. His work is incrusted with cheap waltzes and
barrel-organ tunes. It is gamy and racy in style; full of musical
slang. He makes the orchestra imitate the quavering of an old
hurdy-gurdy. Of late he has written a ballet for eight clowns. And he is
reported to have said, "I should like to bring it about that music be
performed in street-cars, while people get out and get in." For he finds
his greatest enemy in the concert-room, that rut that limits the play of
the imagination of audiences, that fortress in which all of the
intentions of the men of the past have established themselves, and from
which they dominate the musical present. The concert-room has succeeded
in making music a drug, a sedative, has created a "musical attitude" in
folk that is false, and robbed musical art of its power.
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