Stravinsky and Jazz

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 11

Stravinsky and Jazz

N a recent Tuesday 3YL gave us two hours of what they called Chamber Music by Russian Compgsers. If the definition of chamber music is any Russian music except philharmonic orchestras and the Don Cossack Choir, I suppose it was chamber music; anyway it was varied and good fun. There was some frothy stuff from Shostakovich,

occasionally inspired groping in two short preludes of Scriabin’s, Prokofieff writing for the piano with his tongue in his cheek, sorne dramatic and apparently suicidal songs sung by Vladimir Rosing, and a rather extraordinary little piece by Stravinsky called "Piano RagMusic." It seems to me that Stravinsky is at the same time attracted and repelled by jazz; he is drawn by its gusto and unconventional appearance, and then flinches back from its crudities, its merciless beat, and perhaps its commercial aspects. "Piano Rag-Music," played by the composer, is 4 mixture of queer harmonies and varying temtpos which does not achieve the relaxed drive of the good jazz pianist, or the subtle command of tone and authority of attack of the classical virtuoso. Whatever Stravinsky thinks of jazz, many of the younger jazz composers and atrangers think highly of Stravinsky, and imitating him, produce the most shattering atonal effects. Surely, with atonal jazz, the end point has been reached in the cult of disintegration, already fully explored in art and literature by Picasso and Joyce. It might be possible to obtain more curious musical effects by inventing an entirely new instrument, or by crossing the bagpipes with the novachord, but there is a good deal of exploring and interpreting still to be done in the musical language of the present before any new hieroglyphics can safely be added.