ens of
steamboats and locomotives, the overtones of factory whistles, the roar
of cities and harbors, become music to him. In one of his early
orchestral sketches, he imitates the buzzing of a hive of bees. One of
his miniatures for string-quartet bangs with the beat of the wooden
shoes of peasants dancing to the snarling tones of a bagpipe. Another
reproduces the droning of the priest in a little chapel, recreates the
scene almost cruelly. And the score of "Petruchka" is alive marvelously
with the rank, garish life of a cheap fair. Its bubbling flutes,
seething instrumental caldron, concertina-rhythms and bright, gaudy
colors conjure up the movement of the crowds that surge about the
amusement booths, paint to the life the little flying flags, the
gestures of the showmen, the bright balloons, the shooting-galleries,
the gipsy tents, the crudely stained canvas walls, the groups of
coachmen and servant girls and children in their holiday finery. At
moments one can even smell the sausages frying.

For Strawinsky is one of those composers, found scattered all along the
pathway of his art, who augment the expressiveness of music through
direct imitation of nature. His imagination seems to be free, bound in
nowise by what other men have adjudged music to be, and by what their
practice has made it seem. He comes to his art without prejudice or
preconception of any kind, it appears. 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
w