STRAVINSKY AND SOCIETY

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 23 June 1923, Page 10

STRAVINSKY AND SOCIETY

j Writing in Time and Tide, a London j review on current topics, Christopher j St. John in an article on "Music a la jMode," has some caustic remarks on j Stravinslsy's musio and society. Ha j says, inter alia: "The phrase 'insult |to music' rs applied to Stravinsky only Iby musicians. I doubt whether any •j living composer is more .popular j 'society' which associates music with 'Petrovshka,^ as a quarter of a century ago it associated music with 'The

Rmg.' At Queen's Hall the number of Spanish shawls was good evidence that society was well represented, for I ©very woman who is 'mentioned in dispatches' is known by this shawl this year. The dresses underneath the shawls are stripped of all irrelevant material like Stravinski's music. The smart women who listened for hours at a stretch to Wagner's 'continuous melody' wore full flowing skirts which swept the ground. Now their daughters listen to the 'sacre' in little frocks which are not. easily distinguishable from chemises. This is not a trivial coincidence, Stravinsky is 'fashionabV because in his music there is the same spirit which is manifested in the dress of the women who do dress. (The majority, of course, merely clothe themselves.)''