Humor in The Music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev

Guilford Press
Humor in the Music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev

Author(s): Norman Cazden
Source: Science & Society, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter, 1954), pp. 52-74
Published by: Guilford Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40400234
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HUMOR IN THE MUSIC OF STRAVINSKY
AND PROKOFIEV
NORMAN CAZDEN
composers Igor Stravinsky and Serge Prok

from very much the same background, but fo
paths. Stravinsky moved towards the sophisti
cilious decadence of the aesthetes, while Prokof
the acceptance of the people, who are not slow to r
Born in 1881, Stravinsky joined the Diaghilev
and under its auspices achieved his initial Pa
Firebird, Petrushka, Rites of Spring and The Ni
revolution left him an expatriate in Switzerlan
landowner's income and wandering among the
Europe. Settling finally in Paris, he became du
and thirties the musical idol of the "lost gener
artists and intellectuals, and master of the "B
American Institute (Fontainebleau), in which w
of the significant composers of the United Sta
visiting this country when he was again strand
has remained here since 1939, periodically re-ass
for the music and the people, as well as for th
ments, of his native land.
Ten years younger than Stravinsky, Prokofie
London in 1914. He found a less ready welcome
clique, and returned to Russia with a somewhat
By 1918, his musical style and interests were w
attraction of the cosmopolitan circles abroad w
and he undertook foreign travel to make his art
a brief stay in the United States, marked by
Overture on Hebrew Themes (New York) and
Oranges (Chicago), Prokofiev was drawn to the
5*
THE MUSIC OF STRAVINSKY AND PROKOFIEV 53
of Diaghilev, where he worked somewhat uncomfortably from 1923.

Unlike Stravinsky, he renewed his contacts with Soviet musical life,
briefly in 1927 and more definitely beginning in 1932. While con-
tinuing his tours abroad during the thirties, Prokofiev's composi-
tions from 1933 (Lieutenant Kije) on were in the orbit of Soviet
music, and following his last trip to the United States in 1938 he
remained in his homeland until his death early in 1953.
The difference in basic view between these two significant
composers overshadows their many points of resemblance in execu-
tion, and this difference also parallels their changing relations with
the social groups tor whom their music was written. Probably the
main courses of both composers can be examined best by seeing
their respective treatments of musical humor, for which both have
become famous.
In the days after 1905, the shaken aristocracy of the old Russia
clung to its Paris retreat and huddled over a kind of emigre culture
called cosmopolitan. These remnants of a parasitic class protested
a tear-stained nostalgia for all the world as if it were an eternal set
of values. To maintain this lingering rehearsal of bygone glory
required the services of a coterie of aesthetes who would alternately
flatter and grovel, who would offer exotic dainties to Madame and
design dressing-gowns to match Monsieur's mood, who would take
charge of effete children and choose the wallpaper, who would
provide music lessons and charmingly diffident conversation, and
who for a loan of twenty rubles would give forth with taste.
That is why the pretended timeless and "cosmopolitan" art was
actually very restricted. It was particularized for the ideology of
the emigres. This trend, involving much of the origin of present-
day "modernism," is compounded of three elements, the "primitive,"
the "constructivist" and the nostalgic.
The cult of the primitive represented an appetite for diversion
from crumbling values. It was a half-fearful, half-teasing exploita-
tion of the vitality of distant cultures, and a self -justification by
means of a display of imagined attributes of past cultures. It was also
a kind of aestheticizing of trophies, a laughing and a sneering that
hid the shame of violence. Imitation "primitive" art served as a butt
and as an excuse for a pose of superiority, it helped shore up the
props of a dying scene and rejuvenate a jaded sex-life.
The constructivist trend was both a confession of breakdown and
54 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
a hysterical demand for further destruction of t

Constructivism was simply fear of the meanin
With the fear came a seeking to evade images
tion, and by a dis-assembly of motifs into lifeles
tivism was an attempt to work over the rema
a substitute for art, into nonsense, or into sal
Nostalgic elements entered the cosmopolitan
bits and snatches tacked together from an old
thus less frightening era. Portions of light te
tion of romantic cafés, technical figures from fa
golden moments from the opera, memories o
all these and more were warmed over and ser
of surface novelty. "Modernism" began in th
who could only dream of the past.
The resulting cosmopolitan compound of pri
tivism and nostalgia would be submitted to the m
dowagers and their daughters upon the nod o
artist-companions. The puzzling new flavors were
but never to offend, the sensibilities of the
auspices, the "modernist" art would then be di
packaged capsules to the lesser "society," those
way into status by a show of approved taste,
by the captive critics just what was properly a
Cosmopolitan modernism was largely the cr
presario Diaghilev. He was keeper of the clique
the money and the leaders of fashions in the
over the worries of the emigre groups about
of culture, and in return, on their behalf, he called the tune,
decreed the mode and paid off the artists. It was Diaghilev who
conceived ballets, who gave orders for décor, who plotted the themes
and the costumes and the sale of tickets, who corrupted the critics,
who chose the stars, who decided the tale and the tally-sheet, and
who judged the music. And it was to enlarge the purposes of
Diaghilev, and not the purposes of musical art, that Stravinsky first
came forth as the "coordinator of Man and Time."
What is the primitive in Stravinsky? It is a travesty of th
musical imagery of old societies or of distant ones. It is not in th
least based on a knowledge of the real music, nor of its setting,

nor of the people who made that music, for his audience did not
care for knowledge, and the people enter no defense. It is based
on a reading into primitive culture of the violence, the irrationality,
the chauvinism, the repression of women, the whip and the revolver
of the colonizer, and pretending that the outcome represented the
freedom and "divine ignorance" of the "noble savage/'
What is the abstract constructive principle in Stravinsky? It is
a substituting of figuration for melody, of motor reiterations for
rhythm, of a hovering about a few tones for phrase contours, of
impenetrable sonorities for harmonic action, of loosely-strung pat-
terns for symphonic scope.
Humor in Stravinsky consists mainly in a joining of primitivist
and constructivist elements, and in using them to comment on the
nostalgic elements. This is the astonishingly monotonous procedure
that lies behind Stravinsky's thinking and constitutes his real attitude
towards life and towards art.
What is humor in Stravinsky? It is the mask of cynicism, of a
subtle distortion and derision of values, of a twisting and a deroga-
tion of popular motifs. It is made up of the amusement of the
roulette table, the gossip of the cocktail hour, and the mockery of
the serious and the positive. It replaces literature with the stuttering
syllable, melodic flow with the chattering of staccato woodwinds,
and any move towards developed comment with an abrupt change
of subject.
Stravinsky's humor is made up of a snide remark about human
values, a polite snicker at hopes and passions, and a disrespectful
ogling of traditions. It sports the deft byplay, the flippant touch and
the bon-mot. There is a sting to Stravinsky's smartness, but it is
always delivered at some popular image, some worthwhile idea,
some sincere feeling, some subordinate nation or class. There is
caricature in Stravinsky, but it is aimed at the peasant, at the Negro
jazz player, at the conscripted soldier, at the communal chorus,
and it somehow manages not to include the aristocrat or the sated
aesthete. Stravinsky has private jokes for the musician, but these
consist of a ragging of the classics, a raising of technical passagewörk
to the rôle of musical substance, a playing of tricks, and a Strained
avoidance of the normal character of instruments and voices. If
these musician's stunts be ascribed to abstract needs of construction,
it becomes remarkable that he manages not to depreciate bourgeois
sentiment and the pretensions of highbrow music in the process.
If Prokofiev was another order of human being, nevertheless he
could not help beginning in much the same direction. For where
was the young trained musician, the concert pianist, the talented
composer of his day to find support, other than among aristocratic
patrons? In the old Russia the outlet of the commercial concert
had not reached the stage that was regarded as standard in the rest
of Europe. True, the patrons paid off the artist more in sentimental
adulation and in invitations to inconsequential gatherings than in
real salaries, or helpful criticism. True, they were easily distracted,
more concerned with show than with art, and responsive to arty talk
rather than to thinking. Yet they supplied the engagements, bought
the tickets, and made the needed introductions, and so the young
artist had to turn to them.
By preparation also, the skilled musician was guided towards

an attitude and a repertoire that belonged at the formal conceit.
He learned a manner of performance that stressed elegance and
affected "interpretations" rather than the music. He learned how
to measure off music into "pieces" that fit between intermissions,
that filled the gap between the highball and the coffee. Thus, by
equipment and unspoken destiny, the fledgling artist was dedicated
to the service of the élite.
And so the young Prokofiev found himself in competition for
the favor of the fickle and demanding "best families," and faced
with the intrigue of the impresarios and the caprice of the critics.
The avant-garde was the loyal opposition to the legislators of vogues,
set to capture the younger talents who could not accept the routines.
The outcome was an endless series of quarrels over the various
modernist posturings, which never strayed from the narrow frame
anyhow. Everyone was original, or was told to be, and the result
was jealousy of one another and of rumored novelties and eccentrici-
ties. But the aesthetes could unite in snobbery, whenever something
simple and popular might be sensed in art.
Even in these circles Prokofiev eventually won a position by his
irrepressible energy. They digested his rough Scythians, his explosive

SarcasmeSj his driving Toccata, and his whimsical melody, but
strove to turn aside the earthiness, the plain speaking, the human
quality of his music. Fortunately, Prokofiev would not be digested.
He never succumbed to the enervating atmosphere, he never felt
at home among the pale ornaments. His general healthiness, busi-
ness-like modesty and what we can only term good sense left him
skeptical of the high-flown arguments of the modernists, just as he
had quickly left behind the rules of the academies.
Thus, while Diaghilev sat on the initial scoring of the Scythian
ballet, Prokofiev was already at work on the Classical Symphony and
the 1st Violin Concerto, essays in clarity and in sheer joy of singing
and good humor, not at all what the gentry wanted from the "bar-
baric diabolist." Gorky termed the early piano pieces of this period
"pampered art," but on hearing The Ugly Duckling, he remarked,
"Why, he has written a piece about himself!" The Visions Fugitives
contain wandering and misty pages, but these and other experiments
include also Gavotte and March rythms, lilting tunes, folk-like
phrases and defiant rediscoveries of C major.
By the twenties, the Ballet Russe company and its dictator of
cosmopolitan tastes began finally to produce the "crude" ballets,
Buffoon and Le Pas d'Acier, and emphasized spectacle, sauciness,
strident vigor and an unbounded imagination. But Prokofiev had
already begun to hammer out a style of his own, more down-to-earth
than sophisticated, more natural and more Russian than suited
the moderns, and also more personal than belonged within the
usual latitude of self-conscious "originality." The earnest lyricism
of The Prodigal Son ballet, in spite of its incoherence and over-
exquisite styling, hinted at dissastisfaction with "modernism."
During these years, Prokofiev's growth was sporadic, but his
direction became more certain. The texture of his music developed
clarity and economy. He turned to good use a knack for distinctive,
yet deceptively ordinary melody. He showed a restrained but apt
treatment of orchestral timbres, a fresh working of often familiar
harmonies, and an inexhaustible method for neat shifts of key. But
beneath these technical advances was, above all, his urge toward
an amiable and joyous humanity. The story of Prokofiev's develop-
ment became a struggle between the ties of P

between the worlds of the threadbare Grand Dukes with their
artistic masseurs and the plainer but broader new audience of his
homeland.
This vacillation between two musical and social currents con-
tinued, indeed, throughout Prokofiev's career. The fashionable world
of the cosmopolitans dominated his thinking during much of his
formative period, and he never fully cast off its weight. Under the
influence of the "modernist" trends, Prokofiev's music tends to
complexity, turgidity, harshness, abstract constructions, brute pres-
ence and vagueness both. It is striking that these features of his
writing appear especially in the music of his least productive Paris
period. But they are to be found in his later writing as well. They
crop out whenever he is seized with the potentials of design more
than with the vividness of popular imagery.
There are times also when Prokofiev's path of struggle is much
in evidence in his final product, when the polish seems freshly
applied. Sometimes his phrase formations are rather stiff. The influ-
ence of Robert Schumann, unusual in recent generations, appears in
his mannerism of working with chains of symmetrical phrase seg-
ments. Like Schumann, Prokofiev is given to rigid march rhythms
and to a relentless completion of patterns, though he seems able
to restrain the urge towards the bitter-end utilization of subsidiary
lines. Prokofiev is capable of taking a tempestuous 11/8 movement
as an unalterable plan, and carrying it stubbornly in one-measure
units throughout a large movement (7th Piano Sonata, HI).
Even such obstinacy, however, produces a kind of admiring in-
credulity at the achievement of well-designed building out of similar-
sized blocks, and the result is of an entirely different order from
the unimaginative squareness of the inexperienced student. And
there is an aspect of smiling in this regularity too, a suggestion of
effrontery and abandon.
At the opposite extreme from his bogging down in construction,
Prokofiev leans towards an open-handed simplicity and clarity, to-
wards national and popular idioms, towards a music which in his
conscious view begins with a love of people. These are the qualities
that dominate his later work (5th Symphony) and bring to it a
mature depth and solidity and individuality.

Quite markedly, Prokofiev achieved a new maturity at precisely
the time when Stravinsky had outworn his rôle of tickling the
palates, and had long outlived his early contributions to art. In
Prokofiev, after Paris came renewed growth; in Stravinsky, stag-
nation.
Prokofiev's humor is as many-sided as it is hearty. Its unifying

quality is its high mission, for Prokofiev never laughs at people or
at their art. He laughs with them, freely and at times uproariously,
and he even joins them in laughing at his own antics.
The early Prokofiev achieved humor by means of the fanciful
scherzo (1st Violin Concerto), doggedly percussive rhythms (Dia-
bolic Suggestions, Toccata), wry shifts of level among rather static
keys (Gavotte), audacious challenge (1st Piano Concerto), keen
folk humor (The Buffoon), merciless caricature of meanness (The
Gambler), grotesque and raucous jest (Sarcasmes), bare funny sounds
(Scherzo for 4 Bassoons), devilish fiddling, dashing marches, care-
free delight, tongue-in-cheek revival of courtly ceremony, boisterous
and gay whimsy- in a word, the blithe humor of youth, wholly
opposed to the artistic introversions of his day.
It is true that the influence of the Diaghilev circle pulled the
composer away from these natural tendencies and directed him
towards the irrationality that passed for abstraction, towards
a savagery that misconstrued tribal society, towards dehu-
manized, stylized décor, towards haphazard play with hollow
constructs. Though drawn aside by these idols of the aesthetes,
Prokofiev's eventual development led him more and more to an
observation of real people and real nature, and to a deepening
awareness of the positive advance of the life around him, an advance
to which the modernists had closed their ears.
But while the popular and healthy elements in the music of
Prokofiev were in the ascendant, there is no doubt that the "modern-
ist" trends and their cult practices left their imprint. His imagina-
tion did not have entirely free rein, because there stayed with him
certain illusions about "professional" workmanship as these were
fostered by the academies, old and new. He retained a care for
forms and formulas, an urge towards figure completion, a concept
of self-sustaining tone groups and of their lo

chievous pleasure in introducing quips even a
of respect. Prokofiev could put aside all the i
of the academic composer, and with a high r
he could dispense with their outward shap
harder to resist the appeal of the new academies
mirrorings of these shapes.
Thus Prokofiev thought in realistic images,
them with an eye to the approval of the dispe
taste more than of the untutored and less ve
result was that the commoners could always
of themselves, but they could not always follo
and they kept a certain feeling that he occasion
strange company.
Prokofiev's humor is thus complex and subject to change, accord-
ing to the predominance of one or another ideological influence, as
well as according to the fullness of his imagination. Sometimes it
will partake of Stravinsky's cynicism, and resemble an amusing
pastime for a world made up of wound-up dolls. Rarely will it seem
to convey mockery of the traditional, however, or ridicule of human
sentiment. For Prokofiev retained a continuing regard for the lofty
purposes of musical art as a register of human feeling.
Prokofiev's satire is directed at the real ugliness found in life,
and at the false prettiness of lush 19th-century drawing-room music
behind which that ugliness hides. His gibes show bite, but not the
masochistic bite of the aesthetes. He does not employ his humor
in order to tear down all values, which is how the "modernists"
dispose of their own frustration. Prokofiev's bitterness is never
devoted to blind destruction, but it rather reflects an impatience
with sham. Prokofiev unmasks the gilded facades of the outworn
"society" art, but unlike Stravinsky he is not led to a general,
negative skepticism. In this the "naive" composer has shown greater
wisdom than the sophisticated, mainly because he never set up
modernistic experimentation as a self-perpetuating fetish, but saw
through it an approach to a new freedom, a freedom which first of
all had to reject the polite concert-stage world into which Stravinsky
had bound himself.
Probably few contrasts are so evident in the work of Stravinsky

and Prokofiev as in their humorous treatments of music for young
people. Closest to the child-like in the work of Stravinsky, and
highly typical despite its slightness, is The Five Fingers (1921). The
work is a set of eight little piano pieces, in each of which the pianist's
right hand is kept over a set of five keys that are within reach of
the hand without a change of position. The deliberate restriction
is, of course, a self-flagellating reminder to the pianist of his days
of toil, a humorously bitter reminiscence of dull practice hours,
a parody of the mechanical figuration of the old-fashioned "exer-
cise," and incidentally also a challenge to the constructivist imagi-
nation.
But how are these things accomplished musically? By over-simple
handlings of minute and empty figures (nos. 1, 2, 4, 7); by distor-
tions of obvious song or dance patterns (nos. 3, 4, 6, 8); by machine-
like "objective" dynamics; by carefully placed "wrong notes" set
off against a normal background; by capricious interruptions and
unexpected cadences; and by a rehearsal of all the possible permuta-
tions of an initially dissociated motif.
Now this is music for so sophisticated a child that we know
of none who has enjoyed hearing or playing these brief pieces,
though they are by no means difficult or profound. In fact, the work
can hardly be intended for children at all, though its point is a
take-off on childhood experience. It is a refined play done with
an unobserved wink to the professional pianist, who is hardly inter-
ested, since the set can find no place on a program. Or it gives a
nudge to the amateur ex-student, who cannot fully appreciate
the satire, lacking the experience that gives perspective to the joke.
Or it poses as "understatement" before a listening audience, which
is not likely to get the point at all.
For whom, then, are these little pieces designed? Why, for the
musician-aesthete who has been intrigued by the constructive tech-
nique of Stravinsky. He is captivated by the private little stabs
executed in so disarming a form. He is tickled by the outrageously
tiny rendering of what might otherwise serve as grandiose. To
make something of these little numbers takes a cynical, tired soul,
ready to concede amusement and even to applaud wanly for their
author. It takes an audience that will perversely

á calculated absence of feeling, save as an exaggera
It takes a listener who finds a prosaic roaming a
fragments and simple chordal accompaniments h
And it takes a permanently bored connoisseur who
to know Debussy's Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum fr
Corner (1910).
Prokofiev's success with music for children is on the contrary
well-known. Among his many approaches, the Children's Music
for piano (1935) has become a model of theme, attitude and method.
Above all others, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (1936) has become
a children's classic all over the world, and it is one of the few
truly popular works of the present century for children aged 3 to
93. How is this success achieved, especially as regards humor?
Let us note first the quality of the familiar and the national
which pervades the imagery of the work. It is akin to the home-
grown fairy-tale, and this localized source is exactly the basis of
its international appeal. For realistic imagery can only be founded
on national, popular idioms. We may consider in contrast the
abstraction, the non-national aims of the cosmopolitan approach,
responsive to no human tradition and hence devoid of human
reference, as impersonal as money. It is significant and not an
accident that this cosmopolitan trend has shown itself incapable of
leading to great works of art that are loved by people all over the
world, works such as Peter and the Wolf.
Peter's tale is accompanied by easily-recognizable images, both
literary and musical, which serve to sharpen and to stir up our as-
sociations with a very simple main idea. We do not refer here to
the use of leitmotifs, or arbitrary symbols, but to the musical nature
of these motifs and their extensions. Music and words can hardly
be disentangled from each other, either in terms of the central con-
cept or of the detailed treatment. But it is especially the humorous
imagery of the music that attracts us.
The march theme of Peter has an exuberance in its range,
an outdoor simplicity in Prokofiev's typical C major, a decidely
boyish side-stepping of the key, like suddenly walking on top of the
fence instead of on the road, and withal a familiarity that makes
Peter immediately recognizable as a boy we know, or as a boy any

of us might have been. This is joyous humor that finds living de-
lightful and not worthless, sunny and not morbid, kind and not un-
friendly. It is a buoyant humor, and it well affirms a confidence
that is to be fulfilled in the overcoming of obstacles. In Peter's
music there is no trace of despair or of the feeding on one's own
past that marks the sophisticate. Here is no disturbed dream of the
sheltered and hapless upper-class child, which we have been taught
by the aesthetes is the "pure" and worldly-wise theme of art. Peter's
music is positive and strong in the manner of the everyday behavior
of a real boy.
The portraits of Peter's associates, the bird and the duck, are
understandably naturalistic, yet the ' 'naive" technique has the com-
poser's aptness for precision of utterance. There is an individual
quality to this bird and duck, so that we would know these par-
ticular creatures anywhere. Yet the identifying motifs are not die
synthetic ones belonging to movie music, but consist of a kind of
sound-cartooning in bold, descriptive strokes that capture the dis-
tinctive traits of characters and objects. That is why Prokofiev's
portrayals remain lively on repeated hearings. Numerous imita-
tions of Peter and the Wolf have been concocted in order to profit
from the expanding market for children's records, largely created
by this one work. But in these the characters remain wooden, tricky,
"commercial," too eagerly cute, and they quickly lose our interest.
In the musical technique of the story, the bird-duck conversa-
tion is simply a transfer to literature of a combining of lines, of
counterpoint. It is as though the story provides specific verbal
interpretations of what the musical counterpoint already signifies
in more general form. This Mozartian relationship is the core of
realism in the music.
We may add that the cat-music is quite naturalistic too, but
that is not all. Not only do we hear a very elegant and proper
cat in the clarinet, but his discomfiture arouses our sympathy right
along with our "serves him right" reaction. Now it is highly fitting
that Prokofiev's humor can evoke warm and full dramatic character
even in his villains, whereas Stravinsky cannot make even his favored
characters into complete human beings or even animals (Renard).
But perhaps our comparison is pre-judged by

critical differential for the humor of Stravinsky
treatment of music for children, for which Prokof
prominence. Our suggestion may be taken that
highly revealing of the much larger aspects of mu
not been the least of the accusations laid against
aesthetes that his music is "naturally" childlike
presumably therefore on a kind of lower level of i
lized" art. Now this merely illustrates how the
cults, in all "purity," equate culture and civilizat
standards of the emigres, and protect this pretense
at any departure. Still, let us examine the hum
the most high-flown of abstract forms, in "objecti
classical" music such as Stravinsky himself has
of art.
A fitting example for our purpose is the sl
Stravinsky's Octet for Wind Instruments (1923
of ideal, absolute construction. The movement is
variations. It opens with mock pathos in an aria
cally inactive tune, largely confined within th
third. This constructive detail is contrived so that the line wavers
between the two contained minor thirds, producing a sort of self-
contemplative hovering rather than a true melodic contour. The
off-beat accompaniment consists of gruff and brittle staccato chords,
typifying the "objective" or non-sentimental dynamic favored by
the composer. The second portion of the theme is a kind of mock-
lyrical foreshortening of the same phrase in a solo trumpet, and it
closes without fulfillment.
Variation I, at (26) in the score, opens suddenly with an "all
aflutter" rushing passage that leads to a "laughing" scale figure
shared between two bassoons. Ingeniously executed and deserving
of its later repetitions for its incredible brilliance alone, this pre-
posterous change is complemented by "odd" chord-blocks and over-
done contrasts of loudness and range. The resulting impression,
however, is theatrical, as if a pretended big drama, and then a sar-
donically threatening drama, were drawn out magically from the
initially abstract interval-play.
The second variation (28), is a parody of a military march. But

the initial march idea is soon made ludicrous by a well-placed tail-
gate-trombone effect. There follows a series of street-band clichés,
done staccato-leggiero with a "tumpity turn turn" filling, some
"pitiful" lost counterpoint, and sudden moments of "get together,
boys" adjustment. A blues break is introduced, with tune and
"straight man" underpinning in two trumpets, while the rest of the
band takes over the "rhythm." The section ends with imitation
fanfares, pulling up short to an unexpected cadence, at which there
is an immediate pick-up in vaudeville fashion to an exact repeti-
tion of Variation I. Whatever is "abstract" and constructivist in
this type of humor must depend upon a hypnotic repetition of
articles of faith by the adherent of the cults. In all candor this is a
very transparent sneering at popular images, and the highbrow
pretensions rest on no other superiority than is implied by this.
At (33) in the score, Variation IV is introduced by breathless
and underdone slurred figures. It then settles down to a light
waltz, with an "um-pah-pah" in the brasses, a slightly drunken
tune, and a plaintive sort of partner-line. The next Variation, at
(38), is a take-off on bandstand overture figures, set off against
a chattering and "impersonal" staccato fanfare plus chromatic fills.
This background texture is overlaid here and there with bits of the
theme as if to suggest how ridiculous if our abstract theme were to
parade before us while we await more horse-opera music. At (41)
the clarinet steps into the lead with a puppet-motion flourish, and
it is answered by an even more frenetic gesticulation from the high
flute. While the chattering background continues at (43), a sensu-
ous café-song transmutation of the theme in displaced thirds brings
us to a kind of slapstick ending by means of a fast wind-up figure,
a sudden complete cadence, and an immediate "dead-pan" resump-
tion of the chatter. At (46) the ironic-sounding background sup-
ports an ornamental obbligato full of hurried espressivo patterns.
Finally, the chatter figuration, which has filled in for melody in
this "slow" movement, disintegrates into piecemeal repetitions, to
end with a music-hall stop and off-beat chord. Then Variation I
is again repeated exactly.
Having now exhausted all the better-known parody material
supposed to constitute the popular images of mus

cal, the final Variation consists of slow, distorte
"agony music" in the form of an intricate fugato
miliar passages in sustained and rich polyphony
misconstructed harmonies. After (55) a rather d
ductive figure retrieves the lost momentum du
and cold cadenza for the flute, which stumbles a
that lead into the next movement of the work. That is the sum
and substance of the modernistic humor and "pure abstraction"
of this typical sophisticated art.
We need to observe in general that Stravinsky's treatments of
humor are exceedingly well carried out. His observation of ludi-
crous aspects of familiar idioms is keen and rapid, though he tends
to mistake coarse entertainment genres for truly popular types and
motifs. Stravinsky can quickly reduce a polka, a waltz or a rag to
its skeletal structure and its peculiar formulas. These formulas he
turns about with a sure sense for giving us just enough of their ref-
erence to tease, but not enough for a forthright example of the
genre.
Moreover, each set of formulas is first processed through Stra-
vinsky's own construction-grinder. A pseudo-melodic line comes out,
made up of brief patterns in a narrow range, which are repeated
with occasional minor extensions through a series of metric shifts.
These metric shifts, by which a different note of the line falls upon
the beat each time, have been mistaken for rhythmic variety, and
Stravinsky has even been credited with rhythmic innovation. But
actually we find little use of tones of contrasting length, or of uni-
fied rhythmic groupings. Over the changes in position-accent lies
in fact a highly motoric, non-rhythmic drive of reiteration, and not
the elasticity of musical rhythm proper. Yet each series of repeti-
tions is cleverly planned so as to give a sequence of patterning» of
which no two are quite the same, and which provide an accumu-
lation of displaced tensions that circle about a static "keynote" as
well. Unlike his imitators, Stravinsky knows just when to stop a
pattern series. But he can only do this by being funny.
Behind this pseudo-melody, which is really a juggling of motifs,
lies a harmonic frame of usually "simple," block-like complexes.
The "chord" is heard as a whole sonorous unit, as a block, but this

block is composed of a great many tones and may span an entire
scale series. Typical chords contain in this way so many tones, or
at least such well-chosen tones, that while they stem from the same
simple scale, they bridge all the contrasting centers in that scale.
Thus all the moments of action and reaction are squashed into a
tonal impasse, and the chord presents no expectation of going any-
where. Technically, Stravinsky's harmony is made up of rich sonori-
ties that combine the polar oppositions of traditional harmonic
progressions into unitary blocks that can be felt as neither one nor
another harmonic center. The terms that provide tension and
release occur together, and so there remains no possible outcome.
This sonorous frame, rendered by the critics as "pan-diatonic"
without further analysis of what that really implies, is enlivened
by simple reiterations and by a breaking up into the accompaniment
formulas belonging to some genre. Often this frustrated-harmony
treatment alone suffices to provide a sly ridicule of that genre,
without our becoming readily aware of what is so funny about it,
since it is the inconspicuous element of the music which contains
the ridicule. On top of this harmonic treatment, which is not very
subtle in principle though its effect is striking, is overlayed a special
timbre that may be identified typically as staccato wind-instrument
tone. Often we can hardly hear the tones themselves for all the
breathless rests and the accessories of tone-production.
The success of these techniques consists mainly in an indefi-
nite delay of all expected outcomes. A musical idea does not grow
or reach beyond itself. It remains static, and is merely held up and
examined from various angles, from innumerable and unsuspected
angles. Then it is broken up into pieces and discarded, the ex-
amination having shown nothing because it was merely a rearrange-
ment of parts. The pseudo-melodic passage comes to an end sud-
denly, either through an insertion of another such passage, by an
arbitrary, if well-calculated, pause or comma, or else by an out-of-
turn cadence.
The invitation to hear more is thus always founded on a hope
that it will all eventually come out even, and the jokes along the way
can then be taken in stride. It takes many hearings to discover
that it is these "jokes" which form the core of

there is no outcome, because there is no posit
music wasn't going anywhere. If the general tr
a kind of empty-handed feeling that we have som
we cannot fail to retain some of the spoofing, an
from the knowledge that the fooling was done
used quite simple means over and over.
Such is the sophisticated, cynical humor techniqu
That it is the work of a past master of the art
But it should also be evident that the coverage o
and its substance slight. It shows a portion of th
but a portion in which the fate of the cosmopo
parent through the occasional sober moments:
end, overlaid with aesthetic airs and an un-aest
of tongues.
Certainly this is a segment of reality. But it
an important segment, for all its self-centered
universal and abstract. And it is a fast deteriora
tained still by the highly vocal propaganda that
and by a frank parasitism which, in musical te
exploitation of exotic novelties, a public masoch
of "low-brow" genres. The humor of Stravinsk
is very well done, but it is one-sided and narro
and it is a side that does not any longer interest m
the few it does concern are still a noisy lot.
For contrast, let us examine the second mo
of Prokofiev's 1st Violin Concerto, written in 1
vinsky's constructivist achievements. The main
with a simple texture of broken octaves, over w
adds a sly, rhythmic figure of three chromatic
upward line is soon summarized in an actual swift
is immediately answered in a downward whistle
Meanwhile the "level" has dropped in Prokofiev'
ing of keys, and it continues to fall in terraces un
is established. Here at (24) the violin starts a se
with little change and enough regularity to come of
plucked tones, snatches of high-pitched "dev
leaps, beaten-out octave doublings, harsh and distant "off-key" bits,

and then the entire series is gone through again for good measure
with little change and enough regularity to come off surprisingly well.
This is highly impudent music, carried out with a sureness and
directness that attests the make-up of the then youthful composer.
It contains and arouses hearty laughter, more in the nature of
pleasure in freely stretched muscles than of laughter at anything
recognizable. Yet the controlled phrases also reflect a classical
economy of figuration, and images of fantastic fiddling are brought
to mind.
Before (25) an exact repetition of the opening sets in, almost
like a return to normal, but this is interrupted by a series of har-
monics and a frantic bowed descent marked ff tempestuoso. At (27)
the ground is laid for one of the angular marches for which Proko-
fiev is so well known. The preparation is a kind of "get set" passage
on the first two notes, grossly exaggerated in the dynamics of the
solo violin, and in low range. At (28) we have the march proper,
the first real interlude of the movement, a kind of double-time
bouncing with big, uneven steps, supported by brusque chords and
a few rolled graces. A variation on this at (29) is even more "wicked"
in its squared-off rhythms, and it leads unexpectedly yet logically
into a full repetition of the main theme.
This time the ending is led off into a transition with even more
fanciful leaps and an outlandish series of squeaking harmonics in
sliding octaves. Harsh and loud "sarcasme" chords in the orchestra,
with thunder to answer the violin's lightning and with strong off-
beat accents, introduce a new key-level for the second interlude
at (34).
Here we are treated to one of the most imaginative tonal effects
in recent music, the equal of the "laughing bassoon" passage in the
Stravinsky work described. It consists of a heavily marked sawing
on the bridge of the solo violin, actually producing tones in a low
range. Harmonically and pattern-wise it is independent of the softly
repeated motoric chord, which remains as a static backdrop. A few
minor explosions upward of this strangely intoned sound lead only
to a more rapid whispering, even lower, that can scarcely be recog-
nized as violin tone at all, and this in turn ends precipitately high
in the air (36). The process is now repeated sof

and a few delicate graces are added in the orchest
subtle eloquence are present here, and the whole i
improvised raptness of country fiddling.
With the final rocketing scale the main theme
returns. This time the end stretch is taken up w
of high jumping harmonics, backed by muttered
in the orchestra. The music seems to peter out, bu
rush to a breezy finish.
This athletic music is nonetheless simple and ob
line and impact, and the aesthetes have not hesitated
of thing superficial merely because it is so re
Originality and distinction result from the s
imaginative play with the medium is quite as evi
controlled as in the Stravinsky work, and the av
forces is hardly to be noticed.
Of particular interest is the fact that the humor
is nowhere made to rely upon a rejection of oth
not parody, excerpt or distort the serious and t
of music, nor does it deride their associations. T
tive and creative rather than dependent. Furthe
valid neo-classic element than in Stravinsky's "e
order," witness the casual employment of common
careful balances and structured cadences, which t
in the empty models dear to the sophisticates. Pr
tive" sound is not an historical reference, but straig
sauciness, and it is moderated by cool judgme
private or subtle hints here for the delectation of t
few. The humor is plain and full-hearted, abs
man. What satire we hear implied is in the shap
of scherzando treatments of the virtuoso type b
bounds of the 19th century concerto. In its handling
not become gross or foolish, but remains good c
To the aesthetes, Prokofiev's music has always
and "child-like." It gives them nothing with w
their responses from the mass. Prokofiev's "prim
them indeed, though it has little of the well-bre
are to be heard in the more perfumed rites of shadowy worlds. His

"constructivist" complexities seem tolerable and even welcome to
them, so long as they result in an impenetrable thickness of sound
or a tangle of contrivance. But even in this the suppleness and power
with which these blocks and lines are handled becomes too palpable
for them. Prokofiev's unleashed fantasy is to their taste, where it
deals out excitement and lurid color. But they are not so pleased
by the more serious aims of the incorrigible imp who put these
things forth in full awareness of a larger objective. They prefer
a less sane and also a more flabby motivation.
With the precious audience there is always a fear that, under-
neath his jester's garb, Prokofiev was a very ordinary boor, who had
never learned to speak by innuendos, who played difficult sonatas
and folk tunes from Soviet Asia without any fuss, who really enjoyed
himself and did not just take odd poses, who found poetry in grand-
mother's tales rather than in resounding syllables or in teetering
cubes. In sum, the aesthetes are suspicious still of Prokofiev, be-
cause he was never fully with them. At its best, his music arises
from popular imagery and concerns human thought and feeling.
And these things have never appealed to the élite, for where these
take hold, the bluff of the aesthetes collapses.
Interpreting Stravinsky's music presents less of a problem, in a
way, for it has less real depth than its subtlety would require. This
music is always dressed in spats, even when in a "savage" costume,
which we recognize as a stage-prop. Stravinsky's fantasy is always
addressed in business-like fashion towards intermission talk about
the latest genteel scandal. He is one with the aesthetes, and he has
been rewarded commensurately by the emigre world and its "free-
lance" apologists. Stravinsky is praised for his inspired and suave
vulgarities, for his impatience with human values, for his pre-
occupation with the insipid passions of the roué, for his pose of
objectivity. In return he brings the solace of the altar, both sacred
and cubist, a glorification of pure and meaningless discipline which
encases well-known aristocratic modes of thinking and deportment,
and especially a far from subtle scorn of anything and everything
that breathes of honest concerns and popular reference. To lam-
poon the servants and peasants and lowly "colonials" has ever been
the task and the pride of ruling-class culture,

sic serves well this primary function. It has th
flattering the super-refinement of the master
their benefit, all the ideals of past and present
pensation for such good service has not been a
Prokofiev's humor, in its many-sidedness a
development through a conflict of old and ne
a popular humor, delightful and earthy. Stravi
confined, one-sided in its poking of fun. It is
ple, and it is not truly enjoyable, for it appea
sinuation. Judged by the criteria of the mode
fiev's music is innocent and likable, hence de
And of course he was never forgiven for his poli
abstract, of finding Soviet musical life conge
criteria of significant human imagery, Stravin
ing exit of a fallen culture that grieves over it
revels and consumes itself in pity. In hearing the
we are bidden to laugh uproariously with our
music of Stravinsky we hear slick and raucous tr
Humor in Prokofiev is lively and humane, but
is morbid, cynical and desolate.
Unlike Prokofiev, Stravinsky cannot find relea
He can accept no principle seriously and can
permanent. Whatever fashion he adopts or
startle his patrons, he remains tongue-in-cheek,
in what he writes. The cynic finds no respite
satisfaction. He is condemned to playing a par
and he can hardly take hold of his hopes with
door of the cathedral. Stravinsky's lack of rea
jesting. At times there burns a species of jeal
saying something funny that also mattered. Bu
of his irony is most virulent when it suggests
though he persists in seeing the growing isolat
as a sign of superiority. In final analysis, S
makes faces at life, for life has left him behin
Prokofiev's music becomes more vital, and
greater depth, as it relies on popular motifs an
on realistic images. His constructive devices become impediments

to full communication, but his inclination turns him back repeat-
edly to the stirrings of musical art in the mode of life of a people.
That is why his music can sustain serious thought (Romeo and
Juliet), while we find only occasional and plaintive attempts at seri-
ous and positive writing in Stravinsky (Oedipus Rex). Prokofiev's
humor has its fuller shape as a highly personal and warm lyricism,
which flowers as a high mission of his art, while Stravinsky can only
scoff and tear at lyricism and seek to deny both the human mission
and the values of art.
Prokofiev's humor is many-sided and rich, and is not limited

to pranks. Even in his impish moments we have the sense of a
real boy, not the tortured contrariness of the heir to idleness. We
hear an honest laughter directed, not at the human and the hopeful,
but at the pompous and the empty. It is a likable, not a nasty kind
of fun, and it relates to familiar experience and not to spite. Pro-
kofiev's rhythms suggest muscular activity of full-blooded, unin-
hibited people, whereas Stravinsky's dance-plays lead us to en-
vision a jounce of mobiles. The barb of Prokofiev's wit catches the
imbecile king, the corrupt and stupid officer, and the empty-headed
princess (Lieutenant Kije), but he enlists our understanding for
Peter's villainous cat as well as for the hero. Prokofiev's humorous
characters are all alive, with the poetic truth of the folk tale full
upon them, and they are not mere stock figures in a fantasy of
grimaces.
Finally, Prokofiev's humor is but an aspect of his art, and it has
not erased the whole. Actually, the scherzo passages are but inci-
dents in a fundamentally lyric art, an art that sings with the sim-
plicity of popular imagery and that is shaped in the idioms of tra-
ditional poetry. Withal there is a decided humility and also a cer-
tain reserve in this music (Classical Symphony, II), of a kind we
readily grasp and know for a personal feeling that we share. The
wide range of the Prokofiev melody line supports a leaping and
a soaring, distinctly Russian in flavor, and with a quality of curv-
ing to an ordinary-seeming close that yet manages to sound dis-
tinguished. There is a curious separation in his lines of simple
scale and chromatic segments, so that the "natural" scale type seems
always in evidence, and yet the chromatic exte

with a certain touch of waning or deepening
suggest far more subtlety in Prokofiev's tech
lying base for his humor, than is usually c
aesthetes, who appreciate subtlety only if it
tudes in uncommon language, and who find
stiletto and the axe, not in the craftsman's c
knife.
Prokofiev's humor involves delight and una
vinsky's requires a superior smile and the che
delicacies. Prokofiev, in spite of distractions a
road that leads to a refreshing and exhilarati
comes a part of that future, like a walk in the
in spite of his fine abilities, has bogged down
can only sneer at the life that goes by him.
among the culminating works of Prokofiev is
for Peace (1951), while the fulfillment of Stra
same period is The Rake's Progress (1952).
Prokofiev's laughter contains no regrets, but
suffers the nostalgic tear. And though Prokof
Stravinsky's music has been dying for some ti
University of Illinois

Humor in The Music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev

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Guilford Press

Humor in the Music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev

composers Igor Stravinsky and Serge Prok

of Diaghilev, where he worked somewhat uncomfortably from 1923.

a hysterical demand for further destruction of t

least based on a knowledge of the real music, nor of its setting,

By preparation also, the skilled musician was guided towards

irrepressible energy. They digested his rough Scythians, his explosive

ment became a struggle between the ties of P

mature depth and solidity and individuality.

Prokofiev's humor is as many-sided as it is hearty. Its unifying

of self-sustaining tone groups and of their lo

Probably few contrasts are so evident in the work of Stravinsky

author. It takes an audience that will perversely

Peter immediately recognizable as a boy we know, or as a boy any

But perhaps our comparison is pre-judged by

The second variation (28), is a parody of a military march. But

supposed to constitute the popular images of mus

The "chord" is heard as a whole sonorous unit, as a block, but this

that it is these "jokes" which form the core of

leaps, beaten-out octave doublings, harsh and distant "off-key" bits,

in the air (36). The process is now repeated sof

are to be heard in the more perfumed rites of shadowy worlds. His

the task and the pride of ruling-class culture,

on realistic images. His constructive devices become impediments

Prokofiev's humor is many-sided and rich, and is not limited

always in evidence, and yet the chromatic exte

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