Stravinsky and Ragtime

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BARBARA B. HEYMAN

N 1918, Ernest Ansermet, upon his return from the Russian Ballet's
Iragtime
second American tour, presented Igor Stravinsky with a "bundle of
music in the form of piano reductions and instrumental
parts" which the composer copied out in score. In 1961, Stravinsky
recalled, "With these pieces before me, I composed the Ragtime in
Histoire du soldat, and after completing Histoire, the Ragtime for
eleven instruments."1 The latter was reduced for piano by Stravinsky
in 1919 and performed by the composer himself. A further result of this
alleged inspiration was Piano-Rag-Music, the manuscript of which is
dated "28 June 1919" jvith a dedication to Artur Rubinstein, whom
Stravinsky hoped to "encourage to play contemporary music."2
This essay will discuss Stravinsky's pre-1918 exposure to ragtime,
what his models of style and form might have been, and the extent to
which the three works named above incorporate the characteristics of
ragtime prototypes. Although the rhythms of ragtime can be found in
other compositions of his, for example, Concerto for Piano and Or-
chestra and Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo, attention will be devoted
here only to diose works that use the word "ragtime" in their titles.
Evidence will be presented from primary sources, such as news-
paper and periodical articles contemporary to the ragtime era
(roughly 1896-1920);3 interviews, diaries, conversations, and remem-
brances of Stravinsky; and the music itself.
1
Igor Stravinsky and Robert Crafi, Dialogues and a Diary (Garden City, 1963), p. 87.
2
Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Expositions and Developments (Garden Cily, 1962),
p. 159.
' Edward A. Berlin, Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural Study (Berkeley, 1980). p. Z

543
544 The Musical Quarterly

Stravinsky stated that at the time his ragtime compositions were

written "my knowledge of jazz was derived exclusively from copies of
sheet music, and as I had never actually heard any of the music
performed, I borrowed its rhythmic style, not as played, but as written.
\could imagine jazz sound, however, or so I liked to think. Jazz meant,
in any case, a wholly new sound in my mind, and Histoire marks my
final break with the Russian orchestral school. . . ."4
To some it may seem inconceivable that an artist as cosmopolitan
as Stravinsky would not have heard the sounds of early jazz (then

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called "cakewalk" and "ragtime") long before 1918. Beginning with
summer vacations in Switzerland or Germany, from 1893 on, he had
traveled frequently from his native Russia; between 1910 and 1916, in
connection with performances and rehearsals of his works, he lived on
the Riviera, in Paris, Genoa, Rome, London, Bayreuth, Berlin,
Vienna, and Madrid, among other cities. From 1914 to 1920, because of
World War I, he lived in exile in Switzerland.5
The ragtime era spanned a period of about twenty years until its
decline and coalescence with other popular music and dance trends
that around 1917 were labeled "jazz." Rag music and its predecessor,
the cakewalk (which lasted only through the first decade of the twen-
tieth century), were the first examples of Black music to achieve
widespread international popularity and commercial distribution. 6
There was an enormous fascination with ragtime in Europe.
Several factors contributed to this enthusiasm, one of which was the
widespread dissemination of sheet music between 1895 and 1915.
Ragtime works, sometimes incorporating the word "cakewalk" in
their titles, were available in published piano scores and numerous
adaptations for instrumental ensembles. This can be documented
with articles appearing in both American and European newspapers.
In 1901, there appeared a report of a German-American composer,
whose latest ragtime piece, "Hunky-Dory" (incorporating diemes by
Dvorak), was to be "simultaneously produced in England, France and
Germany within the next month." 7
In a German newspaper in 1903, there was mention of the popu-
larity of the cakewalk in Paris music halls and the most elegant salons;
included was the music for "Cakewalk, Americanischer Negertanz
4
I. Stravinsky and Crafl, Expositions, p. 103.
s
Eric Walter While, Strai'insky: The Composer and his Works (Berkeley, 1966). pp. 6H I.
6
Frank Tirro, Jazz: A History (New York, 1977), p. 88.
7
M.H.R., "A German Composer," New York Herald. (Jan. 13, 1901), Sec. 6, p. 3.
 Ragtime 545

von Kerry Mills" with illustrations.8 The cakewalk also enjoyed a fad
as the most popular society dance in England, where it reached
London in its earliest published form by 1896.9 Sometimes there were
even detailed quasischolarly articles describing not only the dance
figures, but the musical and rhythmic characteristics of the cakewalk
as well.10
Two other factors that helped spread American popular music in
Europe were the piano roll and the cylinder roll, the latter invented
by Thomas Edison in 1877. But probably the greatest ambassador of
American ragtime was John Philip Sousa, whose marching band
made four tours of Europe. Thefirstvisit, for the Paris Exposition of

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1900," was followed by other tours between 1901 and 1905 that in-
cluded Great Britain, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Czecho-
slovakia, Scandinavia, and Russia. On the programs were ragtimes,
two-steps, and "old Negro melodies" such as "Songs and Dances of
the Cottonfields" by Chambers, which were included in the Berlin
concert.12 His pseudo-ragtimes were greeted with enthusiasm wher-
ever he traveled. Even Debussy, with characteristic sarcasm, wrote
about Sousa:
At last the King of American music is within our walls.... American music may be
the only kind which can find a rhythm for unspeakable cakewalks. If so, I confess that
at present, this appears to be its sole claim to superiority over other music... and Mr.
Sousa is undisputably its king.13
Nevertheless, the French composer was inspired enough by the cake-
walk to write three ragtime caricatures,14 one of which Stravinsky
good-naturedly pokes fun at when he borrows its opening gesture.15
There is even evidence that American tourists and students infor-
mally sang and played rags as they traveled on the Continent. As early
as 1893, Johannes Brahms met an American girl who fascinated him
by playing ragtime rhythms on the banjo, causing him to believe that

8
"Der Cakewalk." Ulustrirle Zeitung, Feb. 5, 1903. p. 204.
9
Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, They All Ployed Ragtime (New York, 1950), p. 7a
10
"The Cakewalk in Vienna," The New York Times, Feb. 1, 1903, p. 5.
11
See "Sousa's Band Debut," The New York Times, May 13, 1900, Sec. 7, p. 2.
12
Kenneth Berger, The March King and his Band (New York, 1975), p. 33.
13
Leon Vallas, The Theories of Claude Debussy, trans. Maire O'Brien (London, 1929),
p. 165.
14
"Golliwogg's Cake-Walk" (1908), "Minstrels" (1910), and "General-Lavine-Eccentric"
(1913).
'* See discussion of Stravinsky's Ragtime for eleven instruments, below.
546 The Musical Quarterly

nearly all Americans were skilled on that instrument.16 Many years

later, Ansermet, traveling by railroad between Bern and Lausanne,
encountered a few American students who hummed and marked the
time of a piece of rag music for him. Ansermet observed that "ragtime
has conquered Europe; we dance to ragtime under the name of jazz in
all our cities."17
If, in fact, Stravinsky had never heard the sounds of early jazz before
1918, he would have had to isolate himself almost completely from the
European community. But with regard to his own perception of the
influence of jazz on his music at that time, there are certain discrepan-

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cies. One of the problems that contributes to this is that even though
there is an abundance of letters, interviews, diaries, and the like which
provides firsthand documentation about the composer's ideas, expe-
riences, and chronology, frequently there are contradictions in these
sources—perhaps the result of faulty memory or poor translations.
For example, in 1916 he said:
I know little about American music except that of the music halls . .. but I consider
lhal unrivalled. It is veritable art and I can never get enough of it to satisfy me I am
convinced of the absolute truth in utterance of that form of American art."

Compared with what he said in 1961, in Dialogues and a Diary, that

suggests that he had not heard live jazz bands until 1919.19
There is even an amusing account of Stravinsky's "debut" as a
ragtime performer during one of Rimsky-Korsakov's informal stu-
dent gatherings. According to Victor Yastrebtzev's Recollections of
Rimsky-Korsakov, on February 17, 1904, "Nicholas Richter horrified
Rimsky-Korsakov's wife by playing a cakewalk, while Mitusov [one of
Igor's close friends] and Stravinsky demonstrated how it should be
danced, £paws up, like circus poodles or boop-a-doop.' "w It would
seem logical that if any musicwerein vogue university students would
have at least flirted with the idea of playing it. Later, when Stravinsky's

16
A r t h u r M Abell, "As Memory S u m m o n s H i m — B r a h m s in the Eyes a n d Ears of a n
American Student," Boston Evening Transcript, March 22, 1930, S e c 4, p . 4.
17
" S u r tin orchesire ne^re," Revue Romande, III (Oct. 15, 1919), 10-13, trans. Walter J.
S c h a p p as "Bechel a n d Jaz7 Visit E u r o p e , 1919," in Frontiers of Jazz, ed. R a l p h de T o l e d a n o
(New York, 1947). p. 116.
18
C Stanley Wise, " 'American Music is T r u e A n ' says Stravinsky," New York Tribune,
J a n . 16, 1916, S e e 5, p . 3.
19
I. Stravinsky a n d Craft. Dialogues, p . 87.
20
Recollections of Rimsky-Korsakov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1962), Vol. II cited in I. Stravinsk
and Craft, Dialogues, p . 102.
 Ragtime 547
confreres included the dancers from Diaghilev's circle, there was also a
good possibility that he was initiated into the rhythms of ragtime.
Another possible early taste of rag music may have come when
Sousa visited St. Petersburg in 1903. Surely Stravinsky would have
wanted to hear Sousa because he admits that the "tickling pleasure" of
his childhood was the sound of tubas, piccolos, and drums of the
"bristling fife-and-drum marine band" whose practicing "penetrated
his nursery every day."21 Unfortunately, there is no concrete evidence
that he actually heard one of Sousa's nine performances in honor of
Tsar Nicholas' birthday on May 16-20;22 audiences in the St. Peters-
burg Cosnelli Circus consisted almost entirely of officers and officials

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with their ladies, since the war with Japan caused stringent enforce-
ment of Russian security measures at that time.23 But Stravinsky's
noble parentage and his prestigious connection to Rimsky-Korsakov
may have been sufficient to gain him entry to such a popular event.
According to Vera Stravinsky's and Robert Craft's study of Stra-
vinsky, the first sketches of Ragtime for eleven instruments were
completed on November 27, 1917, which, if so, would predate An-
sermet's gift of ragtime instrumental parts.24 The chronology then
leaves open to suggestion the possibility that Stravinsky's inspiration
for the music was derived from earlier models. The full draft was dated
and signed, "21 March 1918," and to confuse things further the
composer's own recollection of the circumstances was as follows: "I
began the Ragtime for eleven instruments in October 1918 and
finished it the morning of the Armistice. ... I composed the Ragtime
on the cimbalom. . . ."2S
If, indeed, Stravinsky had actually finished the first sketches much
earlier, and only completed the orchestration after Ansermet's return,
the parts that the conductor brought with him must have played a
major role in determining the choice of instruments rather than the
style of the music.
There are similar problems of chronology in connection with
another jazz-inspired work of the same period—the Three Pieces for
Clarinet Solo, composed in October-November of 1918; yet Stravinsky

21
I. Stravinsky a n d Crafi, Expositions, p . 24.
22
Paul Bierley, u n p u b l i s h e d daily log of J o h n P h i l i p Sousa, third E u r o p e a n tour, 1903.
23
A n n M. L i n g g , John Philip Sousa (New York, 1954), p . 165.
24
Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (New York, 1978), p . 175.
25
I. Stravinsky a n d Craft, Dialogues, p . 86.
548 The Musical Quarterly

told Edward Evans that they were inspired by Sidney Bechet's Charac-
teristic Blues.26 In fact, Bechet's first trip to Europe was in 1919, as a
member of Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra.27
Nor was it possible that Stravinsky had ever heard a recording of
Characteristic Blues in 1918, because the earliest recording of the work
was not made until 1937.28
Why would Stravinsky have wished to make connections between
works of his and specific sources of American jazz if there is doubtful
evidence that there was a direct connection? And why does he deny
having firsthand exposure to jazz sounds before he composed his rag
works when the sounds of ragtime were the rage of Europe? The

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confusion over these issues is compounded by the numerous scholars
and musicians who seem to find it almost voguish to speculate on how
much of Stravinsky's early music was influenced by jazz.
Claude Debussy,29 Virgil Thomson, 30 and, retrospectively, Stra-
vinsky himself have found jazz rhythms even in Le Rossignol31 and
especially Le Sacre du printemps. The ragtime pieces, however, are
often considered his earliest works to have rhythmic and instrumental
characteristics that are most certainly identifiable as typical of ragtime
or jazz (the terms were used interchangeably by 1918).
Aaron Copland suggests that in Histoire there are
. . . strongly marked polyrhythmic passages that are not to be found in earlier works of
Stravinsky (not even in the Rite of Spring, despite its rhythmic complexities) or that of
any other European composer at the time. It would seem likely that these could only
have come by way of jazz influence.3*

Stravinsky views the works as similarly inspired. "Soldat is indica-

tive of the passion I felt at the time (1918) for jazz... enchanting me by
its freshness and the novel rhythm which so distinctly revealed its
Negro origin." 33

26
V. Stravinsky and Craft, Pictures, p . 175.
27
Ansermet, "Sur u n orchestre negre," S c h a a p trans., p . 115.
28
Sidney Bechet, Characteristic Blues, performed by N o b l e Sissel's Swingsters with Sidney
Bechet (Variety, DCXLVIII, 1937).
29
His c o m m e n t o n Sacre: "C'esl une m u s i q u e n e g r e , " see I. Stravinsky a n d Craft, Exposi-
tions, p . 163.
30
T h o m s o n heard " s w i n g music in Danse des adolescents"; see " S w i n g M u s i c " Modern
Music, XIII ( M a y - J u n e 1936), 12.
31
Stravinsky considered "Bonjours a t o u s " of Le Rossignol (]9i-i) to be " p u r e G e r s h w i n . . .
t h o u g h it a n t i c i p a t e d the Brooklyn c o m p o s e r by a decade." See I. Stravinsky and Craft, Dia-
logues, p . 50
32
The New Music, 1900-1964 rev. and enlarged ed. (New York, 1968), p . 67.
33
Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York, 1936), new ed. (New York, 1962), p. 78.
550 The Musical Quarterly

Often there is a four-measure introduction that, more frequently

than not, will have at least two measures of unharmonized octave
passages. Linking passages ("breaks") occur between strains (or some-
times within the third strain—trio). Vamps and codas are not
uncommon.
Rags tend to be written within a functional diatonic harmonic
system, stressing tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords in a major
tonality. Diminished seventh chords are inserted to emphasize rhyth-
mic accents and sudden surprises. The broad tonal scheme of the piece
as a whole involves tonic to subdominant motion.
The most distinctive feature of ragtime is its syncopated rhythm.

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In fact, any melody can become a rag if its rhythm is displaced in such
a way as to follow the stereotyped rag-rhythmic patterns. Most com-
mon are the types shown in Figure la; combinations of the two or
diminutions occur also. However, there are multitudes of other pat-
terns, both tied and untied syncopations (Fig. lb). Aaron Copland
explains the construction of one as a polyrhythm (Fig. lc).38

inn
(according to Copland)

Another pattern, "secondary ragtime," appeared in later ragtime

pieces in the second decade of the century. This consists of the super-
imposition of a rhythm of different phrase lengths (usually three
eighth notes), but of identical units, upon the prevailing normal
four-quarter rhythm. This was, in effect, another kind of polyrhythm.
See Figure 2 for an example of this as diagrammed by Berlin.39

Thus, the usual ragtime rhythmic scheme consists of a syncopated

melody in the treble, tied to a steady ground beat, for example, an

38
"Jazz Structure and Influence," Modem Music, IV (Jan.-Feb. 1927). IS.
39
BtTlin.p. 131.
 Ragtime 549

It often seems that scholars and composers need to find or even

invent a direct connection between musical compositions and specific
events that might be the source of their creation. We know that a
musician's oeuvre is the result of his life experiences and their con-
scious and unconscious effect upon his creative process. Stravinsky
was particularly avaricious in his absorption of many stimuli; the
incidents recounted about folk tunes, children's play songs, street
rhythms and their ultimate transformation into his works are numer-
ous.34 And even at the age of eighty-five, Stravinsky reflected upon his
long-lasting excitement over the possibilities of rhythm. He felt the
percussive character of music as part of him, "another of my biologi-

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cal facts. To bang a gong, bash a cymbal, clout a wooden block (or
critic) has always given me the keenest satisfaction... ."35 He therefore
would have been especially attracted to music whose style and instru-
mentation particularly feature rhythmic and percussive qualities;
ragtime fulfills these qualifications. However, his eclecticism never
obscured the Stravinsky personality, as the ragtime works indeed
demonstrate. As he so well expressed it, "the Histoire ragtime is a
concert portrait or snapshot of the genre in the sense that Chopin's
Valses are not dance waltzes, but portraits of waltzes. The snapshot has
faded, I fear, and it must always have seemed to Americans like very
alien corn."36
Just how alien is that corn can be determined only by comparing it
to the native strain. Following is a composite picture of the stylistic
characteristics of ragtime as drawn from a survey of representative
studies of the genre.37
The prototype rag is derived from European models of the march
or the "quick-step," and like its predecessor is in duple meter. Al-
though there are many varieties, rags are usual ly composed of three or
four complete and independent sixteen-measure sections ("strains")
which are divided into four four-measure phrases of antecedent and
consequent motives. Almost always, each strain is repeated verbatim.
This creates a structure of predictable regularity with no room for
expansion (except by an additive process) and an absence of develop-
mental passages.

34
See, for e x a m p l e , V. Stravinsky and Craft, Pictures, p . 151.
35
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Retrospectives, p . 121.
36
I. Stravinsky a n d Craft, Dialogues, p . 87.
37
For the most t h o r o u g h study of the stylistic features of ragtime, see Berlin, op. at., w h i c h
is based o n an analysis of m o r e t h a n o n e t h o u s a n d c o m p o s i t i o n s .
 Ragtime 551

irregular rhythm over a regular one. The bass part (either the left hand
of the piano part or the bass instruments in an ensemble) maintains an
"oom-pah, oom-pah" pattern, alternating accented low bass notes on
the first and third beats, with midrange chords on the second and
fourth beats.
Although ragtime is primarily associated with piano playing and
songs, its rhythmic impulse is intended for dance accompaniment.
And very early in its history, it was adapted as instrumental ensemble
music. Reidel and Schafer describe about five classifications of instru-
mental adaptations of rag songs and piano pieces in a study of many

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collections published in the first two decades of the century.40 The bulk
included transcriptions for small orchestras of the kind used in theater
pits or cabarets, and it was probably these kinds of orchestrations that
Stravinsky had in mind for Histoire du soldat and Ragtime for eleven
instruments. Typical of the instrumentation was "Alexander's Rag-
time Band" as it was constituted around 1910—the first violin usually
played the prime lead; second violin played double-stop figures on
second and fourth beats; viola and cello were less important; bass viol
doubled the first and third beat with drums, marking a strict 2/4 or 4/4
time, much in the manner of a march drummer. Winds included
piccolos, flutes, clarinets, playing obbligato parts. In the brass, first
cornet played lead, supported by the second; trombones played the
bass line plus modulatory figures.41
Stravinsky's choice of instruments in Histoire was not out of
character with the description given above. He uses clarinet, bassoon,
trombone, cornet, violin, double bass, and percussion. He admits that
the sparsity of instruments was primarily determined by the "shoe
string economics of the original Histoire production," but that he did
not feel this was a limitation, since his musical ideas were already
directed toward a solo instrumental style. He says that his choice of
instruments had been influenced by a "very important event in my life
at that time, the discovery of American jazz."42
About that time, according to Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft,
Stravinsky received an undated letter from Michel Larionov, then in

40
William J. Schafer and Johannes Reidel, The Art of Ragtime (Baton Rouge, 1973),
p. 129.
41
Frank Powers, "Ragtime Stock Orchestras," The Ragtimer (Nov., 1966), pp. 48-19, cited
in Schafer and Reidel, p. 132.
42
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Expositions, p p . 102-3.
552 The Musical Quarterly

Paris, who had heard an American jazz orchestra whose music he felt
Stravinsky would enjoy very much. Larionov urged Stravinsky to
acquire the "Negro instruments—presumably percussion—" and said
that he knew where they could be bought.43 Stravinsky says he bought
the percussion instruments for Histoire at a music store in Lau-
sanne.44 That the proper percussion instruments were of critical im-
portance to the production was later recognized by Ansermet, who
sent a note to Stravinsky on September 25, 1918 (three days prior to the
premiere), suggesting that the composer bring his own "bass drum
and cymbal to Lausanne because the instruments here are inferior."45

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In Histoire du soldat, one percussionist is called upon to handle
two side drums of different sizes (without snares), a third side drum
with snares (but omitted from Ragtime), bass drum, cymbals, tambou-
rine, and triangle. Were this an ordinary jazz band, the bass drum
might have been equipped with a foot pedal to facilitate the percus-
sionist's performance. Stravinsky called attention to the fact that "the
pitch of the drums is extremely important, and the intervals between
high, medium, and low should be as nearly even as possible; the
performer must be careful that no drum exerts its own 'tonality' over
the whole ensemble."46
Although Stravinsky acknowledged that he chose his strings,
woodwind, brass, and percussion to represent the bass and treble
voices of a jazz ensemble, he selected the bassoon over the saxophone
because the sound of the saxophone is "more turbid and penetrating
than the bassoon" and is preferable in orchestral combinations.47
Actually, the saxophone did not become a standard feature of the jazz
band until sometime around 1920.48
But although the instrumental ensemble of Ragtime in Histoire
du soldat is almost that of an authentic jazz band—and stereotyped
ragtime rhythms are found in it—the work is not a bonafide ragtime
composition. The irregularity of the underlying beat, its tonal
scheme, and its interpolations of atypical material rather than a
continuous display of strains are far from that of a traditional ragtime
piece.

4J
V. Stravinsky and Crafl, Pictures, p . 623.
44
I. Stravinsky and Craft. Expositions, p . 103.
45
V. Stravinsky a n d Craft, Pictures, p . 623.
46
I. Stravinsky and Crafl, Expositions, p . 103.
47
Ibid.
48
James Lincoln Collier, The Making of Jazz: A Comprehensive History (Boston, 1978),
p. 219.
 Ragtime 553

Regarding the underlying bass rhythm in Ragtime, not only do

the drums rarely maintain a steady duple beat, but they are tacet
seventy-six out of the total ninety-two measures, leaving the bass viol
to perform their function. However, there is one unprecedented com-
bination of solo violin and drums simultaneously playing identical
rhythms at the same relative pitch (Ex. 1). It is not within the style of
traditional ragtime, but is indicative of Stravinsky's pioneering spirit
for exploring the potential of percussion instruments. His remarks on
the subject, many years later, indicate a recognition of this. "The
'drums' had never really been given their heads" before Hisloire du
soldat. *9 Obviously he recognized the most striking element of jazz to

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be the "obsession with regularity," and that without the "real or
implied presence of the beats we could not make out the meaning of
this invention."50
Ex. 1. Ragtime in Histoire du soldat, mm. 65-69.
2C.CI.
P P A.

VI.

Indeed, the first instance of the setting up of a regular bass rhythm

does not occur until well into the piece (Ex. 2), and even here the result
is more that of a rhumba than a ragtime.
Ex. 2. Ragtime in Hisloire du soldat, mm. 54-59.

Cl.

2C.cl
timbre

49
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Retrospectives and Conclusions (New York, 1969), p. 12).
50
Igor Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, trans. Arthur Knodel
 514 The Musical Quarterly

With regard to the stereotyped syncopated ragtime rhythms, Stra-

vinsky almost exclusively uses the varieties that Berlin observed were
most noticeably increasing in the 1910s (see Fig. 2a), particularly in
this form: Jf^ J. j ; a tied syncopation: J"J j J~J ; or combina-
tion of the two (Ex. 3).
Ex. 3. Ragtime in Histoire du soldat, violin, mm. 6-11.

VI

These rhythms actually begin in the preceding section of Histoire,

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for example, in the last twelve measures of the Waltz, in the violin and
cornet parts (Ex. 4). To camouflage further the beginning of the
Ragtime, in the distribution of music between the drums, tambourine,
triangle, and bass viol, there is an illusion of a continuation of the
waltz's triple meter even after the time signature has changed to 2/4
(Ex. 4).
Ex. 4. Histoire du soldat, transition from Waltz to Ragtime.

RAGTIME

Trianclo
Tainb. de basque

Caisse cl.
(sana timbre)
GrC

Violino

Contrabasso

and Ingolf Dahl (Cambridge, 1947), bilingual cd., trans. Knodel and Dahl with Preface by
George Seferis (Cambridge, 1970). p. 37.
 Ragtime 555

In the signed sketches of Histoire, the transition from Waltz to

Ragtime is abrupt, but the bass continues in triple meter while the rest
of the ensemble switches to alia breve. Evidently, in the final version,
Stravinsky preferred the ambiguous overlapping or fusion of the
Waltz and Ragtime that prompted Ansermet to say, "Cette heure qui
est entre le Printemps et l'Ete."51 Ragtime was never meant to assume
an independent position in the work as a whole. Histoire du soldat is,
after all, a theater piece, and Stravinsky perceived the central character,
the Soldier, as a universal figure whose characteristic sound was the
"scrape of the violin and the punctuation of the drums. The violin is
the soldier's soul, and the drums are diablerie."52 In this context, one

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can see why rag strains are interspersed with typical Stravinsky poly-
metric sections that sound like the more unrestrained examples of
"Bartokian" folk dance music (Ex. 3). Meters change from 4/8 to 3/16,
to 7/16, to 4/8, to 5/16, etc.
Ex. 5. Ragtime in Histoire du Soldat, mm. 20-30.

Trb.

^ ' /-/**• rtni ' ' "' '

ynxx
The ragtime passages that appear in between are of irregular
length. Aldiough the opening eight measures of thefirststrain have an
antecedent-consequent phrase structure, die section continues for
another seven measures with a different theme, and therefore does not

51
"L'Histoire du Soldat," The Chesterian (Oct. 1920), p. 294.
M
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Expositions, p. 104.
556 The Musical Quarterly

really model itself after the internal phrase structure of a true ragtime
sixteen-measure strain.
The harmonic scheme bears little resemblance to the predictable
tonic-subdominant form of rag. This is one of the only two pieces in
Histoire du soldat that have key signatures; Ragtime is in D, but
moves through A, A minor, B flat, and frequently with ambiguous
major-minor tonal centers. However, of the three pieces examined in
this essay, it is the most tonally focused.
Stravinsky uses gestures that are evocative of the ragtime
marching-band sound, such as the jazzy glissandos and marcato ar-

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peggio connecting passages in the slide trombone part. But even these
are more a suggestion than the real thing.

Of the three ragtime works discussed here, the Ragtime for eleven
instruments appears closest to the spirit and prototype of classic
ragtime, particularly with regard to its "danceability." It has been
choreographed twice—in 1922, by Leonide Massine and Lydia Lo-
pokova, and in 1960 by George Balanchine.53
As one might suspect, in a work written so close to Histoire and
with the same models, the instrumentation is fairly similar but with
several exceptions. In Ragtime instruments are used in blocks: flute,
clarinet, horn, cornet, and trombone; strings; and percussion. The
predominant instrument, the cimbalom, tiien unknown to jazz bands,
adds considerably to the authenticity of the sound since its tone
suggests something in between the twangy timbre of the banjo and the
honky-tonk quality of a dilapidated piano. Stravinsky states that he
grouped the whole ensemble around the "whorehouse-piano sonority
of that instrument. " M Having first heard the cimbalom in a restaurant
in Geneva in 1914, the composer's attraction to its familiar balalaika
sound led him to purchase and learn to play it. Stravinsky compared it
to the guzla, a fine metal-stringed balalaika that produced a bright,
lively sound, but one too small to be heard in an orchestra.55
The most obvious reason that Ragtime appears to be a more
successful ragtime piece is that a steady pulse is maintained through-
out, throwing the syncopations into relief against the background.
Unlike Stravinsky's other compositions of this period, the 4/4 time

5S
White, Stravinsky, p . 238.
54
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues, p. 88.
55
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Expositions, p. 136.
 Ragtime 557

signature remains constant for the 178 measures of the entire work.
There are also an abundance of stereotyped accented ragtime rhythmic
patterns which are strung together in short phrases, each connected to
the other in the additive fashion typical of ragtime compositions.
Here, as in Histoire, the most common patterns and their combina-
tions are the ones found in Figure 2a.
However, unlike the predictable sixteen-measure strains of classic
ragtime, Stravinsky's strains may be only two or three measures long,
and are, in a sense, motivic phrases which recur in combination with
each other, or in slight variation, throughout the composition.
A unifying feature is the short four-measure introduction and

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vamp that appears five times in the piece. The most significant places
of its return occur before the repeat of thefirstand second strains and in
the closing measures where the theme is expanded to a higher register.
Most striking about this cakewalk motive is its resemblance to
Debussy's "Golliwogg's Cake-walk" (Ex. 6a). However, Stravinsky's
version is a harmonically out-of-focus, slightly askew, caricature of
Debussy's opening measures—a rhythmical reference more than any-
thing else—with Stravinsky's signature (Ex. 6b).
Ex. 6a. Debussy, "Golliwogg's Cake-walk," Children's Corner, mm. 1-4.

fIA/10

Ex. 6b. Stravinsky, Ragtime for eleven instruments (piano transcription), mm. 1-4.

Piauo

There are three strains in Ragtime. The last, corresponding to the

trio in traditional rags, can also be viewed as a musical reference to the
double-motive theme used by Debussy in "Golliwogg." Both feature
the half-step motive in the lyrical phrase and a consequent phrase of
shorter note values, played in a detached style (Exx. 7a and b).
 558 The Musical Quarterly
Ex. 7a. Debussy, "Golliwogg's Cake-walk," mm. 61-64.
(. *• a V z « Tempo
P

7
tSJ
Ex. 7b. .Stravinsky, Ragtime for eleven instruments (piano transcription), mm. 52-53.

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P

David Baskerville suggests that the rhythm of the first break, at

measure 12 (Ex. 8), is a familiar jazzfigurethat persisted well into the
swing era.56
Ex. 8. Ragtime for eleven instruments, mm. 10-15.

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Another forward-looking rhythmic pattern is the slide trombone's

motive at measures 92-93, a group of notes precisely on the beat,
followed by a syncopation (Ex. 9). This became one of the distinctive
features of Louis Armstrong's style.
Ragtime for eleven instruments is a kind of rondo with a quasi-
development section, almost improvisatory in nature, that begins a
M
"Jazz Influence on An Music to Mid-Century" (Ph.D. diss.. University of California at
Los Angeles, 1965), p. 275.
 Ragtime 559

Ex. 9. Ragtime for eleven instruments, mm. 90-94.

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little less than halfway through the piece, at measure 79. The rondo
theme, in this case corresponding to thefirststrain, returns at least six
times in its rhythmic form, if not verbatim.
The tonal scheme, as with Histoire's Ragtime, does not follow the
plan of traditional ragtime pieces; much of the time Stravinsky seems
to be avoiding a commitment to a tonal center. However, he does use
typical jazz coloristic seasonings of diminished chords, major seconds
plunked on series of accented notes, and other suggestions of "blue
note" sounds, in their adaptation to instruments with fixed pitches,
for example, the cimbalom's skidding between D natural and Dflatat
measures 5-10, while the bass line suggests a tonal center of Bflat(Ex.
10). Flutes behave similarly at measures 131-34.

Ex. 10. Ragtime for eleven instruments, cimbalom, mm. 5-10.

l\l 1 1
fV-r j
560 The Musical Quarterly

Piano-Rag-Music is decidedly different from die earlier ragtime

works. Here Stravinsky is mostly concerned with material derived
from the tactile pleasure of playing the piano, as his own words reveal:
What fascinated me the most of all in the work was that the different rhythmic
episodes were dictated by the fingers themselves. My own fingers seemed to enjoy it so
much that I began to practice the piano simply for my own personal satisfaction....
Fingers . . . are great inspirers, and, in contact with a musical instrument, often give
birth to subconscious ideas which might otherwise never come to life.57
Piano-Rag-Music gives the impression that Stravinsky had ex-
tracted many rhythmic and melodic figurations from stock ragtime
music and gleefully but haphazardly strung them together in an

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improvisatory fashion that merelyfizzlesout at the end. The composer
evaluates this composition as being a "more successful essay in jazz
portraiture because it showed an awareness of the idea of improvisa-
tion"; further, he acknowledges that by the time he wrote the Piano-
Rag-Music, in 1919, he had heard live bands and discovered that "jazz
performance is more interesting tiian jazz composition."58
The major shortcoming of the work as a rag is that rarely is a steady
beat maintained in die bass part. Instead, diere are many shifts of
meter that are more akin to the composer of Sacre than to Scott Joplin
(e.g., within ten measures the time signature shifts seven times). The
exclusion altogether of meters and bar lines occurs four times within
the work and is unprecedented in Stravinsky's music, with the excep-
tion of the Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo, composed about the same
time.
There are passages in the unbarred sections of Piano-Rag-Music,
when die music is more suggestive of the later jazz style used by
Gershwin. Moreover, contrary to what one might expect in unmea-
sured music, it is in these passages that can be found an accelerated
steady bass rhythm that rarely appears in the rest of the work for more
than a few measures at a time. (See Ex. 11.)
In Piano-Rag-Music, Stravinsky almost completely avoids die use
of cliche ragtime rhythms that he used in the two earlier works.
Instead, there is a greater variety of patterns, including a secondary
ragtime in die inner voice at measures 37-41. (See Ex. 12.)
The design of die work is obscure. Phrases are irregular in lengdi,
and occasionally the flow of the music is interrupted with punctua-
tions of heavily accented chords.
57
I. Stravinsky, Autobiography, p. 82.
M
I. Stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues, p. 87.
 Ragtime 561
Ex. 11. Piano-Rag-Music, m. 83.

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Ex. 12. Piano-Rag-Music, mm. 37-41.

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Jim.

Preasion of performance instructions regarding keyboard touch

and use of or absence of pedal, among other things, is in accord with
standard ragtime practice. It is also very much in keeping with Stra-
vinsky's personal style. (See Ex. 13.)
In spite of the lack of continuity Piano-Rag-Music does capture
that spirit of ragtime associated with surprise and catching the listener
off balance by unexpected shifts of harmonies and contrast of texture
(e.g., a great flurry of notes followed by a simple unsyncopated
562 The Musical Quarterly

Ex. 13. Piano-Rag-Music, mm. 94-95.

[jiiwz cmendre bicn neftement loaiw lu notes

e«ctuivcmcn( cowl!

phrase). There is humor without lightheartedness; Charlie Chaplin as

opposed to a slapstick clown.59

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The compositions discussed in this essay demonstrate that Stra-
vinsky can duplicate two of the most distinctive characteristics of
ragtime music, the syncopated rhythmic patterns and instrumental
color. However, he neglects to establish a regular accented beat in the
bass most of the time, and disregards the form and the harmonic plan
of traditional ragtime models. This does not appear to result from a
lack of firsthand experience with authentic live or printed music of the
period since both were presumably available to him. However, no
matter what genre or style he chose to write in, the finished product
always bears the imprint of Stravinsky. It is logical, then, that his
perception of ragtime did not result in a photographic representation,
but a satirical one, full of the kind of humor that comes from both
exaggeration and the unwillingness to stay within the confines of fixed
stereotyped systems. The distance between the Maple Leaf Rag and
Ragtime is just as great as that between Don Giovanni and The Rake's
Progress, or Pergolesi and Pulcinella.