Stravinsky's Contribution to Chamber Music

Abstract

Strawinsky's interest in chamber music dates from about 1914. After the orchestral din of The Rite of Spring he suddenly turned to chamber-music textures, first in the Three Japanese Lyrics, which he quickly followed up with the Three Pieces for String Quartet and two more collections of songs with chamber instrumental accompaniment—the Pribaoutki and the Cat's Cradle Songs. Later came The Soldier's Tale, Ragtime, the Concertino for String Quartet, and the Octet. Since then his ventures into this field have been very spasmodic. After the Octet he did not return to it for nearly ten years, in the Duo Concertant, and then neglected it for a further twenty years (unless the Elegy for unaccompanied viola, written in 1944, is allowed as chamber music), when he suddenly produced the Septet, the Shakespeare songs, and the In Memoriam Dylan Thomas.