Igor Stravinsky has been labeled a “revolutionary” more or less since the first staging of Rite of Spring, whether as praise or condemnation.  Much of the material of Stravinsky’s 6-lesson lectures, Poetics of Music, I found to be uninteresting at times and nonsense at others—but it was worth every minute for the following quotes, which I think reveal his more truly revolutionary ideas.  Read on!

Igor on imagination vs. invention:

“We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it.”
—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music, p. 53

“Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.  For the act of invention implies the necessity of a lucky find and of achieving full realization of this find.  What we imagine does not necessarily take on a concrete form and may remain in a state of virtuality, whereas invention is not conceivable apart from its actual being worked out.
—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music, p. 53

Stravinsky’s opinion closely mirrors my own regarding the prototyping abilities of the imagination: it is the fastest method we have, but also the most prone to misjudgment, and the least able to develop an idea.

But it is these quotes, which inspired quite a bit of controversy in Visual Music a few weeks ago, that I am truly interested in and inspired by:

“From the moment song assumes as its calling the expression of the meaning of discourse, it leaves the realm of music and has nothing more in common with it.”
—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music, pp. 42-43

“Do we not, in truth, ask the impossible of music when we expect it to express feelings, to translate dramatic situations, even to imitate nature?”
—Ibid., p. 77

“I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc….Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence.”
—Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1935, Calder and Boyars ed., 1975, p.53

It’s rare that I see this sentiment voiced (if you are aware of examples please let me know).  Expression is a form of communication, and communication requires a semiotic code for sent signs to be reliably interpreted by a receiving party.  Codes are arrived at by convention, or sometimes, consensus.  Music has never had, as far as I know, conventional semiotic codes of the linguistic kind, but nonetheless evokes many things to many people.  In this situation, communication has been fallaciously conflated with evocation. The former attempts to transmit the intent of the sender, while the latter is only the result of the receiver’s observation.  The reaction of the receiver to a perceived musical input pattern may be psychological and/or physiological.  A physiological reaction, such as dissonance, can be thought of itself as a sign which then leads to normal psychological reactions; the association of one pattern with another, in the vast chain-reaction that is the living mind/brain.

For some more quotes along similar lines, check out Stravinsky on expression in music and Stravinsky on the purpose of music on Theory of Music.  I also stumbled upon this very fascinating BBC Puzzles piece on musical scores as ciphertexts.