Igor Stravinsky and Agon.

Abstract

Igor Stravinsky's last ballet, Agon (1953-57) is an enigmatic entanglement of tonal, serial, and twelve-tone compositional procedures in conjunction with French court dances, classical ballet, and musical textures reminiscent of Anton Webern. In sorting out this puzzle, I have undertaken an interdisciplinary approach, one involving art history, traditional music analytical techniques, and linguistic theory. In the first chapter, Artistic Interminglings: Picasso, Cubism, and Stravinsky's Compositional Approach, I draw the parallel between Pablo Picasso's artistic approach during his Cubist period and Stravinsky's compositional approach, delineating three common elements between the two artists: context/modelling, cut-and-paste, and substitution. In the second chapter, A Day in the Memory: The Fifth, the Torchbearer, and the Magician, I take a whimsical look at Stravinsky, the twelve-tone composer. With the third chapter, I offer two different looks at Agon. The first encompasses a more traditional music analytical investigation of the ballet, demonstrating how the various parts work together, creating this cohesive work. The second entails my borrowing of Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of dialogue as the fundamental element of communication between human beings. By considering musical compositions as medium of communication, I am able to explore Agon as a social act, thus, examining the relationship between Stravinsky, Agon, and other composers' works and the effect that they had on Stravinsky's compositional choices.