118

contemporaries wrote works for it or incorporating it, including Milhaud,

Jolivet, Ibert, Honegger, Varese, and Messiaen.*^
On still another occasion, he made the following remark about the use
of computers to create music:
At a recent concert featuring one of Bell Laboratory's IBM
computers . . . I leamed that the instrument costs more than
$100 an hour to rent and a great deal more than that to operate.
. . . the concert, by the way, persuasively demonstrated that
this new means of communication has as yet nothing to
communicate.*®
Stravinsky also refrained from using pianos which had been timed in
non-traditional ways. Regarding quarter-tone pianos, he once commented that
"I remember playing a quarter-tone piano four hands with Hindemith in the
Berlin Hochschule in the 1920's. I also remember my surprise at how quickly
our ears became accustomed to it. . . . Since then I have thought about
quarter-tones but avoided writing them."*^ Although he made this comment
in the 1950s, it would hold true for the rest of his life. He was content to
utilize the piano within traditional means and soimds only.

*^Stanley Sadie, ed.. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
vol. 13 (New York: MacmiUan PubHshers Limited, 1980), pp. 540-541.

*®Stravinsky, Themes and Conclusions, p. 20.

*^Stravinsky, Expositions and Developments, p. 103-104.