121

bow. In order to be able to accept this combination of

instmments, I felt I had to use the smallest possible grouping,
i.e., as two solo instruments, so as to find a way of solving the
instrumental and acoustical problems arising from the alliance of
the two different types of strings. This is what suggested the Duo
Concertant for violin and piano. The wedding of the two
instruments seems to make for greater clarity than the
combination of pianoforte with several stringed instruments,
which tends to sound like an orchestral ensemble.^°
Perhaps because of this reservation regarding the combination of the
percussive piano tone and the bowed string tone, Stravinsky often instructed
string instruments to play pizzicato (pluck with the fingers) when doubled by
piano. However, the piano does still double many passages which are bowed,
especially in the earlier works. When appearing with strings, the piano most
often doubles either the entire section in all registers, or else doubles the
violoncello and double bass in the lower register; it appears with violins alone
much less frequently.

Octave Usage
Octaves seemed to hold a particular fascination for Stravinsky; at times,
they also .seemed to present him with a great problem. It was already
mentioned at the beginning of this study that Stravinsky viewed octaves as
being particularly pianistic and that no other instrument produced them so
well. In 1968, near the end of his life, he commented to Robert Craft: "I had
no sooner forbidden myself to use octaves in one piece than I saw what
richness I could extract from them, and I used them in the next piece all the
time."^^ Octaves appear in his music in diverse ways: each hand playing a
single note one or more octaves apart; one hand playing a line in octaves and

^ ^ a d , p. 116.
"Robert Craft, Chronicle of a Friendship, 1948-1971 (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1972), p. 343.