We identify the iceberg with the tenth of its bulk that is visible above water, the composer with that fraction of his total output that we happen to know. For those of us who first made contact with Copland's music through the works of the thirties and forties (from, say, the Piano Variations to Appalachian Spring), the personality that emerged was strong and definite; nor was it too hard to describe a predominating tone of voice, characteristic procedures—the vigorous, self-contained themes (statements rather than unanswered questions) with their assertive thirds, fourths, and fifths; the athletic vitality of the rhythms, the combination of open-textured triadic harmony with sharply dissonant elements; over all, a plainness that avoided sumptuous sounds and rhapsodical outpourings, in favour of a rigorous sticking to the business in hand.

Vertical thought performs many and diverse functions in Stravinsky's music. This brief look at some of his harmonies is an attempt to find some examples of chords and harmonic technique which recur at different periods in his life. To try to isolate vertical sound from horizontal sense is a tricky procedure, but may be justifiable in the case of a composer who, in common with Ravel, frequently invites us to listen to his harmonies largely for their own sake. Analytical dismemberment in this sense can assist understanding of Stravinsky much more than it would do in the music of Sibelius, for instance. The precise purposefulness of Stravinsky's harmonies is one of the characteristics which distinguish his music from that of his imitators. In the main, it will be found that he has taken over the ‘classical’ function of dissonance (stress preceding resolution) and extended it in harness with rhythm. In this way, a harmonic stress is equated to a rhythmic stress. ‘Motoric’ rhythms being frequent in Stravinsky, there is only rarely an unambiguous resolution of stress. This is of course less true of works based on a pastiche style, in which the associational values of classical stress/resolution are relied on.

With the advent at the turn of the century of compositional techniques that depended to a large extent on nervous and sensual responses, great problems were incurred at the psychological moment when a composer found that his nerves were not quickening with their former vibrancy, or else became aware, as possibly in the case of Debussy, that he was no longer able to trust in his private sense-world. If such a crisis is not to lead to a psychological and artistic cul-de-sac, in the attempted recreation of a past condition, a realignment is needed of conscious intellectual workings and the composer's natural responses. In the case of Debussy this process led to a language in which elements whose sole original purpose had been to embody his sense-world were now intellectually reshuffled to shore his personality against ruin. In other words they were stripped of their sensuous meaning and combined to form a consciously constructed art which would fill the newly apparent void. To uncomprehending ears this artistic change merely represented a falling off in inspiration, for the ripe sensual response to life and the world about is commonly believed to be synonymous with inspiration. The lack of sensuality in late works like the piano studies was recognised but not properly construed, the heroic constructive effort ignored.

• Williamson's Julius Caesar Jones (J. C. G. Waterhouse)

• Tippett's Vision of St. Augustine (Anthony Payne)

• Bennett's Symphony (Stephen Walsh)