It is not only folk-tunes but popular songs as well that fascinate Igor Strawinsky. Ernest Ansermet collected literally hundreds of examples of American ragtime songs and dances to take back to the composer, and he pointed out to me how Strawinsky had used similar specimens in the past. For example, the barrel organ solo in the first scene of _Petrouchka_ is a popular French song of several seasons ago, _La Jambe de Bois_ (a song now forbidden in Paris); the final wedding music in _The Firebird_ is an _adagio_ version of a popular Russian song, with indecent words. He sees beauty in these popular tunes, too much beauty to be allowed to go to waste. In the same spirit he has taken the melodies of two Lanner waltzes for the dance between the Ballerina and the Moor in the third scene of _Petrouchka_. It would not surprise me at all to discover _Hello Frisco_ bobbing up in one of his future works. After all turn about is fair play; the popular composers have dug gold mines out of the classics. Consistent, certainly, is Strawinsky’s delight in clowns and music halls--the burlesque and the eccentric. He has written a ballet for four clowns, and Ansermet showed me one day an arrangement for four hands of three pieces, for small orchestra, in _style music hall_, dated 1914. We gave what we smilingly referred to as the “first American audition” on the grand pianoforte in his hotel room. I played the base, not a matter of any particular difficulty in the first number, a polka, because the first bar was repeated to the end. This polka, I found very amusing and we played it over several times. The valse, which followed, reminded me of the Lanner number in _Petrouchka_. The suite closed with a march, dedicated to Alfred Casella.... The pieces would delight any audience, from that of the Palace Theatre, to that of the concerts of the Symphony Society of New York. _New York, February 6, 1916._ Leo Ornstein “_the only true blue, genuine Futurist composer alive._” James Huneker. Leo Ornstein