Strawinsky experimented at first with the full orchestra and he even utilized it in such late works as _Petrouchka_ and _The Nightingale_. However, in his search for “pure tone” he used it in a new way. In _Petrouchka_, for example, infrequently you will hear more than _one of each instrument at a time_ and frequently two, or at most three, instruments playing simultaneously will be sufficient to give his idea form. The entire second scene of this mimed drama, is written for solo piano, occasionally combined with a single other instrument. At other times in the action the bassoon or the cornet, even the triangle has the stage. And when he wishes to achieve his most complete effects he is careful not to use more than seven or eight instruments, and _only one of each_. He experimented still further with this principle in his Japanese songs, for voice and small orchestra (1912). The words are by Akahito, Mazatsumi, and Tsaraiuki. I have not heard these songs with orchestral accompaniment (the piano transcription was made by the composer himself) but I may take the judgment of those who have. I am told that they are of an indescribable beauty, and instinct with a new colour, a colour particularly adapted to the oriental naïveté of the lyrics. The orchestra, to accompany a soprano, consists of two flutes (one a little flute), two clarinets (the second a bass clarinet), piano (an instrument which Strawinsky almost invariably includes in his orchestration), two violins, viola and ’cello. This form of chamber music, of course, is not rare. Chausson’s violin concerto, with chamber orchestra, and Schoenberg’s _Pierrot Lunaire_ instantly come to mind, but Strawinsky did not stop with chamber music. He applied his new principle to the larger forms. In his newest work, _The Village Weddings_, which I believe Serge de Diaghilew hopes to produce, his principle has found its ultimate expression, I am told by his friend, Ernest Ansermet, conductor of the Russian Ballet in America and to whom Strawinsky dedicated his three pieces for string quartet. The last note is dry on the score of this work, and it is therefore quite possible to talk about it although no part of it has yet been performed publicly. According to Mr. Ansermet there is required an orchestra of forty-five men, each a virtuoso, _no two of whom play the same instrument_ (to be sure there are two violins but one invariably plays pizzicato, the other invariably bows). There are novelties in the band but all the conventional instruments are there including, you may be sure, a piano and an infinite variety of woodwinds, which always play significant rôles in Strawinsky’s orchestration. And Mr. Ansermet says that in this work Strawinsky has achieved effects such as have only been dreamed of by composers hitherto.... I can well believe him.