ABSTRACT
Stravinsky's music continues to be recorded, and his early ballets in particular enjoy a wide currency in concert presentations. Within the academy, the political and cultural emphasis in literary studies has trained an unforgiving gaze on Eliot, while to a large extent the entrenched formalism of music studies concentrates on the technical innovations of Stravinsky, rather than on the political, rhetorical, ethical, or cultural aspects of his music. What Eliot liked about Stravinsky's music-and which he wished had been part of the ballet as well-was the link between modern and primitive. Part of Eliot's ideological affinity with Stravinsky rests in his citation of Frazer's Golden Bough, a work that heavily influenced The Waste Land. The disciplinary rigor of music theory, particularly pitch-class or set theory, reduces all musical languages to a common denominator, which is not helpful if one is trying to keep track of the ways in which different languages coexist.
