Stylistic and Technical Juxtaposition in Igor Stravinsky’s The Owl and the Pussycat

Igor Stravinsky’s last completed work is his art song setting of The Owl and The Pussycat, completed in 1966 at the age of 84. Stravinsky and his wife Vera (the dedicatee) had a strong emotional attachment to the work, as this poem was among the first words of English that Vera learnt whilst fleeing war-torn Europe to settle in sunny California. The work has a whimsical and child-like veneer, aptly reflecting Edward Lear’s nonsense poem. Despite its outward appearance, this short song juxtaposes stylistic allusions and compositional techniques from across Stravinsky’s musical career. In this article, I analyse the complex web of musical techniques and styles behind the austere façade, with particular attention to the hybridisation of Stravinsky’s residual tonality with his later serialism. The Owl and the Pussycat, despite its historical significance as Stravinsky’s last original work, remains largely ignored in music-theoretical literature, receiving fleeting mentions in two footnotes in Joseph Straus’ otherwise comprehensive monograph, Stravinsky’s Late Music, as well as a brief examination from the view of piano technique in Graham Griffith’s Stravinsky’s Piano.