"Tom is clearly finding his eccentric marriage intolerable, as Baba is a chatterbox with a fiery temper. He silences her by throwing his wig over her face, then falls asleep."
- The Rake Progress (1951) was one of the few works by Stravinsky that was not commissioned; he simply wanted to do it. In his leading man, Stravinsky created is a sort of antipode to Mozart's violent & charismatic Don Giovanni. Stravinsky's hero, Tom Rakewell, is the opposite of the Don, whose courage, vigor & decisiveness might have saved the rake from his lazy, floundering self. There were several conventions of 18th century music that Stravinsky had still left untouched until this point. Recitatives accompanied by harpsichord are a case in point; the composer's distinctive language makes the recycling of a dated convention relevant and striking. Nevertheless, The Rake's Progress was to be the composer's last neo-Classical work.

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