Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/123

Rh of surprise. His most daring effects are introduced quite informally and by the way (e.g. the barrel-organ in Pétrouchka), and there is always a complete absence from his style of musical rhetoric. So his music achieves its purpose almost unawares, insinuates itself into your attention rather than commands it, and relies for its effect on severity of simplification and on a sort of winning trustfulness that the meaning of the work is sufficiently interesting to dispense with the trappings of sentiment or artificial thrill.

Just this might be said with equal truth of Nijinsky's choreographic innovations which have shown us dancing stripped of its conventional attributes, a thing of accent rather than of rhythm, and almost destitute of grace, though still dancing essentially, as opposed to  85