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A musical instrument has no specific identity until it is played by a concrete musician or used in a singular work. According to Stravinsky, a musical instrument is « nothing in itself ». Only a work, as a process of invention and creation, gives an instrument its identity on the basis of pre-existing organologic properties. Stravinsky’s works for small ensembles show how musical instruments may be invented by the work which they play, as well as the composer’s love for instruments that are new or “new for him” (such as the cymbalo). Musical invention (which does not mean here the creation of a new instrument) consists in giving a new ring to an existing instrument. This kind of invention implies a notion of musical “eroticism”, that is a specific love for instruments and the otherness they may bear. Everything is happening as though an a priori quality (a musical possibility buried in the instrument) appeared only a posteriori (within the inventive work).