Rhythm and Meter. Upbeat-downbeat ambiguity persists. Stravinsky places figures that are inherently upbeat figures (both rhythmically and in terms of language accentuation) on downbeats. A more naturalistic text setting would relieve this tension. To put it the other way around, Stravinsky’s setting is charged with deliberate tension between the normal, naturalistic way of writing tonal music and setting text and his calculated distortions.