Stravinsky (1882-1971): A Composers' Memorial

Author(s): Alexei Haieff, Elliott Carter, Walter Piston, Ernst Krenek, Darius Milhaud, Paul
Fromm, Roger Sessions, Dmitri Shostakovitch, Soulima Stravinsky, Ben Johnston, Wolfgang
Fortner, Peter Mennin, Ross Lee Finney, George Rochberg, Michael Tippett, Humphrey
Searle, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Goffredo Petrassi, Robert Palmer, Ben Weber, David Diamond,
Franco Evangelisti, Seymour Shifrin, Goddard Lieberson, Carlos Chavez, Andrew Imbri ...
Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 1971), pp. 1-180
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/832141
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Photograph by Ulli Steltzer
STRAVINSKY WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED BY ME AS
THE YOUNGEST AMONG THE FOUR GENERATIONS OF
HIS COLLEAGUES.
-ALEXEI HAIEFF

In this period of sorrow, immediately following Stravinsky's death,

it is hard to find words to express the many thoughts and impressions
that must occupy the minds of many composers and musicians. For
me the periods of overwhelming illumination and of profound grati-
tude for them, of irrepressible wonder crowd into my mind, as I
recall the first time I heard the Sacre (which I already knew in a four-
hand piano arrangement) played live at Carnegie Hall, conducted by
Pierre Monteux in the mid-twenties and decided there and then to
become a composer, or the subsequent fascination with which I was
on the lookout for each new work, many of which, like the Symphony
of Psalms, Persephone,Jeu de Cartes, Orpheus,Symphonyin Three Move-
ments, the Mass, the Cantata, Agon, Threni, Abraham and Isaac, and
Requiem Canticles, I had the good fortune to hear in their first per-
formances. This experience which I actually sought out, out of en-
thusiasm for the composer's work, was, of course, in this case, filled
with amazement and surprise since his growth was a series of unex-
pected renewals of idea from Fireworksto The Owl and the Pussycat.
Of course, it was easier during the late twenties and early thirties to
keep up because the Boston Symphony played each new Stravinsky
work almost as soon as it was finished (unlike orchestras today) and
kept some, like Apollo and Capriccio,in the repertory for years. It was
because of this opportunity to know Stravinsky's works that the Sym-
phony of Psalms was so much appreciated by the audiences of the
Boston Symphony-the orchestra that commissioned it in 1930. The
same cannot be said of the Symphonyin ThreeMovements,commissioned
by the New York Philharmonic, whose audiences, are still "protected"
from the new. (It is to be hoped that Boulez will change this.)
Later, when Stravinsky's remarkable piano playing, filled with elec-
tricity, began to be heard here, as well as his conducting, many of us
were grateful that this great composer had decided to come and live
among us. I myself have a very vivid memory of him playing over the
score with Rene Maison singing the part of Eumolpe, of Persephone
(the humanistic rite of spring) at the apartment of Nadia Boulanger
in Paris a few days before its premiere. What impressed me most,
aside from the music itself, was the very telling quality of attack he
* 1*
gave to piano notes, embodying often in just one sound the very
quality so characteristic of his music-incisive but not brutal, rhyth-
mically highly controlled yet filled with intensity so that each note
was made to seem weighty and important. Every time I heard him
play, in the Salle Pleyel, in Town Hall or wherever, the strong im-
pression of highly individualized, usually detached, notes filled with
extraordinary dynamism caught my attention immediately -and this
was true in soft passages as well as loud.
Then, to my own surprise, I was privileged to meet and to come
to know him and witness this remarkable man with his penetrating,
brilliant, and original mind and dedicated spirit in action. A highly
concentrated inner force, although then considerably reduced in
expression, seemed to govern him even during my last visit in December
1970, when we listened to recordings and followed scores together
of The Song of the Nightingale and the last act of Magic Flute, which
he particularly enjoyed, shaking his head and pointing out special
beauties on the page.
Through these recent years, when I saw him now and then, certain
things that I wanted to make clearer, at least to myself, have nagged
at me, but I was never able to formulate them into questions that
would bring the answer I wanted. The possibility of such questions
came to me first during a time when Robert Craft was conducting
my Double Concertoin Los Angeles, and Mr. and Mrs. Stravinsky in-
vited me to their house on North Wetherly Drive. A little discouraged
and shy in the midst of such august figures as Spender, Isherwood,
and Huxley who were also there, I went off into a corner, soon to be
joined by Stravinsky himself, and we began musicians' talk until I
got up the courage to ask him how he composed. At which he took
me to his work room, and showed me a large book of blank pages
onto which short fragments of musical sketches, roughly torn out of
larger sketch-pages had been pasted. Since the original sketch-pages
had been papers of different qualities and colors and the musical
fragments (sometimes only two or three notes) had been written on
staves that were hand-drawn, often in quite fanciful curves the scrap-
book itself gave a very arresting visual impression. This was the work
book for The Flood, which I don't think had yet been performed. He
proceeded to explain how he chose fragments from his sketches, tore
them out, shuffled them in different orders until he found one that
satisfied him and then pasted them down. I was genuinely surprised
to learn of such an unexpected way of composing, which if I had not
known whose music it was, I might have had doubts as to the results;
indeed I was so surprised that I did not think of the questions which
would continue to nag me from then on. Naturally, he explained that
all the fragments were derived from one chosen piece of material
(as was evident) but what was not evident to me was how these frag-
ments could be made to fit together. Of course, the printed score of
this "Musical Play," which I saw much later, contains passages' of
short bits of music interspersed between lines of speaking and these
do look very much like what I remember seeing, even in print.
Some time later, I began to realize that what I saw corresponded
to glimpses I had had of this technique in his music elsewhere. The
description and quotation of Stravinsky telling how he cut up the
final "fugue" of Orpheusand inserted fragments of harp figurations
characteristic of the work, given in Nicolas Nabokov's Old Friends
and New Music, as well as a brilliant lecture by Edward Cone on the
Symphoniesfor Wind Instruments,recalled to me how pervasive cross-
cutting was in the music. I had not expected to see it so graphically
demonstrated.
In Cone's lecture, he shows how the Symphoniesare made up of a
series of different musical movements, each cross-cut into the other.
Sometimes the edges of the cuts are joined together by transitions
or marked by cadences, but usually they are abrupt, coming at a
point where the statement of idea is incomplete. In this, these cuts
are unlike the articulations of literary works into chapters, stanzas or
of musical works into movements, or even of serialized movies or TV
shows all of which conclude with a completed action, although raising
the question of "what happens next?" In Stravinsky, these are more
often like random cuts, aimed, probably, as similar devices in the
movies, particularly those of Eisenstein, to give a sense of sampling
different kinds of things from which the observer can form his con-
cept of the whole.
Such abrupt articulation seems to have become a conscious device
with Stravinsky from about 1916 (Renard) on. Naturally one of the
questions this brings up as far as music is concerned (since visual
things have a very different quality of concreteness) is how these
abrupt fragments can be joined into continuities that give the listener
a unified musical idea or impression.
In connection with this, one of the things I had always wanted to
discuss, especially after I had publicly read the text of the soldier's
part of The Story of a Soldier (with Aaron Copland as narrator and
John Cage as devil) for a performance given by Lukas Foss, was the
lack of the usual continuity in the plot. For I was struck by the fact
that there are at least three almost unconnected stories presented one
after the other as if they were continuous. The second story starts

?3
back where the first one did with the soldier trudging down the road,
as if it were the first time. I had also noticed that there was a similar
plot structure in Renard, and a similar isolation of events so that pre-
vious actions seem not to effect succeeding ones-although the final
result, the victory of the devil over the soldier or that of the barnyard
animals over the fox (each finale presented almost as a separate story)
fulfills expectations. In these two stories, the characters on stage and
the audience are dealt with as if they had no memory, as if living
always in the present and not learning from previous events-a
dramatic situation that suggests the puppet world, like that of Punch
and Judy, as the authors certainly intended, and also in a larger sense
inescapable fate and universality of action such as that in the Every-
man plays or that of the shades in the Hades of Gide's libretto for
Persephonewho ceaselessly repeat the gesture of living.
Whatever the intention, this kind of almost disjointed repetition
immeasurably increases the pathos of both works. In fact, I came to
believe, as I studied the soldier's part, that it was just because of this
curious plot repetition, especially as it is coupled with music, that,
although almost continually different in tiny details, is always drawing
attention to its repetitive form, particularly harmonically and motiv-
ically. And it is through this that these two works gain their very
urgent, compelling quality. For the soldier's violin seldom departs
from beginning to end of the work from its basic musical material,
drawn as it is out of the very fundamentals of violin playing, and from
this is derived the tango, waltz, fox-trot, devil's dance as well as the
striking end. Because of this underlying continuity of material, all
the brief, almost discrete fragments, however roughly they connect
with each other end up by producing a work that holds together in
a very new and telling way. Disjunction of motive exists in much of
Stravinsky's music before this time-such as in the fisherman's song
in the Nightingale, in which (especially as it is presented at the end of
the opera) each measure, although motivically related to its neighbor
is not connected to it by phrasing, harmonic leading, or rhythm.
Already in Petrouchka,of course, there is both a harmonic separa-
tion of crowd music from puppet music with a cross-cutting of a
rather conventional kind from one to the other. In the Sacre, too,
there is a use of different chord structures to characterize and unify
each dance and to isolate it from its neighbors, a device that had
already been used by Bartok in his piano Bagatelles, and by Schoen-
berg in Erwartung and in works by Scriabin and also by Ives. One
question I did ask was whether all the chords in the Sacre were related
to one source chord (which may be partially or completely stated in
the introduction). It was in January 1962, when I was teaching a
. 4
course that dealt with the Sacre and thought I had discovered such
a chord. I showed him my conjecture and he politely turned away
from it saying that he had forgotten whether or not or how he had
organized this work. (In connection with this I had meant to ask
about the three or four different editions of the Danse Sacrale, with
different orchestrations and with the shift of the corona from the
first to the third beat in the first measure, which, along with the
change in harmony in the first and second chords and other similar
places, not to speak of changes of bar lines in the 1943 version, reveal
either a change in the idea of the phrasing of the movement-or a
clarification of what was originally intended, all of which invalidates
some French attempts at analysis.)
But to continue about the matter of "unified fragmentation," which
really seems to have been carefully studied during the writing of
works after the Sacre, like Pribaoutki (1914). The idiosyncracies of
Russian folk song and liturgy, of jazz and military band playing,
of the parlor parodies of Satie, seemed to have played a role in this,
which, once it was developed, furnished a pathway out of Russian
folklore into an ever broadening musical world of technique and
expression-always marked by what came to be recognized every-
where as the highly original and compelling voice of Stravinsky.
As a postscript, I quote my tribute written for the June 16, 1962
issue of the Hamburg newspaper Die Zeit, which, unlike American
papers, contained a page of tributes to him written by composers
from everywhere for his 80th birthday:
"Stravinsky's music is filled with a remarkable sense of the power,
strength, and movement of human life. As no one before him, he
captured the immediate moment in all its freshness and vividness
and welded it into sequences of music that enhanced its life. For-
mulae, schemata, and other routines which can fill out musical time
and space have no place here. Everything is shaped by the musical
concept, which he presents in the most telling and direct way. His
entire work-a very personal, almost autobiographical mirror of the
development of a composer in our time-when considered as a whole
forms a typical composition by Stravinsky. It lives in and grows out
of the present through which it passes finding unexpected but highly
evocative and convincing ways of progressing. It denies itself the
tried patterns by which similar problems were solved in the past.
It is founded on a new approach to musical statement and expression
often called 'objective' but no less human for that."
The career of Stravinsky serves as an example of a highly civilized
creator aware of the disasters and glories of our period, from which
he has drawn very important musical conclusions. His art represents
5
a profession of faith in the value and importance of music to which
his work lends new glory.
-Elliott Carter

A Reminiscence

One is fortunate to have been a contemporary of Igor Stravinsky

and to have known him a little. When he came to Harvard in 1939-40
as Charles Eliot Norton Professor he took charge of my composition
seminar as one of his duties, and I served as his assistant. Thus we
were afforded a glimpse of his marvelously warm and sympathetic
human qualities, as well as of his extraordinarily lively and perceptive
mind. He seemed pleased that the students were so well acquainted
with all his music and that they could ask intelligent questions. His
critical observations were always in the nature of friendly encourage-
ment, with never a suggestion that the young composers should write
music his way. Rather he emphasized the necessity that they should
find their own way. Sometimes his remarks were humorously cryptic,
as for example, "You ought not go up so high-it is in danger of
going right off the keyboard." He was generous in playing and talking
about his own compositions. The Serenadeen la was not to be under-
stood as being in the key of A but as polarized about A. Also, it was
to be played absolutely without pedal, and he proceeded to do so.
I recall an enlightening incident during his discussion of Oedipus
Rex when he stopped playing and observed, "How happy I was when
I discovered this chord!" We were mystified, because the chord in
question was just a D-major triad (page 57 of the Boosey and Hawkes
score). Actually this chord does not sound like any other D-major
triad. It is approached through combinations of dominant and sub-
dominant harmonies, with top and bottom in stepwise contrary mo-
tion. But no amount of technical analysis could explain the fresh
and novel sound of this subtle disposition of a time-honored happen-
ing in musical meaning. No small part of its magic is due to the exact
placing and spacing of the instruments and the melodic progress of
the contrapuntal tones g and e in oboes, clarinets and horns, not to
mention the precise moment of its occurrence in the course of the
work. Played on the piano it may indeed become "just a D-major
triad." It is significant that his satisfaction was derived not from his
having created the effect but from his having discovered something
that already existed.
 At the time, Stravinsky was also busy conducting a concert with
the Boston Symphony. I met him after a rehearsal of the Symphony
in C and asked him how it went. He said it was impossible to get string
players to play a series of staccato notes without giving accents where
none was called for. The concert included his revision of the Suite
from Petrouchka,which he had arranged by numerous cuts, etc., in the
score from which he conducted. At one point, in the midst of furious
turning of pages back and forth, Stravinsky became lost. He continued
beating, and the orchestra continued playing, until he got back on
the track. He mentioned the incident later and I said, "I was scared,"
and he said, "Everyone was scared."
During his visit at Harvard he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs.
Edward W. Forbes at their home in Cambridge. He accepted few
invitations, preferring to work in his room or talk with associates and
friends. His regard for high society could be described as rather
irreverent. When asked to tea in back-bay Boston he sent a message
beforehand advising as to the kind of wine he drank. Once when I
was given the responsibility for getting him to a dinner in his honor,
with about three minutes to spare, he said, "Let's go somewhere and
have a sausage." I persuaded him to give up the idea only when I
said my honor was at. stake. Later, in Los Angeles in 1961, we were
together at a magnificent out-door dinner and dance, Hollywood
style, given in honor of the composers at the festival. They offered
him peacock in aspic, and he waved it aside, saying, "Food? I don't
want food-only Scotch." Each time they brought him the Scotch he
would pour it into my glass, with near disastrous results.
His bump of curiosity was certainly one of his outstanding charac-
teristics, constantly in evidence in all sorts of ways, from experiment-
ing with sounds to be obtained from a silver fork at the dinner table
to the conception of those startling sonorities in the Symphoniesof
Wind Instruments. Doubtless it helped sustain his life-long urge to
explore every new path to see where it led. These explorations were
carried out with keen perceptive originality and endless creative
energy. The product is a priceless legacy of masterful works in an
incredible variety of styles, forms, and media, each bearing the un-
mistakable stamp of its creator.
-Walter Piston

With the advent of aleatoric non-commitment, parlor-game type

of improvisation, computerized gimmickry, collage and montage of
. 7
heterogeneous debris the epoch of what was loosely known as "New
Music" has come to an end. With Igor Stravinsky the last of the gener-
ation of its founding fathers has left the scene (the surviving Carl
Ruggles* had a less conspicuous position among the charter members).
From hindsight one might say that historically Stravinsky's function
was to prevent for about thirty years so-called atonality, which was
recognized as the revolutionary nucleus and essence of "New Music,"
from becoming the mainstream of contemporary musical utterance.
The victory of Stravinskyan neoclassicism kept dodecaphony in a
kind of intellectual ghetto from which it burst forth only after it had
acquired a new dimension in total serialism.
Somehow Stravinsky, a law-and-order man of first magnitude,
ought to have found Schoenberg's twelve-tone regulations rather
congenial. For not only did they subject atonal chaos to wholesome
discipline, but they also induced the atonalists to revive classical struc-
tural schemes with the new method, which could well be interpreted
as another product of the same regressive tendency that was manifest
in neoclassicism. But the mood and habitus of this music remained
expressionistic as it exuded the same emotional heat that had brought
about the atonal explosion. Only when Stravinsky became aware of
the fact that in Webern's late works fire and smoke had given way to
cool, crystalline transparency, did he adopt the strictures of the
twelve-tone technique without, however, venturing into the field of
total serialization of non-pitch parameters. His organizational pro-
cedure hardly went beyond what was known before his conversion.
Nonetheless some of the grandchildren of the revolution were so
fascinated by the grand old man's about-face that they did not tire
of meticulously analyzing his manipulations of the tone rows without
noticing (or wishing to notice) how much of it could be traced to the
exploits of the intermediate generation.
When he embarked upon this final phase of his compositional orbit
Stravinsky graciously sought me out, thus renewing a relationship
that had started when I visited him in Nice about 1924. After my own
conversion to dodecaphony we had no contact, for in view of Schoen-
berg's hostile attitude and Adorno's fulminations a self-respecting
atonalist could not very well have traffic with the enemy camp.
In 1950 I wrote for the Italian Radio a little trio on occasion of the
two hundredth anniversary of the death ofJ. S. Bach, entitled Parvula
coronamusicalis,and added an analytical commentary on the elaborate
dodecaphonic construction in Latin because I did not know enough
Italian. Ever since Stravinsky saw this piece, he took me for an
authority in that classical language, and I had to invent for him some
: Carl Ruggles died October 1971, after this issue had gone to press (Ed.)
of the Latin titles of his late works. He studied especially my Lamenta-
tio Jeremiae Prophetae carefully, listened to the tapes of some of my
recent works, and we had many delightful visits. His company was
charming and relaxed, quite different from the tense atmosphere
that prevailed at Schoenberg's where the visitor felt like being per-
manently on guard against a slip of the tongue. Stravinsky's conver-
sation was light and witty, with hardly a trace of the recherchevocabulary
that adorns the crafty dialogues which he committed to print.
In 1962 I wrote for his eightieth birthday a canon on eighty Latin
words, using a symmetrical twelve-tone row the intervals of which
added up to eighty half-tone steps. I secretly hoped to surprise him
by rewriting it in 1972, adding ten words and modifying the tone-row
so that it would comprise ninety half-steps. I think that the prodigious
prestidigitateurwould have enjoyed examining how this trick of pre-
meditative legerdemainwould have affected the original canon.
-Ernst Krenek

I had the great privilege to be present at the first performance of

Firebird,in 1910, danced by the Ballets Russes of Serge de Diaghilev,
in the Paris Opera. This company presented to the public all the new
works of Strawinsky-I saw the first performance of Petrouchkaand
of Rite of Spring-until Diaghilev's death in 1929.
I have never been disturbed by the so-called "styles" of Strawinsky
-Russian, neo-classic, twelve-tone-because this great composer is
always above the language he has chosen to express himself, thanks
to his strong personality.
It took a certain time for the critics to get accustomed to the style
of Rite of Spring, or Noces, and they would have liked to attach a label
on the composer's back to reassure themselves, but then came Mavra.
. . . The critics were lost again as well as most of the musicians; they
could not understand that a new era was beginning after the premiere
of Mavra. I think that Auric, Poulenc, Rieti, and myself were the only
ones enthusiastic about this work. Strawinsky's surprises were far
from being over; after Apollon Musagete, one of his purest composi-
tions, The Rake's Progress and his Symphonies, began the dodeca-
phonic period! His personality was so strong that these recent com-
positions were absolutely not different in spirit from his former ones.
And when he orchestrates Bach, the instrumentation reveals his hand
at the first bar, or Hugo Wolf's songs for Fischer-Dieskau, although
they seem so far away from his style; after one or two chords one
knows that nobody else but him has orchestrated them.
*9 .
 In his book, Style and Idea, Schoenberg, in a long article devoted to
Mahler, indicates that his feelings for Mahler are a question of love
and, going against everything for which Mahler was generally re-
proached, he states that every composition of Mahler is perfect. After
reading this chapter I wondered: "Are there some musicians whom
I admire completely without any restrictions?" I found two of them:
Debussy and Strawinsky.
-Darius Milhaud

As a non-musician, I can think of no better way to pay tribute to

Igor Stravinsky than to speak of the influence of his music on my life.
For that I must go back to my childhood when the music taught and
heard in a small German town belonged exclusively to past centuries.
Later, the concerts I heard in larger towns included some twentieth-
century music, but the sounds were still those of romanticism and the
aesthetics were still Victorian. To me, it seemed inconceivable that,
at a time when painters and poets were expressing themselves in new
ways, composers would sustain the status quo in an art which, through
the centuries, seemed always to be in a state of renewal.
The event which, musically speaking, made a twentieth-century
man of me came in 1927. For the first time I heard Stravinsky's Rite of
Spring. Its effect on me can best be described by quoting Stravinsky's
description of a Russian spring. In a conversation with Robert Craft,
he said:

Spring in Russia seemed to begin in one hour and was like the
whole earth was cracking.
The year 1927 marked the beginning of my acquaintance with
Stravinsky's music, and it came as a revelation to me that in the pre-
ceding seventeen years he had already written other prodigious mas-
terworks such as The Firebird,Petruschkaand Les Noces. I could not have
imagined then that, thirty years later, I would actually meet the
composer in America. Stravinsky left Europe in the late thirties and
settled permanently in Beverly Hills in 1940. I emigrated to the United
States in 1938.
From the time that I arrived in America I interested myself in its
music and musical life. Soon I became concerned about the anomalous
position that the composer occupies in American society. Finally, in
1952, I decided to make my own contribution to the musical scene,
* 10.
and thus the Fromm Music Foundation came into existence. From
the beginning, Stravinsky's interest in the work and aims of the Found-
ation was a source of great pride to me. When we founded PERSPEC-
TIVES OF NEW MUSIC, he joined its Advisory Board.
In the spring of 1958 I received word from him that he wished to
meet me in Chicago where he would stop over on his way to New
York. My own sense of reverential respect would have inhibited my
desire to suggest a meeting, and so I was even more gratified that it
was Stravinsky's own initiative that led to our personal acquaintance.
We met in the afternoon in the restaurant of the Chicago Union
Station. When I asked the waiter for a cup of coffee, Stravinsky's
Russian expansiveness broke through immediately. "Absolutely not,"
he said. "Our new friendship must be celebrated with Champagne."
He called the waiter and canceled my order for coffee, asking for the
best bottle in the house. "I want to know you;" he explained, "be-
cause contemporary music has many friends, but only a few lovers;"
The high point in my relations with Stravinsky came later in the
same year. His Threni was to be premiered at the Venice Festival in
November of 1958. When Stravinsky received Leopold Stokowski's
request for the rights to the first American performance, he asked
his publisher, Boosey and Hawkes, to inform Stokowski that Threni
would, instead, have its American premiere in a Fromm Foundation
concert in New York. The concert took place in Town Hall on January
4, 1959. We had wanted it to be an all Stravinsky program, but
Stravinsky preferred to share it with works by Alban Berg and Arnold
Schoenberg. That concert was conducted by Robert Craft; Stravinsky
supervised the rehearsals, was present at the concert, and, the fol-
lowing day, conducted the recording sessions. The concert is still
remembered as an historic event by the audience which included
composers, performers, painters, writers, poets, and dancers. I had
often read of an atmosphere in a concert hall being "electrically
charged;" but had never experienced anything that might be so de-
scribed until that Sunday afternoon. When Stravinsky came onstage
after the performance, the applause that greeted him was like an
explosion of pent-up energy. It was a tribute to the man whose music
had so profoundly influenced his contemporaries, and it seemed that
those who were there felt like "witnesses" for the entire contemporary
art world. But Stravinsky himself viewed his own immortality with
characteristic irreverence. Shortly before his death he said:
I have already lived through some of my own posterity, and the
more experience I have of it, the less I care about it.
The man was, to be sure, a legendary figure in his own lifetime, but
* 11 -
far beyond his personal legend, the images of Stravinskian invention
have penetrated deeply the intellectual and artistic fabric of our cen-
tury. To us, his contemporaries, Stravinsky has given music of our
own time-music to identify as our own in the company of the great
music of all times, and to claim for our century a musical identity as
vivid as any in the history of the musical art.

-Paul Fromm

death came for all of us as a shock, not lessened by the

Stravinsky's
Stravinsky's death came for all of us as a shock, not lessened by the
fact that many of us had known, with deep concern, that for the last
two years his health had been precarious. During all of our lives he
had been present, and it is difficult and painful to realize that he is
here no longer.
In these last two weeks many tributes have been paid to him, and
many more are surely still to come. He was the last survivor of a very
great generation, which has left its indelible mark on all of the music
that has been composed during at least the last half-century. Above
all he was the composer of many works which still retain their vitality
undiminished, and will certainly continue to do so for very many
years to come.
What I would like chiefly to express here, however, is the enormous
debt that all of his survivors owe him. Without him, we would not be
as we are-and there is no composer, perhaps no musician, living
today, who could say otherwise. For us that have had the great privi-
lege of knowing his music, from Petrouchka and the Sacre onward,
when it first appeared; for whom each new work came as a fresh
surprise; who enjoyed the zestful obligation of fighting for Stravin-
sky's music when it was still-to use the establishmentarian parlance
of today-"controversial"; for us he has left the most precious of
memories. He gave us no less than a part of ourselves, and it is for
this we owe to him the high privilege of gratitude.

-Roger Sessions

L7Tt1

* 12
I WARMLYLOVE THE MUSIC OF THE GREAT IGOR STRA-
VINSKY. I AM VERY SORRY THAT I WON'T BE ABLE TO
WRITE AN ESSAY ABOUT HIS ARTISTIC LIFE BECAUSE I
AM AT THE MOMENT VERY ILL AND BESIDESTHAT I DO
NOT HAVE THE TALENT OF LITERATURETO SAY WHAT
I REALLY FEEL TOWARDS HIS ETERNAL WORKS.
-DMITRI SCHOSTAKOVITCH

13 -
* 14
 An Interview with Soulima Stravinsky
Ben Johnston: What was the period when musical collaboration be-
tween you and your father was most intense?
SS: I would say between 1933 and 1938. Actually we toured between
1934 and 1938 quite a lot.
BJ: With which of his works were you then concerned?
SS: Really all that existed at the time. I played his Concertoand his
Capriccio under his baton, sometimes with other conductors, but
mostly with him, and in solo capacity I played the Sonata, the Serenade,
Petrouchka,sometimes an Etude or two, Piano Rag Music-whatever
existed. Usually after intermission there was his appearance with
the Two Piano Concerto;it was premiered, I think, in November 1934.
Then we played it quite a lot throughout Europe and in South
America.
BJ: How did he approach these works with you?
SS: We just sat together and played, first slowly, then faster. I don't
think we ever had any discussion on style. It was so natural for me to
play the way he wanted; he would decide on the tempo and I went.
It was just like one thing. I never felt so comfortable under any other
conductor. Except once, when we hadn't played together for a while,
during the war; then I came to this country, and we resumed activity.
On a tour with the Boston Symphony, I played his Capriccioand his
Concerto.Well the Capricciowent smoothly, and with such a marvelous
orchestra it was just fine. And then the Concerto.I had trouble, be-
cause in the meantime he had changed his ideas on the tempo of the
second movement. He wanted it very, very, very slow. So I felt not
quite at ease, and then I got used to it. But other than that, I don't
recall one instance when it wasn't perfectly natural to function the
way he wanted.
BJ: To what extent do you feel your father's influence molded you
as a performer?
SS: To a very great extent at first. Then I developed by myself, and
I consider both these things important. It took a long time, because
his personality was such that to live in contact with him, to make music
with him, to play with him, you couldn't but accept his line of playing,
of making music, of performing. And these were certainly extremely
valuable things that I learned and not only for his music.
That was limited by his aesthetics, which was well for him at that
time. I know that he himself evolved not only in his music but in his
* 15
concept of interpretation. But it's a complex problem and I have to
elaborate a little bit on it-he was then much more strict in his state-
ments about interpretation. He had a great mistrust of most con-
ductors and performers; it is the more surprising that his printed
piano music has so few indications of how to play it. He was afraid
to put in anything. He said, "If I put in a crescendo, they will give me
too much, so I'd better put nothing." But when he played, he would
put much more than the printed signs. He had a very sensitive and
delicate touch. It was not at all dry and detached and aloof as he
seemed to want people to play.
When we were separated during the war I had no contact with him,
and I had several years in which to mature. I was no longer a young
student. I had played a lot and had developed my own opinions; I
still played his music of course, but I revised it completely. I knew
I was doing something that people liked more. I applied not the tech-
niques of, say, Chopin to Stravinsky but what I knew about sensitive
playing. And I must tell you about one instance when I had a reward.
After many years of life in different countries, we got together again,
and in a Town Hall concert I played his music, in a quite different
way. It was much more human, more elaborate, more evaluated. I
didn't tell him I had reworked it. He was delighted. He said, "You
never played my music better! Don't change anything." So I knew
I was going in the right direction.
One anecdote might be interesting. I recall it as if it were just now,
and not forty years ago. I was studying with an old Russian teacher,
who was a very old-fashioned academic type, and I was learning the
SymphonicEtudes. I couldn't do anything but what my teacher wanted
me to do. One day my father came and was very angry. He said, "Who
plays music like that?" I said, "My teacher wants it that way." "It's
crazy. Tell your teacher to teach my music and I'll teach you how to
play Schumann." My old teacher didn't understand anything about
contemporary music.
It's a small incident, but when I reflect on that, I think there is a
truth in it. There was not enough "romanticism" in the way I played
his music . . . and I learned a lot from that.
BJ: You spoke of a change of attitude about the responsibility of the
performer during Stravinsky's life. Can you say more about that?
SS: I can say that I heard one remark which made me aware of his
change. Two (other) pianists had played his Double Concerto;he was
not satisfied. We were driving home, and he was moody. My wife and
I knew he didn't like the performance. He said to Fran$oise and me
that the pianists just played the notes and didn't know what to do
* 16
with them. "You know how to play it, I venture to say, and I know-
I played it with you-yet there are but few indications in the score.
They should be a little smarter than that," he said.
First, the basic laws of correct music playing had to be observed,
that is, correct rhythm and tempo relationship. That he was abso-
lutely merciless about. You had to keep the tempo and be in the just
tempo. You could vary, but the whole thing, the pulse, should be
right. He often told me, and it is something that any musician knows,
that you may have a higher pulse, but a steady one. If you are sick
it's not steady or perhaps it's way too high. But you are not on the
same pulse every day, and yet you function normally. Function nor-
mally and keep the steady pulse-that was his advice.
Then, he never indicated the phrasing too much, and this is where
it was very difficult to follow him. You had to find it. He didn't in-
dicate it very consistently in his scores; but when he played, it was
obvious.
The other day, coming back from his funeral, I paid a visit to my
old friend, Nadia Boulanger. She couldn't come, so I said I'd come
to her. She reminded me that she'd heard-in my apartment years
ago-a very old 78 record, which was not even commercial, a take
of his children's pieces, the Five Fingers, which he himself played. It
was very beautiful-very, very sensitive playing, lots of things that
you cannot even mark; the tone, the shading, the approach to a
phrase. It was just splendid. But I no longer had this document; it
was in his archives-I had given it back to him. Nadia said, "Well,
if only you had taken a tape of that. I've never heard anybody play it
this way." So he was able to do it.
And I remember when we played well and were in good shape (you
know, you are not always in good shape on tours)-certainly it was
impressive-there were certain days when I heard him play things
with such gusto that I wanted to match it right away. Then at times
he would tell me-and that was a great compliment-"Oh, let's do
that again. How did you do it? It sounds beautiful. Let me see." And
he would try to match it. So we had a constant reference to each other,
which made it very unified.
BJ: What do you think were his finest achievements as an interpreter?
SS: I think ... his conducting; he was a very competent pianist, but
he couldn't practice. If he had, he would have written less. He was
confident that I would never betray his music and that I was playing
it in a fashion that was satisfactory to him. So when I started playing,
he played less and less. He mostly played when we played his Two
Piano Concerto.Later, he conducted and I played under his direction.
* 17
 He conducted all his life until his health didn't allow him to do so
any more. It was always impressive because he had such a personality
and knew exactly what he wanted from his music. He learned the
craft of conducting through a very extensive experience, since he
was doing it all the time, and he loved it. He had the feeling that
nobody could convey his music the way he had conceived it better
than himself. And I think he was right. Some conductors were per-
haps stylistically or even technically more skillful, though I think he
was more than competent: he was excellent and very convincing.
When he wanted something, he knew exactly how to get it.
Besides, he was very diplomatic with the musicians, so his orchestra
body was with him. It was absolutely phenomenal. I rarely remember
any instance when it was anything but a sheer pleasure to see him
conduct. I attended hundreds of rehearsals, dozens of concerts, and
each time it was such a pleasure, not because he was my father, nor
because his music is so great to listen to, but because he was so con-
vincing as a conductor. In later years I could watch him on television
once in a while or go and see him conduct on occasion. He was already
very old. It was marvelous. Even then.
So I think this was where he did the most, but he played the piano
with something quite personal, and basically with excellent means.
He had had very good training and was a fine pianist. His piano
music, though not written like many other scores, is always pianistic.
Although he wrote very little for piano solo, he did make many
transcriptions, which were written with the same care with which
he would write original pieces for piano solo-and which shows how
much he liked the instrument.
BJ: You feel then, that his interpretations of his own music are the
authoritative versions?
SS: I would say so. In orchestral performances, it is beyond question.
As for piano, I would say he gave an excellent idea of what he wanted,
but perhaps you could add something more which he didn't because
he did some recordings at a time when he still held very strict opinions
as to rhythm.

BJ: To what extent and in what way did your father influence you
as a composer?
SS: That is very difficult to tell you. In thinking of his music or play-
ing it, I put him in just the same position as I would put Beethoven
or Mozart or Bach, all the great ones whom I cherish and admire.
There is no difference to me. I know that I have had a rather special
background, living with him in my salad years when you absorb every-
*18-
thing; and something is left. I know that more prolific composers
than myself have been strongly influenced or at least impressed by
his music and that he has left an impact on every composer of the
century in one way or another. Whether you want to or not, you
cannot say, "Well, I can do without The Rite of Spring."
I was always told that one is never a very competent judge of his
own music, because there are sides that escape one's appreciation.
It's always interesting to see the comments of competent people from
outside. Very often they have said to me, "It is a strange thing, but
it doesn't necessarily recall your father." I do nothing to resemble
him because it would be foolish. I do nothing to turn my back on the
wonderful things he has taught us through his music. Being a pianist,
I have such a baggage of repertoire and knowledge of piano music
of three centuries, let alone music other than piano music that can
influence me just the same, that I think my father is just one of a
great many composers who could project some light on my own work.
And I feel very happy that he is among them and not the only one,
because if he were I could not match him, I could not equal him,
I would be only a pale copy; and I do not want that.
I am sure that there is an influence. People tell me that I look so
much like my father. I never could see that. But when someone drew
a very nice picture of my face, I said, "Well, there is something to it."
But when I look at myself in the mirror, I can't see it.
BJ: Do you think that the great eminence that your father has and
has had was a help or a hindrance to you as a musician?
SS: Basically it must have been a help. Then I had, like all healthy
and normal people, a rebellion against this impact. I felt I had to
become myself no matter how great my father was. I wanted to be
something by myself, on a much, much lesser scale, but since I was
a musician and I could not be a second Stravinsky, I had to find
myself.
This is how I tried to get out . . . I kept playing his music, but I
told you I revised it and found my own way of playing it. It was not
at all selfishness on my part, but the perfect consciousness of my
duties to my craft and metier. I had to do it the way I am. Much later
I found a sort of blend with some ideas which I could fully accept,
some others I could accept when screened through my experience
with other musicians.
Something which helped me enormously was my teaching. I taught
according to my ideas. Then I saw how other ideas could come in
handy here, but not as the whole picture. It's just like my personal
relations with Nadia Boulanger, who was my teacher. At times I
* 19
thought, "Well, we've discussed a lot of things but what did she
teach me?" She taught me the essential things that are not taught in
so many words. Just the contact made me think of things differently.
I think my early life with my father made me see things in a way
that a very great man sees them. It transcended music. His ideas
were universal in many ways. This didn't prevent me from disagree-
ing sometimes. I hardly ever disagree with any of his written music,
but I often disagreed with the ideas stated in his literary works. They
were not always convincing to me even though they are very valuable
and marvelous things. Of course I never discussed that. You don't
discuss this with a parent. It would not be proper.
BJ: Which works of his do you particularly feel are significant to you?
SS: Sentimentally-that is, the ones that move me most of all are
OedipusRex, the Symphonyof Psalms, and some pages of Apollon Musa-
gete. But I must say I shed many tears here and there, even in The
Firebird. But when I play PetrouchkaI am too busy to be sentimental
about it! There are pages of OedipusRex which move me, even now,
just like some pages of Don Giovanni. They do something to me, and
I have to look for a Kleenex. It's not a habit, but it's there. I think
to the end of my life I will feel the same way.
BJ: Since you attained professional independence from him, do you
feel that you have retained an identification with his aesthetic posi-
tion?
SS: It's hard to say. I think somewhere, in general terms, I would
agree with him perfectly well. So many things have been written.
I subscribe to every note that he has written, even those where I am
not entirely at home. It's not my language, which became his: the
serial way of composing. He has written fifteen years of such music.
Though I admire it immensely and I like many, many pages, some-
times I am a little bit not with him.
For instance, L'Histoire du Soldat, which is not like the Firebird,not
even like The Rite of Spring, and certainly not like Apollon and all the
neoclassic period, is something which moves me perhaps more than
anything else in music. What moves me is whenever I see him as he
is, and no one else. Now it's very difficult to say because so many
people have taken his path. But when I see that it can be only him,
that's marvelous.
In his statements on music, up to the end (though I haven't lived
with him for many years), he was apt, on the spur of the moment, to
declare something adamantly and straightforwardly, and there
couldn't be any discussion. "This is the way it is." Yet he could change
* 20?
his opinion next year or next month according to some new experi-
ences he had. I've seen him being extremely attracted to one com-
poser, and then rejecting him, with no interest whatsoever. He
wouldn't speak of it, and he would go to another one.
I saw his reaction, which I knew from another angle, to Debussy,
whose music he knew very well and which he admired. He was as
opposite to Impressionistic music and to Debussy's language as could
be. He proved it in his music for years and years and years. His work
was almost a manifesto against Impressionism, particularly Debussy's,
since he was the greatest example of this line. In 1948 or 1949, I had
just learned and played Debussy's Etudes which I find the peak of his
art. I wanted to share my admiration of this work with my father.
I played some of these Etudes for him. He said, "No. Debussy was a
great, great musician, but with horrible taste." Which isn't true. And
I now know that later, when he was no longer able to compose, when
he was listening to music of many composers, to everything he could
get on recordings, he was playing Debussy over and over and over.
It was very strange after this remark in about 1950 saying that these
works-which are really the most sophisticated, refined, and extra-
ordinary, almost prophetic of new avenues of music-were Impres-
sionistic bad taste. But he had stayed away from that because he was
still under the spell of an era that he had rejected or that he had
found it necessary to combat. Later with the latest experience of his
life, he would not listen to his own music, not even his own recordings.
He listened to all of Schumann. Now we know that there are great
pages in Schumann, but also much that is not at all great. Still he
listened to all of it.
BJ: What do you consider the major contributions of your father to
the music of our time and of the future?
SS: Well, you could answer that probably as well as I can. I still think
that The Rite of Spring would be the crux of his art in that it broke, at
least momentarily, with the past in a radical fashion that was unheard
of. He was not gradually evolving from one thing to another, some-
times with big leaps, going very quickly; that work was a drastic
change. But what is for me even more extraordinary and perhaps
more impressive is that now, when we look back at it, we find so much
of a sound traditional writing of music in this music which was called
revolutionary. We know that it is a part of history, that everybody
uses such rhythms and such harmonic aggregations. Now it is stock
in trade and rightly so. At the time it was new, entirely novel. People
couldn't understand. But look at the score. It will be one of the great
scores of our music, one of the most significant works historically.
* 21.
Now of course I know that he didn't like this statement, made so
often by critics or music historians, since he was very conscious of
always finding new avenues, new ways of saying perhaps the same
old truths. So to pinpoint it to one work, no matter how great-and
he was certainly aware of the unique quality of this work-didn't
please him too much. He said "It's the work I'm playing now that
counts. This is good for history. It's a good work." You see, it's also
very difficult to say because he was such a phenomenal craftsman that
he never could write a weak work. It could be, for some people, less
inspired or just not congenial to one's own temperament, but accord-
ing to your own experiences you might like some work now and some
years later find more inspiration in some other one.
I have been acquainted with all his works during my life and so for
me it was very natural that I followed his process in some way. And
as a listener and in some ways side participant it was the perfectly
natural thing for me. When he had a new thing to offer, and when
people said, "Well, what's next?" for me it was just the next step of
a man who had so much to say that he wouldn't say it in one thing
and at once, and it didn't surprise me. I was just very happy.
BJ: Which aspects of his aesthetic stand seem to you to be of lasting
significance?
SS: I think saying just the import of new rhythms is saying very little.
Again I may be very limited in answering your question, but the more
I play or listen to his music, the more I see, aside from the greatness
of the craft, the perfection of the achievement. The message of his
music is as human as only the very great composers could make it.
You can see very skillful and marvelous counterpoint in Bach, but
you see much more in it, even in a fugue, if it's well played and if you
know what it is about. And you can say, what about the cantatas or
passions or other vocal works of Bach, or even a sonata for flute and
cembalo; these make you not only admire the marvelous organization
of tones, but they move you. Well, the music of Stravinsky moves me
most of the time. It moves me in the same way as when I read a great
poem: it's not only the story that is moving but the way it's said. What
is so marvelous is that, after all, when there are three words, well, no
one has thought of putting them in this way at this moment, and I
think this is the greatness of it.
And when in the past I tried to discuss these things with him, I felt
it wasn't very necessary to talk about them. He preferred talk in tech-
nical terms. "Look at this cadence, how well rounded off," or "The
timing of this!" or "Look at this. I repeated it three times. I tried to
do it two times, not enough; four times, one too many. Three is the
* 22'
right way, but don't think it was so easy to come to this. I had to
change many things." Or take the last chord of his Symphonyin C,
which is a marvelous but very strange chord. Someone asked him
what sort of a chord it is. He said, "You ask me. I hate to avoid
answering, but I can just tell that I tried dozens of chords and none
would fit. All of a sudden one would fit, so I put it down. I didn't
question it."
BJ: Do you think his aesthetic position changed during his career?
SS: Oh, probably. Probably. And many times. Otherwise I cannot
explain the very versatile quality of his music which baffled and
astonished so many people. I think he put his aesthetic credo in dif-
ferent directions.
BJ: Do you think that neoclassicism was ever a really appropriate
label for your father's work?
SS: I know he didn't like it. But he had nothing to substitute for it.
BJ: Debussy apparently didn't like "impressionism."
SS: Absolutely, and yet we use it and now we know what we are talk-
ing about. Of course "neo" is never very good. It has a connotation
that is a little disparaging. "Impressionism" is different. In any case
I know he didn't like it. I often thought, let's find some more appro-
priate or more adequate term, but I couldn't find it. And yet it's
obvious that he didn't deny it. When he took Pergolesi he tried to
revive the music of Pergolesi, trying to enhance the essentials of what
he thought was beautiful in it. And he did it very well. When he wrote
Apollon Musagete it was obvious that Handel was in the back of his
mind. Or even in OedipusRex. And with his Concertofor Piano or his
Piano Sonata, Bach was very close. He felt the shadow of Beethoven
while he was composing his Two Piano Concerto.
But of course "neoclassicism" is a very vague term. There are many
classics. We can say, "classics from Bach to Chopin" and now we find
this a little too fuzzy. We like to say "early Baroque," "late Baroque,"
"early Beethoven," and we know what that is. "Neoclassic" is really
not precise.
BJ: Do you think his artistic position has been distorted by other
artists, by critics, and by historians?
SS: I think so, a little. By historians-but not all of them. I have read
excellent books on his music, some very poor ones, some very super-
ficial ones, some idiotic ones. And critics-well, perhaps there is 1 per
cent of valuable comment. But usually it's nonsense. Pretentious
* 23'
sometimes, sometimes absolutely lacking in basic knowledge of what
they were talking about. And sometimes rushed because they wanted
to be the first ones-that's always very bad. Oh, I wouldn't take in
critics as a rule, though once in a while you may have a valuable com-
ment, or sometimes a slight, striking one.
BJ: Do you think his early ballets represent a direction he later aban-
doned? I am thinking specifically of some remarks by Jean Cocteau
in Stravinskyin the Theatre,to the effect that Le Sacre du Printempsdis-
illusioned him about Dionysian art. Do you feel that he underwent
a change of heart about arousing the audience ultimately leading to
the Apollonian point of view he talked about in the Poetics of Music?
SS: Yes, I think that in tracing his evolution in music, that would stand
to reason. His approach to ballet, with which he was so often and so
constantly connected, also followed a great deal of rethinking and
turned into something more and more disciplined.
And when we come to a ballet which is almost already in the line
(if not yet quite) of serial music, Agon, it still preserves the principles
of the classic ballet. Very much so, yet the music is not classic, not
romantic, not folkloristic, but pure music. The ballet exemplifies
something very classical. Of course, there is reference to very old
schools of the late Renaissance and so forth, but I am sure that in his
concept of the ballet, he went through various phases. What is very
interesting is that he started from the constructivism of Le Sacre and
rejoined the romantic and classical ballet much later. Apollonian,
with Apollon Musagete, oriental with Le Rossignol,and purely romantic
with Le Baiser de la Fie, which is music by Tschaikowsky rewritten by
him. Many phases....
He was so closely associated with Diaghilev; that had a great deal
to contribute. There was an interinfluence between these two great
men. But then later on Balanchine also, who was an excellent musi-
cian and a devoted admirer of my father, was certainly influential
when it came to a ballet commission. And they worked together. I
never was a witness of this collaboration but I know it existed. I don't
think it has been recorded, but it would have been priceless.
BJ: He has been compared often to Picasso, especially in regard to
the various discrete periods of his work. Can you comment on this
facet of his artistic personality? Do you think it is a valid comparison?
SS: Well, I took it for granted for a long time, and it is still for me
absolutely valid; because I could see, at least for a long period of
time, the same evolution. Cubism is very close, in its simplification
of forms, to certain concepts of my father's music in Le Sacre, even
in L'Histoire du Soldat. It's no wonder that they collaborated on
. 24-
Pulcinella because Picasso did the same thing. All of a sudden all
these extremely harsh lines and traits were leading, with the addition
of this dramatic experience-traumatic, I would say-back to more
ancient forms. They found in them an artistic re-identification and-
because they were great creators-a new style which people accepted,
and which was called neoclassicism. I think it is renewed values of
the past. I think Picasso did exactly the same thing, and moreover at
exactly the same period of time. It could have been different in
timing, but it occurred at the same time.
Now, I don't know whether I would go further and include the
latest evolution of Stravinsky, who thought to rejoin the techniques
of Schoenberg at the moment when Schoenberg died -a very beauti-
ful thing to do, because it was a very great man who recaptures some-
thing that opened to the work of musicians musical ideas by another
great man. He produced fifteen years of extremely varied music in
this new trend. Well, I don't see this in the Picassos of the last years.
Rather I see some simplification in an almost unreal fashion. It's a very
difficult thing to say about a man of the stature of Picasso, who has
been through so many experiences, and whose changes were so un-
predictable, but who has all that now with the greatest experience and
the greatest talent in the world. What a man does at the age of past
eighty, when he is still capable of drawing and painting... I think
we are still too close to judge from a classified point of view. Let's just
take the things that are still the products of very great minds.
BJ: Do you feel that the late works of Stravinsky represent another
change of heart perhaps triggered by the death of Schoenberg, be-
cause of his great admiration for Schoenberg? Certainly there was
a new point of view, in contrast with the neoclassic works.
SS: Oh, well, it is a contrast, definitely. What always surprised me,
and there is something about it which you cannot explain too well,
is that Stravinsky was very much impressed with Pierrot Lunaire when
he first heard it at its premiere in 1913. Now it was not Le Sacre,but it
was as revolutionary, some people think more so-that's semantics.
Anyway, there were two great works almost at the same moment, and
I think two great minds like Schoenberg and Stravinsky understood
the worth of each other, though they went apart.
At that time there was a brief influence of the Schoenbergian tech-
niques on a very short vocal work, the Japanese Lyrics,four songs which
are written in a "serial" fashion. After this he abandoned completely
the idea. I heard him talk of Schoenberg very often. He said, "I have
the deepest respect for this great musician, but he is as far from my
aesthetics as can be." I know how he would be contemptuous of some
minor composers, and would condescend a little bit to the ones he
* 25-
thought were honest and nice. Usually he would have a little bit more
sympathy with the ones who were in his line. That's natural. But he
always admired Schoenberg.
If he had waited until the death of Schoenberg, that would be one
thing, but he tried, abandoned, and then picked up Schoenberg's
technique fifty years later. There is not a trace of it in the rest of his
music before that.

BJ: I wasn't aware of the date of the Japanese Lyrics.

SS: I think it is 1914, so it's right after Pierrot Lunaire. And certainly,
in spite of all his genius, we know that we don't ascribe the twelve-
tone organizational techniques to Stravinsky, but to Schoenberg. He
picked it up there, put it aside, and then used it exclusively, or almost.
BJ: What are your earliest recollections of your father in his role as
a musical artist?
SS: Well, they go back as far as my musical memory can go. As a child,
I heard him compose every day. I was not supposed to talk about it.
He never liked people to listen to him. When something was ready,
even one page, and he wanted you to listen, he would call you and
play it. But while he was in the process of composing, he would-
though we were living in the same apartment-permit no noise
around.... You were to do as if you hadn't heard it.
But I was so close that I heard constantly, and at the age of five or
six, I remember one concert vividly. I remember the figure of An-
sermet, who conducted Wagner. And then I also remembered my
father, who conducted Firebird.This was a concert in Geneva. Since
it was a Sunday afternoon and I was something like seven or eight
years old, they took me there, and I was extremely pleased. I think
it was the first symphony concert I heard. Ansermet asked me after-
ward, "Well, how did you like it?" And I answered, "I liked Wagner
better." That's all I know about my first acquaintance with an or-
chestra.
But music was done often, and since the age of five I myself played
piano. And then, my collaboration with my father was very close. He
would always ask me to play everything he composed for orchestra.
He couldn't play all the notes himself so he would come and get me.
I was very self-conscious about that, because, oh, I couldn't do it.
I wished I could have had a little time to read the sketches from
manuscript, but he wanted it right away. And if it didn't go, then he
was mad.
BJ: When and how did you become aware of his role in the musical
world of his time?
* 26-
SS: Very early . . . very early, because there were very important
people visiting him all the time and I was aware of that. My father
would always be talking-not with us small children-but with my
mother for instance-with these people who would lunch or dine
there. I was hearing discussions. I knew. Children know much more
than you suspect they do. I certainly knew that he was a very great
person. This was so obvious that it was not discussed. It was the
natural thing because it was this way.
BJ: What about him do you think you would want most to be able to
pass on to other people?
SS: His music, much more than any historical data, biography, com-
ments. I think his music is great and explicit enough, and that should
pass on, and probably will. I know that for music historians side docu-
ments are sometimes more interesting than scores which are public
domain, but for me, as a musician, I still think that no matter how
interesting all the stories about Beethoven's nephew may be, one of
his quartets can be studied with more reward than just reading.
The trouble is that when you read a book, it should be a talented
writer who writes it and who has a sense of the novel, of telling a story.
And usually with the people who write about musicians, the best you
can ask is that they write in correct English, or any language. But it's
done. And though the life can be very interesting, the works tell
more. That's the purpose of a great composer's being on this planet:
that he can do something that very few people can do.
BJ: Taking into consideration the really exalted position that he
occupies in history already, can you bring this into focus with your
personal memory of him?
SS: Bring into focus the fact that he was celebrated from the begin-
ning on. He became history ...
BJ: Almost as fast as it happened, yes.
SS: I always took it for granted, because I knew the greatness of his
achievements. I knew it first because I was told; and I had no doubts,
even as a child, when I first saw the ballets, that they were just the
best things you could have. If it were the past, I would say it's per-
fectly natural, because history and time screen, and put aside every-
thing that isn't first rate. During a short time, all of a sudden, you can
see the difference. That made me aware very, very early of his impor-
tance, and I never doubted it, and I will never doubt it.
-Ben Johnston

* 27'
 -
b

A page from Stravinsky's manuscript of Preliminary Version D (1919)

of Les Noces. (These measures correspond to pp. 51-52 in the published
score of Les Noces, from the 5th measure of No. 58 to 2 measures before
No. 59.)

28
 Vor einigen Jahren dirigierte Igor Strawinsky in der Musica Viva
(damals noch der Staatsoper Munchen in Verbindung mit dem
Bayerischen Rundfunk) vier seiner Werke im grossen Saal des
Deutschen Museums der mit tausenden von Menschen besetzt war.
Mein unvergesslicher Freund Karl Amadeus Hartmann, der die
Musica Viva gegriindet hatte und damals noch leitete, dessen Nach-
folger zu sein mir eine Ehre ist, hatte vier Komponisten aufgefordert,
sich zu je einer Nummer des Programmes zu aussern. Mir war das
Scherzo a la russe aufgegeben und ich schrieb damals diese kleine
Marginalie in das Programmheft.
Grosse Kunst hat Klarheit, Helligkeit und . . . Heiterkeit. Das
Talent gibt sich problemreich, dunkel; das Genie-wie Mozart-
heiter und klar.
Strawinsky hat etwas von der Mozart'schen Heiterkeit, die das
Dunkle erhellt und das Schwere leicht macht. Und Strawinsky for-
muliert- wie Mozart - prazise.
Scherzo a la Russe ist ein bezauberndes Stuck Musik, voll des
schopferischen Lachens des Genies.
Diese letzte Begegnung mit dem sich selbst interpretierenden
Kiunstler (ich traf ihn noch spater sich selbst zuhorend) spannt den
Bogen zuriick zu meiner ersten mit ihm selbst - er damals am Klavier.
Strawinsky spielte im Leipziger Gewandhaus (ich glaube 1930) sein
gerade beendetes Capriccio unter Klemperer, der dieses Werk zwis-
chen die h-moll Ouvertiire von Bach und die 7.Symphonie von
Beethoven gestellt hatte. Ich sass als junger Konservatorist auf einem
geschenkten Platz in der ersten Reihe des Parketts und konnte die
behende, zierliche, kleine Person mit den zauberhaften Handen
beobachten. Vor zwei-drei Jahren traf ich Klemperer in Berlin, auch
er erinnerte sich noch lebhaft dieses Konzerts.
Strawinsky schreibt in seinen Erinnerungen, dass ihm Kussewitzky
schon bei seinem Concerto mit Blasern geraten hatte, sein Werk
selbst vorzutragen und wie er mit Hilfe von Czerny-Etiiden seine
Finger gelenkig machte. Er sagt hierzu, dass er bei Czerny immer
noch den blutvollen Musiker h6her eingeschatzt habe als den Pada-
gogen.
Mehr noch als fur das Scherzo a la russe scheint mir fur Capriccio
das zu gelten, was mir als Marginalie fur das Programmbuch der
Musica Viva in die Feder geflossen war.
So scheint mir auch heute das damals Gesagte nicht nur gultig fur
den Fall eines einzigen Stiickes, sondern hilfreich Strawinskys
Asthetik zu begreifen. Besser als irgend jemand anderer diese je
hatte erlautern k6nnen, hat er dies allerdings selbst in seiner musika-
lischen Poetik getan.
29
 Im Zusammenhang mit Capricciogedenkt Strawinsky ebenfalls in
den Erinnerungen Karl Maria von Webers, den er als einen Fiirsten
der Musik bezeichnet. Er kritisiert Grillparzers vernichtendes Urteil
iiber die Euryantheund fahrt dann fort: "Ohne Zweifel wiirde heute
niemand mehr den Unwillen Grillparzers teilen. Dazu fiihlen sich
die Leute zu fortgeschritten-wenn sie namlich Weber kennen und
erst recht, wenn sie ihn nicht kennen -, sie machen sich ein Verdienst
daraus, ihn verachtlich als einen leichten, veralteten Komponisten
zu behandeln, an dem hochstens noch beschrankte Greise Gefallen
finden konnen. Eine solche Haltung konnte man vielleicht von
musikalischen Laien erwarten, deren Urteil um so scharfer zu sein
pflegt, je inkompetenter sie sind. Aber was soil man von Berufs-
musikern sagen, die es fertig bringen, so torichte Meinungen zu
aussern, wie ich es selber von Skriyabin erlebt habe!" Er sprach zwar
von Schubert und nicht von Weber, aber das andert an der Sache
nichts. Eines Tages erging er sich in dem hochtrabenden Ton, den
er an sich hatte, in schwarmerischen Redensarten iiber die erhabene
Kunst und ihre grossen Gotzen. Ich begann darauf die Grazie und
Feinheit Schubertscher Walzer zu riihmen, die ich damals wieder mit
einem wahren Vergniigen spielte. Mit einem ironischen, mitleidigen
Lacheln erwiderte er: "Ach, sieh an, Schubert? Aber das ist doch
gerade gut genug, um von jungen Madchen auf dem Klavier geklim-
pert zu werden."
Strawinskys Bekenntnis zu Czerny, zu Weber und (in seiner Poetik)
zu Bellini ist charakteristisch fur seinen Geschmack.
Ein grosser Komponist, dem von einer guten Fee beschieden wor-
den war, vom Ausgang eines Jahrhunderts bis tief in die zweite
Halfte des nachsten hinein sch6pferisch zu leben, hat selbstverstand-
lich seinen Standpunkt oft verandert. Strawinskys Geist war so leben-
dig, dass er standig neue sch6pferische Positionen gewinnen konnte
und doch stets die Unverwechselbarkeit seiner Personlichkeit behielt.
Als echtes Kind des 19. Jahrhunderts war er nicht nur als wiederge-
bender Kiinstler, sondern gerade als Komponist ein interpreta-
torisches Genie. Er sah die Vergangenheit und seine Unwelt durch
seine "Augenglaser."
Die Klassizitat seiner mittleren Schaffensepoche ist in Bezug auf
das 18. Jahrhundert ebenso wie sein spiritueller Altersstil in Hinsicht
auf Anton Webern eine hochgebildete und hochliterarische Inter-
pretation aus dem Geist des 19.Jahrhunderts, des eben ein interpreta-
torisches Zeitalter war. Er huldigte keiner Eklektik, sondern demon-
strierte seine spezielle und durchaus legitime Modernitat, deren
Einzigartigkeit Adorno, vom hochromantischen Gegenpohl Mahler
und Schonberg herkommend, nie ganz verstanden hat. Diese schop-
30
ferische Auseinandersetzung mit einem vorgegebenen literarischen
Material begann, nachdem Strawinsky die Reihe seiner Werke
jugendlichen Elans mit Sacre du Printempseinzigartig grossartig abge-
schlossen hatte.
Nun ist der grosse Meister, der letzte der uns Jungere noch un-
mittelbar mit der Verganganheit verbunden hat, dahingegangen.
Nur die Freunde durfen sagen "sie seien armer geworden"-um
eine reiche, einzigartig vielseitige Personlichkeit; die Welt behalt ein
Werk von unverganglicher Lebenskraft, das so lebendig unter uns
bleiben wird wie das aller grossen Meister der Vergangenheit.

-Wolfgang Fortner

When The Juilliard School dedicated its new Theater at Lincoln

Center last spring, the work chosen for presentation was Igor Stra-
vinsky's The Rake'sProgress.On that occasion, Stravinsky was referred
to as the most venerable composer of our time. His passing on April 6
takes one of the truly great contemporary composers from the scene.
A review of the stark change from his early works to the Sacre du.
Printemps illustrates the extraordinary impact of Stravinsky's crea-
tivity. Only an artist of major stature, in a historic sense, could almost
singlehandedly change the direction of the creative aspects of music.
Stravinsky's death deprives all the arts of a unique personality.

-Peter Mennin

Stravinsky's music spans so many decades of the twentieth century

that each generation of young composers has been differently influ-
enced by it. This diversity has been increased by the fact that Stra-
vinsky rarely repeated himself. His musical concerns were always
pragmatic and he shunned establishing a theory about his work.
One aspect of his influence in the United States might be over-
looked. Stravinsky was one of the first living composers whose music
was recorded and available to students in remote areas where almost
no contemporary music could be heard. As a teenage student in
Minnesota in the twenties, I owned the recordings and scores of the
Firebird and Petrouchka,and these works, more than anything else,
* 31 *
introduced me to contemporary music. Without them my musical
world would have been totally of the nineteenth century. My teachers
offered no understanding of nor sympathy for the new music being
written, but these recordings, played until they were worn thin, made
me aware of a new world of sound and receptive to the very rare
opportunities to hear new music. It was a meager but potent back-
ground and prepared me somewhat, after working my way to Europe
playing in a jazz band, to study in Paris where the contemporary
musical scene came alive.
While I have come to admire other works of Stravinsky much more,
none has opened such a vista for me as these two early recordings.
-Ross Lee Finney

The clearest and strongest memory I hold of Igor Stravinsky

reaches back to 1949. I remember walking home in the sharp, cold
night air from the Academy of Music where Stravinsky had just con-
ducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in a concert of his own works. I
was exhilarated and my ears were still ringing with the klang of his
music-this time with a new and revitalized incisiveness and clarity.
(Thinking back on that night, I realize the only other time I left a
concert of one man's music so happy and so full of a sense of vitality
and well-being was after an evening of all-Monteverdi many years
later.)
This was my first experience of Stravinsky the man, the conductor,
the composer-all at once. The man-he must have been sixty-six
then-was small and spare. He moved from the wings to the podium
in brisk, sharply articulated motions-not unlike a kind of human
bird. Everything about him was clear, precise, slightly angular. From
the way he moved physically, I suddenly understood why his music
moved the way it did. He literally alighted on the podium to take his
position before the orchestra. His face was serious, concentrated-
yet somehow friendly. It was clear from his manner that he was com-
pletely unselfconscious, unconcerned with everything but with what
he had come to do: to make music. And he proceeded to make it
magnificently.
I remember being thoroughly absorbed, even fascinated, by the
way he conducted: without posturing or extraneous gestures. He
used very small hand motions; and only occasionally gave an ever-so-
* 32-
slight gesture of the head or body to indicate a cue or point of special
emphasis. The whole impression was of precise and exact control of
tempo and beat. His performance was a pleasure to watch and to
listen to.
But it was Stravinsky the composer who really spoke out to me that
night. For the first time in my life I felt I was inside his music. Its
oddly assymetric shapes, its vibrant, gorgeous colors, its strangely
personal song emerged with utter clarity and directness, if not to say,
concreteness. The whole impression was of radiance-of spirit and
intelligence, energy and verve.
That was twenty-two years ago. And in the interim music has
undergone fantastic changes and transformations, some of which
Stravinsky himself was responsible for, many of which he apparently
rejected as not being viable. Through it all, even including his adven-
ture with serialism, he remained Stravinsky, placing his indelible
stamp, his peculiar signature on everything he did. Like every great
artist Stravinsky's signature had to be "peculiar" i.e., particular,
unique, inimitable, because the force of his nature bent everything
his way. Musical ideas must, like light itself, pass through the space
of a man's mind; and in passing through that space they become bent,
refracted only if the mind is vital, active, strongly prejudiced in favor
of certain things done in a certain way. Stravinsky shared this with
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern, Bart6k.
All the more reason why he was free to pursue any style or any kind
of material that happened to interest him at the moment and still
make it his own. He knew no inhibitions artistically except those
which led away from art itself. He may not have "taught" but never-
theless he had a great many "students." We all have much to learn
still, especially the young, from his example of taste and discrimina-
tion, fastidiousness and craftsmanship and above all his abiding and
intense love for the art of music.

-George Rochberg

Stravinsky is the last of the giants of the generation who had

reached maturity by the historic watershed of World War One. He is
the greatest and has the widest resonance. His own creative watershed
came after that war, the rightly named "Sacrifice to Apollo." The
resulting works have not been properly assessed, because neo-clas-
sicism as a whole has not been properly assessed. Neo-romanticism
* 33
and expressionism have hogged the headlines. Stravinsky's works of
these two periods (the "Russian" and the "neo-classical") are the real
substance of his oeuvre. The late "dodecaphonic" works are the
extras.
-Sir Michael Tippett

Stravinsky has been with us all our lives. I remember from my

schooldays in the late 1920's the enormous impact made on me by
The Rite of Spring, then still a comparatively new work, and by Oedipus
Rex and the Symphonyof Psalms, which were even newer. Some of us
in the 1930's were doubtful of what then seemed to be his frequent
changes of style and his reliance on material borrowed from other
composers, but we did not see what this self-confessed "kleptomaniac"
was up to till later, namely creating something brilliantly new out of
the past and still remaining himself. And perhaps his greatest flower-
ing was in the serial works of his old age-that astonishing period
which produced so many masterpieces. In Stravinsky I salute one of
the great geniuses of our time.

-Humphrey Searle

My Saint Stravinsky

Let me say that to me Stravinsky was a person to be venerated like

a saint. He was distant but always there. And that was a comforting
thing. He was a Russian Saint to boot. And such an earthy one, with
halo cockily askew, quite at ease above the sins intolerable in lesser
men. For a musician, he had an answer to every prayer for every week
of the year. One could open any one of his scores and one's own sins
became at once clearer and more unbearable. Repent and search; or
crawl away in despair.
I did venerate the legends that circulate about Stravinsky, and so
my highest social ambition would have been to have an afternoon tea
in his Hollywood home-samovar, pastry, jam and all that. Yet I
never sought the opportunity.
My few encounters with him were brief, but each left a memory.
Coming to this country after seventeen years in China, ignorant of
* 34
Bach and Stravinsky, full of Beethoven, Czerny, Chopin, and Russian-
gypsy tunes acquired in the course of banging away night after night
in the clubs, I encountered a heavy dose of recorded Tchaikovsky,
Wagner, and Stravinsky in the studio of a benevolent painter in
Pasadena, where I lived for two years. I remember my total delight
with Petrouchka,and laughter upon encountering L'Histoiredu Soldat.
"My God but that man is pulling one's leg! He is muttering obsceni-
ties from the corner of his mouth." That was my reaction. The dis-
sonance of Sacre was yet to be penetrated; Apollon was still obscured
by my ignorance. But the Octet! And the dry bassoons in thirds! Well,
have you ever shared a seat with a coachman of a droshki,staring at the
ample rears of the two well-fed horses?
It was not until years later that I had the first chance to sample
Stravinsky's personal brand of humour. I came to Boston in 1939 to
venerate St. Serge and St. Igor. Fresh out of the PhD ordeal, down to
ten cents, and hacking away at a dollar-a-page 1812 Overture vocal(!)
arrangement for C. C. Birchard, I was full of a Romantic fervor
which kindled a vague feeling that mere proximity to two great men
was going to benefit me. There were good omens. Howard Hanson
and Roy Harris came and sat together listening to their respective
third symphonies performed by the Boston Symphony. I got to play
my Cantata for Serge Koussevitsky, and went to many concerts.
Stravinsky was at Harvard and his first lecture in the Norton series
had the ceremonial aspect of the Russian court. Serge Koussevitsky
arrived in a magnificent fur coat, wearing a stunning Russian hat.
Stravinsky wore tails. There were embraces, much bowing: suddenly
the drafty academic hall was hushed, and Stravinsky, the great cos-
mopolitan, was reading, somewhat earnestly, in French: excellent and
unmistakably Russian. But Dr. Alexis Kahl, musical scholar and
Stravinsky's friend and confidant, whispered to me that Stravinsky
was really unhappy, mourning his first wife and daughter who had
both recently passed away. A short while later, I met him at an
evening seminar for composers, and received a restrained blessing
for my composition, which obviously thrived on a part of Symphony
of Psalms. But a touch of warmth for my addressing him in Russian
lingered on; and a few weeks later in Providence, R. I., Stravinsky,
trombonist Reichman, trumpeter Mager, and I were having a beer
in the booth of some smoky joint. Mr. Reichman, a pleasant and talk-
ative Russian, suddenly unburdened himself of what obviously was
a life-long puzzle: "Mr. Stravinsky, I have played many of your works,
and I admire them greatly. But I could never understand how you
were able to take such a radical step in writing Vesna Svyashchennaya
(Sacre du Printemps)."There was a moment of silence. Were we going
* 35 -
to have a great revelation? Slowly but casually, Stravinsky curtailed
further inquiry by saying in his gravelly voice "Well, yes, I did write
it with an axe."
There always was the air of potential conspiracy, nay of earnest
conspiracy, and a propensity for a sudden launch into complaint and
argument implicit in Stravinsky's voice! And with it an incredible
ability to charm in a way so final and disarming as to leave you help-
less. I had a taste of this chameleonic gift a year or two later, when
a Russian priest in Hollywood urgently summoned me from the
nearby Army camp to help him out with a memorial service. "Please
come. It's the middle of the week and I cannot get a choir together.
Igor Stravinsky wants to have a memorial service for his first wife.
You can sing the service with the deacon and one of the elders. I'll
help along." I got a pass and came. The church on Mitcheltorena
Street was empty, but the candles and lampadswere lit before many
icons. Stravinsky arrived with his second wife; she stood quietly in
the back of the church while he came forward. Clearly this was going
to be a complete memorial service, confession, communion and all.
And indeed it was. From the extreme left in the choir stall, I saw the
priest towering over the bent figure of Stravinsky. The church was
quiet; a hoarse whisper of confession was audible but unintelligible,
as were the reassuring and quiet replies of the priest. But gradually
the whisper rose, and periodically the familiar voice would croak up,
then go subito piano and then rise up again. The confession went on
and on. I began to be somewhat puzzled-how many sins can my
Saint confess? It was fully ten minutes before the final gesture of
absolution finally occurred. Stravinsky kissed the icon and retired to
the back of the church, and the memorial service began. I sang my
best. The familiar and somehow always personal service for the dead
was at last over. I walked over and shook hands; Stravinsky gave a
charming smile of recognition, and we exchanged a few words. And
then they were gone. I approached the priest and said "Father, I
know that it is totally inappropriate to inquire about a confession of
another person, but could you at least tell me why it took so long?"
The priest chuckled. "Well, it all started in a routine enough way,
but then he began to argue theology with me."
I do not recall whether I again spoke with Stravinsky until nearly
twenty years had passed. In 1961 I went to the Soviet Union. Meeting
and escorting Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Khrennikov, and several
other Russian musical dignitaries on their visits to the U.S.A. was
helpful in making it possible for me to address gatherings of several
Composers' Unions on the subject of electronic music. I met a few
younger composers, and the adoration for my Saint was amply
* 36
shared. But officially his music was still taboo. I was deeply moved
when one still-youngish composer in Leningrad came to me after
my lecture and remarked that he enjoyed my electronic music, but
was not there a bit of Stravinsky influence in the choral writing of my
"Creation-Prologue"? Before I could assure him that there probably
was, he hesitantly went on. "Do you know Stravinsky personally?
Please, when you next see him tell him that in Leningrad there lives
a composer named X." I was struck dumb by this almost verbatim
quote from Gogol's Inspector General. A stammered reply came
through the sudden lump in my throat. He continued to stare at me,
and added quietly, "I admire his music very much."
Somehow, I believe through Milton Babbitt, Stravinsky heard
about my visit. A year or two later there was the much publicized
"thaw." Stravinsky was invited to visit Russia! One day Milton told
me that Stravinsky wanted to talk to me about his impending visit.
I came to the Hotel Pierre and was greeted with that special hospitable
air which I believe to be solely the property of Slavs. We talked for
some time, and to my surprise, he still expressed some hesitation.
Would he be able to see the younger composers? What about their
music? Would the orchestras be capable of playing his later music?
Would he be able to walk freely beyond the mountains of caviar and
the castles of vodka bottles? I detected other suspicions of the
"emigre," a few veiled hints of anxiety. But beneath it all was, of
course, anticipation of incomprehensible dimensions. Stravinsky,
back in his beloved Northern Capital! What overwhelming memories
would this reunion with the past bring to him? I told him all that I
had observed, much of what was positive, to reassure him. Whatever
veneration for saints there was left in Russia, for him the candles
would be lit by the thousands! I left him with that hope.
After that there were but two other occasions. Like many other
people in our encaged environment, he had heard one kind of elec-
tronic music and was known to be less than enthusiastic about it. But,
as a professional, he was curious; and one day it was arranged for
him to come to the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
Walking slowly with a cane, and settling in front of the neat row of
switches, knobs, and dials on the tall vertical panels of the RCA Sound
Synthesizer, he showed the same eagerness that years ago caused
him to investigate in detail every musical instrument. He seemed
happy and very interested. One wished that fate could have arranged
for him, as it did for Varese, to include the exploration of this
medium in his staggering record of prodding music into fresh aven-
ues for nearly seven decades.
There was one more time. I looked up at the balcony to see a poker-
* 37
faced Stravinsky listening to a performance of Sacre at the New York
Philharmonic. And was it the same evening, or another, when my
wife and I did go backstage to congratulate him on his performance?
He was sitting in the corner of the sofa-a small figure, with the black
tie off, the unique face above the rumpled starched front, a trade-
mark of the conductor-just-through-the-ordeal. He looked up, and
smiled his enormous smile. Zdravstvooite, Zdravstvooite, he said.
I introduced my wife. With a courtly half-bow his hand quickly
reached for a rose on the table. "May I present this to you," said the
aristocratic, gentleman saint to my wife.
And so let the others speak of the devil in him. But I would have
given anything to have been at the Hollywood party where a patroness
of the arts managed to bring Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff into the
same room. They remained at a distance, aloof, for some time. But
when closer proximity was contrived a common bond suddenly sur-
faced above the frigid incompatibilities of the two men. Rachmaninoff
complained about his inability to collect royalties on the hundreds
of thousands of copies of "Prelude in C Sharp Minor." Stravinsky
was instantly interested in this subject of lost income, and gave vent
to his own rage about The Firebird, Petrouchka, etc. The two men
nearly embraced.
Farewell, Igor Fedorovich. Please do not argue theology with Saint
Peter. It was reported that after crossing yourself and rising from
your knees in front of Arnold Schoenberg's death mask in his work-
ing room, you turned to' Mrs. Schoenberg and said, "Now I am
alone." Who, yes, who can say that now?
-Vladimir Ussachevsky

STRAWINSKI HA RIGENERATO IL TESSUTO DELLA

MUSICA RIDONANDOLE LA DIGNITA DI OPERAZIONE IN-
TELLETTUALE OFFUSCATA DAL ROMANTICISMO ET
ABUSO ESPRESSIVO.
ARCHETIPO ALLE GENERAZIONI FUTURE CONCREZIONE
DELLE CONTRADDIZIONI ATTUALI EGLI CI HA NUTRITO
TUTTI.
IL MONDO SEMBRA DIMINUITO DI VALORE.
-GOFFREDO PETRASSI

L?t7t
38
 Though I was never fortunate enough to know Stravinsky per-
sonally, we had one great thing in common, a love for things Byzan-
tine in general and Saint Marks in Venice in particular. I was aware
of this again as I was standing in the church in the spring of 1968
looking at some of the severe and hieratic Saints which adorn the
numerous archways in that marvel of Eastern splendor, the "Golden
Basilica." Stravinsky's music has much in common with the best art
of Byzantium. The precision, the objectivity and timeless quality in
some sense at least, and still the colour and richness of surface with-
out sentimentality or overripeness. To me the Symphonyof Psalms,
and CanticumSacrum as well, express more than any other music the
spiritual climate of the church he so dearly loved.
One of the most valuable aspects of his music to me has been the
preciseness and yet the elusive rightness of his harmonies in their
specific timbral realizations. Another has been the constant renewal
of pulse in the music, the secrets he knew about rhythm as the vitaliz-
ing force underlying all.
There are many who were closer to him both personally and
musically than I, but there are few if any among us who do not owe
much of the way we think our music, as we traverse the second half
of this century, to him.
-Robert Palmer

TheTowerLives
The TowerLives

The truth of the matter is that Stravinsky always enjoyed himself.

Whether Stravinsky was a great man, I do not know-no one knows
that in his lifetime. Like the ones in Picasso's Saltimbanque,those are
the great figures in art. Then, finally, we learn to love them and our-
selves. Stravinsky, to me, though I did not know him very well, was
charming and wonderful; he had everything musical on his mind.
He was an invaluable artist in the sense that none were left without
his touch. He put his mark on all of us; though I myself was never a
disciple. I regret his death deeply. But we all die, having given our-
selves both to patience and exploration. All the music he wrote was
done with love and fervor and with a kind of investigation that I can-
not forget. He gave things to our ears that only Bach and Beethoven
wakened in my ear originally. He tormented me since I was sixteen
years old, but he also awakened my spirit, thank God! I never tried
39
to imitate him though many did. He always laughed, and I would like
to see more laughter. His vigor excited me!
-Ben Weber

LE7tr

I long ago realized that he who acknowledges no master, no great-

ness, no respect for the Past, is an individual to disdain, even fear.
As a young composer, both Ravel and Stravinsky represented the
two great musical figures who acknowledged all three factors I so
thirstily drank of. And because of them, I grew. Experimentation
meant nothing to me. Direct evidence did. Stravinsky never experi-
mented. He did not have to. From the start, his singular and original
creative impluses were as vital and natural to him as blood chemistry
is to man. He was essentially a searcher, an explorer; and when he
had discovered what he needed, he made it his own terrain. That is
why the word "Inspiration" meant so little to him semantically-that
word implying the ability to create while losing awareness of the Self.
Almost every work of his-even the smallest, the shortest, was an act
of transformation. The new guise was always his: special, particular
to him. Aesthetic factual clarity, the finished musical evidence
stabilized his immensely fertile inventiveness. Many years ago,
Stravinsky had written to a friend: "After studying many pages of
a certain composer, I begin to.sense his musical personality and sig-
nature. Like a detective, I reconstruct [notice his use of this word]
his musical experience." In early 1939, in a letter to a friend in Hun-
gary, I had written about Stravinsky: "Stravinsky's is an extraordinary
technique. His splendid equilibrium secures a perfection of formal
procedure. His marvelous spirit and feeling for transvaluation en-
courages the manner of distributing material based on solidly forti-
fied principles found in the modification of Tradition. The perfection
which exists in each new work ... stems from a necessity for absolute
order within the musical form. His particular kind of musical dis-
cipline is wonderfully creative; it has helped him solve the riddle of
lucid thinking within the most compressed musical thought. His Art
is that mysterious harmony between sensuality, sensitiveness and
intelligence. His latest works are of a glowing purity and make few
concessions to the vulgar-eared. His is music of the longer time; it
does not deal with fleeting hours;" A few years later, in the 25th April,
1943 issue of The New York Herald-Tribune,I would write (about his
Danses Concertantes,to be heard in New York City for the first time):
* 40 -
"... The hand of the craftsman is so highly perfected that the dis-
cipline guiding Stravinsky's musical invention is felt in a unique way.
.. One is astonished by the amazing dexterity with which his clear,
accurate and sustained method of work has assisted him in ... re-dis-
covering the principle of Democritus, that 'compression is the first
grace of style.' In the very complex and intense social and political
system of ours, where Art, like so many other human interests, has
been organized opportunistically and utilized for the easiest com-
mercial gains rather than for aesthetically constructive purposes,
Stravinsky's music, it seems to me, more than any other composer
alive today, has preserved its complete individuality and freedom, its
purity and its vital intellectual attainments."
Stravinsky knew so well that the exaggeration of fantasy and its
vulgarization as gimmickry become caricature and lead to the ar-
bitrary, at which point no work of art can exist-it can only annoy,
like the mosquito and the horse-fly. He would always say Yes to diver-
sity in the arts, but a loud No to imbecility. Where there was no
creative discipline he lost interest. This great man's music is tech-
nically and spiritually indestructible, therefore always historically
valid and ahead of its time. That great heartbeat of this century's
music will be heard and felt as long as man knows or can recognize
the best, the fullest, the tastefully rich. By the very contradictions of
his aesthetic choices, he has unified all creative differences. The deaf
and the dumb have only to begin to hear and to understand.
-David Diamond

La scomparsa di Igor Strawinsky non puo passare inosservata come

la sua musica di questi ultimi anni; l'importanza di questo personaggio
e fuori discussione per il mondo della musica, pur rappresentando
il polo regressivo, la restaurazione, il massimo splendore dell'industria
della cultura.
Se Adorno avesse potuto assistere a questa morte e le successive
manifestazioni, avrebbe avuto ulteriore conferma alla teoria derivata
dalla "Filosofia della nuova musica," in quella allucinante ed esasper-
ata analisi tra Strawinsky e la societa capitalistica. La mia reazione
personale davanti questa morte (a prescindere il dovuto rispetto
umano), davanti all'ingranaggio della industria culturale in moto,
e stato quello di rivolgere il mio pensiero ad Edgard Varese.
Nessuno si e mai rivolto alla mia persona dopo la sua morte, per
. 41 .
esprimere un pensiero sulla sua luminosa figura, nessuna Stazione
Radio ha interrotto i suoi programmi, nessuna commemorazione
ufficiale lo ha ricordata dato che in questo tipo di societa il metro dei
valori e ancora quello che regola la vita e la morte degli Strawinsky.
-Franco Evangelisti

4Li7b

HOW DOES ONE PAY RESPECTS TO THE LIKES OF IGOR

STRAVINSKY OTHER THAN TO EXPRESS INFINITE GRATI-
TUDE FOR HIS HAVING BEEN AMONGST US.
-SEYMOUR SHIFRIN

Despite all of the irrefutable evidence-the extreme old age, con-

tinued sickness and resulting increasing feebleness, round-the-clock
nurses, wheel chairs, and all of those other terrible accoutrements of
approaching death-one thought it would never happen. But it did,
and Stravinsky is dead.
That brilliant brain, which for so long refused to acknowledge the
dolorous facts of physiology, had convinced us all that it would con-
tinue to function forever with its superb insights into music, litera-
ture, art, and human relationships. And humour. A special multi-
lingual, semantically acrobatic humour, built up out of cogent
observations of super-realities which, in the end, proved to be very
funny. Or was it a slip of the tongue when he politely asked the
charming Lufthansa hostess, "When does the Luftwaffe leave for
Paris?"
I had the opportunity of observing all of this for more than thirty
years. At the outset as a recording executive, later as a friend.
Throughout, I was awed by everything but his reputation. What I
mean by that is that great men, and he was certainly one, are a con-
tinuing experience, unlike concretized heroes or heroines of special
occasions, or unlike someone we admire only for some earlier beauty.
Of course, Petrouchka,Sacre, Oedipus,were and are great beauties, but
for Stravinsky, they were his past, well beloved and well remembered.
It was his fantastic output of new ideas at a period of his life which
many would have considered a time for consolidation, rest, and (alas,
with many artists) repetition, which made him, right up to the end,
. 42?
the most contemporaneous of men. Yet, it was this quality that irri-
tated so many. Just as a child wants his parents or grandparents to
look and act their age, so Stravinsky was expected to act the respect-
able old master in his carpet slippers, rewriting all of his now famous
music. This, of course, didn't suit him. And he entered new worlds.
The foolish words written by critics and other humdrums about
Stravinsky's "conversion" to what they called "Schoenberg-Webern
dodecaphonic theories" (What a discovery! What a catchphrase to
spring on the editors and the proof-readers! What an intellectual
coup for those unable to read or hear music but who are free to write
about it!) almost always missed the essential point: the late scores
were all Stravinsky. No matter what technical devices he essayed, the
music was always deeply personal, completely individual, and cer-
tainly could not have been written by anyone else. And it was most
often those critics who had the most latterly adjusted to the earliest
Stravinsky, who now hit hard at the late works with the cry that the
"real" Stravinsky was in the past. This short display of rancor I allow
myself in the celebration of Stravinsky, because he would have under-
stood it and perhaps insisted upon it.
But that mood is wrong, because, in addition to a great composer,
a sweet friend, a darling old friend is also gone, and, for many of us,
the rich musical legacy, the historical imprint, important as it is, does
not provide any solace for this loss. Although photographs and draw-
ings show a severe and somewhat aloof face, characteristics which
were certainly a part of Stravinsky, this is not what his friends remem-
ber. One remembers the pleasures of being in his company: so many
jokes, so many witty opinions, so many idiosyncratic attitudes that an
evening with him was, at times, like a visit with Voltaire, Morgen-
stern, Gogol, Ostrowski, and George Bernard Shaw, all at the same
time. A tumbling of gems, in French, German, Russian, and English.
And was there anyone in the world who was better read? He was
such an omnivorous reader that it was nearly impossible to give him
a book. If it had been possible, perhaps, to stand at the end of the
assembly line at a book bindery, yes; but once a book of any signifi-
cance had discarded the placenta and hit the air, Stravinsky had,
within the shortest possible time, read it and filed it alphabetically
in his library, where, with a sweet smile of triumph, he would pluck
it out to show you just as you were about to present it as a gift.
And Stravinsky at meals! Food set before him as before a Chinese
Mandarin, variegated, delicate of choice, bird bites measured by a
connoisseur, and wine sipped by a visiting, critical, and all-knowing
taster from Bordeaux!
But the most touching, the most human quality of all, was his love
* 43.
life. Given his great age, his state of health, I realize how strange that
must sound. But it stood in importance to him next to music and I
mean "next to," not "more than" or "less than." His love for Vera,
his wife, was passionate, tender, and abiding. She was his necessity,
his reason for living, in short, his love. And this could be seen even
through his angry moments-and there were many-even at his
lowest ebb. With her, he was utterly romantic. It was very beautiful
to see, and one can cry to think of it. Just as Robert Craft, whose
brilliant intelligence and musical companionship added many years
to Stravinsky's life, so Vera, with her beauty, her charm and wit, and
(despite her own inevitable great age) her girlish fun-loving attitudes,
gave to Stravinsky a series of emotional rebirths.
What a premature loss, this death of an eighty-eight-year-old man!
-Goddard Lieberson

Formulas and Ideas,

Arriving in his first visit to the United States-early 1925-Stra-

vinsky was interviewed by the press and asked what did he think of
modern music. To the amazement of interviewers he replied he did
not care for modern music. How could that be-they argued-since
he was the great priest of modern music.
I do not remember the exact date of this interview nor the paper
in which I read it (probably Musical America)but I do remember with
precision his explanatory comment, word by word:
Modern music is that which is made out with formulas instead of
ideas.
The great composer used to speak of his capacity to think in musical
terms, that is to say, to have ideas of a specific musical nature. When
Robert Craft asked him when did he recognize an idea as a musical
idea, he answered:
When something in my nature is satisfied by some aspect of an
auditive shape.'
Ideas of an auditive shape, that have to satisfy somethingin his nature.
What something? Satisfy something in his nature-I would say-can
only be his own, inborn, musical taste, his own musical instinct. The
1 Conversationswith Igor Stravinsky,by Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Doubleday &
Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1959, p. 11.
44 -
entire answer refers to his capacity to have auditive ideas to his own
liking.
Ideas cannot be bought with money, cannot be manufactured nor
obtained by any conscious method; they come or they do not come:
they occur by themselves.
When asked further in conversation with Craft when musical ideas
occurred to him, the composer replied:
Ideas usually occur to me while I am composing.... I am always
disturbed if they come to my ear when my pencil is missing and I
am obliged to keep them in my memory by repeating myself their
intervals and rhythm.2
So, the man informs us that his musical ideas presented themselves
in complete shape: intervals and rhythm, and even definite pitch, he
adds later. Also, he speaks in the same paragraph of music having
sometimes appeared to him in his dreams.
The appearance in dreams proves the fact that the occurring of
musical ideas is definitely of subconscious nature.
The other great composer of the century implied the subconscious
nature of musical thinking'(of course, of any thinking) in a letter to
Jacques Durand dated August 15, 1915. Wrote Claude Debussy after
months and months of cruel sickness and anguishing worries because
of the war:
C'est bien par ce triste privilege qu'ont les humains de ne pouvoir
regler, a leur gre, 'la machine a penser', que, malgre le charme de
Bel-Ebat, vous ne pouvez etre tranquille....3
And a few months later, October 14, 1915, he writes to Robert Godet:
Je reviens d'un sejour au bord de la mer.... Pourville s/mer. La
j'ai retrouve la possibilite de penser musicalement, ce qui ne m'etait
plus arrive depuis un an....4
Indeed, all we can do with whatever "machine a penser" we were
born with, is to feed it, exercise it, cultivate it, and then see what
development might come about.
Asked Stravinsky by Craft, "What is theory in musical composi-
tion?" the former said:

Hindsight. It doesn't exist. There are compositions from which it

is deduced.5
2 Ibid.
p. 13.
3Lettres de ClaudeDebussya son Editeur,H. Durand et Fils, Editeurs, Paris, 1927, p. 141.
4Claude Debussy, Lettresd Deux Amis, Librairie Jose Corti, Paris, 1942, p. 144.
5Conversations with Igor Stravinsky,p. 12.

45?
And this is quite in line with what I did hear him say often: theories
have to be deduced ex postfacto. First is the composition, then comes
the theory about it. Once the theory is dedfuced and formulated, you
can go on composing similar compositions following it.
From an educational standpoint it is good to formulate the theories
upon which Palestrina or Beethoven or Wagner or anyone of the
great masters composed their music. But in order to achieve new
creations the man has to proceed from his own ideas according to
his capacity to penser musicalement.
Stravinsky did not care for formulas or compositional theories be-
cause he was not interested in following already-open paths, not even
those he opened by himself. He did not want to repeat, he wanted to
invent and discover, and he always did. He could have deduced com-
positional theories out of his works. But he never composed a second
Firebird,or a second Petrouchkaor a second Sacre; it would have been
easy and even rewarding, success-wise and money-wise. Jascha
Heifetz once told me that, discouraged because he could not find a
"modern" violin concerto to his liking, he had approached Stravinsky
and had asked him, would he write a violin concerto for him-
Heifetz-in the musical style of Firebird, to which, Stravinsky, in a
rather dry manner, had answered: "I am not interested in decadent
music."
Stravinsky never stayed in the same path. Says Collaer:
Stravinsky,marchantde conqueteen conquete....6
This is an amazing feat in the totality of Stravinsky's output.
The four symphonies of Brahms, though each one is greatly per-
sonalized, all fall within the same technical and esthetic lines, and they
were written within a span of nine years. The first three ballets of the
Russian master, written within a span of time of four years, are sepa-
rated by enormous differences technically and esthetically.
The complete newness of each one of his works was maintained
until the end.
He had genius and the capacity to absorb and digest.
He came from St. Petersburg in 1910 with a good, normal classical
background, mostly impressed by the academic orientalism of
Rimsky-Korsakof and somehow by the current nationalistic ideas in
his country.
Paris was a new world, full of unexpected revelations for him: the
music of Debussy which he hardly knew, meaning the last word in
Western music.
6 Paul
Collaer, Stravinsky,Editions "Equilibres," Bruxelles, 1930, p. 100.

* 46 ?
 The music of Satie, as the most important simplifying tendency.
The music of Schoenberg, as a different world of sound.
Paris, the Western world, provided him with a new viewpoint to
look back at his native soil and traditions.
American Jazz music.
The futuristic and bruitisticproclamations of the Marinetti group.
The pianolas and electric pianos.
Whereas an outsider, a Russian, come to Western Europe- (let us
say Prokofieff)- absorbed for his music, his tastes, his esthetics hardly
anything of that frightfully polyhedric world, Stravinsky drank all
of it to the last drop, assimilated it, and rendered it in the form of
strictly Stravinsky and Stravinskyan creations: music coming from
tremendously strong and vital experiences, not from formulas de-
duced or elaborated within the four walls of a cabinet room.
In St. Petersburg, Stravinsky had known very little of Debussy's
music, but the impact must have been great. Says the Russian master
about the first act of The Nightingale:
In spite of its very evident Debussysms. .. 7

Stravinsky told Robert Craft:

. . .the musicians of my generation and myself owe the most to
Debussy.8
And I heard him say that in the Introduction of Le Sacre he was di-
rectly influenced by Debussy.
It is perhaps not by chance that one of the TroisPieces Faciles (1915)
is dedicated to Erik Satie; the first easy pieces, the first easy music he
ever wrote.

Says the Master:

C'est a Berlin aussi quej'eus l'occasion d'entendre pour la premiere
fois la musique de Schoenberg, qui m'invita a une audition de son
Pierrot Lunaire. Je ne fus nullement enthousiaste de l'esthetisme
de cette oeuvre que me parut un retour a la periode perimee du
culte de Beardsley. Par contre, la reussite instrumentale de cette
partition est, a mes yeux, incontestable.9
H. H. Stuckenschmidt comments:

7Memories and Commentaries,by Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft. Doubleday and
Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1960, p. 123.
8
Conversationswith Igor Stravinsky,p. 50.
9Igor Strawinsky, Chroniquesde ma Vie. PremierePartie. Les Editions Denoel et Steele,
Paris, 1935, p. 95.

* 47
 Stravinsky reports his impressions of Pierrot in the Chroniquesde
ma Vie. He was repelled by something which he called "Beardsleyan
aesthetic." Though this criticism may do little justice to the spirit
of Schoenberg's score, the comparison has certain justification as
far as the text is concerned.10
I myself think that Stravinsky's criticism is completely justified,
and, of course, there was a fundamental clash between the esthetics
of Stravinsky and those of Schoenberg. No wonder this basic stylistic
or esthetic antagonism was the main reason why Igor never turned his
head towards the Viennese School, not until 45 years later and in his
own way, which does not mean that the clash disappeared. However,
no wonder also that what Stravinsky said to Craft about the same
occasion in Berlin, 1912, is absolutely true:
". . .the instrumental substance of Pierrot Lunaire impressed me
immensely. And by saying "instrumental" I mean not simply the
instrumentation of this music but the whole contrapuntal and poly-
phonic structure of this brilliant instrumental piece."
It is evident that on that occasion Stravinsky was being introduced
to a new world of sound that must have had a general influence on
him. But he did not change his mind about the "Beardsleyan
aesthetic."
Away from his native country, and looking back to it from an en-
tirely different world, the great composer surely fortified and puri-
fied further his russianism. He went on composing a number of works
within the so-called Russian inspiration until the advent of that
supreme masterpiece, Les Noces, 1923.
His response to Jazz came directly in the ragtime and Piano-Rag
Music, (1918 and 1919) but Jazz was more than that; it pervaded in
one way or another through a good deal of his music.
Says Stuckenschmidt:
Igor Stravinsky was not associated with the Russian futurists, but
he attended the performances organized by Marinetti and Russolo
before and after the first world war. He probably knew Russolo's
manifesto as it is noticeable in the famous finale of L'Histoire du
Soldat... 12

10Schoenberg,by H. H. Stuckenschmidt, Grove Press, Inc., New York, 1959, p. 65.

' Conversationswith Igor Stravinsky,p. 76.
12
Prof. Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, Berlin. La Trayectoriade la MiusicaModerna y
su Desarrollo mds Reciente. Universitas,Revista Alemana de Letras, Ciencias y Arte. Edicion
Trimestral en Lengua Espafola. Stuttgart, Septiembre, 1964, p. 158.

* 48 ?
However, the formidable capacity of the master to absorb and digest
should not necessarily be limited to these influences. He entered
other expressive fields, Pergolesi, Tchaikovsky, Verdi.
I once told Stravinsky how completely he was himself in Pulcinella
and Baiser and he immediately answered me: "oui, mon cher, je vole
partout, excepte le copyright." (He probably recalled la jambe en
bois.)
His excursions to the classics gave place to the "neoclassic" label
that has stayed for good. Nonsense. This is not Stravinsky's neoclassic
music: this is just Stravinsky's music, just as Sacre or Noces or the
Symphoniesfor Winds are.
The works of the so-called neoclassic period have not met with the
same success as did the works of the so-called Russian period. In fact,
the absolute newness of all and every Stravinsky creation has been a
cause of great surprise, or disagreement, or disconcert. There were
special circumstances about Sacre that helped impose it on the public
taste, that have not been present in Pulcinella or Jeu de Cartes. To
me, every work has been a complete surprise, a new revelation, be it
Sacre, or Apollon or The Flood; a new revelation and a source of enor-
mous pleasure.
But so much the worse for those who were unable or did not want
to understand the new message Stravinsky has been giving to the
world in each one of his works in the course of his unique career. I
would like to recall the maestro's words on this subject written around
1935:
Dans la premiere partie de ma carriere de compositeur, j'ai ete
extremement gate par le public. Meme les oeuvres qui avaient
d'abord trouve un accueil hostile ont ete acclamees bientot apres.
Mais j'ai le sentiment tres net que, dans mes compositions ecrites
au cours des quinze dernieres annees, je me suis plutot eloigne de
la grande masse de mes auditeurs. Ils attendaient de moi autre
chose. Aimant la musique de L'Oiseau de Feu, de Petrouchka, du
Sacre et des Noces et s'etant accoutumes au langage de ces oeuvres,
ils sont tout etonnes de m'entendre en parler un autre. Ils ne
peuvent ou ne veulent pas me suivre dans la marche de ma pensee
musicale. Ce qui m'emeut et me donne de la joie les laisse in-
differents, et ce qui les interesse encore n'a plus d'attrait pour
moi.l3

But there was not only a passive lack of understanding; there was also
13
Igor Strawinsky, Chroniquesde ma Vie.DeuxiemePartie. Les Editions Denoel et Steele.
Paris, 1935, p. 187.

* 49
an active offensive to the man whose creative capacity and fecundity
of ideas was always on the ascent.
Heinrich Strobel gave the following account a propos"The Postwar
Music":
Soon after the liberation of France, the National Orchestra came
back to Paris almost at the same time as General De Gaulle. Manuel
Rosenthal, also back from his exile, conducted on the French Radio,
during the 1944-1945 Winter season, the complete work of Igor
Stravinsky. The major part of the program contained, of course,
works of the classic period of Stravinsky. (Purposely I use the term
"classic," since "neoclassicism" used currently in the international
terminology of journalists, is false and lends itself to confusion.)
At the end of the performance of each one of Stravinsky's classic
works, a group of young men, the head of which distinguished him-
self a man wearing a shirt with an open collar, a la Schiller, stirred
up a tremendous scandal as a most vehement protest. Who was that
man with a shirt a la Schiller? He was Olivier Messiaen. And why
these angry young men manifested themselved in such a way
against a man of world fame as Stravinsky? Well, because they
were sworn enemies of all classic tendencies ... 14
As it is known, the cries were "down with Stravinsky," "we are tired
of Stravinsky," and one of the young men of the group was Pierre
Boulez.
Of course, you can be a "sworn enemy of classic tendencies" but
you do not necessarily have to boo Stravinsky. You can follow your
way and let the others follow theirs. The real reason can always
remain open to interpretation. But, what right has a man capable of
writing a monstrosity such as the music of Turangalila-pompous,
bombastic, vulgar, sentimental, overrepetitious-to lead public,
aggressive demonstrations against the music of a genius. Now, about
the young men, they were young and eager - understandable - and
it is not until now, twenty-five years later, that we know that none of
them approaches vaguely the genius of Stravinsky.
Aside from this personal but unavoidable remark, there is the
important consideration of the general situation at the moment the
war had come to an end and all it meant socially and culturally. The
new generation wanted to find a direction. At that point, 1945, there
clearly were two directions: that marked by the trajectory of Igor Stra-
vinsky: intense cultivation of one's own intuition and of one's own

14
Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinrich Strobel, Tendenciasde la Musica de Hoy. Conciertosde Difusion
Cultural. UNAM, Mexico, D. F., 1964, p. 8.
* 50 -
capacity to penser musicalement;absorption of unlimited, multilateral,
vital influences; exposure to intense, deep human experiences. And
the other direction, Schoenberg and the Viennese School, meaning
dry and calculated elaboration of endless and endless theories, extra-
musical theories though applied to music. Stravinsky meant ideas;
Schoenberg meantformulas.
The postwar generation took the Schoenberg and post-Schoenberg
road. It was easier. In twenty-five years nothing truly great has
come out of it, though it surely will in the more distant future, with
the advent of a man of musical genius.
Now. To finish this paper, Some reader of it may question: then,
why at the end of his life did Stravinsky embrace serialism? Stravin-
sky's serialism is not orthodox. He approached it very freely. In his
so-called serial compositions there is much more Stravinsky than
there is serialism.
The man went to serialism as he went to Pergolesi, or Tchaikovsky,
or to Jazz, or to Russian songs.
I once told Stravinsky about The Flood: Maitre, you can take up a
given technic, established beforehand, the question is whether the
technic dominates you or you dominate the technic. He did not say a
word, he only smiled, and looking at me moved his head approvingly.
-Carlos Chavez

One Measure of Eternity

The conclusion of Les Noces provides one of those few musical
experiences that can be called unique. Our sensibilities are so pro-
foundly engaged by the economy, rightness, and elusiveness of the
effect, that the music haunts us forever. The austerity of the surface
seems to conceal a mysterious richness. And as the curtain begins to
fall, we become aware of silences, to which we aquiesce in wonder.
Although it is the first stroke of the church bell that brings the
foregoing rapid motion to a halt and the second stroke that brings in
the bridegroom's solo, we do not immediately reckon all that follows
with reference to that bell. The whole song could have been barred
in 4/4, and each stroke would have come on a downbeat. Why, then,
the shift to 3/4 at rehearsal no. 133? Intuitively we grasp the meaning
of the meter change: it seems to reflect our own predisposition, which
is to give first importance to the vocal melody. Yet at first glance the
melody appears to be as highly syncopated in 3/4 as it would have been
in 4/4. (See pp. 54-55.)
* 51
 As we listen to the melody, we begin to perceive that it establishes
its own metrical logic-more flexible and complex-combining ele-
ments of regularity and irregularity. Each of its five phrases cul-
minates in a refrain, identifiable by its unvarying rhythm: J J ,J.. The
last note of this refrain is always long, though its absolute length may
vary slightly. It is this accent at the end of a stable rhythmic unit that
creates for us a clear sense of cadential downbeat.
Because of the stability of the refrain, the irregular first part of
each phrase is perceived as an anacrusis (certainty resolves uncer-
tainty). In order to study the construction and interrelation of these
phrases, it will be convenient to remove the existing barlines, and to
express each phrase in the simplest possible notation (see Fig. 1).
Since the four-note refrain serves as the metrical point of reference,
the phrases are placed so that the refrains are vertically aligned. It
is thus possible to observe at a glance the organic growth in length of
phrase, from the first phrase outward, then slightly inward, then
greatly expanded outward to the climactic fourth phrase, with its
introduction of new material, and finally slightly inward to the last
phrase of the song.

r
A A
x I
1 r r r r r ; r

A
t t Fr
I tr t r r tr"^
t
3 t r r r t tP' r
! %' A
I I I tI -
re Ur rt t -
t
yIt
I
rt Br t'
_ I
r
A tt trI r,,- 'r-Irt
rt t t t i- -r
'$
Fig. 1
* 52.
 A
L tI!r t tt t

[ A
'A , /

P - i' tr A i t r t

r :r .T
Fig. 2

The melodic content of the phrases combines with the rhythmic to

enhance the complexity of the structure. The first three phrases con-
tain only three different pitches: when these are grouped as B G#
B C# and articulated by means of the refrain-rhythm, I have labeled
the result A, which is the most stable motivic element in the song. The
first phrase consists in a double statement of A, and each subsequent
refrain reiterates A, with the exception of the third and fifth, which
present only the rhythm, articulating the notes B C# B C#. These
two seem to be distinguished from the other phrase-endings as more
important. Not only is the refrain in each case partially liquidated
motivically, as explained above, but the absence of the G# has the
further effect of reducing the melodic motion. And surely it is not
coincidental that, except for the opening phrase, it is at these two
cadences only that we observe close correspondences to the down-
beats in the author's notated 3/4 meter. The downward-pointing
arrows in Fig. 1 locate these correspondences: in the first phrase
the vocal refrain ends on a 3/4 downbeat, the third phrase ends simi-
larly and is reinforced by the bell; the fifth phrase brings the bell on
the 3/4 downbeat, with the vocal refrain overlapping, thus forming a
link to the instrumental coda.
The sub-motive x, comprising the relation B-C#, plays a dual role
in our perception of the structure-a role whose very ambiguity
serves as a unifying force between anacrusis and refrain. This opposi-
tion of roles is clearly stated in the first two phrases: in one aspect the
53
 s.
S.

T?

B?

S.
dir.

A.
div.

T.
div.

B.
dir.

IV

I
Clod.

T.d.B.

Piatti

* 54
 - ^sr"- . ". ia . ai
'a
B?
-_ e. - Bym.Ka, a - Hna- O.- a
no-rAj-AtHlib-,.- os-ia- a MO. - 3a-6- -Ba
mr,ha . do.-ceur, l
fur-- dwmejours,mielf nes ri'tS, nol de r itslt, ourdd ita ,

1. u
____- ^^ -_- t-- __- -i
'T
uais.

i- ---: = ,r=-
- --+-=-- -'r-
Cloeal

i\F- __ -8
,_ _---

0_na-zs-BeMIL Mbvi? 6To. Ixa me - W4-Ka

pa-me. H'To.6L -1iio0 AM *atmi a&- s-Ai -
mba-ANt:-.
a - .vec toi, coma il fauist.__Iu'oviv
.on i. -vr
~E~J- t
Po ourl'on
- --~---'
ouosex -vie fw uls'ofass... en-,via.,.

1.I!
oni,.
IIn.IV
M)'~~~-.' q:-----.,__,4-
U-
^
2 __
- --- -
crotab-S ( __ - AL
,V
Cloc.r (f ._EEiE ; - --

* 55 '
function of x is clearly cadential, supplying preparatory support and
motivic identity to the final note of A; in its other aspect x behaves
in the opposite manner by serving as a springboard for the launching
of phrases. It even initiates the contrasting motive B in the fourth
phrase. But when x appears at first twice (end of phrase 3) and then
three times in succession (end of phrase 5) at cadences, the duality
of its function breaks down as the A-motive dissolves.
It is these aspects of the musical discourse, i.e., the rhythmic and
melodic organization of the vocal line, that occupy the forefront of
our consciousness. The notated 3/4 meter serves to indicate to the
performers the location of the three most important structural down-
beats; yet it is the flexible (but unmistakable) metrical structure of
the melody that fixes in our minds the location of cadences. The
regularity of the bell-strokes, on the other hand, is perceived only
"subliminally," since it does not exactly coincide with what we regard
at the moment as the "true" meter. Yet on that "subliminal" level
of consciousness we are on the point of realizing that we must come
to terms with this regularity. After all, bells can be expected to ring
at regular intervals. We vaguely sense that this one has perhaps been
doing so for some time.
The crucial turning-point arrives, at which we must consciously
acknowledge the metrical supremacy of the bell. This occurs at the
beginning of the instrumental coda, at the moment when the curtain
begins to fall. The A-motive, having been smoothly liquidated in
the vocal line, is now reinstated, but in a significantly changed form:
the last note is now short and is followed after a brief pause by the
bell, which now emerges in its "true" colors, as the metrical downbeat,
to which the A-motive now serves as anacrusis. From here on we
perceive the changing relations between motive and bell in this light-
the one as anacrusis to the other (see Fig. 2), first aggressively ap-
proaching to the point of a near collision (phrase 7) (in which the
last note of A seems to be magnetized away from its proper location by
the attraction of the immanent bell), then gradually receding further
and further away. The last appearance of A exhibits a shortening of
the first note, which serves to liquidate the motive by suggestion. The
last three strokes of the bell, unchallenged, confirm the metrical
framework beyond doubt.
Yet there is still an unsolved mystery: the turning-point in our
metrical orientation was something more than a simple resolution of
doubt. The two-measure silence that follows phrase 6 is filled with a
strange vertigo: time stands supernaturally still. Investigation quickly
reveals that here, and only here, the space between bell-strokes is
one 3/4-measure too long. At the exact moment when we are prepared
* 56 -
to embrace the "true" simplicity of the meter of bell-strokes, it eludes
us again. The rest of the coda is required to restore our precarious
balance. Meanwhile, through this hiatus in the passage of time, we
have glimpsed eternity.
-Andrew Imbrie

L,7t

t _/,, , r ,
5 Z.t- ,RSCu .f fi
<^t,j
- f-~~1;
__55-Ft=e=~f
7en A^d- /6d-cr f oti- ra f. Alr-f, t. oi,n-

-f < >.-
_ > (
-__- I .-
---4 ------ --

twzc
t. fnc
. _n A.
J- I, A.- >
- _
-
- <5---:
-

r r ? L
_I w7 . i t

>- 'T /

.Vo.t hout la lob,ev,.,

z a(u4fant .- v?re4 Tf.e r^-

,;/,.( D
, (D 0
.f wrf {r .,
.--O
#r
,S --, --
Ar,-/ -r /Ia --. Ar.
k,r
,, . ~,._ I . . J.
LI

-^T^!iA
1 ; k .,
G,.c.
v
-;

-t t.... -. ---
zI1 I t I.
' __~
,_
r,_
--- 7

~--=--
.- --

o11

^ I .i _- _:
Ar_--- . _ .
_I

s;, . - -"'
' ,-,....
___-
-:. r*

-1 f_-P-t I 7 ip
C1
A. . .
bt
. -. _ .

3.
_ _
_ =t
.
t:?4 1*
__
, _

A page from Stravinsky's manuscript of Preliminary Version D (1919)

of Les Noces. (These measures correspond to pp. 8-9 in the published
score of Les Noces, from 2 measures before No. 11 on.)

57
 YOU TWO
To I. S.

In living out your span did you become

Giuseppigor? Did that old man invade
Or occupy you? Or all those years you made
Ring with pure sound, dancing in freedom from
Slow weight of meaning, did they make you brother
To one who, for years, simply sang? ("Could I
Rear Tristan in this sunlight, under this sky?"
And yet his heartfelt "Triste"mourned that other
Venetian cortege.) Aging, they said he dressed
In German clothes. Perhaps, but cut to fit:
New chords old woes and joys, then prayers, expressed.
So you: first things and last by twelves. Was it
Kinship proclaimed when "Liberame"you cried?
You too were the greatest living when you died.
-Edward T. Cone

An authentic if surprising, hitherto unpublished utterance of

Igor Stravinsky, presented in a mode easily fathomed by anyone
versed in his compositional method:
MW AMFA IH QY HHIA ECCV DWVAOQ TH DEGDQAY
HSBAJ LMYG AO RRSQZ BENQL.
-Milton Babbitt

* 58 .
 J 104t CL4uatlw Sius.
'fr.
, ~.,
L%
fir' '
tN I'f-(A I,- j TI'r

-
0
kz
z
o
so

cc-
CANON
I
If

_W

R
.
t

-4

<% y.
-

-4

-r
aC
I
v .C-
-4

7
I~

This little gift for Stravinsky's 79th birthday turns out to fall symmetrically between
the two death-years 1951 and 1971. -Claudio Spies
59
 Mx,
IlznroSr_
*X-wr
E|n

% -
L4
1*l
E
,
(AA"
4w
\\st1
'1
'\';
D '1
P1
l
a1
-L c

^y
 Thirteen Ways of Looking at Igor Stravinsky*
Cher Maitre,
When you laid down your pen the era which started with Schoen-
berg's Pierrot and your Histoire came to an end.
You are the last of the "Great Masters," the last whose oeuvre can
be studied without reference to the music of your contemporaries
(except, perhaps, for certain later works). You are the last whose
music is new yet untouched by the electronic climate, the last who ad-
vanced music through personal expression rather than "new so-
lutions."

Today, we seek solutions to problems the way scientists do, we often

work with collaborators, we learn from one another (reading profes-
sional magazines). We secure our place in history by pointing out how
we were the first to compose with metrical theories, the first to use
electronic sound, the first to apply chance principles .... Your
discoveries were of a different kind, and harder to explain, so
"musical" were they. Can one explain the climate you brought into
music with your static, frozen rhythms, which do not propel forward
(a la Beethoven), but hover like a blackbird or walk in stationary
position.
2 2>> 3> 2
>13 >1 >

(The meter changes, the rhythm does not.)

You have uncovered an equally frozen kind of harmony, which
does not need to enter into a relationship with the next one (symphonies
a vents). These frozen sounds of yours are dead, not in the sense of
lifeless as stone, but in the sense of once alive, now petrified, stylized
to achieve a more lasting form.
If it hadn't been for your subsequent discovery, your neoclassicism,
which aesthetically (though not in practice) negates the above-men-
tioned discoveries, you would have been labeled, as indeed you are,
the inventor of music taking place in space rather than in time. In
a word: You invented Varese.
You also invented pop art, forty years ahead of schedule-in
Histoire. (You smiled when I told you that.)
And with Histoire, you tore down the notion of orchestration in
favor of "writing for instruments."
* "Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird," by Wallace Stevens.

*61 ?
 I always looked at you as a young composer of the eighteenth cen-
tury must have looked at Papa Haydn. Both of you were sturdy,
shrewd masters, and continued to write music to a ripe old age. Both
of you took music by the hand and brought it from one period to
another (to two others, in your case). Both of your musics are full of
delightful musical shop talk.
One sees how your music is made, one sees the seams and one
derives an almost moral pleasure and confidence from the fact that
it is "all made by hand"-as you once joked.
Yes, you are the great jeweler, and you used models, former music,
other people's music, as a jeweler cuts and polishes the stone, and you
made it your own: by giving it the Stravinsky treatment, you made it
luminous. You used everything, from Machaut to Tchaikovsky to
Webern, but you only used if you loved.
To my list, then, I must.add: you are the last composer whose
loving relationship to music of the past is composed into your music.
You used to call it stealing, and you advocated it. We cannot do this
now, nor do we want to. (When we use, we collage.) Anyway, what is
the purpose of mining where you have exhausted the mines?

Though I will not forget the moment long ago in Boston when I
was first introduced to you, and your subsequent visit to my over-
heated, one-room loft, and the advice you gave me there: "Lukas,
soyez rosse avec les gens," and the evenings spent together in Holly-
wood and later in New York, and your letter of encouragement which
burned up along with everything else I cherished in the Los Angeles
Canyon fire, and the letter to my son, Christopher, congratulating
him on being born, and the planning of the New York Philharmonic
Stravinsky Festival-the cufflinks you gave me for having presented
you with "the only festival of my music in the 27 years I have been
in the United States"-for all this, it is not your warm and generous,
now brutally absent person, which has my love, but that part of you
which is as alive today as ever, your noble, lucid, inimitably marvelous
music.
As a composer I have turned away from the direction of your
music, from the note choisie,from the masterwork, from your master-
work, even from your example. But my love for music continues to
feed on everything that flowed from your blessed pen.
-Lukas Foss

62?
 x

'11.

*^
I
h

..

. ; '.-
7
**_

* 63 ?
 Stravinsky reached out and touched my life, though I never met
him and I saw him in public only once. When I was born he was
forty-nine years old. When I first heard his name it was through the
slogan, "Igor is the greatest," which we all affixed to our high school
harmony papers-although most of us did not know exactly what an
Igor was. And when I first heard his music, Le Sacre du Printempsof
course, it was already more than twice my age. But to me it was new
music, and for a time it was the only new music. I pored over his
scores-emulating them for awhile-as I did later with Bart6k and
then with Schoenberg. As the years passed, my own search drew me
away from him and from the others, and I could be heard to disclaim
them-I guess, so as to assert my self, or more properly, to wrest
loose some small space within me where I could implant that self.
(It is awesome to observe this instinct that at one moment directs
the creative essence in us, so slight and pallid at first, to gorge itself on
another's greatness, to take it in as the physical body takes in its
proper medicine, only to reject it suddenly at that later moment when
it would become toxic; then, feeding only on itself, this essence in
us steadily and selfishly grows, until, having finally become one with
it, we are left with a transcendental tolerance, even a finer, rarer,
more harmonious palate, after all.) I suppose, when I think of him it
is in that indescribable fashion that one reserves for a youthful love.
I never seek him out anymore. Yet, when pawing through my shelves
in search of something or other, should I find an Igor there, I am
always compelled to open it, and hearing its voice, to talk to it in tones
intonable only to intimates, saying: "You Old Cocker, you really did
it!"
-Donald Martino

25 April 1971

Dear Mr. Stravinsky,

I am quite sad that circumstances have forced me to write you be-

cause I had hoped all along to have a chance to tell you some of this
in person before you left. But that's how it is in life; one always
expects some people to be around forever-especially someone like
* 64 *
you, whose name was the first I was ever conscious of when, as a
little boy, I found out that not all composers were dead. But now that
you've gone, I'll set this down on paper and trust to luck that it
reaches you.
You realize, of course, how very much all of us will miss not having
any further new pieces from you-at least not for a while. Just the
other day, looking back at the treacherous roads along which you
jostled us for so long, I wondered whether you wouldn't soon be
coming up with your own answer to the present modish electronic/cum
aleatoric business. I bet you could have licked this too had you but
put your mind to it. No matter. Your not being here to settle this
will simply point up how much we've always counted on you-if
that indeed is something that requires demonstration.
Surely you must have had a great reception when you arrived. I'm
certain that the old man Bach is damned glad to have some fresh and
vigorous support in his efforts to maintain that delicate balance be-
tween rationality and sentiment which seems always to be threatened.
And privately I don't mind saying that I'm delighted that a non-
German type for a change, has managed to break into the highest
inner circles. It would be great to know how you all decide the issues
that reach you; and how the voting goes; and especially what every-
thing looks like from up there since, as I assume, you can see it all
from all perspectives in time. It would be good to have some word from
you -however brief, particularly were we certain that it came directly
from you and not through any intermediary.
I can't make this note too long because I want to post it before the
celestial mails close. Besides you know I wouldn't dare presume on
your time-you were always so generous with that when you were
here.
I remain your devoted admirer.

As ever,
Hugo Weisgall
P.S. If you chance to hear of an opening either as a vocal coach or
as an assistant triangle player I would appreciate your keeping
me in mind when the time comes. Should you need references
for the latter job I could give you the name of my old maestro,
but then I'm not too sure that he's in your neighborhood.

H.W.

* 65 -
 Reflectionson Igor Stravinsky

I make my tribute a declaration of gratitude to the composer of

this century whose music has always made the most devastatingly
direct contact and has given me hours of unequivocal comfort and
joy. Last night my wife and I gave a concert that began with the
Sonata for Two Pianos and ended with the Concerto for Two Solo
Pianos. During the past twenty years we have played these marvelous
works many times, and we are ever more struck by their beauty and
subtle strength. Now that we have performed this music for the first
time after the Maestro's death, I can think only of the countless
pleasures and delights Stravinsky's music has given me.
During my college years Oedipus Rex was the first large work of
Stravinsky that I came to know well when I served as rehearsal
accompanist to the Harvard-Radcliffe Glee Clubs preparing for per-
formances with Koussevitzky. Orpheus and Persephone-these also
were my bridges to that white and strangely calm world of Stravin-
sky's antiquity and our mythological past. The final evaporating
measures of Schoenberg's Erwartung and the pungent melancholy
of Berg's Kammerkonzertreflect the world into which I was born. In
contrast to that morose beauty stands, in all its mysterious alchemy,
the cool and somber dream of phrases like these from Persephone.

Princesse fPrse.pho - ne. Reste vee nous. dun 1 f li.cl-t

C.L& l. h _ _

I 1r, a ,

II;l)~~~~~~~~~~~~,,J5

I have the most vivid recollections of Stravinsky conducting, first

in Boston and many times during the 1950's in Los Angeles. I recall
66
 the magnetic force, the penetrating and gravitational sweep and
bounce of his beat. It seemed to me to convey with utmost force and
clarity the nature of pulsation and rhythmic flexibility in his music.
I remember this electric and sustaining force when he conducted a
performance of Les Noces in which I played in 1960, and I marveled
again at the persistent expression of his undiminished vitality when he
conducted the Symphonyof Psalms in Los Angeles only a few years
ago.
Much has been written in the past half-century on Stravinsky's
concern with accurate notation. In 1965 I played Movements, with
Robert Craft conducting, at a special Los Angeles concert in honor
of Stravinsky and Schoenberg. During rehearsal of MovementI, we
played the closing measures exactly as notated, with special care, in
fact, to preserve the proportions of weight and emphasis neatly
indicated for up- and downbeats.

1
--- 3 --
Piano arc. ^ ^
fc I ^r _^ --^ ^ ^
42b
"" "-' ' 42C -5

""?;" ?? -"a, , ' -'~ y i

Arpa
pt}~
*C.le.nt.
~1~Tp t _'_ . . -F 0
____

Stravinsky, who sat with score in hand, asked, by singing the rhythms,
that the last measure be done so that the , 's became grace notes,
or at least, , 's! I have never known how to regard this arbitrary
change from the deliberately notated effect except as a sign of divine
free will!
The richness of Stravinsky's invention and the force of his ideas
strike one as one recalls any of his many glorious works. In 1960,
when four of us were rehearsing the piano parts of Les Noces, we came
to the final pages where pealing B-minor chords and a pedal point
announce the close of the work. Ingolf Dahl sighed and commented
that whenever he came to that place in the score he felt saddened
because he knew that the end of the music was near. Many of us have
felt this sense of imminent deprivation, not only in Les Noces but also
in other glorious closing pages of the Maestro's works. This sense of
loss, and the sense of hope that one may hear or play it once again,
stand surely as triumphant witness to the indelible force and eloquent
vitality of Stravinsky's music.
-Karl Kohn

Lt67-
67
 W%
AM ,
CMb? l__J
i- rur *?c'f?. fc RAJMM. (vUMr.

Pe.t~4r' -!'[
(* y *~
'
g*-

'"
~~ ~m-,,, ~ ~_~,
, . ? f'

- _

R ..4I ,iLW vIiL; I' 9 r

W

I
i r ,f E . --:, Lr .i.

7L

68
 r, g1
;b., M- L ^

9: .
A/ 6.
~ ? J1 ,
IP-M?t X ^, lidi ^'I

"-i I- L

A A
3^ y:" ?
9:,
4c .,L~ .
[^g^pu?~"r^ tifv
.*tr
-h-n'i.-^fil
f^
L.- 1
I.

* 69
DIRIGE (antiphonae)

EksptAnz
E k 8 p t A
EksptA
n
E t
E t n

E t
Eks t
E k s p
Eksp
A
E t
Eks t I

A
k A
E All
E t t

t
k 8 AIl
E t
8 t A
E P
E p tA
E P
E t
E k s t
B
B
E t
B t

k t An
n
E k An

s t n
t n
t
E t
t An
B t
E s p t An
n
n 9

70
 L* L

: (.)

T
pT
(,)

a o0

W op
a 0
e p
o

60
e? p

(J)
p
a (I)

P T A

P T

'o 'P T
T A

II
III

h
AU.

* 72'
IV

mU.

I
m

U.I
m

U. ((L
m I AI

U. L
AI f

U.I
U.
m

I
U.
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m I
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mU.
k t An i mUs
mU.
m

U. b
mU. L))
mU.I b

U. b
I
m,

* 73 *
Notes

The linguistic compositions given here (4 from a set of 12), are

formed from the text used by Stravinsky in his Symphonyof Psalms,
second section, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th verses of the 39th Psalm. Each
group of 4 in the set utilizes the total available phonetic structure of
these verses in some manner.
Any explication of the criteria, rules of operation, and degree to
which these compositions reflect the latent and conscious linguistic
structural articulation expressed by Stravinsky in his Symphonyshould
more properly be held for another time. Suffice it to say that the Latin
text has been transcribed phonetically and is given in that form, allow-
ing therefore, clearer intersections with other languages. All phon-
emes within a class are constant with respect to sound. (k) and (s)
are substituted for (x); (k) for (c); and (v) for (w) a Latin variable.
(O) is substituted for (o), (A) for (a), and (E) for (e) since the latter
in each case cannot be produced on my typewriter. (U) may be read
as either (u) or (u). In composition IV, (U) is expressed as (u), to be
read as (jU) or "you," the only poetic license taken. Finally, I have
retained two phonetic changes made by Stravinsky, i.e., DA for De,
and TimAbunt for Timebunt.
DIRIGE (antiphonae) is dedicated to Igor Stravinsky.
-Kenneth Gaburo

. 74.
 FLE&fY R IOR STRAVINSKY

rr NarvrySotlie'ger
Jfluzj flntiaY eO

ii'. 4 J'J/ -
2 mp, s,s,si- i. , ,,,,
14

r p, Cspressi;o

;t. 4.~~ ,o. ,J .,~ ._ 4_

-'
4 l
?4 i ~- '10

(*bo ?-.
'~'I

* 75 *
~- ~-
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y
-
tlti r

..f so. s
ii . .1
 I
I
I
II

:-
 Yat-irr r eIAZ
-
raI.4
~I- ---
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,
~ ~ 416
Pr ) - CO
r f - -- o ' - r r_T
* I
11,41,to "Ol ;i- j- ;- I/ -r
- -i-t 9tI 7t1 C - re - yet 4<'.I <c,w r-o.f ,/. 4' f -- 'f). -ff)
,\ _tgtrt . e^ M.,
ti2 tzr^eww

a r, --^-^-g-
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i
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? - -ce
^^^ see^. ^A-fiA
, 1 , I I *3 -
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9 -n - I$ .,l ?i 1[ I' . . j
,fr

_x p't:r_
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if II r r
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19 -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---- _ I)fI.__ IF--i.~
_____ - -- - - ---------
,- -a _
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_V _Awo

*) Yer:C 7t,/ftre^,

A page from Stravinsky's manuscript of Preliminary Version D (1919)

of Les Noces. (These measures correspond to pp. 24-25 in the published
score of Les Noces, from No. 29 on.)

* 78
 NeoclassicismReexamined

The brief offering of Stravinsky's a cappella music by the Gregg

Smith Singers blended nicely with the Russian orthodox service at
Campbell's, and all in all the ceremony was simple and sincere. There
was much to say for understatement when nothing could really do
justice to the occasion of bidding a last farewell to the greatest com-
poser of our time. But what drove itself home vividly as we sat there,
with New York life bustling along outside in its usual way, was the
sorrowful reminder that what transpires in our own musical world
touches the American public world so little that neither the organized
music profession nor the state feels obliged-if only as a matter of
protocol-to render proper official homage on an occasion of such
moment to us. That Stravinsky was not buried here is a lame excuse
for the general apathy. If he had been, we should not have provided
anything so nearly as engaging to public attention as the gondola
(which I know about only from the photos in the press) that carried
him to his final resting place.
The reports of the funeral put me in mind of the comforting def-
erence accorded any composer who travels in Italy-the chamber-
maid who addresses one as "maestro," though I have no illusion she
is any more conversant with current creative issues than the average
American. I like to think that if it is not our music that accounts for
this deference, it may be a sense that the artist enjoys enviable free-
dom from the imperatives that limit other men. But it is ironic that
having freed himself from these imperatives, the artist should find
himself confronted with other imperatives imposed by self-appointed
watchdogs in each of the arts. Progress is historically determined and
originality is paradoxically legislated to take place along preordained
lines.' No one was more aware of the irony than Stravinsky, as every-
one knows, and his refusal to conform to the professional code
rendered him one of the most controversial figures of our time. What
I have in mind, of course, is not the artist's proverbial iconoclasm,
but a stance that estranged him from the originators among his peers
who did not recognize his achievement as being original in the sense
that they considered their own to be.
There is further irony in the well-meaning battles that some of us
waged (I include myself) against charges that Stravinsky was "enig-
matic," "unnatural," "arbitrary." We insisted on the logic of his
development. But while we corrected factual errors, I wonder if we
1
See Leo Treitler, "The Present as History," PNM, Spring-Summer, 1969. Treitler
questions the reliance on logical connections as a means of justifying. I do not believe
there is any contradiction between this and my later use of such connections in the
present discussion as a means of illuminating.
* 79
were not ourselves caught up in the very historicism against which
we were inveighing. The merit of a given work is not established by
demonstrating that it conforms to some notion of what musical prog-
ress should or must objectively be.
Thus, in the 1930's the social dialecticians who cautioned us against
Schoenberg's cerebrations also considered Stravinsky's international-
ism to be a sad casualty of the "prepotency of bourgeois forces;"
as one leftist journal put it-the Russian political situation having
caused him to cut himself off from the native roots that were the in-
escapable, the only true source of his inspiration. Now to prove that
his so-called "neoclassicism" did not have something to do with the
Soviet revolution would have been as futile as to prove that it did.
We could, however, adduce cogent arguments why an interest in
the past on the part of a twentieth-century composer could be a
legitimate aspect of his direct experience of the present: our special
historical consciousness, reflected, for example, by the monuments of
earlier music now available for the first time in authentic editions
that contrast with the typical nineteenth-century ones in which the
editors had taken obvious delight in making Bach sound like Brahms.
But what if Stravinsky's classicism had been motivated by nothing more
than Diaghilev's chance request for a ballet based on Pergolesi? Would
those of us who cherish Stravinsky's neoclassic masterpieces be justi-
fied in altering our attitude to them?
The matter of whether Diaghilev did or did not precipitate Stra-
vinsky's neoclassicism is, in any case, an inconsequential one, for it
was in the decade following Pulcinella that the nature of this neo-
classicism was defined. The farthest thing from my mind is to draw
precise boundaries between the stages of Stravinsky's development.
My purpose is, rather, to protest the unwarranted assertions that
his neoclassicism was simply a matter of writing a la maniere de
earlier composers, as Tchaikovsky did in Mozartiana or, in a dif-
ferent way, Ravel in Le tombeaude Couperin. It may be of concern
to the watchdogs whether a composer used folk music in public
domain or music with known authorship. But for the composer who
draws on either source, his basic procedures may be the same in each
case. In the years when it was important to me to argue the logic of
Stravinsky's development,2 I suggested that for Pulcinella, Stravinsky
had essentially not done much more than exchange the Russian folk
tunes for the tunes of Pergolesi that were now germane. In Pulcinella
his identity as the composer of Petroushka seems more evident than

2See my contributions to Stravinsky:a Merle Armitage Book, Edwin Corle, ed., New
York, 1949, and Stravinskyin the Theatre, Minna Lederman, ed., New York, 1949.
* 80
his identity as the composer of the Psalms. At the risk of being mis-
interpreted as making a pejorative statement, I mean simply to say
that Pulcinella is indeed "neoclassic" in the sense of the Tchaikovsky
and Ravel works mentioned above. And if this were understood, I
should feel more confident that people were listening for the right
things in the Stravinsky masterpieces written in the period roughly
from 1925 to 1950. If one may still be concerned about the differences
between Petroushkaand Pulcinella, let me say that some of them derive
from his skill in distilling the essence out of the compiled material
that serves as raw material, so that Pergolesi's music naturally yielded
a different consistency than Russian folk music.
It may seem otiose to revive the subject of Stravinsky's neoclassicism
now that its products have been neatly tucked away where, as decreed
by current concensus, they allegedly belong. What makes me take
this occasion to do so is not simply my profound sense of the injustice
to Stravinsky, but because at one of our last meetings - some two years
ago, I believe-the matter was a subject of our conversation. I was
bemoaning the fact that his music of the 1940's was rarely played. He
turned to me with a look that prepared me for one of his character-
istic barbs, saying, "Only my Scheherazadethey play."
Nowadays Stravinsky's admirers seem to feel it to be more impor-
tant to defend and understand his twelve-tone contributions. A
gratifying by-product of this activity is a revaluation of the neoclassic
works in terms of his latest manner. But before going into this, let
me say that it might also help if we were disabused of the notion that
those works were calculated for and achieved easy audience appeal.
On a superficial layer the music had aspects that made it more ac-
cessible to players and listeners than Schoenberg's music. Goaded by
the critics, however, it was not long before audiences came to com-
plain that they'd prefer their Bach in the original. I suspect that if
they had it in their power, they would have used their authority to
enjoin Stravinsky from distorting "other people's" material just as
the police enjoined the Boston Symphony from playing his har-
monization of our national anthem. Memory is short that does not
recall, on the one hand, the lonely voices raised by Virgil Thomson
and me in the press to praise the music and urge it be played, and, on
the other hand-and more important-the concerts organized and
conducted by Robert Craft, without whose efforts it is doubtless the
music would have been performed at all in those days.
I am not trying to plead from an elitist platform, that is to say,
from the position that maintains works to be loftier if they are less
widely appealing. What I am trying to get across, rather, is something
like this: they have had little chance to prove themselves; what Stra-
* 81
vinsky described as his "criticism" of earlier composers is so expert
that it is easy to think it was his sole object; this sort of thing may not
suffice to hold the interest of some listeners, but it would be a pity if
they concluded there is nothing in the music beyond it. In the 1920's
Stravinsky issued a "Warning" in which he anticipated this response,
and it is well worth reconsideration - especially the following part of it:
There is much talk nowadays of a reversion to classicism, and
works believed to have been composed under the influence of so-
called classical models are labeled neo-classic. ... I fear that the
bulk of the public, and also the critics, are content with recording
superficial impressions created by the use of certain materials which
were current in so-called classical music.
The use of such devices is insufficient to constitute the real neo-
classicism, for classicism itself was characterized not in the least by
its technical processes, which, then as now, were themselves subject
to modification from period to period, but rather by its constructive
values.3
Not long ago, on TV, when Stravinsky mentioned the classicism
that "Schoenberg and I" embarked upon in the 1920's, it was natural
to assume that he was alluding to Schoenberg's use of patterns like
minuet and gigue. More seems to have been involved, and since the
term "neoclassicism," like "atonality," whether we like it or not, is
here to stay, we would do well to recognize its special meaning for
Stravinsky. Let us not forget that all categories of this sort are pro-
visional, and that this one in particular is burdened by a narrow appli-
cation to a period of music history. If Gide could make out a good
case for Chopin as classicist, Stravinsky was also justified in consider-
ing Schoenberg one, like himself. The observation cannot be dis-
missed as hindsight on Stravinsky's part, and if this is so, his conver-
sion to twelve-tone serialism cannot be dismissed as a betrayal of his
diatonicism. For his diatonicism may easily be viewed as just one more
"technical device" evocative of the past in somewhat the same way
that the fugue pattern of the Psalms is evocative of Bach. Nothing is
more revealing as to our ignorance of what really constitutes his neo-
classicism than the notion that diatonicism definesit.
Again, I must insist I am not defending the logic of Stravinsky's
development, though I admit to having been provoked to do so in
the past by the cries of volteface and by such statements as Poulenc's
that he was "too old for the new hats he tries on." Moreover, the

3 The Dominant, London, 1927, translated from the French, the

language in which it
had originally appeared as "Avertissement."

* 82'
aspersions that Craft may have been responsible for Stravinsky's
conversion to twelve-tone composition can no more affect his stature
than the possibility that Diaghilev may conceivably have been re-
sponsible for his neoclassicism.
That he would be held responsible was, of course, no surprise to
Craft. He made this clear to me in a letter (in 1957) informing me
that a dialogue with Stravinsky was about to appear simultaneously
in several publications -the dialogue that set the pattern for the long
series of books and that contained the now familiar apostrophe to
Webern ("Webern is for me 'just before music' .. ."). He assured me
that Stravinsky's answers were his own words, and the reason he gave
for the project having been undertaken at all was essentially the one
expressed by Stravinsky himself in Memoriesand Commentaries:
My autobiography and Poetics of Music, both written through
other people, incidentally-Walter Nouvel and Roland Manuel,
respectively-are much less like me, in all my faults, than my con-
versations; or so I think.
Without involving myself in controversy over the authenticity of
Stravinsky's more recent published statements, I think I can take issue
with those who express doubts over it with so little conclusive evi-
dence, and then blithely proceed to perpetuate as hallowed fact the
statements that he has disavowed as having been written "through
other people," such as the notorious statement that music is "power-
less to express anything whatsoever," which appeared in his auto-
biography. Not only did Stravinsky himself specifically disinherit it
in Expositions and Developments (p. 114), but the claim is constantly
refuted by his music if we try to verify it there. Such verification is
open to us for any other of Stravinsky's statements. As musicians
what interests us most are his statements about music, and such state-
ments by anyone about any music, as I see it, derive their value from
the illumination they cast on the music itself, rather than from their
verifiability as abstract, independent factual statements.
I seem unable to restrain myself from reverting to polemics despite
the fact that this is an occasion for dwelling on positive features of a
towering figure who possessed these in such abundance. But one can-
not even start to contemplate Stravinsky's career without being con-
fronted with the enigmatic, and if this contradicts observations I
have made in the past, it is because I now see more virtue than fault
in an artist being something of an enigma. The greatest enigma of
all is the one presented by his music, and what lies before us is the
fascinating and exacting task of probing its mysteries. Schoenberg
dropped more than a few hints about his method to launch his an-
* 83 -
notators on a path to enormously significant theoretical achievement.
But Stravinsky was reticent in such matters and actually exerted a
restraining influence, as it may be gathered from the following ob-
servation:
I would expect in my own case that when the computer had quanti-
fied my musical characteristics I would try to avoid them, and
though I think I can survive the exposure, I do not welcome it
(Expositionsand Developments,p. 33).
This is taking an extreme view of the matter, but it reflects a general
distrust of certain conscious intellectual processes that may over-
simplify our experience of immediately apprehended qualitative re-
lations and render them schematic, mannered, self-conscious. The
absence of these processes does not render experience unintellectual,
for aesthetic apprehension of the relations I have alluded to may
constitute knowledge of a highly profound order. The concept is a
difficult and unfashionable one, and I shall enlarge upon it at another
time. Let me simply emphasize here that it is not to be confused with
the old metaphysical notions of the spiritual and mystical. What I
have in mind is suggested by the title of a paper once delivered by
D. W. Prall: "Knowledge as Aptitude of the Body."4 Awareness that
knowledge may be of this sort places us in a better position to under-
stand that there need be no split between the Stravinsky who was
suave and sophisticated, and insistent upon the most disciplined
creative approach, and that other Stravinsky who never ceased to be
earthy, whose musical ideas never lost the strong imprint of physical
gesture, and whose personality never lost its appealing touch of
youthful ingenuousness.
I am not suggesting that Stravinsky's attitude is the better one, for
there are some composers who may thrive on conscious formulations
which in their case may serve to stimulate intellectual activity on other
levels. And what would we do as listeners and as composers who seek
new procedures without such formulations (e.g., theory and analysis)?
I trust we shall not be thought irreverent if we admit to feeling freer
in making such formulations about Stravinsky's music now that we
need no longer fear that probing the mysteries of his music will have
an inhibiting effect on future creativity on his part. As I observed
above, a revaluation of his earlier works from the vantage point of
his latest practices provides a fruitful avenue of approach. I am now
ready to enlarge on this observation, but at the risk of seeming need-
4 Prall's Aesthetic
Analysis (1936) makes this whole point relevant to our experience
of art, and in the paperback reprint (New York, Apollo Edition, 1967) I have written
an introduction that may serve to narrow it still further to its application to music.

* 84
lessly repetitious, let me add one more preliminary remark: my pur-
pose is not to demonstrate logical continuity, but to illuminate the
music and contribute to the formulation of a valid theory for it.
I have chosen the Serenade en la for making my point, and while it
entails an abrupt shift from generalities to highly concrete considera-
tions, it follows naturally in a train of associations from some of my
earlier remarks. Whether significantly or by coincidence, the work
dates from the same year as Schoenberg's Suite, Op. 25- from 1925;
and it is the Serenade that reveals much more substantially than any-
thing Stravinsky wrote before it in what sense he was developing his
"constructive values" in a direction that bears broad kinship to serial
procedures. The diatonic nature of the work enables an analyst to
deal with it in terms of tonality. But while something is thereby re-
vealed, it is more accidental than essential. Pitch priority in tonal
music is established largely by the perfect cadence and the "perfect"
intervals through which movement away from the tonic is subor-
dinated to the tonic. In the Serenade the perfect fourth defines the
relation between the B[ that inflects the diatonic opening measures
(phrygian on A) and the new pitches introduced in mm. 12 and 14:
Ff and C#. But the descending fourth is more characteristic of modal
than tonal movement; and more significantly, it is the transposition
of the entire pitch configuration of m. 11 that generates the new
pitches: the dyads, Bb-D; A-C; G-B[.
In traditional terminology, a "major-minor" scale, extending
up a perfect fifth from G, is the referential order that is trans-
posed to D (m. 12) and then to A (m. 14). It is petty to argue over
this terminology if it forces recognition of the configuration in ques-
tion. If it is taken to literally imply tonal function, however, it not
only assigns doubtful priority to G but equates a fusion of modes with
the mixtureof modes that occurs in a tonal context, where the minor
form may be heard following the full deployment of the major. What
illuminates the change of pitch content in the Serenadeis not the har-
monic links of conventional modulation, but rather, the interval
complex or basic cell that not only contains the prominent sixths
opening each of the four movements, but also provides the means
for altering (transposing) pitch content. Though serial procedure
implies a fixed ordering of intervals, it is not stretching the concept
too far to allow it to embrace an ordering that is "fixed" in its precom-
positional form, or in its first statement. In the music itself, it is not
only subjected to strictly serial transformations (the inversion is
identical with the retrograde in the Stravinsky example), but it may
also be imbedded among other pitches, notes m;y be repeated, and
the order may be permuted, placing the middle dyad first or last.
* 85
Bearing these operations in mind, you can get some idea of how the
pitch organization of the Serenade is illuminated in terms of the basic
"series" if I cite further instances, in addition to the one already
cited. The D# of m. 21 results from a descending series of thirds start-
ing on D-F# (note the permutation of their order). The C# of m. 31
is the familiar one of m. 14, but observe the transposition (starting
with G-B) that brings the G# of m. 33. The C# of m. 63 arises out of
a series starting with C-E in the same measure, but is also prepared
by elements imbedded in the figuration in the left hand, starting in
m. 61 with C-E descending to the B-D of m. 62. In each case cited,
the transpositions are continued in the same manner.
Robert Moevs, in "Intervallic Procedures in Debussy,"5 shows his
awareness of the fruitfulness of this kind of approach, but I wonder
why he does not find it sufficiently revealing without subsequently
forcing tonal interpretations on the music. Stravinsky has confided
in us on more than one occasion that he composes with intervals, and
he has also proclaimed Debussy the most influential composer of
our century. That the two assertions are somehow interrelated should
be obvious to us from the "Russian" works. Indeed, the same pitch
configuration that we have been observing in the Serenadeis prominent
in Sacre (the thirds in the woodwinds at rehearsal no. 60, for example).
But what should ultimately become clear as we explore his neoclassic
works in depth, is that if the epithet is to have any meaning at all, it
should be understood as having reference not simply to the use of
intervals locally as an organizing factor, but to their use on certain
structural levels. If this is what constitutes Stravinsky's classicism, it
amounts to saying that he learned from the classical masters the kind
of role that "constructive values" can assume-which is quite different
from saying that he literally arrogated to himself their structural
principles.
-Arthur Berger

At such a time as this, memories of meeting and speaking to this

man are not really important, evaluation of his music can only spring
from pride, and solemn tributes the business of official people and
morticians. Nor can I bring myself to submit any kind of analysis, for
I am sure that if he ever looked at this sort of thing, it would surely
have bored him.
He was a truly small, gigantic, and passionate man, and he has
earned his quiet. As for his music, it should be left to move in its
5 PNM, Fall-Winter, 1969.

* 86
own way: critical opinion means nothing since it is always changing.
Some of his works, now acceptable, will become submerged; others,
recently ignored, will rise to the surface as new and fresh.
The idea of history and change as a program of exercises with
guaranteed improvement at the end-the newer it is, the better it
must be-died in the nineteenth century. It never was and never will
be true, even though it may hide in the minds of those composers
who would like to think it so. For Stravinsky, like Eliot, history was
the past and present together, something interesting and to be used.
He could take history into his hands: thump it, prod it, and squeeze
it into the most fantastic shapes. It was still history, but it was also
new.
If any composer can be happy, he surely must have been so. He
was a free man, and made his choices freely, and they came from him
and not from others. He had the wisdom to avoid explanations, and
said little about the structure and devices of his music. He said little,
but did much. And it will stay.
-Paul Des Marais

How fortunate we are to have lived in the time of Igor Stravinsky,

to have witnessed his creation of a whole new world of music!
Now, more than ever, in these dismal days of vast disorder, do we
need to hold fast to the principles he so grandly exemplified in his
work: clarity, order, precision, control, mastery of every creative
process, whether suggested by the random wandering of the fingers
on the keyboard, as he relates in his "Poetique Musicale," or by the
operation of the speculative will set in motion by "the Spirit [that]
bloweth where it listeth."
Like a great beacon his light shines ever brighter in the encircling
gloom and sheds its beam ever further to show the way out of the
prevailing chaos.
-Louise Talma

A Card Game,A Wedding,and A Passing

I was nursing a bad cold in the fall of 1936, resting in bed and
drinking gallons of boiled water weakly flavored with fresh citrus
* 87 -
juices. In those pre-antibiotic days, self-quarantine and starvation
were the accepted cures for virus attacks. This was the time to catch
up on your reading, and if you were a fast reader you could race
through Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary in the four or five days
usually allotted for grippe cure. (People still read nineteenth-century
novels in those hard but curiously hopeful years following the col-
lapse of capitalism in 1929.) When my eyes blurred out of focus I
would sneak some music paper under the heavy blankets-profuse
sweating to purify the body of "toxins" was part of the recovery plan-
and in my tent of darkness I groped out first compositional embryos,
keeping a sharp lookout the while lest I be surprised by my parents
in the secret act. My busy schedule of reading, writing, and perspiring
was interrupted by a telephone call from my neighbor, William
Dollar, who was the first dancer and assistant to George Balanchine,
the choreographer and director of the American Ballet Company.
There was an opening for a pianist, he said, not to accompany classes
but to prepare the opera ballets for the Metropolitan Opera House
productions and auditions were to be held the following day. "Pretty
good salary," he purred, dangling three tempting words before me.
The opportunity to glimpse the professional world, to partake of the
glamour of the theater (I have always been back-stage struck), and
to earn some desperately needed money was impossible to resist.
The next day, after a brief struggle with paternal reservations, which
crystallized in an attempt to prolong my amateur standingjust a little
while longer, I bundled myself against the blustering autumn winds
of Manhattan's West 57th Street and battled my way across town to
the ballet studio at 59th Street and Madison Avenue.
Sitting at a piano and a desk for ten of my fifteen years in a
sheltered and studious atmosphere had not prepared me for the
shock of quasi-nude bodies and limbs, entwined in fantastic and
erotic patterns, flying through space and slumping on the resin-
covered floors, doubled in mirrored reflections, the air close with the
unnerving pungency of mingled sweat and cologne. Mr. Balanchine,
in a plaid shirt with rolled-up sleeves, received me with an incredu-
lous, "You the pianist?" and led me to the audition chamber. On the
way we passed through a small classroom where a girl with blonde
hair and purple tights was trying to break her leg on the bar. I fell
in love with her instantly. During the next few months she was to give
me my first puff of cigarette smoke, my first sip of brandy, and a kiss
that terminated my years of innocence.
The audition for Mr. B. was terrifying as the prime requirement
for the job was proficiency in sight-reading. He opened the piano
reduction of Glazunov's ballet Raymonda to the two blackest pages
* 88?
crawling with 32nd and 64th notes, and quietly said, "Go." I went-
but in the ensuing blackout I lost all sense of awareness, control, and
recollection. The next thing I remember was trudging back home
feeling bleak and exhausted. Two days later, after many pianists had
been tested, I later learned, Bill Dollar phoned again (how appro-
priate was his name in my hopeful expectancy) to say that the position
was mine and I was to report for work the next morning at 9:30.
During the following three months I sight-read without cease the
ballets from Don Giovanni, La Traviata, The BarteredBride, Samson et
Dalila, La Giaconda,Aida, Tannhauser,Coqd'Or (for Ezio Pinza who was
coached by Mr. B. to caper as King Dodon), Die Fledermaus,Carmen,and
one contemporary opera, Caponsacchi,by Richard Hageman. I worked
from five to seven hours a day, six days a week and averaged $45.00
per week. Upon collecting my first check I opened a savings account
at the 64th Street branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank.
One day toward the end of December, Balanchine brought me the
proofs of the engraved piano score of Igor Stravinsky's newly com-
pleted ballet, Jeu de Cartes, which had been commissioned for our
company by Lincoln Kirstein, the ballet's financial "angel." This
work, together with Stravinsky's Apollon Musagete and Le Baiser de la
Fee, was to be produced at the Met in April, 1937, with the composer
conducting.
Like an ant carrying a great leaf into its hill, I carried The Card
Game home, where, in the privacy of my corner and with palpitating
heart, I played, touched, and caressed the pages and notes of the
beautiful, new, and utterly wonderful music. I had never been so
physically close to creative greatness before and this proximity pro-
duced in me a kind of wild enthusiasm that almost choked me. Con-
scious of the incredible fact that Mr. B. and I were the only people in
the Western Hemisphere in possession of Stravinsky's latest work and
that the day was not far off when Stravinsky, for me an already
legendary figure ranking with the greatest composers who ever lived,
would be coming from Europe to see and hear how his ballets were
progressing, I plunged into work with the furious energy of a love-
mad kid.
By the time the choreography of the first deal of The Card Game
had been completed, Stravinsky, who had just arrived in New York,
made his first appearance at the studio. I rose from the upright piano
to get a better look when his head popped in through the doorway.
My legs buckled but holding on to the piano I tried to stare into his
forehead asking myself if this was indeed the brain that conceived
Petrouchka,Le Sacre du Printemps,OedipusRex, the Symphonyof Psalms.
As we all burst into applause of welcome, Stravinsky sprang into the
* 89'
studio on steel grasshopper legs, smiling happily and bowing deeply.
His hair was a surprising rufous, a sort of reddish blond which har-
monized with his brown-checked jacket, gray trousers, and tan shoes.
But the shocker was his flashy bow-tie. I had up to that moment
thought great men wore dark dignified clothes. It took some time and
thought before I could accept the idea of a man of genius adorned in
such a sporty outfit.
Formalities over, Stravinsky quickly took a place on the long bench
and, with his back to the mirror, eagerly prepared to watch the
dancers, glancing sternly a few times in my direction. Beating time
with hand, foot, and grunt, he set and controlled the tempos, unfold-
ing the music with a strength and subtlety it did not have before. The
choreography pleased him immensely and he only suggested simplify-
ing a few complicated patterns which concluded the first deal. He
then leaped up and tiptoed toward me. Balanchine introduced us,
adding that I understood a few Russian words. Stravinsky grinned
his sardonically innocent grin and in a bass bullfrog whisper offered
to play the whole of The Card Game for me. Words expressing my
deep appreciation somehow got stuck in my throat. With his eye-
glasses pushed back on his forehead, aviator-style, and looking al-
ternately pleased and offended by his own music, Stravinsky started
to play.
In some unaccountable way, without technique (he sometimes
glissandoed what should have been fingered scales), without beauty of
tone (he poked the keys with his large, bony fingers, muting the dy-
namics with the left pedal while tapping rhythmically on the right
pedal), and keeping time by vigorous gasping counting, he succeeded
in conveying the meaning of his musical thought with extraordinary
clarity. By following the printed notes and carefully listening to the
sounds issuing from the piano and from his mouth-indeed his whole
body was tense with music - I was able to grasp in an entirely new way
the composer's intentions as expressed in the subtle relationship
between the fixed symbols of notation and the fluxed pitches of physi-
cal sound. The silences of rests took on a fierce intensity-I could
see the beats hammering away in his brain as he breathed in 4/4anger
-so unlike the passive waiting or the common injudicious trimming
of the supposed non-music of rests. There were marvelous moments
when he seemed to be bumping into bits of melody-the trumpet
solo in Gb, one bar after rehearsal no. 14-with surprise and pleasure
as though he hadn't expected to find them there. I'll never forget the
sly, confidential look he gave me at rehearsal no. 73 when he broke
off to insert two measures from Ochy Chornaya ("Dark Eyes"), half-
jokingly revealing the tawdry source of his inspiration. By the time
* 90 ?
he finished playing, I felt I had been initiated into the most secret of
Mysteries.
During the week of orchestral rehearsals preceding the perform-
ances of the three ballets, I was appointed assistant conductor to
Stravinsky. My responsibilities included raising and lowering the
curtains and cuing the lights and dancers. Having become accus-
tomed to the music on the piano, the dancers had difficulty recog-
nizing the same music in orchestral form. Some of them remained
rooted in the wings waiting in vain for a familiar sound. Realizing
the potential disaster, I rushed from one to the other and pushed
them out onto the stage, where they managed to pick up the beat and
dance safely on to the end. Years later I learned that Stravinsky had
had an attack of stomach cramps the afternoon of the premiere and
that he had decided to have me conduct that evening. Luckily for
both of us his pain disappeared and he conducted perfectly. In the
Green Room late that night, Stravinsky paid me the ultimate compli-
ment. "Molodyets" (fine lad), he said, "You are worth beaucoup
d'argent."
In June of 1960, I captained a quartet of resident Los Angeles
composer-pianists in a performance of Les Noces, which was rehearsed
by Robert Craft and conducted by Stravinsky. My keyboard compan-
ions were Ingolf Dahl, Karl Kohn, and Leonard Rosenman. During a
break in the first rehearsal I asked Stravinsky if the piano ensemble
was all right. He smiled and said he did not know, as he could not
properly judge from the front row, where he had been sitting en-
grossed in the score. I was about to ask, why then was he sitting so
close to the stage, when he anticipated my question and explained, "I
sit here because I want to be near Bob." As I withdrew I saw his face
stretch into a great Cheshire grin.
Having uncovered a few routine errors when sight-reading the
mangled, quasi-legible piano part, I went over the music that night
with a fine-tooth comb and came up with no fewer than 34 mistakes.
I was sure Stravinsky would be interested in this terrible discovery.
At the next rehearsal I hastened over to the front row.
"Mr. Stravinsky, I found 34 new mistakes in my piano part...."
"New mistakes," he interrupted with a triumphant smile, "I like
new mistakes." And again, Cheshire grinned from ear to ear.
An extraordinary thing happened at the end of the concert per-
formance of Les Noces, something I have never witnessed before nor
since. Stravinsky started conducting with great energy and con-
fidence. Gradually, imperceptibly the pace began to slacken and his
interest seemed to shift from the players and singers to the score it-
self. By the time the basso had finished his concluding solo and the

91 -
final piano-bell-cymbal chords were reverberating through space,
Stravinsky's bent head was hovering just above the open pages,
his motionless arms outstretched like some prehistoric bird mantling
its helpless prey. We held the last clang for a very long time while
Stravinsky seemed lost in an ancient dream. The hall had been com-
pletely silent for what felt like minutes, when someone, far away,
applauded, breaking the spell. Stravinsky looked up as though sur-
prised to find himself in public, but was soon acknowledging the ova-
tion with beautiful old-fashioned bows of deep respect and gratitude.
Some of us spend our lives studying and imitating the lives and
works of those we admire, but usually from a great distance in time
and place. To the happy few, whose paths bring them close, if even
for a moment, to the warming influence of creative force, this en-
counter is a joy to be treasured forever. What better way to conse-
crate the awesome, unfathomable event of April 6, 1971, than to
listen again to the Orphic melodies of Igor Stravinsky and to consider
ourselves touched by his immortality through the eternal life of his
divinely human music.
-Leo Smit

1-4 4
Mannerism and StylisticConsistencyin Stravinsky*

Stravinsky began his musical life in a Europeanized Russian

nationalist tradition bequeathed to him by Rimsky-Korsakoff. The
ambiguousness of that position augured artistic defeat. With great
energy, he turned it to account by exploiting to the full the resources
of European orchestration and his own metrico-rhythmic penchant
in order to portray a pagan, proto-historic Russia. The viability of
this paradoxical combination required radical simplification of other
attributes central to the European tradition: melody, harmony,
polyphony.
Melodic line was reduced to motivic cells, or little more, often penta-
tonic in sound, which served also to clarify a rhythmic cellular con-

* The title indicates one

aspect of a study of the music of Stravinsky that has oc-
cupied my class in analysis during the major portion of this year. Since a number of
observations and insights by members of the class no doubt have found their way into
this article, I wish to acknowledge this contribution here, and especially that of Mr.
Brian Dallow, of the Royal College of Music, London; Mrs. Carol Dehne, of Boston
University; Mr. Richard Doernbach, of the University of California; and Mr. Benito
Rivera, of the Philippines. For the particular opinions and conclusions voiced in this
article I must, however, assume sole responsibility.

* 92 ?
struction. Harmony was reduced to a nearly static triadic foundation,
colored with nontriadic notes to give a quality of brilliance or ten-
sion, or again, the illusion of chaos. Polyphony was reduced, as The
Rite of Spring shows, to what can best be described as motivic repetition
and variation with accompaniment, overwhelming as that "accom-
paniment" may be. A great exception is the first Introduction in The
Rite of Spring, built upon differentiated motivic superposition and
accumulation.
In the long run, the reduction of three fundamental Western pro-
cedures to a primitive level would scarcely seem compatible with
a lasting artistic stance. Attempts at refinement of the musical lan-
guage, however, resulted most notably in the destruction of the rhyth-
mic cellular process. His exploration of these aspects in music of
the Western tradition led him to become at one time or another neo-
Baroque, neoclassical (neoclassical in the meaning of "neo-ancient
Greek"), neo-Renaissance, neo-Burgundian, neo-Byzantine, and
perhaps more than all these, both in the sound he cultivated and in
his conscious role of artisan, craftsman and tradesman, neo-Gothic.
A period conspicuous by its absence from the above list is nine-
teenth-century romanticism. This is shown even in such a work as
Le Baiser de la Fie, which "classicizes" Tchaikovsky. Yet the twentieth
century is the consequence, indeed the exacerbated continuation, of
that romanticism. By eschewing this living tradition and adapting
methods of organization and materials of former times, it would
seem evident that Stravinsky establishes himself as a mannerist
composer.
History has not been kind to the mannerist artist, though collec-
tively they may perform valuable service, as did the neoarchaic, neo-
Attic artists and writers of the 2nd century B.C. by transmitting to
posterity much of the thought and work of specific periods of classi-
cal Greece. Stravinsky, however, in his exploration of tradition has
ranged over a thousand-year span, alighting where some sound or
device caught his attention. In view of the rapid evolution of music
during this period, the problem of stylistic adaptation, not to say
consistency, and the maintenance of an artistic identity, is crucial.
It could well be beyond solution when, in addition, serializing tech-
niques are adopted. Stravinsky's gingerly progress in assimilating
these last probably is symptomatic of real difficulty.
Insofar as he makes use of these researches as a basis for his own
works, Stravinsky is a mannerist composer. If only because of their
scope, however, he cannot be entirely that. Consideration of his
production from the point of view of stylistic consistency helps to
show the extent of his commitment to the several periods it may
* 93 ?
resemble, or conversely, the degree to which that original character
has been tempered by a common approach. Chordal and harmonic
practice yield a preliminary index.
The static triadic foundation, given color or tension if not harmonic
movement by the addition of nontriadic notes, is present from the
start. In the Finale of the Firebird (1910, reorchestrated 1919), the
last of the 7/4 measures produces a pervasive, nonchromatic B-major
sound through restriction to the associated triads on ii, IV, and vi,
each colored with the 7th, and some with the 9th as well. One chord
includes the 11th. The lines played by the various instruments which
together produce this sound are either simple, closely associated
diatonic motives in B major or portions of the B-major scale. Most,
but not all of the lines sound in octaves. Underneath, reinforced by
timpani, F# and B are played on alternate beats as a two-note ostinato.

/, l

:
r ' Lr r '
B: :z~ vl il vl
+ 7 ~ f
7 7 7 7 1 7 7
ost.: p# aB F Ft a ft
Ex. 1. Firebird

A still denser presentation of this idea occurs in part II of The Rite

of Spring (1913). The occasion is quite different: the secret circle
dance of young girls, one of whom is chosen for sacrifice. The neces-
sary tension is provided primarily by the use of degrees from both
the B-major and the B-minor scales. In mm. 6-9, rehearsal no. 92,
triads on I, iv, and V are played with both major and minor third.
The 9th, both major and minor, is regularly present, and also, of
course, the 7th. Sometimes a 6th is added. Six lines, given a uniform
timbre by six violas, enter together. They are superposed without
doubling and consist of simple motives, but because of the combined
scales, only the top line uses the B-major scale alone. A horn enters
later and plays as a seventh line a portion of the B-minor scale. The
7th degree is conspicuously lowered in the last tonic chord. Under-
neath, the F#-B alternation becomes a true ostinato of four notes by
94 -
the addition of E and C$, which gives it a rather pentatonic, and
harmonically more neutral character.

+6 7 3, 7 , +613)
_4
11?, 3i~fX#,i St
7 - -
ost. [q B
FK FB
fJ# $ B3
Ex. 2. The Rite of Spring

The first product of Stravinsky's historical exploration is the neo-

Baroque Pulcinella (1919). The framework is rigidly controlled, since
the top and bottom lines are from an eighteenth-century dance suite
reputedly by Pergolesi. Essentially, it is a question of providing a
realization of the continuo. This court dance is from another world,
but the procedure is the same. The theme of the Gavotte, for ex-
ample, cadencing in A, is given a realization consisting of portions of
that scale, like the horn part in the preceding example. The result is
a progression in A: I-vi-I-IV-V-I, in which every chord but the last
contains a 7th or 9th. In spite of the limited contribution Stravinsky
makes to this music, in all the important aspects of tonality, chordal
progression, chordal components, linear shape, polyphony, and
rhythm, he maintains his stylistic consistency.

(t9)

r r r
!SL; t !r r -r
A: x vl I z: JE:
q
9 9q 9q
+9 7 7 7 7
Ex. 3. Pulcinella-Gavotte
95?
 The ending of Symphoniesof Wind Instruments(1920, revised 1947),
suggests the rich sound of Russian Orthodox choral singing. Triads
on degrees of the C-major scale, at the same time characteristic ca-
dential degrees of chant (iii, ii, I), are use, each triad colored with the
7th, and all but one with the 9th as well. A 6th is added to one, and
a 4th to another. Most pitches are heard in octaves, but the super-
posed diatonic motives, all confined, like those of the Firebird, to
notes of the major scale, differ in their pitch succession.

(c-) D() E(,,) D(11) (:,)

fi
Ex.Ex.
4. Symphonies
4. Symphonies
of Wind
of WindInstruments
Instruments

Twenty-seven years later, Orpheus ends on a D-major triad with

octave doubling, to which the lowered 7th degree is added. The 7th
is part of a 7-flatted 6-5 motive, a portion of the descending D-minor
scale repeated several times by the horn. The motive is superposed
on a complete scale, in this instance Medieval Dorian on D, played by
the harp, a scale that contributes another lowered 7th degree and a

-
-- ': I
4?_

L-I J
ItL U4p4W L4
7,. 7T7
7S 7 7S
D s'2-

1
Ex. 5. Orpheus
* 96 ?
minor third as well, heard in passing against the major third of the
D-major triad. The procedure is still that of The Rite of Spring; in
the ending to Orpheusit is simplified and reduced, as it were, to its
essence.
The Septet (1952-53) is the pivotal work in Stravinsky's shift
toward serialism; the Baroque Passacaglia is the vehicle. It consists
of sixteen notes, but only eight pitches are used; the first three
degrees of a scale on A with major and minor third, and the same on
E. A V-I relation, major and minor, is thus incorporated directly
into the substructure of the work. Superposition of diatonic motives,
characteristic of the preceding examples, now becomes superposition
of row forms. Of the ten eight-measure sections of the Passacaglia,
the ninth (mm. 65-72) provides the comparable example. There are
four statements of the theme in its original form and one statement
each of the inversion, the retrograde, and the retrograde inversion,
all beginning and ending together but proceeding at varying rates in
between. One expects the composite to be aurally impenetrable; but
the sound is familiar. The four prime forms all begin on E. So does
the inversion. The remaining two begin on A and B. The prime forms
end on A, the inversion therefore on B, and the remaining two on E.
The harmony remains static, and possesses its former characteristics.
A convenient link with tonal tradition exists through the circumstance
that these presentations of the row suggest quite clearly the coupling
of individually distinct V and I, as I over V at the beginning of the
section and V over I at its end. The latter arrangement has occurred
in the common practice of composers at least since the seventeenth-
century. The first five chords are made up of notes from the triads
on A, above, and E, one with major and minor third. The last four

** 3
y A(1)397 3
-
Ex. 6. Septet
97 -
chords are similar, with E above. There is one 9th. The last chord,
understood solely as a chord on A, includes the 9th and major 7th;
the third is absent.
The phenomenon recurs in Threni (1957-58). This work uses a
set of twelve pitches, the first of which is F#. In the first Elegy, in-
crease of complexity occurs only in the brief presentations of the suc-
cessive Hebrew letters. For the last and most complex of these,
RES(H) (mm. 114-19), a complexity that is not really exceeded
thereafter, the four forms of the set are played by the strings; the
four voices of the chorus each double one note to sing the syllable
(the Bass Ab of m. 118 is misprinted). The four forms all begin on
F#, but their entries are successive, an obvious reminiscence of
Renaissance motet writing. In the first measure, m. 114, Stravinsky
5--
goes so far as to suggest a 4 3 suspension, likewise characteristic of
that style. In spite of the momentary illusion, the sound produced
by the lines of these superposed set forms is the same as always:
triads colored with additional notes or notes from two superposed
triads on degrees a fifth apart. In the first two measures the two
degrees are B over F#. In m. 115 the F# triad lowers its fifth to F-C;
the lowered 7th, and the major and minor 9th also appear. This be-
comes the C-major chord (lowered II in B) of m. 116, with an added
4th, F again, on the first beat. The ending of this statement, mm.
118-19, is on a tonic B-major third (Eb = D#t) plus lowered 7th. The
low E on the first eighth of m. 119 is diversionary in its momentary
implication of the meaning V7 over I in E. In truth, this reverts, yet
again, to the sound of The Rite of Spring, the cadence of Ex. 2. There,
the E keeps recurring as a note of the ostinato pattern underneath.
The tonal center nonetheless remains B, in both instances.
In Movements (1958-59), Stravinsky enters further into the serial
world. The set employed here is made up of two trichords, one
composed of a minor second plus a fourth, the other of three suc-
cessive chromatic pitches. Two of each of the trichords yield respec-
tively the two hexachords of the set. The most complex moment is
the tutti passage, mm. 136-40. The lower strings play the entire set,
starting on F#. In m. 137 the rest of the orchestra, except the piano,
enters. The violins state the first three trichords of the same set form,
starting on F. All the winds enter together on the first beat (cf. the
Septet Passacaglia, Ex. 6). Among them they play, more or less note
against note, eight lines of six notes each, i.e., the eight hexachords
of the four set forms starting on G and A. The sound they make is
a rather complex 9th chord, with all factors present. The passage
ends with similar 9th (or 13th) chords. The structure remains tri-

* 98 ?
 114tsl t11 f
t47 it -
.t --;-
4aL?

-
'#r-r . ... ,lS

s 7
-A
j- 4I
Ex. 7. Threni-

( ^0
/--~-

Ex. 7. Threni "

 140
f7 t3

f:J
.E
9f $St. . J

Ft 7, 4t 7P 7 13 E 7t
,1 1 ,
3^ i(13>) 44 1
f ---+---- ( +
Ex. 8. Movements

adic, made more complex by use of both major and minor degrees
and an occasional added "nonharmonic" note.
The minor second plus fourth (fifth) trichord produces a sound
that has a somewhat independent life in the music of Stravinsky.
It was present as the first three pitches of the set used in Threni (or
the last three, according to the set form). It can be understood, and
often is disposed as a minor 9th chord from which the 3rd and 7th
have been removed. Much use is made of this sound in Threni, in
conjunction with choral recitation or declamation. In mm. 35ff., for
example, these pitches, the last three of a set presentation, are
accented and sustained by horns to support sotto voce recitation by
the chorus, rhythmically controlled in accordance with the syllabic
accentuation. The root is F#, sounded by piano and sarrusophone.
This procedure is, quite literally, that used in Les Noces (1917). At
rehearsal no. 2 of that work, the sustained fifth plus semitone (9th)
supports mezza voce chanting or declamation on one note by the
women's chorus, rhythmically controlled in accordance with the
syllabic accentuation. The voices join the accentuation of the pianos
and percussion also. The root is D, raised to D# for the sustained
chord.
Without the serial rests, the music is the same as that of Threni,but
the sense of what it is supporting is startlingly different. In Les Noces,
Russian peasant girls are braiding the hair of a bride and engage in
rather idle chatter; Threni is the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
Aesthetically, and spiritually also, this becomes somewhat disturb-

* 100 ?
 zua-LzL6 'x3

2
*04(A73 )
( Li ?1 ;)
- .(A
_ __

?OAoyf os rvpftdi
S,A

4
Pfte.,
fetrc.

-1g
I

D 3#S -

+4

Ex. 10. Les Noces

ing. Can any musical procedure be universally appropriate? Because
the business of music is to support the syllabic and accentual struc-
ture of the text when one is present, and because art postulates com-
munication, there exists the implication that music cannot altogether
prescind the cognitive import of that text. Only from an imaginary
position of neutrality that vitiates the concept of artistic communica-
bility could Stravinsky's statement to the effect that music is powerless
to express anything be literally true.
It is increasingly clear, even from a summary examination such as
this, that Stravinsky had a way of proceeding which, at bottom, he
never could abandon. The type of sound he heard, and the way he
arrived at it, remained fundamentally constant. Against this abiding
consistency, his mannerist explorations in music history appear super-
ficial and are deprived of any deep cultural commitment. They offer
variegated models of surface presentation for a constant sonorous
substance, and derive from his effort to refine his musical means.
This effort curtailed his use of rhythmic cells, element of great or-
ganizational potential whose energy and precision had exerted a
revitalizing influence. It is reasonable to question whether the in-
tended gain in refinement and elegance, and the attempt to tighten
the bond with tradition returned adequate compensation. Serialism
itself takes its place, almost as a "neoserialism", alongside the other
manners, though it does seem on occasion to penetrate more deeply
into his procedure.
The need for variety, change, and artistic development, and the
desire for an aristocratic presentation were satisfied not so much by
internal growth and maturing as by an external turn to forms and
combinations of the past, by casting about, in effect, for diverse,
technically competent, traditionally acceptable ways of employing
what was in essence a fixed approach to composition. Although many
composers, particularly in this country, followed in his wake, ulti-
mately history may neither value him as a revolutionary force nor
condemn him for his manneristic behavior; it may judge him, quite
objectively, by the artistic results he obtained with a limited number of
procedures that served him throughout his life.
-Robert Moevs

Although twenty points for the opposition to nine points for the
shared position was the final score of that "nice parlor game" when

* 103 ?
time ran out (in "Dialogues and a Diary"), it was surely not the end of
the Stravinskyian quest of the Schoenbergian Rosebud, for where-
in that reckoning-is what conceivably could be construed as that final
and decisive revelation with which the search could have concluded,
that search to which so many of us can attest?
In the summer of 1962, the Santa Fe Opera celebrated the eightieth
birthday of Igor Stravinsky in words and music: Stravinsky's music,
and the words of a sextet of lecturers, and in the many hours of the
days of the week or so following my lecture (later published as "Re-
marks on the Recent Stravinsky") when Mr. Stravinsky and I were
able to be together, he returned insistently, persistently to explore
what had been for me an incidental, minor aspect of my talk: my re-
membrance-as a member, in the mid-1930's of the youngest com-
positional generation or the oldest student generation -of that view,
from without (and below) of the tiny territory of contemporary music
as divided into three disjoint parts: one populated by those whose
allegiance was exclusively to Schoenberg, the second by those so
exclusively committed to Stravinsky, and third by those whose
loyalty was to neither. These attributions of simplistic exclusivity
were calculated, naturally, to make the whole activity appear petty
and competitive, particularly since they were often identified as
issuing from those heights of conjectured historical perspective whose
occupants further assured us that there was no really important
difference between Schoenberg and Stravinsky (which was to be inter-
preted as asserting that the manifest differences made no important
difference, since neither composer was really important) and that
eventually even we would see that we were dramatizing ourselves
and our musical epoch by insisting upon the unprecedented degree
to which music was changing and expanding, and - therefore - the
extent to which Schoenberg and Stravinsky were the agents of such
innovation. (After 35 years, we still haven't seen.) And so, there was
reason to be grateful to those relatively few among us who did, in-
deed and admittedly, maintain that all contemporary music was
divided into two disjoint domains, for those Stravinsky epigones, and
those far fewer Schoenberg epigones powerfully did insist thereby
on the crucial differences, the specific differences that made both
composers so necessary and important to so many of us.
Stravinsky, in 1962, wanted to know all of that, the extremes of
sectarian absurdities: that Schoenberg had been characterized as
"mathematical,' even "intellectual" (the depression years were cruel
ones, and begot the cruelest of epithets), while he-Stravinsky-
suffered the impudent imputation ot compositional promiscuity
(a collection of compositions presumably embodied musical virtue or
104
sin depending upon whether it was produced by a succession of com-
posers or a single composer).
I had to conclude that Stravinsky, having probed within himself,
having probed "within Schoenberg" through himself, now was seek-
ing outside of both of them for the answer to the causes and effects
of the musical gulf between them, so profound as to have created an
apparently unbridgeable personal gap, which persisted down through
that last decade of Schoenberg's life, when the geographical distance
between them had narrowed to that between Hollywood and Brent-
wood, where - surely not non-significantly - one of those new Ameri-
can composers continued-in a most un-American fashion-to be a
full-time composer, while the other-in the most American tradition
-continued to be a composer-teacher, or a teacher-composer. But
in 1962, Schoenberg had been dead for eleven years, and Stravinsky
was far too earthly not to have abandoned hope for a personal
reunion, and by 1962 Stravinsky alone had effected a musical re-
conciliation, for he was composing what even the most shocked and
betrayed had to confess was reasonably describable as "twelve-tone
music." And still, in Sante Fe in 1962, he continued the quest, yet
again recounting what we all know: that he heard Pierrot Lunaire in
Berlin in 1912, again a few years later in Paris, and not "another
note" of Schoenberg's music until his Prelude to The Genesis Suite,
and this latter only - presumably-because of the externally imposed
"collaboration." And still it was difficult to infer whether the recount-
ing was in order to suggest, slightly roguishly or apologetically, that
it was not difficult not to hear performances of Schoenberg's music
(particularly if one's base was Paris), or to regret that such had been
the case, or to regret that the work that preceded (or even induced)
the lacuna had been Pierrot. For, in 1962, Pierrot was still as "aestheti-
cally," even musically, uncomfortable for Stravinsky as it had been in
1912, when-at that Berlin performance which Stravinsky followed
with Schoenberg's own score-Stravinsky (apparently unimpressed
and unconvinced by the central rhythmic, sonic, and verbal function
of the "sprechstimme") expressed the wish that the woman on the
stage would stop talking so that he could hear the music, or-much
later in Hollywood-the wish that a recording of Pierrot would be
issued without the "sprechstimme," so that the listener could, or could
not, supply it himself: Pierrot Lunaire minus eine.
Similarly, I was never certain that I interpreted correctly his silent
reactions to the references to Schoenberg and him in Schenker's
Das Meisterwerk,Vol. 2. I showed him, at his request and as a result of
a momentary aside in my Santa Fe talk, Schenker's critical analysis
of those 15V2 measures from the Piano Concerto. He spent a few

105
minutes inscrutably scanning the two pages of text and analytical
sketch, then thumbed forward and - fortunately - backward through
the article, where he discovered the excerpts from Schoenberg's
Harmonielehre.He read Schenker's commentary, and then I thought
I detected a glimmer of satisfaction; was it that Schenker had criti-
cized Stravinsky's music, but Schoenberg's harmony book?
Stravinsky's cataclysmic, if finally gradual, adoption of the twelve-
tone system was surely not the result of a psychologically tortured or
intellectually tortuous process, nor-just as certainly-was it attended
by verbal formulations interlarding the musical steps and stages. For
Stravinsky was as innocent of his contemporaries, the Russian Formal-
ists, as Schoenberg was of his, the Vienna Circle. Neither seemed con-
cerned or perhaps even aware of those intricate issues of the relation
of words about music to music which seemed so crucial to some of us,
but Stravinsky had the strongest sense of the public and private uses
of language in the life of a public composer. There was a night, in
the winter of 1960, when he was showing me, with that violently
intense volubility so typical of his private discussions of his own music,
the score, sketches, and schemata of his then work in progress:
Sermon,Narrative and Prayer.For over an hour he discussed the deriva-
tion of the instrumental dispositions from the pitch-class collections,
and when he had finished I could say only: "It's a great pity that you
never consented to teach. You would have been, because you are,
a marvelous teacher." Stravinsky smiled: "My dear, it is very much
easier to write music than to teach it."
I report this statement, so Stravinskyian in manner if not in matter,
not only because it has not been reported publicly (perhaps because
Stravinsky actually uttered it), but because it reveals so much of his
relation to the instrumental use of language. For him, teaching would
be an act located ambiguously with respect to the private-professional
and the public-uninitiated domains. And, for Stravinsky, the lan-
guages of the two domains were not just lexically different but utterly
dissimilar in function and purpose. That same night in 1960, Stra-
vinsky told me how deeply disappointed and hurt he had been that
Schoenberg had chosen (that was precisely his word: "chosen") to
take the slogans of "back to Bach" and "neoclassicism" seriously,
so seriously as to respond with an acerbic verbal satire, with music to
match. For, to Stravinsky, "back to Bach," was just that, an allitera-
tively catchy slogan, which had no pertinence to professional activity
or professional discourse. It was there, permitted to be concocted, like
"neoclassicism," to be talked about by those who could not and
should not talk about the music, who didn't even bother to hear the
music, but who, when they bandied about the catch words, were
* 106 ?
"talking about Stravinsky." Celebrity, so necessary for sheer survival,
was attained and perpetuated by just such talk, and public images of
composers were created by just such commercial messages. Who of
us in the 1930's did not have the image of Stravinsky as the Parisian
composer who put his trust in God and kept his counterpoint dry,
who kept his cool image through his Chronicle(in which he managed
to tell us so little about his life), and through his Poetics, that song of
Roland-Manuel (in which he managed to tell us so little about his
music). Since that time, I cannot judge what the public words of that
master of written polysyllabic American prose have created as a pub-
lic image, nor can any of us who have shared the private words of
our great colleague. Ours were almost always words about music,
almost always his music, almost always his music of the past fifteen
years, and they were his words, as unmistakably so as his music.
For at the end of that only too easily and glibly postdictable path from
the ostinato (but he never rotated or derived "verticals" from his
ostinati) through the serially isomelic to the twelve-tone system are
twelve-tone works as different from Schoenberg's as is L'Histoire
from Pierrot, Oedipus from Die GliicklicheHand. And they had to be
so, and they must be so, for they derive their tiniest details, their
modes of local progression, their unfolding into the global totality
from that functional association of a sextet of hexachords, any one of
which can yield the complete collection by its successive transposition
by the complement, in turn, of each of its pitch-class numbers. Such
a collection is obtainable from any hexachord, and thus is independ-
ent of the special "construction of the row," whereas Schoenberg's
functional collection of four sets, equally determinative of the small
and the large, related by inversionally combinatorial hexachords, is
completely dependent on the special "construction of the row."
In the light of this, one might wish to amend or eliminate number 9
of the "parallelisms," but surely anyone who has been obliged to
attend the ballet in order to hear Movementsor Variations,anyone who
is still awaiting the first New York performance of Sermon,Narrative
and Prayer, anyone who witnessed Stravinsky - in the last fifteen years
of his life-being feted as a great celebrity of the past rather than as a
great composer of the present, will wish to append a number 10:
10. Stravinsky, in the last decade of his creative life, learned what
Schoenberg knew throughout most of his creative life: how it feels
to have the history of music leave you ahead.
-Milton Babbitt

107*
 Stravinskyand Schoenberg:A RetrospectiveView

To many composers like myself, born in the 1930's, whose musical

awareness began to really take shape around the late 1940's and early
1950's, the apparent conflict between the theoretical, and conse-
quently musical, points of view of Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoen-
berg, seemed one whose resolution was impossible to conceive.
Pierrot Lunaire and Le Sacre du Printemps were of course exact op-
posites almost in every way. We inferred the same, however, from
Stravinsky's Poetics of Music and Schoenberg's Style and Idea, their
two theoretical studies published at approximately the same time-
respectively 1947 and 1950. We consulted both avidly, almost re-
ligiously, in order to penetrate the secrets of twentieth-century musi-
cal thought as formulated by its two foremost protagonists, and we
decided in fact that we must choose between them. One, it would
seem, precluded the other. Only those of us bold enough to question
the American neoclassic tradition, which sprang up from the musical
environment of post-World War I Paris, thought to reject the then
supremacy of dogmatic tonal concepts which we attributed primarily
to Stravinsky (although Hindemith was responsible as well). These
were the ones who became interested in nontonal harmonic struc-
tures, what we came to consider as being typical of Schoenberg and
the Viennese School. They were, I suspect, the same who became the
nucleus of the group surrounding Roger Sessions at Princeton.
There were, to be sure, other similar groups. I, for instance, well
recall studying certain scores of both Schoenberg and Berg in the
class of Ross Lee Finney at the University of Michigan in the late
1940's; and, of course, both Schoenberg, at the University of South-
ern California, and Krenek, at Hamline University, held regular
composition classes. Nevertheless, the Princeton group as it grew up
under Sessions, and subsequently Milton Babbitt, seemed to be the
most interested in the theoretical side of the question as well as the
compositional.'
With the exception of this limited and rather circumspect activity,
most of us were wedded to the notion of neoclassicism. We took solace
in the fact that Schoenberg was once again writing "tonal" music,
even to the point of employing key signatures, particularly when
toward the peak of his late maturity, he composed the Suitefor String
Orchestra(1934). We were able to acknowledge the fact that Schoen-

In all fairness one should mention the fact that isolated composers in the United
States such as George Perle were also investigating Schoenbergian theory at a moment
when neoclassicism was almost a doctrine. There are undoubtedly other names which
should be added to this list, in Europe as well as in this country.

108
berg was, in this case, compensating for the lack of musical culture
on the part of young students in his adopted country by avoiding, by
his own admission, "a premature dose of atonality poison."2 Never-
theless, tonality as we knew it, or at least thought we knew it, was
creeping back, and we were quick to seize upon the rhythmic regu-
larity and intervallic symmetry of the opening of the Fourth String
Quartet as being a pregnant example. Was it not possible to analyze
this melody as being in D minor as well as obeying all the rules of the
twelve-tone system? Hardly ten years later, we were to be once again
confounded when Stravinsky left the realm of readily recognizable
tonality and began to compose his first serial compositions. Those who
had come to reject Stravinsky several years earlier were finding the
most unexpected justification for their decision.
Our mutually exclusive view of both composers was nurtured by
the fact that both Stravinsky and Schoenberg merely coexisted. They
were able to dominate European and American musical thought
throughout their lifetimes, with almost no known contact between
them. Since the eve of the First World War when, in 1912, they
actually met and talked together in Berlin (their only meeting on
record), until the years of the Second World War when both lived in
Los Angeles without even exchanging visits, their lives were separate,
their followers distinct, their careers opposed. Either through the
overzealous teachings of their partisans, or merely our own miscon-
ceptions and miscalculations, we felt that Stravinsky might well have
qualified Schoenberg's atonality as "poisonous," and that Schoenberg
would indeed have termed Stravinsky's neoclassic use of tonality,
restrictive. The preface of Schoenberg's Three Satires, Op. 28, as well
as the first satire, the famous mirror canon which questions tonality-
particularly as to whether or not a choice between it and atonality is
even appropriate-would have confirmed our belief. We would have
accepted Schoenberg's disbelief in neoclassicism as relevant to all
of Stravinsky's music whether Schoenberg so intended or not. Our
supposition then that the theories of one negated those of the other
was as easy and comforting as it was naive. We were able to conclude
that if two camps were necessary, it followed that one was good or
right and the other bad or false. Our choice carried with it the weight
of gospel.
The 1950's and 1960's changed all that. Schoenberg had died in
1951 and Stravinsky was in his waning years. Even without his
penultimate works, particularly beginning with the ballet, Agon
(1957) and Movementsfor Piano and Orchestra(1959), one could view
2
The Worksof Arnold Schoenberg,edited by Josef Rufer, Faber and Faber, London,
1962, letter to Fritz Reiner, p. 81.
109
his production as a whole. In retrospect, even at this time, Stravinsky's
essays into serialism seemed to follow quite naturally from his earlier
compositional concerns as much as did Schoenberg's from his pre-
serial compositions predating the First World War. Tonal implica-
tions were always more or less evident, either implicitly or explicitly
in Schoenberg's music throughout each period of his life. We were
undoubtedly in error to attribute any significance to D minor in a
work such as the Fourth String Quartet. Such analysis shed more
light on ourselves than it did on the piece. Psychologically, it seemed
that we needed to find tonality whether it was present in any meaning-
ful way or not. Nonetheless, I doubt whether Schoenberg would have
blatantly frowned upon such a postulation. Schoenberg's evolution
into serialism was derived from late nineteenth-century romanticism,
from an inner need for chromatic and harmonic integration, so to
speak. He would scarcely have denied that his roots were embedded
in the music of Wagner, Brahms, and Mahler, all of whom showed
great concern for tonality and its extension. No matter how much
Schoenberg evolved, these roots would always be apparent in his
music. Stravinsky, of course, came to adopt serialism from his interest
in the contrapuntal masters of Renaissance and pre-Renaissance
music, a concern he shared with Webern-the reason for his affinity
with that composer. Tonal implications were never excluded from
any of Stravinsky's compositions; they were the basis for his reaction
to nineteenth-century romanticism during his formative years.
Even the notion of one being primarily a homophonic composer
and the other a contrapuntalist, is somewhat arbitrary. We would
undoubtedly be correct in emphasizing Schoenberg's concern with
harmonic implications, albeit of a nontonal nature. Yet does not
Alban Berg consider him to be the greatest polyphonist since Bach?
He belongs simultaneously to an epoch of homophonic music, as
well as to one of polyphony-a period in which a contrapuntal and
imitative style was reborn in his music.3
And Stravinsky, who, with increasing intensity throughout his life,
admired most the great contrapuntalists of an even earlier era when
notions of harmonic structure were still rather primitively conceived,
at least in relation to that same period's emphasis on rhythmic and
polyphonic complexity, says explicitly:
I can create my choice in serial composition just as I can in any tonal

3"Credo," Alban Berg, originally published in Die Musik, Berlin, 1930 (translation
by D. H.). Berg's intention was to draw a parallel between his own thoughts on
Schoenberg and Riemann's famous statement on Bach.
110
 contrapuntal form. I hear harmonically, of course, and can com-
pose in the same way I always have.4
Coincidentally Stravinsky considered himself to be primarily a
homophonic composer, with Schoenberg to be the contrapuntalist,
thus lending credence to Berg's statement. Nevertheless, would
Schoenberg not have maintained that he also "heard" harmonically
as well as contrapuntally, whether he was in the midst of his tonal,
preserial, or twelve-tone periods? The distinction is therefore some-
what academic, emphasizing a stylistic difference more than a theo-
retical one. As a matter of fact, could not Berg's paraphrase of Rie-
mann apply to Stravinsky as well, without any too great or substantial
margin of error? Was not an interest in Renaissance polyphony "re-
born" in Stravinsky's music to the same extent as contrapuntal con-
siderations of the eighteenth century were similarly "reborn" in the
music of Schoenberg? Did not, in fact, Stravinsky belong simul-
taneously to periods of polyphony and homophony in perhaps the
same manner?
Furthermore, could not all the following citations from Poetics of
Music and Style and Idea have been written by one or the other inter-
changeably, at least in so far as the ideas expressed therein are
concerned?
Whether one calls oneself conservative or revolutionary, whether
one composes in a conventional or progressive manner, whether
one tries to imitate old styles or is destined to express new ideas-
whether one is a good composer or not-one must be convinced of
the infallibility of one's own fantasy and one must believe in one's
own inspiration.5
All creation presupposes at its origin a sort of appetite that is
brought on by the foretaste of discovery. This foretaste of the cre-
ative act accompanies the intuitive grasp of an unknown entity
already possessed but not yet intelligible, an entity that will not take
definite shape except by the action of a constantly vigilant tech-
nique.6
Nevertheless, the desire for a conscious control of the new means
and forms will arise in every artist's mind; and he will wish to know

4 Conversationswith
Igor Stravinsky,Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Hillary House,
N.Y., 1959.
5
Style and Idea, Arnold Schoenberg, edited by Dika Newlin, Philosophical Library,
N.Y., 1950, Chapter 5, "Composition with Twelve Tones," p. 106; originally delivered
as a lecture at the University of California at Los Angeles, March 26, 1941.
6Poetics of Music, Igor Stravinsky, translated by Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1947, p. 51; originally delivered as the
Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, at Harvard University, 1939-40.
111
consciouslythe laws and rules which govern the forms which he has
conceived "as in a dream." Strongly convincing as this dream may
have been, the conviction that these new sounds obey the laws of
nature and of our manner of thinking-the conviction that order,
logic, comprehensibility and form cannot be present without obedi-
ence to such laws - forces the composer along the road of explora-
tion. He must find, if not laws or rules, at least ways to justify the
dissonant character of these harmonies and their successions.7
Either case applies to a style where the use of dissonance demands
the necessity of a resolution. But nothing forces us to be looking
constantly for satisfaction that resides only in repose. And for over
a century music has provided repeated examples of a style in which
dissonance has emancipated-itself. It is no longer tied down to its
former function. Having become an entity in itself, it frequently
happens that dissonance neither prepares nor anticipates anything.
Dissonance is thus no more an agent of disorder than consonance
is a guarantee of security. The music of yesterday and of today un-
hesitatingly unites parallel dissonant chords that thereby lose their
functional value, and our ear quite naturally accepts their juxta-
position.8
What distinguishes dissonances from consonances is not a greater
or lesser degree of beauty, but a greater or lesser degree of "com-
prehensibility." In my Harmonielehre I presented the theory that
dissonant tones appear later among the overtones, for which reason
the ear is less intimately acquainted with them. This phenomenon
does not justify such sharply contradictory terms as concord and
discord. Closer acquaintance with the more remote consonances-
the dissonances, that is-gradually eliminated the difficulty of
comprehension and finally admitted not only the emancipation
of dominant and other seventh chords, diminished sevenths and
augmented triads, but also the emancipation of Wagner's, Strauss's,
Moussorgsky's, Debussy's, Mahler's, Puccini's, and Reger's more
remote dissonances.9
We thus no longer find ourselves in the framework of classic tonal-
ity in the scholastic sense of the word. It is not we who have created
this state of affairs, and it is not our fault if we find ourselves con-
fronted with a new logic of music that would have appeared un-
thinkable to the masters of the past. And this new logic has opened
our eyes to riches whose existence we never suspected.10
7
Style and Idea, p. 106.
8
Poetics of Music, pp. 34-35.
9Style and Idea, pp. 104-105.
10Poetics of Music, p. 35.
112
The term "emancipation of the dissonance" refers to its compre-
hensibility, which is considered equivalent to the consonance's
comprehensibility. A style based on this premise treats dissonances
like consonances and renounces a tonal center. By avoiding the
establishment of a key modulation is excluded, since modulation
means leaving an established tonality and establishing another
tonality."l
The superannuated system of classic tonality, which has served as
the basis for musical constructions of compelling interest, has had
the authority of law among musicians for only a short period of
time-a period much shorter than is usually imagined, extending
only from the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of
the nineteenth. From the moment when chords no longer serve to
fulfill merely the functions assigned to them by the interplay of
tones but, instead, throw off all constraint to become new entities
free of all ties -from that moment on one may say that the process
is completed: the diatonic system has lived out its life cycle. The
work of the Renaissance polyphonists had not yet entered into this
system, and we have seen that the music of our time abides by it no
longer. A parallel progression of ninth-chords would suffice as
proof. It was here that the gates opened upon what has been
labeled with the abusive term: "atonality."12
THE TWO-OR-MORE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE IN WHICH
MUSICAL IDEAS ARE PRESENTED IS A UNIT. Though the
elements of these ideas appear separate and independent to the
eye and the ear, they reveal their true meaning only through their
cooperation, even as no single words alone can express a thought
without relation to other words. All that happens at any point of
this musical space has more than a local effect. It functions only in
its own plane, but also in all other directions and planes, and is not
without influence even at remote points. For instance, the effect of
progressive rhythmical subdivision, through what I call "the ten-
dency of the shortest notes" to multiply themselves, can be observed
in every classic composition.13
So our chief concern is not so much what is known as tonality as
what one might term the polar attraction of sound, of an interval,
or even of a complex of tones. The sounding tone constitutes in a
way the essential axis of music. Musical form would be unimagin-
able in the absence of elements of attraction which make up every

1 Style and Idea, p. 105.

12
Poetics of Music, pp. 37-38.
13
Style and Idea, p. 109.

113*
 musical organism and which are bound up with its psychology. The
articulations of musical discourse betray a hidden correlation be-
tween the "tempo" and the interplay of tones. All music being
nothing but a succession of impulses and repose, it is easy to see
that the drawing together and separation of poles of attraction in a
way determine the respiration of music.14
The musical idea, accordingly, though consisting of a melody,
rhythm, and harmony, is neither the one nor the other alone, but
all three together. The elements of a musical idea are partly in-
corporated in the horizontal plane as successive sounds, and partly
in the vertical plane as simultaneous sounds. The mutual relation
of tones regulates the succession of intervals as well as their associa-
tion into harmonies; the rhythm regulates the succession of tones
as well as the succession of harmonies and organizes phrasing.15

Stravinsky would have objected to Schoenberg's statement that the

"emancipation of the dissonance" necessarily led to the renunciation
of tonal centers, as Schoenberg might well have differed with Stra-
vinsky's reasons why the term "atonality" was "abusive." Both could be
considered theoretical differences, but are they not rather the justifi-
cation for stylistic differences? The music of Stravinsky amply demon-
strates that tonality can exist even with the constant use of the most
extreme dissonances, as they would be qualified within the tonal sys-
tem, just as the music of Schoenberg points out that traditional tonal
functions can be suspended, even using a harmonic language much
less dissonant from the standpoint of the same definition of classic
tonality. The point which must be made is that tonality as both
Schoenberg and Stravinsky had been taught to understand-this
limited conception of classic tonality about which they both speak-
was no longer possible, and for the very same reason: the emancipa-
tion of the dissonance. Their reactions then were based upon deci-
sions of personal choice, pertinent principally to their own musical
personalities. Concomitantly, the amount of parallel theoretical
thought running through the paragraphs quoted above is striking in-
deed and shows the extent to which they were both concerned with
theoretical problems of a similar nature, to the point of using almost
the same language and syntax to describe their respective argumenta-
tion.
It would appear in consequence that what was considered by most
to be an irreducible conflict between the viewpoints of both com-
posers was in fact one in personality, in musical style, much less so in
14 Poetics
of Music, p. 36.
15 and
Style Idea, p. 109.
114*
theory. There was a stylistic opposition, to be sure, which no ear can
fail to distinguish. Stravinsky, of course, knew this, otherwise would
he have written:
Whatever opinion one may hold about the music of Arnold Schoen-
berg (to take as an example a composer evolving along lines essen-
tially different from mine, both aesthetically and technically), whose
works have frequently given rise to violent reactions or ironic
smiles-it is impossible for a self-respecting mind equipped with
genuine musical culture not to feel that the composer of Pierrot
Lunaire is fully aware of what he is doing and that he is not trying
to deceive anyone. He adopted the musical system that suited his
needs and, within this system, he is perfectly consistent with him-
self, perfectly coherent.16
To my knowledge, no similar statement from Schoenberg seems to
exist. We do know that Stravinsky's music was performed on many
occasions at The Society for Private Performance which Schoenberg
founded in Vienna after the First World War, thus demonstrating
that Schoenberg and his followers maintained an active interest in
Stravinsky's music. We are even more fortunate that Stravinsky has
left a description of his meeting in 1912 with Schoenberg. We learn at
least that both men, at one point in their lives, enjoyed mutual respect
for and interest in one another:
I had heard Schoenberg's name as early as 1907, but PierrotLunaire
was my first contact with his music. I had not seen any score by him
either, and to my recollection nothing by him was played in St.
Petersburg while I lived there. I do not know how the Berlin meet-
ing with him came about, but the initiative for it must have been
Diaghilev's; Diaghilev wanted to commission Schoenberg. I re-
member sitting with Schoenberg, his wife, Mathilde, and Diaghilev
at a performance of Petroushka, and I have a clear memory of
Schoenberg in his green room after he had conducted the fourth
performance of Pierrot Lunaire in the Choralion-saal, 4 Bellevue-
strasse, Sunday, December 8, 1912, at twelve o'clock noon; I still
have my canceled ticket. Albertine Zehme, the Sprechstimme artist,
wore a Pierrot costume and accompanied her epiglottal sounds
with a small amount of pantomime. I remember that and the fact
that the musicians were seated behind the curtain, but I was too
occupied with the copy of the score Schoenberg had given me to
notice anything else. I also remember that the audience was quiet
and attentive and that I wanted Frau Zehme to be quiet too, so that

16 Poetics
of Music, pp. 12-13.
115
 I could hear the music. Diaghilev and I were equally impressed with
Pierrot, though he dubbed it a product of the "Jugendstil" move-
ment, aesthetically.
I encountered Schoenberg several times during my short stay in
Berlin, and I was in his home more than once. I arrived at the
Adlon Hotel from Switzerland on November 20, 1912; I remember
that I had been working on the orchestra score of Le Sacre on the
train. Eduard Steuermann, the pianist of the first Pierrot recalls a
dinner with me in Schoenberg's house at which Webern and Berg
were present but, alas, I have no recollection of this, my First and
Last Supper with the hypostatic trinity of twentieth-century music.17

Stravinsky goes on to describe several other occasions on which they

almost met, to the seeming regret of Stravinsky at least. It would not
be difficult however to surmise that Schoenberg might have felt the
same, particularly at the end of his life when they both held the es-
teemed position of elder statesmen.

Shortly after the performance of Pierrot, Schoenberg left for St.

Petersburg to conduct his Pelleas und Melisande. We were on good
terms at parting, but we never met again. In Morges, in 1919, I
received a very cordial letter from him asking for pieces of my
chamber music to include in his Vienna concerts "The Society for
Private Performances." I wrote and he wrote again. Then, in 1920
or 1921, I heard Pierrot in Paris, conducted by Darius Milhaud, and
performed by Marya Freund. After that, incredibly, I did not hear
another note by Schoenberg until the Prelude to Genesis, in Holly-
wood in November 1945, at which time we might well have met, for
we were in the recording studios on the same day and we sat on
opposite sides of the Wilshire Ebell Theater at the premiere of the
GenesisSuite. Schoenberg conducted his Serenade in Venice in Sep-
tember 1925, and I played my Piano Sonata there the next day, but
neither of us heard the other's music. Years later, when I knew the
Serenade, I realized that, as reported to me at the time, Schoenberg
probably did like my Histoire du soldat. When I came to Los Angeles
in 1935, Klemperer and other mutual friends tried to bring us to-
gether, but only after 1948 did a meeting seem possible. I saw
Schoenberg for the last time in 1949 when he appeared onstage at
a concert and read a delicately ironic speech acknowledging the
honor of the freedom of the city of Vienna just conferred on him,
a half-century too late, by the Austrian consul. I remember that he
repeatedly addressed the consul as "Excellency" and that he read
'7Dialogues and a Diary, Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Doubleday and Co.,
N.Y., 1963, pp. 53-54.
116
 from large sheets of paper which were extracted one by one from
his pocket, his eyesight being very poor then, and each page con-
taining but a few words.
Two days after Schoenberg's death, I happened to visit Mrs.
Mahler-Werfel's home and to see there Schoenberg's not-yet-dry
death mask. Less than a year later, his Erwartung and my Oedipus
Rex-an unthinkable juxtaposition a few years before-were per-
formed together in Paris by the late Hans Rosbaud, as a double bill.
I hope Schoenberg would have been pleased. I know I was.18

Stravinsky concludes this dialogue with Robert Craft by drawing up

a list of differences between himself and Schoenberg, as well as a
series of parallelisms. It would not be inappropriate to quote them
here. They well serve to document the intent of this article. Neither
Stravinsky nor Schoenberg saw themselves as opposed on other
grounds than aesthetic and stylistic. A list of differences would tend
to underline these two aspects.
DIFFERENCES
Schoenberg Stravinsky
1. The way to the future. 1. The uses of the past.
2. A palace revolution. 2. Restoration.
3. Evolution. 3. Adoption.
4. "Today I have discovered 4. Reaction against "German
something which will assure music" or German "roman-
the supremacy of German ticism." No Sehnsucht, no
music for the next hundred ausdrucksvoll.
years." Schoenberg, July
1921, telling a friend of the
discovery of the tone-row.
5. Hedgehog. (Moses) 5. Fox (eclectic and abundant
variety). (Aaron)
6. "Music expresses all that 6. "Music is powerless to ex-
dwells in us ...." press anything at all."
7. "Ballet is not a musical form." 7. Chief production is of ballets.
8. Essentially polyphonic. 8. Essentially homophonic.
9. Virtually no repetition. 9. Much use of repetition (osti-
nato) in all of the music be-
fore the Movements.
10. A teacher. Large amount of 10. Never a teacher. No writing
writing on musical theory. about musical theory.
Hardly anyone has escaped
18
Ibid., pp. 55-56.
* 117
 his school. (But the philoso-
phy of teaching is: "Genius
learns only from itself; talent
chiefly from others. Genius
learns from nature; talent
learns from art.")
11. Never composed at the piano.
12. Composed fitfully, at light-
ning speed, and in the heat
of "inspiration." Therefore,
many unfinished works.
13. Contemporary subjects (pro-
test music): Survivor from
Warsaw.
14. Much use of rubato.
15. An inclusive view of the past.
16. Chromaticism.
17. Espressivo. Scores full of ex-
pression marks.
18. Legati.
19. Preferred dense eight-part
counterpoint (the choruses,
Op. 35; the Genesis Prelude
canon).
20. "A Chinese philosopher
speaks Chinese, but what
does he say?" ("What is
style?")
11. Composes only at the piano.
12. Composes every day, regu-
larly, like a man with banking
hours. Hardly a scrap unfin-
ished or unused.
13. Remote-in-time subjects: The
Rake's Progress.
14. Metronomic strictness, no ru-
bato. Ideal is of mechanical
regularity (Octuor,Piano Con-
certo, etc.).
15. An exclusive (highly selec-
tive) view of the past.
16. Diatonicism.
17. Secco. Scores contain mini-
mum of expression marks.
18. Staccati.
19. Prefers spare, two-part coun-
terpoint.
20. "What the Chinese philoso-
pher says cannot be separated
from the fact that he says it
in Chinese." (Preoccupation
with manner and style.)

PARALLELISMS
1. The common belief in Divine Authority, the Hebrew God and
Biblicat mythology, Catholic culture.
2. The success obstacle of the first pieces, VerklirteNacht and The
Firebird, which remained the most popular of all our works, all
our lives and after.
3. The close parallel development over the span of sixty years.
4. The common exile to the same alien culture, in which we wrote
118-
 some of our best works (his Fourth Quartet, my Abrahamand
Isaac) and in which we are still played far less than in the Europe
that exiled us.
5. Both family men and fathers of several children, both hypo-
chondriac, both deeply superstitious.
6. For both of us, numbers are things.
7. Both of us were devoted to The Word, and each wrote some of
his own librettos (Moses und Aron, Die gliickliche Hand, Jacobs-
leiter,Les Noces, Renard).
8. Each of us composed for concrete sounds, unlike the later
Webern, in which choice of sound is a final stage.
9. For both of us, the row is thematic and we are ultimately less
interested in the construction of the row, per se, than is
Webern.19

Stravinsky calls the differences "a nice parlor game, no more ..."
and refers to the parallelisms as being ". . . more interesting." A
closer look at the differences shows a good many of them to be pri-
marily stylistic. Numbers 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 18, and 19, in fact, show
basically in what respects their two styles do differ. Schoenberg's
music is more polyphonic; it does contain less repetition. It is obvi-
ously more chromatically oriented, making extended use of rubati,
expressivi, legati, and thick contrapuntal textures. Stravinsky's music
would be at the opposite end of each of these poles.
Another group of differences deals with physical approaches to
composition, i.e., composing at the piano or composing on a daily
schedule (numbers 11 and 12). Neither would have any bearing on
either their theoretical, stylistic, or aesthetic points of view. I would
put difference number 7 in this category also. It would seem some-
what irrelevant that one wrote ballets and the other didn't. Both
were eminently interested in writing for the stage. I wonder, if
Stravinsky hadn't have met Diaghilev, whether or not he in fact
would have written so many ballets. Likewise difference number 13
seems to me somewhat questionable. Moses and Aaron is a subject
equally as "remote in time" as The Rake's Progress, and the text of
L'Histoire du Soldat is a kind of "protest" music though perhaps less
so than A Survivor from Warsaw. Difference number 6 is of course
controversial. It becomes, in fact, a question of semantics whether
or not music is "powerless to express anything at all," or that it
"expresses all that dwells in us." Both are probably true, depending
upon which point of view one defends. It is really one of those in-
terminable metaphysical arguments that takes up much too much of

19Ibid.,
pp. 56-58.
119
our time, and scarcely in this case sheds any true light on either the
music of Stravinsky or Schoenberg.
What would indeed be more relevant to a discussion of their dif-
fering aesthetic points of view, would be their cultural differences,
i.e., those differences that played a significant role in developing
their musical personalities (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 15, and 20).
Schoenberg came from a tradition bent upon continuity and self-
perpetuation. He saw himself as the heir apparent to an Austrian
and German musical culture which had its beginnings in Bach,
continuing through Mozart and Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert,
Schumann, Wagner, Brahms, and Mahler. Stravinsky saw himself
reacting against the supremacy of this tradition, at least insofar as
its late nineteenth-century Wagnerian culmination was concerned.
Yet he was also not above criticizing rather harshly Schumann, and
for that matter, Beethoven. A few short pages further on in the
same dialogues with Craft, he qualifies the Andante Moderato of
no less a masterpiece than the Ninth Symphony as "harmonically
heavy" and "rhythmically monotonous," and he disposes of the
entire third movement as being "the antithesis of true symphonic
form." Nothing could be more calculated to make Schoenberg's
hair stand on end, except perhaps Stravinsky's even more hostile
condemnation of Wagner:

Wagner's work corresponds to a tendency that is not, properly

speaking, a disorder, but one which tries to compensate for a
lack of order. The principle of the endless melody perfectly
illustrates this tendency. It is the perpetual becoming of a music
that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any
reason for ending.20
To Schoenberg these would have been statements from yet another
"modern-day Beckmesser." His answer could have been his article
on Mahler in Style and Idea, or particularly the essay entitled, "Brahms
the Progressive," in which certain similar examples of harmonic
and melodic organization found in both Brahms and Wagner are
analyzed with scrupulous clarity.
Their example helped us to realize that there was as much organi-
zational order, if not pedantry, in Wagner, as there was daring
courage, if not even bizarre fantasy in Brahms.21
20Poetics of Music, p. 62.
21
Style and Idea, Chapter 4, "Brahms the Progressive," p. 56; originally presented
as a lecture in 1933 on the occasion of Brahms's one hundredth birthday, and re-
vised in 1947 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

* 120 ?
Or further on in the same essay:
If there is no decisive difference between Brahms and Wagner
as regards extension of the relationship within a tonality, it must
not be overlooked that Wagner's harmony is richer in substitute
harmonies and vagrants, and in a freer use of dissonances, espe-
cially unprepared ones. On the other hand, in strophic, songlike
forms and other structures, such as represent the Wagnerian ver-
sion of arias, the harmony moves rather less expansively and
more slowly than in similar forms of Brahms.22
These are hardly statements to be associated with music of "dis-
order," or with music that "tries to compensate for a lack of order."
Schoenberg himself as a youth was faced with a similar dichotomy
concerning the music of Brahms and Wagner as that discussed in
this article between Stravinsky and himself. He, too, was unwilling
to accept the fact that belief in the aesthetic and stylistic points of
view of the one precluded consideration for the other. In this same
essay on Brahms, he points out that both Gustav Mahler and Richard
Strauss "had been educated in the traditional as well as in the pro-
gressive, in the Brahmsian as well as the Wagnerian, philosophy of
art." It is, as Stravinsky would have admitted, "an inclusive view of
the past," one that permitted the merging of two opposing influ-
ences into the same general tradition. Thus some fifty or sixty
years prior to Stravinsky's above-cited negation of Wagnerian style
and technique, Schoenberg and his contemporaries had already
digested Wagner's theoretical premises and had assimilated them
into their own central European tradition. There was in Schoenberg's
view, no longer any apparent or irreducible theoretical conflict
between the conceptions of Brahms and Wagner; they had been
interrelated by virtue of the critical thought common to all three:
Schoenberg, Strauss, and Mahler alike.
Stravinsky desired above all to maintain a selective view of history,
one in which he could incorporate and adopt only that which suited
his own individual purposes at any given time. He was not part of
a musical tradition that had been predominant in history and hardly
felt, as Schoenberg might have insisted, that to reject a particular
aspect of one or another tradition amounted to a censure of the
whole. Perhaps this is the reason for the fact that Schoenberg was

22Ibid., pp. 60-61. For a discussion of what Schoenberg means by "vagrant har-
monies," consult his Theory of Harmony (Harmonielehre),translated by Robert D. W.
Adams, Philosophical Library, N.Y., 1948, pp. 199-201.

* 121 *
a teacher and a theoretician (difference number 10), while Stravinsky
was neither. As a maker of history, as one who felt the historical
necessity for the positions he took, Schoenberg felt the need of
teaching, of publishing his theoretical points of view, and of com-
municating his findings. He was almost always able to justify his
critical thought by reference to his own aesthetic or philosophical
beliefs. At least this was his natural tendency, which he attempted
to follow whenever possible. As a viewer of history, Stravinsky was
content simply to provide caustic commentary on what had taken
place, to take up selectively the cause of those particular moments
which interested him, and to rather summarily dismiss whatever
displeased him. He rarely tried to justify his views by reference to
any particular demonstrable theory, but more often than not he
did so only by referring to his own notions of good or bad taste.
In a somewhat different vein Stravinsky seems only to mention
those parallelisms between himself and Schoenberg that are of a
philosophical nature, with the possible exception of number 9,
which deals with a similarity in their respective "row" constructions.
What he fails entirely to mention is that parallelism which this article
attempts to demonstrate, namely the fact that both composers were
forced to come to grips with the same basic problem facing musical
composition at the threshold of the twentieth century, i.e., the
breakdown of traditional tonal concepts which was taking place at
the end of the nineteenth century. Both recognized the problem.
Both solved it according to the dictates of their own personalities,
rooted as they were in totally different cultural backgrounds.
Schoenberg chose the extension of tonality into preserial "atonal-
ity," and subsequently the twelve-tone system. It seemed the natural
evolution of the Central European musical tradition in which he was
just as naturally taking part. Stravinsky chose a reinforcement of
tonality, a restrengthening of its basic roots which had been weak-
ened by nineteenth-century Central European harmonic investi-
gation. His choice led him eventually to his own conception of
neoclassicism. In any case he had absolutely no inclination what-
soever of inserting himself into the mainstream of a musical tradition
entirely foreign to his character and personality.
Stravinsky of course ended by adopting the twelve-tone system
which Schoenberg had discovered. It was, nonetheless, a decision
wholly in keeping with his own eclectic choice at a particular moment
in history. Temptation is great to call this decision a justification
for Schoenberg's theoretical thought. Is it not a final triumph of
one camp over the other? Would Stravinsky in fact have invented

* 122 ?
the twelve-tone series if Schoenberg had not thought of it before?
The answer belongs to Stravinsky when in listing his differences
with Schoenberg, he speaks of "adoption" as opposed to "evolu-
tion," and "the way to the future," as contrasted with "the uses of
the past." He would have been the first to agree that neoclassicism
had died insofar as his own music was concerned, and that serialism
had triumphed, at least in his own music at that particular time. He
and his music were none the weaker for it. His serial investigations
were as much part and parcel of his musical style, as for example,
the Symphonyin C (1940), one of his purest explorations into neo-
classicism. Stylistic unity was as apparent in Stravinsky's music
throughout his lifetime, no matter how eclectic he himself may have
been, as it is clearly demonstrable in the music of Schoenberg, no
matter how easily his total production seems to fit the three distinct
categories of tonal, preserial, and purely dodecaphonic periods.
This was the common truth to them both. They were, to paraphrase
Stravinsky in his thoughts about Schoenberg and Pierrot Lunaire
quoted earlier in this article, perfectly aware of what they were
doing. They adopted the musical systems that suited their needs,
and within each system, they were perfectly consistent with them-
selves, perfectly coherent.
It took many of us a long while to realize all this. When we did,
however, we were able to accept two great cultural influences upon
our common musical heritage, much in the same way Schoenberg
was able to accept both Brahms and Wagner. To our generation it
was perhaps of greater significance, since Schoenberg and Stravinsky
represented two such distinct musical cultures, at least insofar as
Western music is concerned. They were, as Stravinsky has said,
"worlds apart aesthetically." They have proven that composers
may have to choose different paths if they are to discover their
respective musical identities, but that the reasons for their choices
may well spring from the same sources. They do, in fact, comple-
ment one another in the one very real sense that they were both
reacting in their own manner to the same theoretical dilemma.
This lesson will remain for many generations to come.
-Donald Harris

LF-7
tlt

* 123 ?
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* 124
X : * 0: t :: : :

:
 Stravinskyand the New Russians

"Stravinsky-nash otyechestvyennii." So answered Kiev composer

Vladimir Zagortzev several years ago in response to a query about
the significance of Stravinsky's work to the new generation of Soviet
composers. This phrase which literally translates out as "Stravinsky
is our native son, our fatherland" may be difficult for Americans to
grasp in its full meaning because we lack the sense of "nation" felt
so strongly by the Russians. Ives would fit closest to this definition,
but not really fulfill it. Nationalism, possibly better expressed as
"nationness," as I see it looking out from the inside, has far deeper
implications than the superficialities usually attributed to it. Reach-
ing into the depths of inner psychic experience, traits of "nation-
ness" may be reflections of linguistic and physical or muscular gestures
that have developed into innate characteristics evolved through
dynasties of behavioral propensities. The question of nationalism,
reevaluated, becomes no simple matter. Americans as part of an
American nation have not yet evolved a social state where this
"feeling" is present. In Russia it perfumes the atmosphere. Since
the Christianization of Kiev in 988, Russia has been a cognitive
conveyor belt of internal and external crossbreedings. With Stra-
vinsky we witness a vivid example of this phenomenon-and a
great one at that. It seems too simple-minded to label him an inter-
nationalist as many have.
While he is no Russian composer in the sense of Mussorgsky, of
Glinka, of Tchaikovsky, of Rimsky-Korsakov, his life's work could
be said to represent a microcosmic reflection of the whole of Russian
history, its mystical symbolisms, its patterns of change, its coales-
cence of native and foreign, its mood of timeless continuity. I think
this is what my friend meant when he called him "native son."
Beyond technique, beyond form, one can speak of manners, of
gestures, of habits. It is here that elements of "nationness" show
up. Stravinsky's winding and twisting lines, often like repetitious
self-inverting involutions (a dog chasing its tail-again Russian his-
tory), the special priorities for certain harmonies, or certain pitch
polarities, for fragmented melodies, the extreme economy, are all to
a great extent reminiscent of elements inherent to the very oldest
preserved Russian folk music.
Perhaps the reason why so many of the new Russian composers,
like Edison Denisov, Sergei Slonimsky, Nikolai Karetnikov, Valentin
Silvestrov, Alfred Schnitke, Andrei Volkonsky, esteem him so is
because he has stubbornly preserved the quality of discovery lost
by the previous generation of Soviet composers, for the most part
* 126 ?
through no fault of their own. The process of search, discovery, and
invention had been so submerged in Russia that musical develop-
ment for a good stretch of time attained the magnificence of omnis-
cient suspension. Ideology triumphed in idolatry. Art hid behind
the bushes. While Russia is known for long periods of stillness which
followed the exorcising of evil and exogenous contacts, she none-
theless relied on them to build her culture. To these young com-
posers, the life work of Stravinsky symbolizes the process of em-
bracing the outside while keeping whole his integrity, his identity.
Just as they prize this native son as a revolutionary who stood
the musical world on its ears, they seem to view themselves similarly
within their own country. There are those who dare, and those
who don't! Had not Volkonsky broken the ice with works like
Musica Stricta, and Lamentationsof Shchaza, and others followed suit,
present-day Soviet music would no doubt be in a different place.
Given the historical conditions of the mid-1950's, it took courage-
as much courage as was probably necessary for Stravinsky 58 years
ago. The artist who is willing to make the confrontation, to assume
the odds, to pay the price, is driven by his passion in the search for
invention and fulfillment, especially when it is denied. Certainly
this particular aspect was never a factor for Stravinsky. It is for
the New Russians.
I paid Stravinsky a lengthy visit shortly after my return from my
first sojourn in the Soviet Union-which lasted six months. My pur-
pose was to acquaint him with Russia's new music, at least a small
portion. Our conversation, in Russian, was a revelation. I had just
returned from Moscow, here we were in Hollywood, and I felt as
though I had never left Moscow. This was a Russian man, it was a
Russian home (aside from small trappings like a swimming pool
and other trivia). What struck me was that while this great man
had for so long lived outside of Russia in a variety of countries he
still had IT, the Russia tang, and old Russian at that.
Continuity must be fulfilled by linkage. Stravinsky hearing for
the first time the music of Volkonsky and Denisov which I played
for him made the hooking up of these far apart generations seem
a concrete reality. Certainly his historic visit to the Soviet Union
was as important an event in his life as it was for the life of Soviet
music. The fact that it was officially sanctioned, that he was royally
treated by Krennikov, that he had an audience with Kruschev, not
only opened the way for the performance of much of his music
(with the exception of the later works), but helped to create an
atmosphere of openness that enormously boosted the work of the
younger generation. He recalled to me with dismay that he was
127
unable to meet them during his stay. We know, however, that he
became reasonably well acquainted with Igor Blashkov, the coura-
geous Soviet conductor who is responsible for many recent first
performances of Stravinsky's works. Blashkov is totally devoted to
the cause of new music. The concerts he presented in Leningrad
during the mid-1960's were models of contemporary music program
making and included a repertory that embraced works by Ives,
Varese, Nono, Webern, Silvestrov, Denisov, Volkonsky, and many
others. I was present at several of these concerts and if continuity
exists at all, the intellectual fervor surrounding these events must
have been similar to what Stravinsky experienced in his St. Peters-
burg days. St. Petersburg to Leningrad, possibly not such a great
distance apart! St. Isaacs hasn't changed, the Neva still flows in the
same direction, the spire of the Admiralty from certain parts still
dominates the pahorama.
Listening to Stravinsky talk about Russia, one realized how deeply
he felt about it. Why did it mean so much to him, a man who had
been away for half a century? Like so many Russian expatriates
who shared the same sentiments, he manifested the unique coming
together of the spirit, the people, the language, the sounds and
smells, and the land. Perhaps the nostalgia provided a better home
than the place itself.
We must admit that Igor Stravinsky was a Great Russian. It stands
out in his music, by virtue of the grand geste which his life repre-
sents. His nationalism was subordinated only by his universality.
Interesting that his followers in the West, so attracted by the music,
often tried to imitate it or reconjure it in other shapes, while his
admirers in Russia sought the spirit over the style. Strange that
the West in him never really killed off the Eastern beast. We mourn
the loss of a great hero whose life and music symbolize such differ-
ent things to our two very different worlds.

-Joel Spiegelman

LEi7t

I cannot adequately express my debt to Stravinsky, and the re-

sulting sense of loss his passing creates. Whatever compositional
issue he chose to address, his confrontations with the basic nature
of musical continuity inevitably produced results that challenged
one's sense of the unfolding of musical time. For he was first of all
a master of form. He proposed modes of continuity new to western

* 128 ?
music, and the influence of these revelations cannot prove to be
less than that of the large structures advanced by Beethoven. But
perhaps there is a greater achievement, lodged fittingly in his old
age. It is the act of unification in his adoption of the twelve-tone
system. Not the superficial reconciliation of a composer once thought
to be a tonalist (although he was not) with serial schemata, but the
profound and far-reaching consequences he has pointed at through
his introduction of a centric orientation into a twelve-tone serial
world. His demonstration, in the great works of his old age, of the
fact that the twelve-tone system is as much a continuation of the
tonal past as a break with it, has set the stage for a union of the
western musical past with its present; and thus, has advanced the
moment when western music, heard as a unified fabric, can begin
realistically the process of confronting the musics of the rest of
the world.
-Charles Wuorinen

ADIEU

Nevertheless you were winking to gods

When you left, Pere Igor, as you were
When making bread for us, mixing
Love and envy
Age and youth
Opulence and avarice
Body and intellect
Freedom and necessity
In a way that was foreign to German philosophers
But not to us.
You were really alone when you left
As you were when building bridges
To cross a river that's always there,
As you were, trading West for East
And your fiddle for a convenient book
(yet you kept both, comme il faut),
As you were, clarifying for us
Those sublimated notions
That have no place in the devil's bible

* 129 ?
 Nor in futile conversations
But only in rehearsing the right sounds
For your elliptical meanings
Which now belong to us, Pere Igor.
-Luciano Berio

L'Oiseau de Feu, Petruchka, precedent le Sacre du Printemps

comme le dos montant d'une vague etincelante. Le Sacre en est la
crete, puis on descend l'autre versant jusqu'a L'Histoire du Soldat.
Cette vague fut un raz de maree eparpillant la tonalite, l'harmonie,
le rythme, les couleurs, les intensits, . . . Au meme moment l'Ecole
de Vienne preparait son raz de maree dans le silence et se dessinait
le dur destin de Varese qui devait aller tres loin dans l'imagination
des sonorites, en mineur de fond isole. Varese et les viennois eurent
la chance de ne pas se voir enfermer dans le pli de leur temps,
Strawinsky oui, malgre l'effort desespere d'en sortir comme en
temoigne surtout sa derniere periode serielle. Mais sa grande vague
s'est immobilisee etincelante a jamais peut-etre.
-Iannis Xenakis

The news of 6 April 1971 means for many of us that now there
is no longer living any of the grand makers of miracles who gen-
erated the century's musical power. In the sense in which some
cultural historians find the nineteenth century running through to
World War I, it may in fact become acceptable practice to associate
the end of twentieth-century music with the death of Stravinsky.
I met him only once, one evening about twenty-five years ago. It
was at a party in Los Angeles marking some occasion I can't now
remember at all. What I do remember vividly is being one of sev-
eral young, unaccomplished composers present who didn't know
that Stravinsky had been invited-so when suddenly he appeared,
we froze and stared and huddled together in a splendid state of
shock. But what struck me in particular (a memory I've always
cherished) was the peculiar look in his eye as he was introduced to
each of us: I had seen such a look previously only when a young
music student was worrying about the competition. It was a pre-

130,
posterous and especially amusing manifestation of that renowned
youthfulness that surely had much to do with Stravinsky's spec-
tacular, boundless originality.
One of the antique words at which this seductive magician once
scoffed applies directly to him: genius. Of course originality is
merely one thing; mastery is something else. He possessed both in
singularly abundant quantities, and there is typical formal propriety
in Stravinsky's departing just when the demons he abhorred, that is,
amateurism and slovenliness, are enjoying their season in the sun.
-Mel Powell

I first heard Stravinsky's name when I was a boy of twelve in

Munich. I had read about this Russian composer who was in Paris
having his ballets played, and I went to the library to get some of
his music, only to be told by the librarian, a prominent Munich critic,
"We don't know this gentleman." When the American magazines in
the American Library reported the scandalous first performance of
the Rite of Spring, I knew that something had happened to open up
new paths in the musical landscape.
I met Stravinsky in Zurich while I was a member of the Tonhalle
Orchestra. We performed his Fireworks, a brilliantly orchestrated
piece composed in 1908. He conducted one rehearsal and I was not
very impressed with him. He was so nervous that he was not in con-
trol of the situation.
I bought Ragtime, ThreeJapanese Lyrics,and Three Piecesfor Clarinet
to study and these indicated that Stravinsky was thinning out his
style considerably. Rumor had it that this mysterious Russian com-
poser who lived in Morges had turned his back on all previous
music and had done away with melody and harmony as we knew it,
and reduced his musical statement to an economical, essential style
just sufficient to say what he meant. In contrast to our performances
of Mahler and Bruckner symphonies this was refreshing to hear
and as I became familiar with his music I gained considerable
respect for his originality.
In late 1918 Busoni used the expression "young classicism" which
meant "young classicism signifies completion in a double sense;
completion as perfection and completion as a close ... the conclusion
of previous experiments." While I was working with Jarnach and

* 131 ?
Busoni on that premise, Stravinsky seemed experimental and not
quite up to what Busoni had signified was the road that music
would travel.
In 1919 Stravinsky came to Zurich and did a program of his own
works, including the second instrumental performance of L'Histoire
du Soldat (arranged for clarinet, violin, and piano), Three Pieces for
Solo Clarinet, ThreeJapanese Lyrics, and other works. The house was
half-full, the applause was lukewarm. The comments afterwards
were not very enthusiastic but I thought L'Histoire was quite effec-
tive in its chamber music version and the clarinet pieces helped me
to see the possibilities of writing for solo instruments.
I heard the symphonic version of The Rite of Spring performed by
the Chicago Symphony under Stock in 1922. This was a crashing
experience. By that time I was pretty well versed in Busoni's young
classical movement and had written some music that had been
accepted by certain circles in Europe and even in this country.
Later I was particularly pleased when it appeared that Stravinsky
was embarking on a new direction, since known as neoclassicism.
As I understood it, he took certain forms from the past which he
used in his own way for his own purposes but infused with non-
academic life. (Many of his works in this style interested me, and
in the sixties I attended a very fine performance of the Rake'sProgress,
conducted by Reiner at the Metropolitan Opera House, which dem-
onstrated clearly the differences between his interpretation of neo-
classicism and Busoni's.)
I met Stravinsky at a League of Composers reception in his honor
in the fifties and again, a few years later, when he conducted some
of his works in Town Hall. He seemed to be a metronomically accu-
rate conductor, but nervous, and in spite of external accuracy,
somewhat weak in projecting his works, even though he had first-
rate players in his ensemble. I think this nervousness caused him
to have memory lapses in some of his performances, but it is quite
possible that this was not evident when he made recordings.
By the fifties Stravinsky had already exercised a strong influence
over a generation of American composers. Nadia Boulanger in Paris
was one of his disciples and as she in turn taught a whole generation
of American composers his indirect influence on the American scene
was considerable. Many of her students like Copland, Randall
Thompson, Virgil Thomson, Walter Piston, and others spread the
Stravinsky gospel in the United States, although some like Douglas
Moore and Quincy Porter very definitely moved in other direc-
tions. The first group, many of whom had a focal point in Boston
while Koussevitsky was conducting the Boston Symphony, had their

132-
own group of students and soon there was an American neoclassical
school of some size and importance. The Stravinsky followers were
confounded with the fact that by the time they had mastered one
style of this composer, he was already exploring another one. I
always found this the most fascinating thing about Stravinsky as a
creative personality, particularly when he began writing music with
a twelve-tone and serial bias late in his life.
Stravinsky, with the privilege of an old man who had given the
twentieth century an enormous number of significant works, was
somewhat casual about his acceptance or championing of other
composers. He had words of admiration for Varese and Busoni,
and Busoni considered him to be one of the great musical voices
of our time. Of the younger men, Stravinsky liked Boulez and
Stockhausen.
Having never tried electronic music, he was naturally lukewarm
about its possibilities. I'm not sure that he had heard many of the
works, however, in the sixties he asked to come up to the Columbia-
Princeton Electronic Music Center to meet with us and discuss the
medium. Ussachevsky knew him and as they could converse in Rus-
sian they got along famously. Babbitt interested him because of his
extension of the Schoenberg-Webern musical ideology. He was cor-
dial with all three of us and stayed in the studio for several hours.
His curiosity about the electronic medium was most refreshing.
His aural response was extremely sensitive and his questions very
much to the point and often quite far ahead of where we were,
and indicating the direction that the medium might or would take
in the future. It was quite encouraging to have this distinguished
figure examine so thoroughly and enthusiastically a medium which
he had not yet used. I'm not sure if he planned to use electronic
sound in some of his works, but this was quite possible.
In the Silver-Burdett Series, "Making Music Your Own" (for use
in primary and secondary schools), Stravinsky and Robert Craft
spoke about his birthday salute, "Happy Birthday to You," which
turned out to be a fine composition lesson for the sixth grade, an
appropriate tribute and contribution to the oncoming generation
from a distinguished and great composer.
Stravinsky's position in twentieth-century music is unique. There
is no one like him and no matter in which direction the future
turns, his position as a landmark is assured.
-Otto Luening

* 133 ?
 Stravinskyin Person

I remember seeing Stravinsky on two occasions-the first in some

unnumberable year of childhood, the second a dozen-or-so years ago;
-the first, a conducting appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra:
at rehearsal, the awaited guest entering the hall from the rear
wearing what appeared to be a long cape, accompanied by a large
wife discreetly trailing, to become entrusted at the understood
time (near the front of the hall, just a few rows short of the stage
where the orchestra waited) with the doffed cape: and at the con-
cert, a finely inexpressive avian artifice consuming the distance
from the wings to the podium in a jerky glide; a sparrowlegged
Lilliputian Nijinsky, in formfitting tuxedo, springing up weightlessly
to the podium and bowing faultlessly, impersonally amid the ritual
applause; immersed impenetrably in applause as a bird in air;-the
second, an informal appearance before a small handful of eminent
composers and a somewhat larger handful of young composers, a
few expert performers of new music and a few interested musicolo-
gists, all gathered together by Paul Fromm on a campus in rural
New Jersey, all intently focused in a near parody of silence, all
basking reverentially in the master's voice: the master's hands ges-
turing minimally in the summer heat; the master's voice modulating
the silence gently, confidentially, almost intimately; articulating
doubts about the internal consistency of the serial works of the
'50's in which he had not yet fully overcome his accumulated tonal
habits; expressing hope that his current work might finally free him
from habits no longer relevant; addressing colleagues, some of
whom might perhaps be confronting in their own work problems
similar to his if less acute by virtue of fewer years spent in accumu-
lating irrelevancies; the almost intimate voice professionally, unosten-
tatiously confessing; addressing those who would understand, those
like himself for whom mainly the future mattered-scuffed summer-
colored shoes not quite tennis-shoes, collar open, gray summer-
weight suit uniformly, quintessentially wrinkled.
-J. K. Randall

Rt7t]

Pour moi, au cours des 10 dernieres annees, l'exemple de Stra-

vinsky n'a pas cesse de devenir de plus en plus important. Quand
j'ai commence a travailler a Votre Faust, et que je me demandais
avec quelque apprehension comment j'allais me sortir des prob-
134
lemes que je m'etais poses, j'eus l'occasion d'entendre Agon, dirige
par Andre Souris (mais non de le lire ni surtout de l'analyser: je
ne fis cela que bien plus tard, a Buffalo, en meme temps que le Sacre
et d'ailleurs les Variations de Webern). Cette ecoute fut pour moi
une grande illumination et un grand soutien. Aussi, lorsque Pierre
Souvtchinsky, en 1962, me demanda d'ecrire quelques mots a Stra-
vinsky pour son 80e anniversaire, eu-je l'audace de rediger le petit
poeme que voici:

AVEU
Igor Stravinsky!
Vous etes pierre.
Pierre d'achoppement.
Pierre sur laquelle on butait deja hier.
Sur laquelle on bute encore aujourd'hui,
Lorsqu'on entre en composition musicale.
Pave,
Galet,
Gemme,
Que fait briller d'un feu nouveau
Chaque heure,
Chaque jour,
Chaque saison de la vie.
Rocher.
Emergeant depuis toujours,
Mais dont les attaques du temps
Ont revele les cavites fabuleuses
Bloc de granit,
Que consument les soleils qu'il affronte,
Mais toujours renaissant.

Igor Stravinsky!
Apres cinq fois seize ans
Apres cette infatigable adolescence
Repete aux dimensions de l'enfance,
Ce qu'on vous souhaite,
Ce qu'on vous demande
(comme ces amoureux qui demandent ce qu'ils savent bien
qu'on ne peut que leur accorder),
C'est d'etre,
Encore et toujours
(et quelque eclat supplementaire que puissent vous arracher
les techniques,
135
 les machines,
les marteaux-perforateurs les plus perfectionnes),
Inalterablement mineral.
Igor Stravinsky!
Nous vous le demandons parce que nous en avons besoin,
Comme de ce pain
Dont on fait les maisons de f6es:
Demeurez pierre!
Et sur cette pierre nous briserons notre eglise.

Que faut-il ajouter aujourd'hui?

Tout au plus ceci (pour paraphraser encore une fois, mais en
l'inversant doublement, une parole de Pierre Boulez, dont je crois
par ailleurs qu'il aime suffisamment la musique de Stravinsky, et
qu'il avait noue avec l'homme une amitie suffisamment profonde,
pour accepter sans animosite ma polemique, et pour considerer
mes arguments avec sang-froid):
Grace a l'inepuisable heritage musical qu'il nous legue,
et malgre l'amertume oiu nous laisse son depart,
interrompant arbitrairement une courbe spirituelle et sans de-
faillance
et nous mettant desormais dans l'impossibilite de dialoguer de
vive voix,
non seulement "Stravinsky demeure" (pierre),
mais
affirmons-le
(comme pour Webern)
avec la tranquilite de ceux dont les yeux ont vu et les oreilles,
entendu:
STRAVINSKY EST VIVANT
-Henri Pousseur

As their time is created by composers they cannot be ahead of it.

A composer can, however, be ahead of his contemporaries. Stra-
vinsky was, is, and will be just that for the time he created and some
to come. Ever since I came to know music, and up to this very day,
I have lived in full awareness of Stravinsky's work, accompanied,
befriended and, occasionally, warned by the fascinatingly seductive
omnipresence of his musical statements. They deal fairly with all
136
that was given, by displaying it with displaced emphasis. Never
without a trace of regret, Stravinsky took heritage to task, con-
demning adherence rather than fond memory. His way of doing
this has been accomplished; but what he did, and the attitude that
therein has found its documentation, will continue to speak to
anyone who would but listen.
-Herbert Briin

Stravinsky has bequeathed us many things but nothing more

valuable and exemplary than his ability to fuse exquisite beauty with
clear ordered thinking during his long and varied life as a com-
poser. Precision and beauty of sound are not now often heard
together. We discover many works which have a satisfying logic of
thought allied to an unfortunate sound, if any was indeed heard
at all by the composer. We have also works which throw up clouds
of attractive sound and seldom much else, with a lack of order, this
at times now being held a virtue. In Stravinsky's work of all periods
we find this order and beauty whether it be in Le Sacre du Printemps,
Apollon Musagete, or the Requiem Canticles. His life was a service to
music; an offering for us to accept or reject and his work will with-
stand whatever attitude we take towards it. A common touch per-
vades his music, there is something for all to appreciate for Stravinsky
was of a stature which allowed his imagination to embrace the loftiest
as well as the most brash elements of musical thought: a testament
to his directness and sincerity.
He leaves us the example of a great man who did what he did as
thoroughly and as beautifully as he could. His example and his work
remain to delight and satisfy our ears and our minds and now he
rests peacefully in a quiet corner of San Michele in Venice.
-Iain Hamilton

At the last class of term I played my students the record of Requiem

Canticles, saying "That's his latest work-so far." Then one spring
morning in vacation came the wireless news of his death. My thoughts
went back fourteen years to a summer school at which he had been
137
present. I remembered how small he was-like Schoenberg, Wagner,
Napoleon-a tiny gnome in a beret. I remembered an evening con-
cert, the girls of the choir in their summer frocks singing "This
ae night, this ae night . . ." and the distinguished guest rising to
clap the performers and then to acknowledge the applause with
a jovial expansive gesture and a surprisingly broad grin: a rather
smart little man with broad shoulders and an enormous head,
hair combed sparsely back over a shining dome. I remembered
seeing him at rehearsal with a viola player who was to play his solo
Elegy: Stravinsky almost leaned over him, his great ear held close in
a cupped hand-what could be more terrifying for a performer?
I remembered having to fetch him once (I was working in the sum-
mer school office) after a performance of The Soldier's Tale, to steer
him toward his next appointment. Very young and shy, I hung
around the edge of the group surrounding him; eventually I an-
nounced my function: an arm came out, and a gritty dark-brown
Russian voice said, "Ah . . . you are the Devil come to take away the
Soldier, my friend...."
Memories of the great are very often trivia, like these-only inter-
esting or valuable to him who remembers-but worth being proud
of, perhaps. To have been alive in the age of Stravinsky-that is
something to glory in. Just imagine: until last month, there lived in
New York a man who as a child once saw Tchaikovsky; who as a
young man was feted by the vanished Proustian world of Paris 1910;
who rode the equally fabled years of Europe in the 1920's among
the other great ones who formed this century's music-and outlived
them all; who lived to hail Marteau and Gruppen, whose composers
were in their cradles when he was a man of forty-five; who went
round the world in old age, seeing everywhere the eventual triumph
of his music. The other long-livers-Haydn, Rossini, Sibelius-can
hardly match such a span. They did not experience in their lifetimes
quite such a fantastic degree of stylistic change. Nor did they to the
same extent continue to react creatively to the changing scene, or
from early youth to extreme old age keep in touch not only with the
newest music, but with contemporary thought in most fields. Who
could tell by looking at them that the song cycle Faune et Bergere
(1906) and the Aldous Huxley Variations (1964) were by the same
person, or from the same century?
Now the last reconciliation has taken place-he has come back-
with the old magician's final, most happy, gesture-to Europe, to
Venice, to the Orthodox Church, to Diaghilev. Now we are left only
with the works, a row of volumes on a shelf. For every serious

* 138 ?
composer, they are something from which he must learn in order to
build any sort of technique. They are part of the consciousness of
every educated musical person: they are an ornament of our lives.
And they are even more than this because they have reached a wider
range of people than most composers of this century have succeeded
in doing. I remember once traveling on a south London suburban
train and overhearing a conversation about music between two
schoolboys. Eventually, summing up, one of them said, with the
solemn conclusiveness of 15 or 16 years: "When you come down to
it, man, there's only two people who matter-Beethoven and
Stravinsky."
It may be that the wit and the elegance for which Stravinsky's
music has so often been celebrated are the qualities most open to the
ravages of time. Certainly they are the most vulnerable part of
Stravinsky's personality for lumpenintellectuellen(academics, critics,
committeemen, knighted and benighted boobies and prigs of all
kinds) who have never been able to forgive Stravinsky his successful
worldliness-all those princesses and international seasons and
Monte Carlo-or the music which seems to reflect it. I love all that
side of him, too. Yet the music also tells us-and quite clearly-that
inside this mondain personality is a spirit never yet fully fathomed,
perhaps only approachable through the music itself, religious in
essence, manifested increasingly over the years in overtly religious
pieces, but also perceptible in many other "abstract"ones. How often
do we meet the reverse of that throbbing orgiastic primeval energy
which is Stravinsky's best known gift to the art of music! How often
he conjures up an intense stillness-"the still point of the turning
world." It is like an evocation of the ancient world as seen by the
great painters-a calm classical landscape peopled by figures from
Poussin, who pause spellbound by the Elysian sounds of stringed
instruments, of woodwinds, of harp.
This quality will enable the Symphonyin Three Movements (middle
movement), Persephone,Apollon Musagete and many others from the
middle of Stravinsky's life to survive the fever-chart zigzags of critical
fashion. This quality of stillness I cherish chiefly in his music: and
I hear it in its purest form in the bells resounding into silence at the
end of Les Noces, and doing so again, half a century later, at the end
of Requiem Canticles-and which will continue to ring in our ears.

-Hugh Wood

LR7tI

* 139
 Stravinskyand Tradition: First Thoughts

Of the many lessons that are still to be learned from Stravinsky,

one that may be of particular interest to us is the relation of his
music to the traditions of the past. For the idea of tradition is still
not something with which Americans feel very comfortable. Usually
when we say something is traditional we simply mean that it hap-
pened last year, or that we are used to it, which makes it a custom.
To a European, tradition is much more of a living thing. It is the
refined accumulation of past experience. It is something that people,
at least some people, like to take care of and hand on to their chil-
dren, like some great natural resource. At its worst, tradition de-
generates into a stifling repetition of past gestures, now meaningless.
At its best, it enriches human existence and gives it a perspective not
otherwise available.
The particular tradition in which Stravinsky grew up was that of
nineteenth-century Russian music, which the Russians themselves
call Classic and which we call Romantic. But from the First World
War-from the four-hand pieces of 1915, to be exact-Stravinsky
deliberately moved into another, a wider tradition, that of Western
European music from the Middle Ages to the present. Identifying
step by step with works, composers, and practices of the past, he
finally extended his reach as far back as Machaut. The music that
resulted constitutes the bulk of Stravinsky's oeuvre.
Yet the amount of serious critical writing (and thought?) about this
music is small indeed. Is it because the music is so "simple"? But
who does not suspect that there is much more than lies on the sur-
face. Just what is the difference between Stravinsky's Violin Concerto
and Bach's? Just what did Stravinsky do to the music of Pergolesi
and Tchaikovsky that made them sound like Stravinsky? There are
many fascinating technical questions to be raised, and there are many
esthetic questions too. Technical questions are always easier to ask
and to answer than esthetic ones, so one may assume that the right
questions will turn up in the technical domain. Arthur Berger has
already made a good start with his thoughtful article "Pitch Organi-
zation in Stravinsky," but the esthetics of music is virtually an un-
written book. Yet Stravinsky's relation to tradition lies, in large part,
within that neglected domain.
As I see it, the main thrust of Stravinsky's middle period was to
place his music within the mainstream of European musical tradition
and to keep that tradition alive. Now, to think that tradition is kept
alive by repeating the actions of the past is, again, to confound tradi-
tion and ritual. Stravinsky understood that the only way to keep
* 140 ?
tradition alive is to reinterpret it in contemporary terms. He re-
thought music of the past centuries, and what he produced as a
result was linked to those centuries, yet was uniquely his own. At
least in his case, the search for a usable past led to the invention of
a viable present.
Case in point: The Rake's Progress has been acclaimed as the cul-
mination of the middle period. And we haven't even begun to plumb
its depths. It strikes me that what Rake is all about is, precisely, opera.
By this I don't mean only that the spirits of Monteverdi, Handel, and
Mozart (at least) are pressed into service. Beyond such evocation of
the ancestors lies a conceptual basis: what is opera? More particu-
larly, what is the opera of closed forms? HQw does it work? What
kind of music for the closed forms? How to get from one number to
the other? How much repetition of music from one number to
another? How much action is needed? When and where does the
music take over?
If we are ever to gain a coherent view of Stravinsky's music from
the first World War thru the Mass, we will need a clearer view of
the esthetic context. Part of that context, no doubt, will be seen to
have been the gesture of stepping back from the abyss of the first
war and the attendant destruction of the social order, both prophe-
sied by Le Sacre du Printemps.But another, related part, I think, will
prove to be the precise nature of Stravinsky's involvement with the
tradition he had acquired-in itself no mean accomplishment-and
the many ways in which he used the past for his own creative pur-
poses. There is much to learn.
-Leo Kraft

The Acrobatof Apollo (1971)

.. aristocrat,virtuoso,interestedin games and manipulation,disdainful,

haughty, brilliant, mercurial,given to codes and mystification,passionately
Russian, relentlesslycritical with a scathing intelligence,cynical, mordantly
witty, ironist, lean, materialistic,precise, artful conjurer and juggler to an
absent monarch....
Thirty years after Stravinsky's death how will we see him? Thirty
years ago his impact was staggering. Today Stravinsky is either friend
or enemy of modern music-depending on where you sit. He is the
one contemporary composer on whom an entire library has been

* 141
written, much of it written by himself and all of it written during his
lifetime; yet no clear consensus has emerged. In 1971 Stravinsky is
an enigma. The disturbing phenomenon of his chameleon-like evo-
lution poses seemingly unanswerable riddles at his death.
If we look into our own sequestered impressions of the man,
perhaps the early ones will count the most. If we explore the impli-
cations of every elusive clue that strikes our fancy perhaps we may
discover how each of us relates to the image of Stravinsky. For relate
to him we must. We can not forget him ... or forgive him.
As a composer who grew up musically during the forties, I remem-
ber, with a certain nostalgia the tremendous sense of awe I felt when
I heard Firebird,Petrouchka,and Le Sacre for the first time. The power
and sheer beauty of Les Noces and the Symphonyof Psalms were over-
whelming. At that time I was also fascinated by Debussy, Varese, and
Schoenberg-but it was not easy to hear the works of the latter two
since they were not recorded, and performances were few and far
between. I would carefully copy out isolated pages from the orchestra
scores of all four composers and try to unlock their secrets by com-
paring their approaches to rhythmic organization and instrumental
design. I was dazzled by the scope of the acoustical engineering and
the arrestingly ingenious graphic conceptions required in laying out
these massive orchestra scores. Soon I noticed elements of all four
composers' work manifesting themselves in my own music. As I
became more and more detached from the influence of these masters,
the methods I had been most interested in became completely inter-
nalized. An irresistible fascination with the rhythmic inventions of
Stravinsky provided me with a crucial turning point in my early works.
Of course there were all sorts of lesser influences during these
apprentice years: everybody's musical vocabulary distilled bits of
technique from Bart6k, Hindemith, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Poulenc,
Milhaud, Moussorgsky, Ravel, Webern, Scriabin, Berg, Villa-Lobos,
Bloch and in the late forties Messiaen and Carl Orff. The American
school, which was just coming into its own in the late forties, grad-
ually developed its unusual mixed blend of rugged individualists.
Copland, Thomson, Harris, Gershwin, Ives, Ruggles, Schuman,
Dello Joio, Hanson, Barber, Cage, Brant, Babbitt, Carter, Bernstein,
Menotti, Sessions, and Blitzstein - to name those who had achieved
recognition. Even though their styles differed radically the fact
remains that a unique American sound was fast emerging. For the
most part it had little to do with Stravinsky's stylistic preoccupations
at that time. But the musical genesis of these eclectic styles owed
more than a little to Stravinsky's approaches to orchestration and
rhythm.
* 142 ?
 In the early fifties my involvement with Stravinsky's neoclassicism
existed only in brief orbit. I would enter his world occasionally for a
bit of diversion between the huge, complex twelve-tone works I was
writing at that time. For me Stravinsky's image soon fizzled out again
for I had lost interest in his dilettantish pranks and stylistic trans-
formations. It was the music and techniques of Schoenberg, however,
the fresh procedures of Webern, and richly expressionistic colors
of Berg that had really taken root in my own work. My debt to
Stravinsky had narrowed down to his revolutionary approach to
rhythmic problems, in particular those dating back to Le Sacre.
Stravinsky's changeover to the Viennese school was a major event.
It was discussed with much passion. His critics interpreted his move
as an implicit disavowal of everything he had written until then.
Somehow I found myself curiously indifferent to the fact that
Stravinsky at the age of seventy had adopted serialism, the one guid-
ing principle he had shunned and abused until then. But so many Stra-
vinsky disciples immediately followed suit, and a population explosion
in the twelve-tone world was the ultimate result. The distinction be-
tween the followers of Stravinsky and the followers of Schoenberg
was no longer meaningful since serialism had gained universal
acceptance. During the fifties and sixties, Stravinsky's importance
seemed to have waned. His dialogues and biographical writings
proved to be more effective in keeping his image before the public
than his later music. The young composers of the sixties were moving
along three main currents-chance, electronics, and serialism. Since
Stravinsky's serialism was hardly taken seriously by the new genera-
tion of composers, no trace of his influence could be found in their
work. His characteristic habit of stylistic transformation held no at-
traction for them. In their eyes, his once-brilliant virtuosity had been
thinned down to empty parodies and stylistic exercises.
Looking back, I think my mood of indifference to Stravinsky's
switch to serialism was really disappointment in disguise. I had been
waiting unconsciously for Stravinsky to find a new path, an exciting
direction that would rock the world again with the impact of Le Sacre.
I did not need Stravinsky's belated affirmation of Schoenberg or
Webern to convince me of anything (I had been writing twelve-tone
music for years). In my fantasy, I was waiting to hear a vital message
from this revered master, one which would unleash such exhilarating
energies that a totally new environment for contemporary music
would emerge. But alas, no new Le Sacre was destined to appear. We
can only speculate as to the reasons.
"... A work like Le Sacre, a really monster work, is always danger-
ous," wrote Jean Cocteau in 1922, "dangerous for others and danger-
* 143
ous for the author. A disorderly genius with a badly planted intelli-
gence happening to give birth to such a work would be likely to stop
there, to make capital of it his whole life, as if it were a gold mine."
In an article written around the same time, Ernest Ansermet de-
scribes the sacrifices which Stravinsky's musical evolution had de-
manded of him: ". . . he has had to let all sorts of musical habits go
by the board, to discard all sorts of loyalties to beloved forms, all
sorts of easy roads which he might have taken. His evolution is not the
result of deliberate plan; rather has it been imposed upon him by the
pitiless logic of his creative genius."
To any musician familiar with Stravinsky's music, even a cursory
glance at the impressive catalogue of his works would reveal a curious
configuration of shifting positions. Is it possible that the most char-
acteristic element of Stravinsky's creative evolution is precisely its
discontinuity? Did he, on the other hand, find himself at a creative
impasse, as his critics have often averred, because he could not sur-
pass his earlier work? Or did his ultimate exile from Russia and the
gradual withdrawal from his only remaining circle of Russian creative
contacts-the Ballet Russe-eventually play a major part in under-
mining the natural direction of his work, redirecting it into a channel
that was cold, objective, beautifully crafted-but utterly void of any
warmth or expression?
For Stravinsky, then a composer of thirty, the enormous triumph
of Le Sacre may have been so overwhelming psychologically that he
would forever shy away from attempting anything like it again. To
risk failure on such a grand scale was unthinkable. Also, the mysteri-
ous role of Diaghilev, with whom Stravinsky enjoyed the most fruit-
ful collaboration of his career, invites speculation. Stravinsky, writ-
ing about their work together on Firebird, said ". . . the very close
association I had with him [Diaghilev] during this first collaboration
revealed the very essence of his great personality. What struck me
most was the degree of endurance and tenacity that he displayed in
pursuit of his ends. His strength in this direction was so exceptional
that it was somewhat terrifying, though at the same time reassuring,
to work with him." Stravinsky maintained that it was terrifying be-
cause every divergence of opinion meant an arduous and exhausting
struggle between the two. He found it reassuring to know, however,
that the goal was certain to be reached once their differences had
been overcome. Stravinsky was in awe of Diaghilev's unusual per-
ception and quick imagination. The quality of his particular men-
tality and intelligence attracted him. "He had a wonderful flair,"
wrote Stravinsky, "a marvelous faculty for seizing at a glance the
novelty and freshness of an idea, surrendering himself to it without
pausing to reason it out."
144
 How powerful was Diaghilev's influence on the course of Stra-
vinsky's evolution? Some hint of his hold on Stravinsky may be found
in the composer's words after the two men had been separated for
about a year: "When I saw him [Diaghilev] in Paris, I naturally told
him about the 'Soldat' and the pleasure that its success had given me,
but he did not evince the least interest. I knew him too well to be sur-
prised- he was incredibly jealous about his friends and collaborators,
especially those he most esteemed. He simply would not recognize
their right to work apart from him and his undertakings." We can
surmise from this one of the major reasons Stravinsky gradually
freed himself from Diaghilev's relentless tenacity. Apparently
Diaghilev could not help himself-he was too emotional. He regarded
every outside involvement of his friends as a breach of faith. He even
found it difficult to tolerate Stravinsky's appearance at concerts
having nothing to do with the theater. As their relationship cooled,
Stravinsky began to avoid those compositional conceptions that
Diaghilev had encouraged so passionately. After a friendship of al-
most twenty years Stravinsky sums up Diaghilev's morbid atmosphere
of painful gropings: " 'Modernism' at any price, cloaking a fear of
not being in the vanguard; the search for something sensational;
uncertainty as to what line to take..." It is interesting that Stravinsky's
position regarding the young, aggressive composers in the vanguard
three or four decades later, implied the same criticism: sensationalism
and "Modernism" at any price, etc.
Stravinsky achieved a fair measure of popular success with several
works that followed Le Sacre: most important among these were
L'Histoire du Soldat, Les Noces, and Symphonyof Psalms. Unfortunately
The Rake'sProgress,the longest work he ever composed, was hampered
by a static libretto. In none of these works or in any other of his works
after Le Sacre was the kinetic inspiration as powerful a stimulant as in
Le Sacre.
Although the last collaborations with Diaghilev took place outside
of Russia, the total ambience of the Russian artistic circle was intact-
since the dancers, designers, choreographers, etc., of the Ballet Russe
were mostly Russian. Stravinsky's ultimate exile may provide us with
another key to the restless nature and the wandering or shifting styles
of his later periods. The vastness of a country such as Russia with its
primitive forces and traditions, its ever present battle with the ele-
ments, the warm, earthy flamboyance of its people, its rich heritage
of legends and rituals and the frequent internal upheavals of its
many states would have an indelible effect on the creative spirit of
any artist. Stravinsky, separated from his mother country, may have
developed a parallel esthetic of art - that is, "Art removed to a second
degree." Deprived of the rich subsoil of Russian culture to fertilize
145-
his creative genius, he turned to parodies, neoclassical preoccupa-
tions, and the attitude of ironic detachment which was to characterize
him for the rest of his life.
Mavra, a one-act opera composed in 1922, was dedicated to the
memory of Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, and Glinka. In 1928 he wrote
Le Baiser de la Fee, a ballet based on the music of Tchaikovsky. Both
works may have been conceived through a form of creative sentimen-
tality-a nostalgia for Russia. Even L'Histoiredu Soldat (1918) is based
on Russian folklore although it actually uses very little Russian musi-
cal material. Les Noces, however, composed between 1914 and 1917
and given its final orchestral garb in 1923, is strongly rooted in Rus-
sian sources. A Russian peasant wedding provides Stravinsky with
the basis for a striking series of choral pieces. The chants, the orna-
mented figures, the insistent patterns of pitch repetition and the
ritualistic style of the percussion and piano orchestration-all are
fundamentally Russian in character. A far less consequential work,
the burlesque opera Renard (1916-17) was based, for the most part,
on Russian materials.
Although Les Noces was hailed by many composers as Stravinsky's
greatest masterpiece next to Le Sacre, he turned his back on its style
and dove into neoclassicism. The curious thing is that he seemed
intent on absorbing the most heterogeneous characteristics in the
tradition of Western music in order to establish his new musical
synthesis. The idea of mixing elements that were never meant to be
mixed or that were totally foreign to each other can be viewed as a
form of aesthetic displacement not unlike the spiritual displacement
Stravinsky undoubtedly suffered during his exile.
Composition based on preexisting material is hardly new to music.
Since it was so often used, and in such a variety of ways, it was ob-
viously a recognized way of working for many composers, per-
formers, amateurs, journeymen, troubadours, and members of the
clergy. We can find endless examples of borrowed themes, forms,
parodies, and transformations from the Renaissance right down to
the present. Parody technique, in the hands of a brilliant composer,
can provide a sophisticated public with the most sparkling art of all:
the art of artifice. Needless to say, the parody can only have effect if
the public knows the original material and if the composer's treat-
ment is transparent enough to keep the identity of the original
reasonably evident. Musical take-offs have been used frequently as
high-brow and low-brow entertainments. Evidently this particular
function had considerable attraction for Stravinsky; the game was a
challenge to his wit and virtuosity and could be related, quite often,
to a kinetic form. Unfortunately the take-off can easily suggest to

146
those who are opposed to it in principle that the composer is merely
trying to camouflage the absence of real content in his work, that he is
floundering around in an unsettled esthetic environment, or that he
has burned himself out. Critics of Stravinsky have accused him of all
three.
Eric Salzman offers a positive view of Stravinsky's neoclassicism:
"The essence of Stravinskyian 'neo-classicism' lies in the thorough
renovation of classical form achieved through a new and creative
rebuilding of tonal practice independent of the traditional functions
which had first established those forms." Edward T. Cone's interest-
ing comparison between Stravinsky and the musical worlds of Haydn
and Schoenberg suggests a somewhat different position: "In listening
to the Haydn and Schoenberg examples we are engrossed by the way
in which the personal style is constantly reshaping the general con-
vention. We should hear Stravinsky in just the opposite sense: what
is of prime importance is how the borrowed convention extends and
modifies the personal style ... Stravinsky's style is too strong and too
individual to permit long disguise. To watch it preserve its identity
through all its adventures is endlessly fascinating." A cursory analysis
of any neoclassical work by Stravinsky will show that he transforms
the borrowed material so radically to suit his own purpose that the
piece he ultimately creates remains only superficially related to its
original source.
Essentially, the most cogent question concerning Stravinsky's
neoclassicism is "Why?" Admirers of Stravinsky are usually quick
to point out that he never experienced any "flat failures." In a certain
sense this is very true, although pieces likeJeu de Cartes,OedipusRex,
and Dumbarton Oaks Concerto are exceedingly dull and lifeless. The
transfusion of contemporary tricks into the eighteenth-century
operatic style of The Rake's Progress was not enough to breathe life
into its slow-moving score. Pulcinella, an orchestral suite based on
themes of Pergolesi, is, according to many musicians, nothing more
than a stylistic exercise. As a matter of fact, one critic contends that
the sharp, irritating intrusion of dissonances in a consonant frame-
work reveals that Stravinsky was capable of serious lapses in taste. The
assumption that after Le Sacre each new work was supposed to be a
"fresh start"-or that Stravinsky was continually looking for "new
worlds to conquer" - would seem, on the surface, easy to support.
But when his neoclassical ritual deteriorated into an addiction, it
became painfully clear that the only new worlds he would try to con-
quer henceforth would be (safely) borrowed from a random stack of
old world manuscripts lying around on his desk.
Everything about The Rake's Progress was clearly "un-Russian" in
* 147
character, style, or spirit. The same may be said about most of his
neoclassical works and, of course, all of his serial pieces. The bigness,
the power, the explosive temperament, the irrational behavior, the
fantasy and the deep affection and sentiment, are nowhere to be
found in these works. Being Russian meant being BIG-something
like the "ultimate Texan." Instead, Stravinsky like so many alienated
Russian intellectuals, eventually became polarized-quite perma-
nently-to an esthetic of miniaturization and refinement.
Stravinsky had little patience with other composers who were at-
tempting eclectic mixtures-particularly when their attempts were
on a grand scale. His criticism of Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie,
for example, is unbelievably vicious. After citing the work as another
instance of "plus d'embarras que de richesses" he disqualifies himself
as a judge because he is "not an ornithologist." Then he suggests
that the work is ". .. a mixture of gamelans and Lehar." Later he dis-
covers traces of "Charlie Chan" and his own Petrouchka(for which he
would like to receive royalties). Stravinsky's closing attack is so acid
that is makes one wonder why his reaction was that extreme: ". ..
what "Turangalila" needed . . . was a very cold douche of the most
intensive self-consciousness." It is more than likely that Turangalila
had entered into the esthetic sphere of Le Sacre and Les Noces. The
symphony's ostinato techniques, its heterogeneous mixture of me-
lodic and coloristic elements, its primitivism, its arresting blocks of
rhythmic structures, and its gigantesque conception were all within
the orbit of Russian "BIGNESS." Messiaen had stumbled into the old
master's private hunting grounds, Stravinsky's exclusive but aban-
doned esthetic domain, and wandered off with one of the few re-
maining prizes!
For me the sadness of Stravinsky's death is deepened because I
believe that although he was potentially the greatest composer of
this century, perhaps of all time, and enjoyed more success and fame
during his lifetime than any other composer in history-he was
fundamentally unfulfilled.
His skill and virtuosity, which he could carry with him wherever he
went, were like the playthings of an abandoned house. "Fingers,"
he once wrote, "are not to be despised: they are great inspirers,
and, in contact with a musical instrument, often give birth to subcon-
scious ideas which might otherwise never come to life." After the
early ballets he continued to live and work abroad by the disciplines
of his art but in essence something in him had stopped functioning.
More and more he had come to approach his work from the outside
in.
With the tremendous success of Le Sacre his fame soared. Stravin-

? 148
sky had burst every tradition asunder. Suddenly he was flying: and
like an acrobat executing the most dangerous leap of all, he sucked in
the insane ecstasy of the crowd. Then, suspended in the pitiless glare
of public expectation, he froze. There was no way down. Far below,
the net, his homeland, had disappeared. The crowd waited. He gave
them tricks, somersaults, and contortions that delighted them. It
was easy for him and he was supremely good at it. So he decided to
continue. At that moment, imperceptibly, his spirit went into exile.

-Meyer Kupferman

Rt7tI

In Quest of the RhythmicGenius

Consider a Stravinsky memorialframed to celebrate his genius as a

rhythmic inventor: (Stravinsky's rhythm: a natural perspective from
which to memorialize him: it focused his first notoriety, and remained
all his life the principal public token of his compositional originality;
was it not, too, the immediate locus of that sharp awareness of
rhythm as a vital, independent dimension of musical invention and
experience which seemed so imminent early in this century, and
has become so manifest?)
One would wish, at the outset, to focus on some instances of his singular
rhythmicinvention: (exemplification is clearly indispensable here: for
how eulogize a rhythmic genius except in the presence (at least
implied, at least ostensively displayed) of rhythms he may be said
to have invented; or, not to put too fine an ontological point on it,
the presence of something plausibly isolated as the rhythmic con-
stituent of some passage of his music; or, even, the presence of
some passage of his music whose overall identity arises most overtly
from its rhythmic characteristic?)
Perplexity,however,unexpectedlyintervenes: (is it obvious what to dis-
play -what to count, that is, as a rhythm, or even what sort of thing to
so count? Does believing "Stravinsky was a great master of rhythmic
invention" imply believing that he invented "great rhythms"? And
how does singling out his rhythmic invention distinguish him: does
it, perhaps incautiously, imply the inferior originality of the rhythms
of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms; or does it
imply that Stravinsky's music is less remarkable in its non-rhythmic
than in its rhythmic aspects? Suppose (after following such a de-
liberative path past the observation that, clearly, rhythms are "things"

* 149
in a sense quite different from that in which pitches are, or timbres,
or melodies) rhythms come to be regarded as patterns of relative
duration, determined by the timelengths occupied by discrete sub-
segments of a timespan totality. Or suppose, rather, that rhythms
are understood to be instances of such patterns: the timelength
pattern exhibited by an (auditory) succession, whatever the (auditory)
character of its constituents, is the (musical) rhythm of that succes-
sion. It follows, then, that anything auditory that exhibits that time-
length pattern embodies that rhythm. And a "great rhythm" will
always be recognizable and experienceable as such-and as itself-
under all such transformations in embodiment.)
The intuitive uncertainty of this proposition may be resolved by an ex-
periential test: (suppose the chord-repeating opening of the Dance
of the Adolescents (Sacre du Printemps, No. 13) to be illustrative of
a Stravinskyan rhythmic invention. By the proposed characteriza-
tion, its rhythmic identity should be preservable in a transcription
for, say, tom-tom solo. But new difficulties arise as soon as we try
to perform the test: what counts as "a transcription of the passage
for tom-tom solo," with respect to "preserving the rhythm"? What
are the things whose durations project the pattern that is experienced
here as "the rhythm": the individual chords (all evenly spaced); the
chord-stretches articulated by accents and horn doublings; or?
Is, then, the relevant tom-tom transciiption: 1. a string of 32 un-
differentiated eighth-note-apart attacks; or 2. a string of 6 attacks
spaced as are the 6 horn-doubled, accented chords? Perhaps both
patterns are crucial "rhythms of the passage"; perhaps only their
polyphony can reenact the total rhythmic event. Perhaps the rele-
vant transcription combines 1. and 2.: a tom-tom duet, one of whose
parts contains 32 evenly spaced eighth-note-apart attacks, while
the other contains 6 attacks spaced as are the 6 horn-doubled,
accented chords.)
In performance,how likely does it seem that any Sacre-innocent listener
to any of these versions will experiencewhat "the rhythmat the opening of
the Dance of the Adolescents"is meant to signify? (Would a piano tran-
scription be an improvement; but not an unqualified success? And
does the answer suggest that the pitches of the chords, registered
as string and horn sounds, bluntly detached by all-downbow articu-
lation, and-even perhaps-set in the context of the preceding and
following Sacre-stretches-does it suggest that these all figure, to
varying degrees, in what is mentally indexed as the "rhythmic feel"
of these measures?)
Here, perhaps, a comparativeexaminationof an unquestionableinstance
of "pure rhythm"could be revealing: (the contents of a recording of
150
African drums in concert qualifies as not only a classic, but an
obvious test: what but "pure rhythm" is there to respond to? What
experience but a purely rhythmic one is possible? For answer, try
a transcription for clavichord, or one for chicken feathers scratching
glass: does the response to pure rhythm now seem separable from
the responses to drum timbres, pitches, polyphonies of these, or
even perhaps extramusical predispositions; if this is an instance of
what is meant by "throbbing rhythms;" in what sense can it be the
rhythmswhich are said to throb?)
Some tentative hypothesesmay now emerge: (1. the intuitive content
of "a rhythm" seems sometimes to include coincidences of several
rhythms simultaneously unfolded; 2. the intuitive sense of "a
rhythmic identity" of some stretch of music, its characteristic quality
as a rhythmic event, arises not only from the pattern-of-duration
complex observed but also, crucially, from the special disposition
of that complex relative to significant functional events in other
auditory dimensions.)
These may bring the notion of "rhythmicinvention" to a broader,if not
a sharper,focus: (1. perhaps the rhythmic stratum of a total musical
structure is isolable by slicing, out of the totality, just its durational
components. Then, the independent disposition of these compo-
nents in pattern-of-duration complexes might indeed be regarded
as the "rhythmic structure" of the whole. Like the pitch structure
or the timbral structure, the rhythmic structure, just in that it may
be determinately isolated, is externally independent; but its con-
textual identity, its identity as a particular musical rhythm, is de-
pendent on a specific interaction with all the other functioning strata
of the whole.
2. Rhythmic invention, then, involves both the projection of a
particular "rhythmic structure" and a particular association of this
structure with a complex of structures in other dimensions of musical
perception.)
Which representsprogress: (a virtue of the above characterization is
that it enables one to account consistently both for the strong intui-
tive unease felt about the rhythmic identities of the attempted
transcriptions (out of context, the "same" rhythms produce different
"rhythmic effects"), and the equally strong certainty that the ob-
servable rhythms of the original were in fact being transcribed with
demonstrably literal veracity (the transcription events match the
original events one to one in a determinately consistent way).)
Notice, however,that the proposedcharacterizationconcealsan assumption
that "durational components"are analogous (in at least their independent
isolability) to pitch components,timbral components,et al.: (concede that
151?
simple patterns of attack duration are only the most immediate
aspect (and often, as in the Sacre example, a trivial aspect) of the
significant pattern-of-duration totality identified here as "rhythmic
structure," and the assumption of parity or analogy is seen to be
suspect. For even under the "neutral" definition proposed, a rhythm
is always a rhythm of something. That is, the "patterns of duration"
that have been mentioned are determinedby the relative times between
the initiations of successive things; in music, this priority of deter-
minacy is substantive, and thus a musical duration is necessarily the
duration of something.And apart from "attacks" (which may be iden-
tified with the atomic "sounds" of a musical context), the musical
"things" that have durations are determined by functionally guided
slicings in the non-rhythmic strata: pitch things, timbre things,
registral things, etc., and their complexes (for example, pitch-timbre
things). Patterns of durations, moreover, are individually derived
from uniform thing-type successions: the Sacre example counter-
points a "rhythm of all attacks" with a "rhythm of horn-doubled
and accented attacks." "Phrase rhythm" is thus a rhythm of things
which are themselves composed of complexes of counterpoints and
successions of sub-things, typically in several strata.)
Hence the analogy appears to be unwarranted: (for while durations
are independently specifiable, the question which durations it is
relevant to specify hangs on a prior identification of the things of
which they are durations; and these things depend for their identi-
fication on observed functional activity in dimensions other than
that of duration. So the durations in a piece cannot even be identified
beyond the one-attack-at-a-time level, along with whatever larger-
scale uniformities the attack-scheme projects independently, prior
to the determination of a functional basis for events in at least one
of those dimensions in which things are to be independently ob-
served, or whose components are crucially involved in the determi-
nation of complex events. How could a tremolo unfolding of a single
chord be distinguished durationally from a fast alternation of
chords, prior to the observational operation of a functional concept
of pitch relations? And how could "events" such as phrases, chord
successions, etc., be distinguished observationally except by the
operation of a theory, however subliminal, of tonal function? And
without a whole battery of functional discriminations of dynamics,
timbres, registral locations and dispersions, and modes of articu-
lation, how would a listener distinguish the first two attacks of the
Eroica Symphony as an event from the possible (and possibly co-
relevant) events comprised of the first 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10
attacks?)
152
 Now, perhaps, a further refinementof the notion of rhythmmay be pos-
sible: (characterize as "rhythmic structure" the complex of relations
observable between "functional extents" (as defined within the
functional dimensions of a musical structure) and "time extents";
thus, the variable temporal projection of, say, some basic pitch-
functional event in distinct presentations, counterpointed with the
variable pitch-functional contents of successive timespans of a given
length, might more closely capture what is intuited as the rhythmic
nature of a musical structure.)
But notice at the same time that such a characterizationof "rhythmic
structure"virtually deprives rhythmof its independentstatus as a musical
stratum: (according to the proposed account, the rhythms of a piece
cannot be determined prior to a determination of the other-dimen-
sional functional things which create those rhythms by virtue of the
times they take to occur and to be succeeded. And so rhythm is seen
as the secondary creation of other aspects of musical perception,
an automatic effect of their significant activity. As such, it seems
hardly to qualify as a significant activity in itself, except in its most
superficial and immediate manifestation: the successions of single
attacks and their independently articulated patterns.)
Thus the net effect of the attempted clarification is to generate still
deeper perplexity: (here a concept of rhythmic structure, carefully
molded to capture and account for just that which seems intuitively
significant in the experience of rhythm in music, has as an apparent
consequence the denial of the importance normally and with intui-
tive rightness ascribed to that experience as a determinant of musical
identity; that is, the concept appears to deny the very intuition on
which it is principally founded and by which it is principally moti-
vated: the intuition, in fact, whose affirmation is its principal task,
and hence whose denial would be its ultimate failure.)
But a question of perspectivearises: (for rhythm itself is not neces-
sarily what the proposed concept may be said to have depreciated,
but only the independent role of structures of duration. And insofar
as such structures have been taken to be rhythm in the foregoing, it
is this policy which has been called severely into question.)
Once abandon the identification,and the assertednotion of rhythmicstruc-
ture permits a spectacular rehabilitationof the place of rhythmin musical
structure: (to speak of a rhythm is, as noted, to speak of the rhythm
of something; from this followed the downfall of purely durational
rhythms as significant musical entities.
But equally it follows that to speak of a structure formed within
any musical dimension(s) is to speak solely of a rhythmic structure,
a structure unfolded in time.
* 153 ?
 To speak, for example, of the pitch-structural contents of a piece
merely as a collection of available functions is to speak of the piece
arhythmically. Once speak of a particular succession of partial or
whole instances of that collection, and that is talk of the rhythmic
structure of pitch relations. To speak of pitch structure only as an
ordinal relation of events is to speak of the rhythmic structure of
pitch relations in a rather loosely determinate way; speaking of it
as a temporally proportionate ordering of those events is talk of
rhythm that is relatively more determinate. And to speak of the pat-
terns of duration contours, however inferred, as rhythm, is simply to
speak of rhythm in a relatively impoverished way: hence the deprecia-
tion rightly suffered by such talk in the foregoing.)
Thus, in the denial of the independenceof rhythm,its transcendenceis
affirmed: (the rhythmicstructure of a piece is, in the current view,
simply all of its musical structure, subsuming every dimensional and
inter-dimensional substructure, including as a more or less significant
aspect the foreground structure of attack durations.
The theory of rhythm, then, is nothing more or less than the
theory of musical structure in its most comprehensive form. Yet
the "need" for an independent theory of rhythm can hardly be said
to exist; for, since no musical theory can fail to be an at least partial
rhythmic theory, every existing musical theory is in fact a contribu-
tion to the theory of rhythm. Moreover, there can be no useful
general theory of rhythmic structure, since the particular disposition
of functional events in different strata, over differently overlapping
and coinciding spans, is the most individual, the least "systematic,"
attribute of a composed musical structure.
So, for example, the question "What was Schenker's theory of
rhythm?", variably but persistently asked by some of the most en-
lightened recent musical thinkers, is identifiable simply as the ques-
tion, "What were Schenker's observations regarding music?". Insofar
as Schenker offered remarks about harmony, counterpoint, and the
projection of time-ordered pitch-structural events, his work is de-
voted precisely to the rhythmic analysis of tonal music, failing only
to carry it to its most "foreground" stages: a matter of presentation
rather than one of principle. Rhythm, in fact, is the one major respect
in which Schenker's notions of structural levels and structural voice-
leading significantly enrich Rameau's theory of triadic functionality;
and it is this rhythmic enrichment that accounts for the great su-
periority of Schenker's analyses: "structural levels" subdivide given
timespans into sub-timespans. These subspans are (in context) pre-
cisely determinate as to timelength, as their extent is determinable
by direct reference to a specific acoustic (or notational) foreground.
154
And each such subspan is distinguished as a particular rhythmic
event by virtue of some single triadic function it may be observed to
express, however complexly (as, for example, the first span typically
designated by a Schenker Ursatz asserts a single tonic triad). Each
span at a more foreground layer either rhythmicizes (subdivides
into functionally and temporally determined subspans) or repeats
some more background span; hence each layer "covers" the same
structural and temporal ground: that is, the total composition. What
varies is the degree of rhythmic determinacy with which each layer
accounts for the whole. And the "prolongation of triads by con-
trapuntal elaboration" is at the same time a means by which spans are
determined, and the structural content they project.)
In Stravinsky'shonor, then, the rhythmicgenius may be exalted to the
highest position in musical creation; but to honor his own special rhythmic
genius requiresnecessarily-though also sufficiently-the recognition of his
own special genius as a creator of whole new musical worlds: (consider
it done.) done.)
~~~~~~it -Benjamin Boretz

Notes in his Memory

I will not write a eulogy; he needs none. Those who mourn for him
will find no solace in reading, or writing, eulogies; in lamenting his
death, the privacy of their sorrow needs neither public corroboration
nor exposure. The fact of his passing, however, draws one inevitably
to muse, to ponder on his famous career and long life.
He was the last big-time, world-wide, old-style public composer.
Thrown into the limelight by his successes in pre-1914 Paris, his
career was from that moment to unfold within its glare. In the mid-
1920's he began dividing his musical activity into more or less equal
halves, one of which was dedicated to concertizing. The resultant
annual pattern became, and remained, his norm, with considerable
additional publicity thereby accruing for him. In time, the demands
of his position as a public figure entailed ever further extensions and
varieties of exposure: books appeared under his name, yet none of
these were written by him; recordings were issued, ostensibly to pro-
vide evidence of his specific wishes as to the performance of prac-
tically his entire euvre, yet he edited no tapes and was frequently
prevented by local or momentary circumstances-as well as by the
carelessness, the tension, and incompetence which usually pervade
recording enterprises-from enabling a given recorded performance
to represent his preferences; television films were made, but yielded

155
only fragmentary, slanted and, by definition, inconsequential por-
traits. More and more, the public composer was trapped by the un-
controllably proliferating exigencies of publicity into helplessly con-
ferring grateful recognition upon festivals in his honor, at which his
music was played execrably, into lending his approval and participa-
tion to hideously under-rehearsed, and therefore utterly inadequate,
performances of his works, and into suffering his name to be ap-
pended to sundry statements that cannot be conjectured as having
been issued in the best interests of his music, of himself, of his pro-
fessional peers and colleagues-or, for that matter, of the institutions
which have most significantly contributed to their means of support,
as well as, incidentally, to performances, in recent years, of his own
works.
Since it is in the nature of public relations and the machineries of
publicity to emphasize only the superficially noteworthy, the fashion-
ably transitory, the-in short-immediately advertiseable, it follows
that whatever may have more serious or intellectually consequential
purposes will therefore be depreciated, or rudely ignored. This is
precisely what happened throughout the long life of our last public
composer, and it is surely the saddest concomitant of his career that
his music became the victim of all the distracting-and, to it, detract-
ing-limelight. Even now, the salient fact of his life as a composer is
made out to have been the scandale surrounding a premiere that took
place 58 years ago, while the compositions of his last 15 years not only
go unnoticed, but are hardly ever performed.
It is in his final two years that the limelight reaped its bitterest,
crassest harvest of publicity, by focusing with consummate cruelty on
the old gentleman's physical failings and the pitiful, sharp decline of
his faculties. His infirmity was subjected to outrageous public display,
and his ensnarement was rendered the more appallingly evident
through those reiterated projections of his "image," cast into such
preposterous roles as: columnist on the performing arts, reviewer
of books on Beethoven's music, and endlessly chattering granter of
interviews for the popular press. The cynical cultivation of his public
inextinguishability had reached beyond itself, in effect, by obliterating
any reminders of his unique, most distinctive trait: his identity, after
all, as the composer of his music! And as a result of one final, tri-
umphant gesture of true circus-craft, he lies buried near his old im-
presario. (Whether he might himself have wanted it quite this way is,
in my view, a question not even worth asking.)
But enough of that. Deeply distressing-or, with far greater ap-
positeness, personally tragic-as this aspect of his life has been, it
does not in any way impinge upon his music's qualities. Nor, for-
* 156
tunately, did it encroach upon his wholly non-public life as a laboring,
constantly developing composer. It is in connection with this private,
quiet domain of composition that I retain the liveliest, happiest, and
most vivid recollections of him. In the past 28 years there were nu-
merous occasions when, sitting together at a rehearsal, at a recording
session, after a concert, or simply in a room, with scores before us, we
would comment on notes, on the writtenmusic. Often, no more than
a nod or a smile were necessary to signify the perception of some-
thing choice. There were times when I was able to pinpoint details
whose composition had brought him particular delight; or we would
remark with admiration on scores by other composers; and occa-
sionally he would select, with perfect accuracy, some facet in a piece
that I had especially enjoyed composing. Such exchanges seemed to
me then-and seem so all the more in retrospect-to address them-
selves to the very essence of what was of the most vital concern to us
both, and they are therefore personally more meaningful than any
number of witnessed anecdotes or pronouncements could ever be.
As he continued to work, in his old age, I wished him silently, with
each new composition, that he might live to complete it to his satis-
faction, and that he might remain undisturbed and unimpeded by
the loud public noise around him. That wish, happily, was granted
over a long period and a sizeable list of works. What I would now wish
his legacy of manuscripts, sketches, and papers is that it may also-
undisturbed and unimpeded-be made accessible for composers and
scholars, to the benefit of future serious study, and in the interests,
ultimately, of his music; for it is in the notes he wrote that his only
appropriate memorial is erected.
-Claudio Spies

L4rt7

* 157
 F.- ;XAeWL-)
d?i'^JHMi
I-.i. ^ A-ii.ue^

ofn ffffff
;1<r.
~urt);Is
HOJ

./'~~YC .~'~ ......'....,

A page from Stravinsky's manuscript of Preliminary Version D (1919)

of Les Noces. (These measures correspond to p. 32 in the published score
of Les Noces, from No. 41 on.)

* 158 ?
 INDEX TO STRAVINSKY AND CRAFT

I. Conversationswith Igor Stravinsky,by I. S. and Robert Craft. New

York, Doubleday, 1959. London, Faber and Faber, 1959.
II. Memoriesand Commentaries,by I. S. and Robert Craft. New York,
Doubleday, 1960. London, Faber and Faber, 1960.
III. Expositionsand Developments,by I. S. and Robert Craft. New York,
Doubleday, 1962. London, Faber and Faber, 1962.
IV. Dialogues and a Diary, by I. S. and Robert Craft. New York,
Doubleday, 1963. London, Faber and Faber, 1968.
V. Themes and Episodes, by I. S. and Robert Craft. New York,
Knopf, 1966.
VI. Retrospectivesand Conclusions, by I. S. and Robert Craft. New
York, Knopf, 1969.
VII. Bravo Stravinsky,by Arnold Newman and Robert Craft. Cleve-
land, World, 1967.

About four years ago, for purely personal use, I began to record
the locations of the most striking statements made by Stravinsky
in his published dialogues with Robert Craft. Now that this remark-
able set of autobiographical commentaries is complete, it seems
appropriate to offer my compilation for use on a wider basis. This
index is intended to serve a different purpose than that of the indexes
associated with each individual book. Here, the entries refer mostly
to substantive discussion rather than to passing reference; thus they
enable the reader to discern the major references in the seven books
as a group, a need not met by the individual indexes. Moreover, the
topic headings chosen here should enable readers to locate many
of the well-known passages-Stravinsky's famous statement on the
meaning of music, his comparison of himself with Schoenberg, his
blistering reply to two New York critics, and the ingenious page of
musical drawings,1 to cite a few examples.
Taken both individually and as a whole, these books provide a
remarkable insight into their subject. Evidently the question-and-
answer format had a particular appeal for Stravinsky, for these
conversations are far more informative, personal-and entertaining
-than either of his earlier publications.2 And they exhibit many of

1One of which is reproduced on the cover of Perspectives.

2An Autobiography. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1936. Reprinted 1958, 1962.
Poeticsof Music.Cambridge, Harvard UniversityPress, 1942. Reprinted 1947, 1956.
159
the same qualities as his music: tartness, an ear for rhythm and
timing, attention to detail, total mastery of vocabulary, and a sharp
sense of humor. His comments cover a wide range of topics. The
greatest concentration in the two earliest volumes, Conversations...
and Memories . ., is given to his observations on composing, his
fellow musicians, and the then current musical scene. In Expositions...
he relates more of his personal history and initiates the series of
"program notes" on his works which continues through the next
two volumes. The latter three books comprise continuations of all
of the above, often in the form of interviews, appended by long
excerpts from Craft's diaries which, though less interesting, do
present a few remarkable observations of their own.
This index does not pretend to completeness, which in fact would
defeat its purpose. Some comments as to its specific nature are
therefore in order.
(a) Entries are chosen according to the potential interest of the
subject to readers of this journal, the relative substance of the
discussions, and the insight given about the author; some of
the entries are quite specifically topical, such as "Dreams" or
"Ives," while others, such as "Old age," are far more general.
(b) The initial editions shown on the above list are first editions,
published in the United States. (Much of the material in these
books has also appeared elsewhere-in such publications as The
New YorkTimes, the New YorkReview of Books and Harpers maga-
zine prior to publication in book form, and, later, in European
editions of the books.)
(c) The notation IVF refers to the Faber and Faber edition of
Dialogues.... Having lost my copy of the Doubleday edition about
a year before the writing of this article, and having been abso-
lutely unable to find an identical copy, I felt obliged to use the
Faber edition for seven late but vital entries; owners of the
Doubleday edition should experience no difficulties in finding
the corresponding pages.
(d) I have included relatively few references to the Craft diaries.
(e) Several discussions are given multiple entries; as for example
the one in Themes . . ., pp. 11-13, which is listed both under
"Recent trends" and "Stockhausen."
(f) Bravo Stravinsky,essentially a picture album, has a highly infor-
mative running commentary. The book is sectional in format
and contains rather few page numbers, necessitating the use of
such sub-headings as "Dialogues" and "Afterword" (from the
book) in this index.
(g) The boldface entries in the index indicate passages of excep-
tional interest.
160
A. About music in general and Stra- Bruckner: III. 87, 110
vinsky'smusic in particular Cage: III. 108-110
Carter: IV. 48
Composition: I. 13-32; II. 99, 111; Debussy: I. 48-56; III. 149, 157-159
VII. Dialogues p. 1 Falla: II. 76
Compositional habits (his): V. 7; VI. Gabrieli: I. 85
3-9, 35-36; VII. 13-21, 83 Gershwin: IV. 49
Conductors: III. 94-100; V. 145-156; Gesualdo: I. 33-34; III. 118-120; VI.
VI. 16-17, 72-73; VII. 41 107-116
Critics: I. 119; II. 106; III. 170-179; Handel: III. 90-92
V. 82-95, 101-108
Dreams: I. 14; III. 154; IV. 70 Haydn: V. 42
Hindemith: IV. 50-51
History-(a) old music: III. 121-123; Ives: III. 110-111; V. 15-16; VI. 30
V. 121; (b) 20th century: II. 116-
Krenek: IV. 51-53
117; (c) his music: V. 23-24 Mahler: III. 87
Jazz: I. 132-133; III. 103; IV. 85-88 Mendelssohn: VI. 91
"Meaning" of music: III. 114-117; Menotti: V. 97-101
VI. 47-48, 91-93
Messiaen: VI. 34, 65-66
Melody and harmony: I. 121 Monteverdi: VI. 58-61
Music and mathematics: I. 17; III.
Mozart: VI. 92-94
112; VI. 27-30; VII. Dialogues p. 5 Puccini: III. 157
Musical drawings: I. 120
Rachmaninoff: 1. 42
Patronage: VI. 60-63 Ravel: I. 66-73
Performance: III. 133-139; VII. 41,
90-95 Rimsky-Korsakov: I. 39; II. 52-58
Russian composers: I. 37-46; II. 58-
Recent trends: I. 119-155; II. 94-95,
68
115-118; V. 11-17, 103-106; VI. Satie: I. 74-75
32-33, 40-47, 63-65, 72-78, 94- I. 76-79; III. 110; IV.
97, 102-106; VII. Dialogues p. 7 Schoenberg: V. 166-168, 175-176
53-58;
Recordings: III. 124-126; IV. 30-36; Schubert: IV. 65-66
V. 110-111
Schumann: IV. 66; VI. 75
Rhythm: I. 18-21, 122, 133, 135- Stockhausen: II. 112-114; V. 11-13;
137; III. 103, 154; IVF. 127; V. 119;
VI. 94-95
VI. 43
Strauss: . 83
Series, the [twelve-tone]: I. 22-24
Tchaikovsky: III. 68-75
Tonality in his recent music: I. 144 Varese: II. 96; IV. 59-62; V. 87-89

B. About composers-past and present Verdi: I. 82; IV. 11; V. 236

Wagner: V. 138-144
American composers: IV. 47-49 Webern: I. 79-81, 148; II. 97-98;
Bach: I. 30-31; II. 22; III. 90-91; VI. V. 115-123
91-93 Xenakis: VI. 45
Bart6k: I. 82
Beethoven: II. 22-23; IV. 62-65; VI. C. Friends and professionalassociates
91-93, 130-142 Balanchine: V. 24, 38; VII. 108-111
Berg: I. 77-82; III. 118; IV. 24 Cocteau: IV. 5, 8
Berlioz: I. 28; I. 28 Debussy: I. 48-56; III. 149, 157-159
Boulez: I. 146-148; V. 16-17 Diaghilev: I. 47, 110-111; III. 69-72,
Britten: V. 13-14 75, 145, 148; V. 90
* 161
Eliot: V. 124-131
Heard: IVF: 92-93
Huxley: IVF: 94-98
Isherwood: IVF: 93-94
Ravel: I. 66-73
Suvchinsky: V. 42; VI. 191-199
Thomas: I. 86-91
Waugh: IVF: 91-92
D. Notes on his own works
Abraham and Isaac (1963): V. 55-56
Agon (1957): I. 21-22, 25
Apollon Musagetes (1928): IV. 16-20
Ave Maria (1934): V. 31
Baiser de la Fee (1928): III. 73-77
Chorale Variations (1956): V. 294
Concerto for Two Pianos (1935): IV.
72-75
Credo (1932): V. 31
Danses Concertantes (1942): V. 45-
46
Dumbarton Oaks Concerto (1938):
V. 39-40
Easy Pieces, Eight (1915): IV. 72-75
Elegy for J.F.K. (1963): V. 56-59
Epitaphium (1959): II. 99
Etudes for Orchestra, Four (1929):
V. 32
Firebird, The (1910): III. 145-152
Flood, The (1962): III. 140-144; IV.
89-98
Greetings Prelude (1956): V. 54
Histoire du Soldat, L' (1918): III.
101-107
Instrumental Miniatures, Eight
(1962): V. 30
Introitus (1965): V. 62-63
Jeu des Cartes (1936): V. 34-39
Mass (1948): III. 65
Mavra (1922): III. 71
Movements for Piano and Orchestra
(1959): II. 100; V. 23-24
Noces, Les (1923): I. 48; III. 130-
135; VI. 117-122
Octet for Wind Instruments (1923):
IV. 70-72
Oedipus Rex (1927): IV. 3-16
Orpheus (1948): V. 46-48
* 162
Owl and the Pussycat, The (1966):
VII. 62-67, Dialogues p. 5
Pater Noster (1926): V. 31
Persephone (1934): I. 21; II. 135-
143; IV. 20-22
Petrouchka (1911): II. 89-93; II.
152-159
Pribaoutki (1914): V. 27
Pulcinella (1919): III. 126-129
Rake's Progress, The (1951): I. 144-
167; IVF: 226-231; V. 48-54
Renard (1917): III. 135-139
Requiem Canticles (1966): V. 23; VII.
48-61, Dialogues p. 3
Rossignol, Le (1914): II. 123-124
Sacre du Printemps, Le (1913): I.
19; II. 92; III. 159-169; VI. 123-
130
Scenes de Ballet (1944): IV. 81-83
Sonata for Two Pianos (1944): IV.
72-75
Star Spangled Banner, The (1941):
II. 93-94
Symphonies of Wind Instruments
(1920): V. 29
Symphony in C (1940): V. 40-45
Symphony in Three Movements
(1945): IV. 83-85
Symphony of Psalms (1930): IV. 75-
79
Threni (1958): I. 14; III. 122
Variations in memoriam Aldous
Huxley (1964): V. 60-62
Violin Concerto (1931): IV. 79-81
E. Biographical and autobiographical
material
Family and personal: I. 92-102; II.
15-51; III. 13-65, 77, 152-153;
IV. 23-30; V. 64-82; VII. 24, 29,
Afterword
Old age (musical and physical): VI.
23-26, 35-36, 49-50, 68-72, 82-
83, 97-101, 257-282
Soviet visit in 1962: IVF: 273-309
White House dinner: V. 198-201
-John Heiss
 Igor Stravinsky:A Discographyof the Composer'sPerformances

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, many composers who

were also performers have been persuaded to make recordings of their
own, music. Certainly no major figure has produced such an exhaus-
tive documentation of this kind as did Igor Stravinsky-not surpris-
ingly, for on numerous occasions he made clear his concern with the
limitations of musical notation as a means for fixing a performance
tradition for his music.1 Before the perfection of the techniques of
electrical sound recording, he was led to the player-piano roll,2 but
after 1926 the phonograph record provided a considerably more
satisfactory medium for the purpose. Over a period of more than
forty years, he committed to discs virtually all of his major theater,
orchestral, and chamber works (and, in his days as a concert pianist,
not a few of the piano works).
In later years, as is well known, Robert Craft was very active in
assisting Stravinsky at rehearsals, concerts, and recording sessions.
That some portions of rehearsal takes conducted by Craft were used
in the final edited versions of Stravinsky's later recordings seems not
improbable, and doubtless specific details about these matters will
be made public by those with firsthand knowledge. I have mentioned
here, in footnotes, certain recordings made by Craft in Stravinsky's
presence, and attempted to clarify some apparent misattributions.
That Stravinsky was frequently dissatisfied with his later recordings
and with the conditions of tension and pressure under which they
were made is also not a secret-and should be fairly evident from the
recordings themselves; again, that is a story for others to tell in
detail.
The purpose of the present listing is to define, for students of the
subject and for libraries and other institutions desiring a comprehen-
sive collection in this area, the extent and limits of the commercially
recorded material relevant to the study of Stravinsky's performance
practice. It is a revision of one first published in Perspectives on
Schoenbergand Stravinsky (Princeton, 1968), and later, in a slightly
revised and corrected form, in the booklet accompanying Columbia
album set D5S-775. As before, I have the pleasant duty of expressing
my gratitude to many persons who have assisted me. Mr. Stravinsky

1See An Autobiography,New York, 1936, p. 101; Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Con-
versations with Igor Stravinsky,Garden City, N.Y., 1959, p. 139; Dialogues and a Diary,
Garden City, N.Y., p.33.
2 The
present discography does not deal with Stravinsky's piano rolls, as they are
not accessible for study at the present time. A list of them may be found in Appendix
D of Eric Walter White, Stravinsky:The Composerand His Works,London and Berkeley,
1966, p. 573; I am informed that this listing is not entirely correct.

163
and Mr. Craft examined an early draft; Mr. John McClure and his
staff at Columbia Records provided comprehensive information
about their recordings; Professor Claudio Spies and Mr. Steven
Smolian checked drafts and filled in gaps; Miss Ida Rosen and Messrs.
Samuel Dushkin, Paul Jacobs, Jean Morel, Eric Walter White, and
Donald Mitchell assisted in diverse ways with information and advice.
After two revisions, a compiler begins to aspire to genuine complete-
ness and correctness; if that ideal state has still not been attained, it
is not for the lack of generous assistance, nor is it the fault of those
who so willingly gave such assistance.

A note on procedure. In general, only the most recent American

catalogue numbers are listed. Details of earlier issues may be found in
The World'sEncyclopaediaof RecordedMusic (compiled by F. F. Clough
and G. J. Cuming, London, 1952; supplements, 1953 and 1957) and
in back issues of the Schwann LP record catalogue; readers in Europe
are referred to their local equivalents of that catalogue for informa-
tion.
Unless otherwise indicated, all listings refer to 12-inch, 331/3 RPM
microgroove recordings; numbers in roman type indicate mono-
phonic recordings, while italics refer to stereo. The symbol 10" is
self-explanatory; the mark 78 denotes a 78 RPM recording. In the
case of multiple-record sets, the number of records is indicated
by a digit preceding the abbreviation for the manufacturer's name.
The following abbreviations are used:
Col. Columbia Records (U.S.A.)
Fr. Col. French Columbia
Merc. Mercury Records (U.S.A.)
Ser. Seraphim (division of Angel
Records, U.S.A.)
USSR. Amalgamated Unions Gramophone
Studio (Soviet state label)3
Vds M. Voix de son Maitre (France)
Vic. RCA Victor (U.S.A.)
Vox. Vox Productions (U.S.A.)

An asterisk following a catalogue number indicates that the record

was discontinued by the manufacturer as of June 1, 1971.

3 I have been unable to ascertain whether these records are still

available; they were
presumably issued in 1963, but the continuing availability of Soviet recordings seems
to be a problematic matter. Note that Soviet records have two numbers, one for each
side.
164
The order of listing is based on the catalogue of works in Eric Walter
White's book.4 To avoid cluttering the listings with distinctions be-
tween different versions of various works, these are only mentioned
where there seems a possibility of confusion; in general, all recordings
made after Stravinsky had completed a revised edition may be as-
sumed to use that revision.
The dates for the prewar recordings have been arrived at by com-
parison of the matrix numbers, by reference to the published writings
of Stravinsky, and through the recollections of persons concerned in
the recordings; some of these remain tentative. Information about the
American Columbia sessions was provided by Columbia Records.
A. ORIGINAL WORKS
The Faun and the Shepherdess,Op. 2 (1906)
Mary Simmons (m-s, in Russian), CBC Symphony Orchestra-
Igor Stravinsky (May 7, 8, 1964-Toronto) Col. MS-7439
Symphony in Eb major, Op. 1 (1905-07)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra -Igor Stravinsky (May 2, 1966
- Hollywood) Col. MS-6989
Pastorale (1907)
-Arr. for violin & wind quartet (1932)
Samuel Dushkin, wind quartet-Igor Stravinsky (1933-
Paris) 78: 10"Col. 17075-D*
Joseph Szigeti, Mitchell Miller (ob), R. McGinnis (cl), D.
Gassman (Eng hn), Sol Schoenbach (bsn)-Igor Stravinsky
(Feb. 9, 1946-New York) 10" Col. ML-2122*
Israel Baker, Columbia Chamber Ensemble-Igor Stravinsky
(Oct. 26, 1965-Hollywood) Col. M-30579
ScherzoFantastique,Op. 3 (1908)
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 1, 1962-
Toronto) Col. MS-7094
4
Fireworks,Op. (1908)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Jan. 28, 1946-New York) Col. ML-4398*
Moscow State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stra-
vinsky (October 1962-concert, Moscow) USSR. 33D-010936
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 17,
1963- New York) Col. MS-7094
The Firebird (1909-10)
- Complete ballet

4 See note 2 above.

165
 Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 23-25,
1961 - Hollywood Col. MS-6328
-First suite for orchestra (1911), and Berceuse and Finale from Sec-
ond suite (1919)
Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1927-Paris) 78: 4-Col. M-115*
-Third suite for orchestra (1945) (connecting interludes omitted)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Jan. 28, 1946-New York) Col. ML-4882*
-Third suite for orchestra (1945) (with connecting interludes)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 23, 24,
1967- Hollywood) Col. MS-7011
. . Scherzoand Berceuseonly
-Arr. for violin & piano by Stravinsky & Dushkin (1933)
Samuel Dushkin, Igor Stravinsky (1933-Paris)
VdsM. 2C 061-11300
Two Poems of Verlaine, Op. 9 (1910)
-Arr. for baritone & orchestra (1951)
Donald Gramm, Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Dec. 1964 & 1966-New York)1 Col. MS-7439
Petrushka(1910-11)
-Abridged recording of original version2
Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (June 27, 28, 1928-London)
78: 3-Col. M-109*
-Suite from original version3
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Apr. 29, 1940-New York) Col. ML-4047*
-Revised version of complete ballet (1946)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Feb. 12, 15,
17, 1960- Hollywood)4 Col. MS-6332
-Suite from revised version5
Moscow State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stra-
vinsky (October 1962-concert, Moscow) USSR. 33D-010933
1 The orchestral part was recorded in December 1964, and the vocal part overdubbed
in 1966.
2 In addition to several minor
cuts, this recording omits the Waltz in Scene 3 and the
"Peasant with Bear" and "Gypsies and a Rake Vendor" episodes from Scene 4; the final
episode is replaced by the concert ending.
3 Includes Scene 1, from the Charlatan's entrance; Scene 2
complete; and Scene 4,
beginning from the "Wet-Nurses' Dance" but omitting the final episode, which is
replaced by the concert ending.
4 A "suite" from this
recording is issued on Col. MS-7011; Scene 3 is omitted, and the
final episode is replaced by the concert ending.
5 Includes Scene
1, from the Charlatan's entrance; Scene 2 complete; and Scene 4,
with the concert ending replacing the final episode.

166
... Russian Dance only
-Arr. for violin & piano by Stravinsky & Dushkin (1932)
Samuel Dushkin, Igor Stravinsky (1933-Paris)
VdsM. 2C 061-11300
Two Poems of Balmont (1911)
-Arr. for high voice & 9 instruments (1954)
Marni Nixon (s, in English), chamber ensemble -Igor Stravin-
sky (July 28, 1955-Hollywood) Col. CML-5017
Zvezdoliki( 1911-12)
Festival Singers of Toronto (in Russian), CBC Symphony
Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Nov. 29, 1962-Toronto)
Col. CMS-6647
The Rite of Spring (1911-13)6
Symphony orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (1928-Paris)
78: 5-Col. M-129*
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor
Stravinsky (Apr. 29, 1940-New York) Col. ML-4882*
-with revised version of Danse sacrale (1943)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 5, 6,
1960-New York) Col. MS-6319
Three Japanese Lyrics (1912-13)
Marni Nixon (s, in English), chamber ensemble-Igor Stra-
vinsky (July 28, 1955-Hollywood ) Col. CML-5107
Three Little Songs ("Souvenirs") (1913)
-Arr. for soprano & small orchestra (1933)
Marilyn Home (m-s, in English), chamber orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (July 28, 1955-Hollywood) Col. CML-5107
Cathy Berberian (m-s, in Russian), chamber orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (Dec. 11, 1964-New York) Col. MS-7439
The Nightingale (1908-14)
(In Russian) Soloists, Chorus & Orchestra of The Opera
Society of Washington-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 29, 31, 1960-
Washington, D. C.) Col. MS-6327*
Cast:
The Fisherman Loren Driscoll (t)

6 A talk
by Stravinsky, Aproposof Le Sacre, recorded December 8, 1959, in New York,
was issued in Col. D3S-614*, a three-record deluxe album set also containing the later
recordings of Petrushkaand The Rite of Spring.
A recording of The Rite of Spring by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, conducted
by Robert Craft, was made at a Moscow concert in October 1962, and issued on USSR.
33D-010935/6. See Stravinsky and Craft, Retrospectivesand Conclusions, New York,
1969, pp. 123ff.
167-
 The Nightingale Reri Grist (s)
The Cook Marina Picassi (s)
The Chamberlain Kenneth Smith (bs)
The Bonze Herbert Beattie (bs)
The Emperor Donald Gramm (bs)
1st Japanese Ambassador Stanley Kolk (t)
2nd Japanese Ambassador William Murphy (bs)
3rd Japanese Ambassador Carl Kaiser (t)
Death Elaine Bonazzi (a)
Chorus Master: John Moriarty

... Air of the Nightingale and ChineseMarch only

-Arr. for violin & piano by Stravinsky & Dushkin (1932)
Samuel Dushkin, Igor Stravinsky (1933-Paris)
78: Col. 68334-D*
Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914)
-Arr. for orchestra: see below, Four Studies for Orchestra (1928)
Pribaoutki (1914)
Cathy Berberian (m-s, in Russian), chamber ensemble-Igor
Stravinsky (Dec. 11, 1964-New York) Col. MS-7439
Three Easy Pieces for Piano Duet (1914-15)
-Arr. for orchestra: see below, Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra
(1921)
Cat's Lullabies (1915-16)
Cathy Berberian (m-s, in Russian), three clarinets-Igor
Stravinsky (Dec. 14, 1964-New York) Col. MS-7439
Renard (1915-16)
(In English) George Shirley (t), Loren Driscoll (t), William
Murphy (b), Donald Gramm (bs), Toni Koves (cimbalom),
Columbia Chamber Ensemble-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 26, 1962
-New York) Col. MS-6372*
Five Easy Pieces for Piano Duet (1916-17)
-Arr. for orchestra: see below, Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra
(1921) & Suite No. 1 for Small Orchestra (1925)
Three Tales for Children (1915-17)
-Nos. 1 & 2 arr. for soprano & 3 instruments: see below, Four Songs
(1953-54)
Four Russian Peasant Songs (1914-17)
-with accompaniment of four horns (1954)
Chorus (in English), four horns-Igor Stravinsky (July 28,
1955- Hollywood) Col. CML-5017
Gregg Smith Singers (in Russian), Columbia Symphony Or-
* 168
 chestra members-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 20, 1965-Holly-
wood) Col. UNRELEASED
The Wedding (1914-17)7
(In English) Kate Winter (s), Linda Seymour (m-s), Parry
Jones (t), Roy Henderson (bs), chorus & ensemble-Igor
Stravinsky (July 10, 1934-London) 78: 3-Col. M-204*
(In English) Mildred Allen (s), Regina Sarfaty (m-s), Loren
Driscoll (t), Robert Oliver (bs), American Concert Choir,
Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Roger Sessions
(pfs), Columbia Percussion Ensemble-Igor Stravinsky (Dec.
21, 1959-New York) Col. MS-6372*
Studyfor Pianola (1917)
-Arr. for orchestra: see below, Four Studies for Orchestra (1928)
The Soldier'sTale (1918)
- Concert Suite
Darrieux (vn), Boussagol (cbs), Godeau (cl,), Dherin (bsn),
Foveau (tpt), Delbos (tbn), Jean Paul Morel (percussion)-
Igor Stravinsky (1932-Paris) 78: 3-Col. M-184*
Alexander Schneider (vn), Julius Levine (cbs), David Oppen-
heim (cl), Loren Glickman (bsn), Robert Nagel (tpt), Erwin
Price (tbn), Alfred Howard (perc)-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 27,
1954-New York) Col. ML-4964*
Israel Baker (vn), Richard Kelley (cbs), Roy D'Antonio (cl),
Don Christlieb (bsn), Charles Brady (tpt), Robert Marsteller
(tbn), William Kraft (percussion) - Igor Stravinsky (Feb. 10,
13, 1961 -Hollywood)8 Col. MS-6272; MS-7093
Rag-Time (1918)
Chamber ensemble-Igor Stravinsky (c. 1934-Paris)
78: Col. 68300-D*
Toni Koves (cimbalom), Columbia Chamber Orchestra- Igor
Stravinsky (Jan. 26, 1962-New York) Col. M-30579
Four Russian Songs (1918-19)
-Nos. 1 & 4 arr. for soprano & 3 instruments: see below, Four Songs
(1953-54)
Piano-Rag Music (1919)
Igor Stravinsky (pf) (c. 1934-Paris) Ser. 60183
7 A
recording in Russian of The Wedding,conducted by Robert Craft and supervised
by Stravinsky, was made in New York on December 21, 1965, and released on Col.
MS-6991.
8 The sections of the score omitted from the concert suite were recorded at the same

time, so that a release of the complete work, with the spoken parts overdubbed, is
possible.

* 169 ?
Pulcinella (1919-20)
-Complete ballet score
Mary Simmons (s), Glenn Schnittke (t), Phillip MacGregor
(bs), Cleveland Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 14, 1953-
Cleveland) Col. ML-4830*
Irene Jordan (s), George Shirley (t), Donald Gramm (bs),
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 23,
1965- Hollywood) Col. MS-6881
-Nos. 5-8 of concert suite (c. 1922)
Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1927 & 1932-Paris)
78: 2-Col. X-36*
-Complete recording of concert suite (1947 revision)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 25,
1965- Hollywood)9 Col. MS-7093
-Suite Italienne for violin & piano (c. 1933)
... Nos. 2 & 5 only
Samuel Dushkin, Igor Stravinsky (1933-Paris)
78: Col. 68238-D (in set M-199)*
Concertino for String Quartet (1920)
-Arr. for 12 instruments (1952)
Columbia Chamber Ensemble-Igor Stravinsky (Oct. 26, 1965
- Hollywood) Col. M-30579
Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920)10
Wind ensemble of NWDR Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (Octo-
ber 1951 -Cologne) Col. ML-4964*
The Five Fingers (1920-21)
-Arr. for orchestra: see below, Eight Instrumental Miniatures (1962)
Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra (1921)
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 30, 1963
Toronto) Col. CMS-6648
Mavra (1921-22)
(In Russian) Susan Belink (s), Mary Simmons (m-s), Patricia
Rideout (a), Stanley Kolk (t), CBC Symphony Orchestra-
Igor Stravinsky (May 7, 8, 1964-Toronto) Col. MS-6991
... Parasha's Song ("Russian Maiden's Song") only

9 At this session,
only the passages necessary to "patch" material from the complete
recording (see above) were recorded. Apparently the two measures preceding No. 65
in the score of the Suite were overlooked at this time and have been spliced in from
another performance.
10A recording of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, conducted by Robert
Craft in the composer's presence, was made on October 11, 1966, in New York, but
has not yet been released.

170
-Arr. for violin & piano by Stravinsky & Dushkin (1937)
Joseph Szigeti, Igor Stravinsky (May 9, 1946-New York)
Col. ML-4398*
Octet for Wind Instruments (1922-23)
Marcel Moyse (fl), Godeau (cl), Dherin (bsn), Piard (bsn),
Foveau (tpt), Vignal (tpt), Lafosse (tbn), Delbos (tbn)- Igor
Stravinsky (1932-Paris) 78: 2-Col. X-25*
Julius Baker (fl), David Oppenheim (cl), Loren Glickman (bsn),
Sylvia Deutscher (bsn), Robert Nagel (tpt), Ted Weis (tpt),
Erwin Price (tbn), Richard Hixon (tbn)-Igor Stravinsky (Jan.
26, 1954-New York) Col. ML-4964*
James Pellerite (fl), David Oppenheim (cl), Loren Glickman
(bsn), Arthur Weisberg (bsn), Robert Nagel (tpt), Ted Weis
(tpt), Keith Brown (tbn), Richard Hixon (tbn)-Igor Stravinsky
(Jan. 5, 1961-New York) Col. MS-6272; M-30579
Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra (1923-24)
Soulima Stravinsky, RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (1949-New York) 10" Vic. LM-7010*
Philippe Entremont, Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (May 13, 1964-New York) Col. MS-6947'
Serenade in A (1925)
Igor Stravinsky (pf) (c. 1934-Paris) Ser. 60183
Suite No. 1 for Small Orchestra (1917-25)
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 29, 1963-
Toronto) Col. CMS-6648
Pater Noster (1926)
Festival Singers of Toronto (in Slavonic) - Igor Stravinsky
(May 7, 8, 1964-Toronto) Col. UNRELEASED
-New version with Latin text (1948)11
Choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York-
Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 1949-New York) 10" Vic. LM-7010*
OedipusRex (1926-27)
Jean Cocteau (narrator, in French),12 Martha Modl (m-s),
Peter Pears (t), Helmut Krebs (t), Heinz Rehfuss (b), Otto von
Rohr (bs), Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus-
Igor Stravinsky (Oct. 8, 1951-Cologne) Col. ML-4644*
John Westbrook (narrator, in English), Shirley Verrett (m-s),
George Shirley (t), Loren Driscoll (t), Donald Gramm (bs),
Chester Watson (bs), John Reardon (b), Orchestra & Chorus
1 The recording does not correspond to the published score of this revision, and
apparently represents a preliminary stage in the underlay of a Latin text.
2
Cocteau's speaking voice was recorded separately, in Paris during June 1952.
171
 of The Opera Society of Washington - Igor Stravinsky (Jan.
20, 1962-Washington, D. C.) Col. MS-6472*
Apollo Musagetes (1927-28)
RCA Victor Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (1950-New York)
Vic. LM-1096*
Columbia Symphony Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 29 &
Dec. 11, 1964-New York) Col. MS-6646
The Fairy's Kiss (1928)
-Complete ballet
Cleveland Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 11, 1955-Cleve-
land) Col. ML-5102*
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 19,
20, 1965- Hollywood) Col. MS-6803*; 3-Col. D3S-761
-Divertimento (1934)
Victor Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1940-Mex-
ico City) 78: 3-Vic. (Mexico) M-931*
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1947-
Hollywood) Vic. LVT-1029*
Four Studies for Orchestra (1928)
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Nov. 29, Dec. 1,
1962 -Toronto) Col. CMS-6648
Capriccio for Piano & Orchestra (1928-29)13
Igor Stravinsky (pf), Straram Orchestra-Ernest Ansermet
(1930-Paris) Ser. 60183
Symphony of Psalms (1930)
Alexei Vlassoff Choir, symphony orchestra-Igor Stravinsky
(Feb. 1931-Paris) 78: 3-Col. M-162*
Chorus, Columbia Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (Dec. 19, 1946-New York) Col. ML-4129*
Festival Singers of Toronto, CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (Mar. 30, 1963-Toronto) Col. MS-6548
Concerto in D for Violin & Orchestra (1931)
Samuel Dushkin, Lamoureux Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky
(1932- Paris) Vox VLP-6340*
Isaac Stern, Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky
(June 29, 30, 1961 -Hollywood) Col. MS-6331
Duo Concertant(1931-32)
Samuel Dushkin, Igor Stravinsky (1933-Paris) Ser. 60183
13
The recording on Columbia MS-6947, by Philippe Entremont, with the Columbia
Symphony Orchestra-Robert Craft, was not recorded "under the supervision of the
composer," as the liner notes have it; Stravinsky was not present at this recording
session.

*172
 Joseph Szigeti, Igor Stravinsky (Oct. 11, 13, 1945-New York)
Col. ML-2122*
Credo (1932)
-New version with Slavonic text (1964)
Gregg Smith Singers-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 20, 1965-
Hollywood) Col. UNRELEASED
Persephone(1933-34)
Vera Zorina (narrator), Richard Robinson (t), Westminster
Choir, New York Philharmonic - Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 14,
1957-New York) Col. ML-5196
Vera Zorina (narrator), Michele Molese (t), Gregg Smith
Singers, Texas Boys' Choir, Columbia Symphony Orchestra
Igor Stravinsky (May 4, 7, 1966-Hollywood) Col. MS-6919*
Ave Maria (1934)
Festival Singers of Toronto (in Slavonic)-Igor Stravinsky
(May 7, 8, 1964-Toronto) Col. UNRELEASED
-New version with Latin text (1948)14
Choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York-
Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 1949-New York) 10" Vic. LM-7010*
Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (1931-35)
Igor & Soulima Stravinsky (1933-Paris)15
78: 3-Fr. Col. LFX-951/3*
The Card Party (1936)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1938-
Berlin) Merc. MG-10014* & 10" Cap. L-8028*
Cleveland Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 13, 1964-Cleve-
land) Col. CMS-6649
Preludium (1937, rev. 1953)
Columbia Jazz Group-Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 27, 1965-New
York) Col. M-30579
Concerto in Eb ("Dumbarton Oaks") (1937-38)
Dumbarton Oaks Festival Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (May
28, 1947) Merc. MG-10014*
Columbia Symphony Orchestra members-Igor Stravinsky
(Mar. 29, 1962-Hollywood) Col. CMS-6648

14
The recording does not correspond to the published score of this revision, and
apparently represents a preliminary stage in the underlay of a Latin text.
15 The
sixth side of this set contained Mozart's Fugue in C minor, K. 426, played
by the same performers. Despite Stravinsky's statement (Dialogues and a Diary, p. 75)
that this set "was never released because of the war," it seems that it had some circula-
tion in France immediately before the war. Along with the Mexican Victor set of the
Divertimento from The Fairy's Kiss, it is probably the rarest of Stravinsky's recordings.
173
Symphony in C (1938-40)
Cleveland Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 14, 1952-
Cleveland) Col. ML-4899*
CBC Symphony Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 2, 3, 1962-
Toronto) Col. MS-6548
Tango (1940)
-Arr. for chamber ensemble (1953)
Columbia Jazz Group-Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 27, 1965-New
York) Col. M-30579
Danses Concertantes(1941-42)16
RCA Victor Chamber Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1947-
Hollywood) Vic. LVT-1029*
Circus Polka (1942)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Feb. 5, 1945-New York) Col. ML-4398*
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 29, 1963-
Toronto) Col. CMS-6648
Four Norwegian Moods (1942)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Feb. 5, 1945-New York) Col. ML-4398*
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 29, 1963-
Toronto) Col. M-30516
Ode (1943)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Feb. 5, 1945-New York) Col. ML-4398*
USSR State Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (October
1962 -concert, Moscow) USSR. 33D-010935
Cleveland Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 13, 1964-Cleve-
land) Col. M-30516
Babel (1944)
John Colicos (narrator), Festival Singers of Toronto, CBC
Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Nov. 29, 1962-
Toronto) Col. CMS-6647
Scherzoa la Russe (1944)
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (1947-
Hollywood) 10" Vic. LM-7010*
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 17,
1963- New York) Col. MS-7094

16 The
recording on Columbia M-30516, incorrectly labeled as conducted by Stravin-
sky was made by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Robert Craft, in Legion Hall,
Hollywood, during January 1967.
174
Scenes de Ballet (1944)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Feb. 5, 1945-New York) Col. ML-4047*
CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 28, 1963
- Toronto) Col. CMS-6649
Symphony in Three Movements (1942-45)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York-Igor Stra-
vinsky (Jan. 28, 1946-New York) Col. ML-4129*
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Feb. 1,
1961 - Hollywood) Col. MS-6331
Ebony Concerto(1945)
Woody Herman (cl) and His Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (Aug.
19, 1946-Hollywood) Col. ML-4398*
Benny Goodman (cl), Columbia Jazz Group-Igor Stravinsky
(Apr. 27, 1965-New York) Col. MS-6805; M-30579
Concerto in D ("Basel") (1946)
John Corigliano (vn), Michael Rosenker (vn), RCA Victor
Orchestra- Igor Stravinsky (1949- New York) Vic. LM-1096*
Columbia Symphony Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 17,
1963-New York) Col. M-30516
Orpheus(1947)
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Feb.
1949- New York) Vic. LM-1033*
USSR State Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (October
1962-concert, Moscow)17 USSR. 33D-010933/4
Chicago Symphony Orchestra -Igor Stravinsky (July 20, 1964
- Chicago) Col. MS-6646
Mass (1944-47)
Choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York,
wind ensemble - Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 1949-New York)
10" Vic. LM-17*
Columbia Symphony woodwinds and chorus-Igor Stravinsky
(June 9, 1960-Hollywood) Col. MS-699218
17 The
passage from No. 13 in the score to 1/2 measures before No. 16 is omitted
in this recording.
18
Early copies of Col. MS-6992 (and some, possibly all, copies of its mono equiva-
lent, Col. ML-6392*) erroneously contained a different version of the Mass, recorded
on October 11, 1966, in New York, under the direction of Robert Craft; the composer
was present for part of this session. Although these copies were officially called back,
a number evidently remain in circulation; they may be distinguished by the stamper
suffix "1A" following the matrix number (XXSM 117085) embossed on the record just
outside the label (copies with suffixes "2A" and higher contain the 1964 Stravinsky
version). The alto soloist in both recordings is the same; the labels (although not the
jackets) distinguish two different soprano soloists in the Gloria: Annette Baxter in 1964,
Linda Anderson in 1966.
175
The Rake'sProgress (1948-51)
Soloists, Chorus & Orchestra of The Metropolitan Opera
Association - Igor Stravinsky (Mar. 1, 8, 10, 1953-New York)
3-Col. SL-125*
Cast:
Anne Truelove Hilde Gueden (s)
Mother Goose Martha Lipton (m-s)
Baba the Turk Blanche Thebom (m-s)
Tom Rakewell Eugene Conley (t)
Sellem Paul Franke (t)
Nick Shados Mack Harrell (b)
Truelove Norman Scott (bs)
The Keeper Lawrence Davidson (bs)
Soloists, Sadlers Wells Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (June 16-20, 22, 23, 1964-
London) 3-Col. M3S-710
Cast:
Anne Truelove Judith Raskin (s)
Mother Goose Jean Manning (m-s)
Baba the Turk Regina Sarfaty (m-s)
Tom Rakewell Alexander Young (t)
Sellem Kevin Miller (t)
Nick Shadow John Reardon (b)
Truelove Don Garrard (bs)
The Keeper Peter Tracey (bs)
Cantata (1951-52)
Jennie Tourel (m-s), Hugues Cuenod (t), New York Concert
Choir, Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble-Igor Stravinsky
(Dec. 22, 1952-New York) Col. ML-4899*
Adrienne Albert (m-s), Alexander Young (t), Gregg Smith
Singers, Columbia Chamber Ensemble - Igor Stravinsky (Nov.
27, 1965- Hollywood) Col. MS-6992
Septet (1952-53)
David Oppenheim (cl), Loren Glickman (bsn), John Barrows
(hn), Alexander Schneider (vn), Karen Tuttle (va), Bernard
Greenhouse (vc), Ralph Kirkpatrick (pf)-Igor Stravinsky
(Jan. 27, 1954-New York) Col. CML-5107
Columbia Chamber Ensemble-Igor Stravinsky (Oct. 27,
1965- Hollywood) Col. MS-7054
Three Songs from William Shakespeare (1953)
Grace-Lynne Martin (s), Arthur Gleghorn (fl), Hugo Raimondi
(cl), Cecil Figelski (va)-Igor Stravinsky (Sept. 13, 1954-
Hollywood) Col. CML-5107
176
 Cathy Berberian (m-s), chamber ensemble-Igor Stravinsky
(Dec. 14, 1964-New York) Col. MS-7439
Four Songs for Voice, Flute, Harp, and Guitar (1953-54)
Marni Nixon (s, in English), Arthur Gleghorn, Dorothy
Remsen, Jack Marshall-Igor Stravinsky (July 28, 1955-
Hollywood) Col. CML-5107
Adrienne Albert (m-s, in Russian), Louise di Tullio, Dorothy
Remsen, Laurindo Almeida-Igor Stravinsky (Nov. 30, 1965
- Hollywood) Col. MS-7439
In MemoriamDylan Thomas (1954)
Richard Robinson (t), chamber ensemble-Igor Stravinsky
(Sept. 13, 1954-Hollywood) Col. CML-5107
Alexander Young(t), Columbia Chamber Ensemble-Igor
Stravinsky (Nov. 27, 1965-Hollywood) Col. MS-6992
Greeting Prelude (1955)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 17,
1963- New York) Col. CMS-6648
CanticumSacrum (1955)19
Richard Robinson (t), Howard Chitjian (b), Los Angeles
Festival Symphony Orchestra & Chorus-Igor Stravinsky
(June 19, 1957-Los Angeles) Col. CMS-6022
Agon (1953-57)
Los Angeles Festival Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky
(June 18, 1957-Los Angeles) Col. CMS-6022
Threni (1957-58)
Bethany Beardslee (s), Beatrice Krebs (a), William Lewis
(t), James Wainner (t), Mac Morgan (b), Robert Oliver (bs),
Schola Cantorum, Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (an. 5, 6, 1959-New York) Col. CMS-6065
Movements(1958-59)
Charles Rosen (pf), Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (Feb. 12, 1961-Hollywood)
Col. MS-6272; MS-7054
Epitaphium (1959)
Arthur Gleghorn (fl), Kalman Bloch (cl), Dorothy Remsen
(harp)-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 25, 1961-Hollywood)
Col. MS-6272; MS-7054

19A
recording of the CanticumSacrum and the arrangement of Bach's Chorale Varia-
tions, with Jean Giraudeau (t), Xavier Depraz (bs), Elisabeth Brasseur Chorale, and an
orchestra conducted by Robert Craft, was issued on Westminster XWN 18903*. The
liner of the original French Vega release stated that these recordings were made under
the composer's supervision.

177
Double Canon (1959)
Israel Baker (vn), Otis Igleman (vn), Sanford Schonbach (va),
George Neikrug (vc)-Igor Stravinsky (Jan. 25, 1961 - Holly-
wood) Col. MS-6272; MS-7054
A Sermon,a Narrative, and a Prayer (1960-61)
John Horton (narrator), Shirley Verrett (m-s), Loren Dris-
coll (t), Festival Singers of Toronto, CBC Symphony Orches-
tra-Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 29, 1962-Toronto)
Col. CMS-6647; MS-7054
Anthem: "The Dove descending. . ." (1962)
Festival Singers of Toronto-Igor Stravinsky (Apr. 29, 1962
-Toronto) Col. CMS-6647; MS-7054
Eight Instrumental Miniatures (1961-62)
CBC Symphony Orchestra members-Igor Stravinsky (Apr.
29, 1962- Toronto) Col. CMS-6648
The Flood (1961-62)
Lawrence Harvey (narrator), Sebastian Cabot (Noah), Elsa
Lanchester (Noah's Wife), Paul Tripp (Caller), Richard Robin-
son (t, Satan), John Reardon & Robert Oliver (b & bs, The
Voice of God), Columbia Symphony Orchestra & Chorus-
Igor Stravinsky & Robert Craft (Mar. 28, 31, 1962-Holly-
wood) Col. MS-6357*
ElegyforJ. F. K. (1964)
-version for mezzo-soprano
Cathy Berberian (m-s), Paul Howland, Jack Kreiselman,
Charles Russo (cls)-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 14, 1964-New
York) Col. MS-7054
Fanfarefor a New Theatre (1964)
Robert Heinrich, Robert E. Nagel (tpts)-Igor Stravinsky (Dec.
11, 1964-New York) Col. MS-7054
Variations(1965)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 26,
1965- Hollywood) Col. UNRELEASED20

Introitus (1955)
Gregg Smith Singers, Columbia Symphony Orchestra mem-
bers-Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 26, 1965-Hollywood)
Col. MS-7386

20 This
recording was presumably unsatisfactory and will not be released; a recording
of the Variationsconducted by Robert Craft was made at the New York session of Octo-
ber 11, 1966, and issued on Columbia MS-7386.
178*
 Gregg Smith Singers, Columbia Symphony Orchestra mem-
bers- Igor Stravinsky (Feb. 9, 1966- Hollywood)
Col. UNRELEASED21

B. ARRANGEMENTS OF WORKS BY OTHER COMPOSERS

Song of the Volga Boatmen, arranged for winds and percussion (1917)
Moscow State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stra-
vinsky (October 1962-concert, Moscow) USSR. 33D-010936
Pas de Deux ("Bluebird") from Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty,
arranged for small orchestra (1941)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (Dec. 17,
1963- New York) Col. CMS-6649
The Star-SpangledBanner, harmonized and orchestrated (1941)
Festival Singers of Toronto, CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (May 7, 8, 1964-Toronto) Col. UNRELEASED
Chorale Variations on VomHimmel hoch by J. S. Bach, arranged for
chorus & orchestra (1955-56)22
Festival Singers of Toronto, CBC Symphony Orchestra-Igor
Stravinsky (Mar. 30, 1963-Toronto) Col. CMS-6647
Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad C D annum (1960) (three
madrigals recomposed for instruments)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra-Igor Stravinsky (June 9,
1960- Hollywood) Col. CKS-6318

NOTE: The following album couplings of Stravinsky's later Columbia

recordings have been issued:
3-Col. D3S-614*: Petrushka; The Rite of Spring; Aproposof Le Sacre
(talk by Stravinsky)
3-Col. D3S-705: The Firebird;Petrushka; The Rite of Spring
3-Col. D3S-761: Pulcinella (complete); Apollo Musagetes; The Fairy's
Kiss; Orpheus
6-Col. D5S-775: The Firebird (1945 Suite); Petrushka (suite from
1946 version); The Rite of Spring; The Soldier'sTale (concert suite);
Pulcinella (concert suite); Apollo Musagetes; Symphony of Psalms;
Symphony in C; Symphony in Three Movements; record of
rehearsal excerpts and "conversations," etc., from television
programs.
-Compiled by David Hamilton
21 This
recording was presumably less satisfactory than the first one and will not be
released.
22 See note 19 above.
179-
 :::
- ::,
:
::1

Photograph by Ulli Steltzer

* 180