(Stravinsky: A Creative Spring:
Russia and France, 1882 - 1934,
the first volume in this set, was published
in 1999 and is out of print at the publishers
but is available in paperback from Amazon.)
Since I had read the
Robert Craft books about Stravinsky,
I figured I knew quite a bit about the
subject, so it didn’t disturb me that
this book is the second volume in a
set. I assumed I knew enough about the
early Stravinsky’s life so that would
be no problem. As with the Alan Walker
biography of Liszt, I took up the book
expecting to skim through it, dipping
in here and there, look at the pictures,
and finish with it in an afternoon.
Instead, as with the Alan Walker biography
of Liszt, I began at the beginning,
was instantly captivated by the quality
and depth of the writing, the fascination
of the material, and read carefully
every word from start to finish, a process
that took about three weeks. And now
I look eagerly forward to reading volume
1.
It isn’t just that
Stephen Walsh is so fine a writer, or
that his subject is so interesting.
Walsh writes clear modern British English
and in the whole book there are only
about three sentences which are indecipherable,
and only one misspelling, these days
a noteworthy, nay, startling accomplishment.
He only sent me running to the OED five
times. Walsh has done an astonishing
amount of research and is able to convey
the fascination a detective feels in
unraveling a mystery. Some mysteries
remain from Craft’s books which are
now seen to be one-sided and incomplete.
The questions in my own mind were many:
Did Stravinsky really heartlessly abandon
his first wife Katya and daughter to
die alone while he pursued his career?
[no] Were his children just annoying
nuisances to him and drains on his income?
[no] Did Stravinsky exploit Craft, or
Craft, Stravinsky? [yes] Who really
conducted the CBS/Sony "composer
conducting" recordings of Stravinsky’s
music? [a long story*] Did Craft really
single-handedly convince Stravinsky
to embrace twelve-tone composition?
[yes] Who was his second wife Vera and
where did she come from? [a Russian
artist] Was Craft homosexual, [no] or,
on the other possibility, did he have
an affair with Vera? [no] How much salary
was Craft paid, [$0.00] and did he improperly
divert money from Stravinsky’s resources?
[no]
In American public
mythology the very popular movie "All
About Eve" is the story of a seemingly
innocent and selfless person who understudies
an aging celebrity, slowly gains control,
and eventually cunningly and callously
exploits the celebrity and all those
around her for personal gain. This film
was produced long before Craft and Stravinsky
ever met. There are other real life
stories of much happier circumstances
of persons who become personal assistants
to celebrities and permit them to extend
their creative lives into advanced old
age. Carl Jung could hardly have continued
to be a major force in psychology to
the end of his life without the help
of Aniela Jaffé. The prolific
output of Johann Sebastian Bach in old
age was made possible by the inspired
and trained assistance of family, students,
and friends as copyists and transcribers.
The poet Virgil would never have produced
The Aeneid but for the help provided
through the friendship of the Emperor
Augustus. Frederick Delius continued
to compose after becoming totally blind
though the selfless assistance of Eric
Fenby. Mira Mendelson-Prokofieva, Prokofiev’s
second wife, provided much help and
support in the composer’s later life,
helping catalog his works and collaborating
with him on the scenario for The
Stone Flower. While Vera Stravinsky
was certainly a devoted friend and source
of strength to her husband, she was
a painter, she wasn’t musical, and was
unable to be his collaborator.
It is probably stories
like these which have focused public
interest on the Craft/Stravinsky friendship.
Robert Craft is, of course, still alive
and still active in music, still producing
authoritative and high quality performances
and recordings of the music of Stravinsky
and others. He has with great eloquence
and at great length, told his side of
the story. Walsh has had the benefit
of Craft’s personal papers among other
sources to accomplish his detective
work and offer to us a dispassionate
description and analysis of this friendship.
The result is by no means a Craft-bashing;
Craft comes across as a more human and
complex person that he does in his own
works, and he is by and large exonerated
of the charges laid against him by those
who were jealous of his intimacy with
the great Stravinsky. Craft has won
out over his detractors by outliving
them, and for his contribution to the
creation and presentation of Stravinsky’s
late music deserves our gratitude.
Part of the attractiveness
of this book is Walsh’s scholar’s curiosity
and determination to understand. In
situations where the evidence is lacking
or contradictory, Walsh does not wash
his scholar’s hands and leave us bewildered,
but he makes a lucid common-sense evaluation
of the circumstances and we are left
with a sense of understanding, if not
certainty. As a former resident of Los
Angeles I was pleased to see that Walsh
took the trouble to get his geography
right in describing the spatial relationships
of the various suburban communities.
This explains why Vera, used to compact
European cities, felt so isolated in
Los Angeles. Vera literally hated Hollywood
and all her later life wanted to move
back to Paris. On the other hand Igor,
arriving in America with a recently
diagnosed but quiescent tuberculosis
infection, and observing that Harvard
in New England had "two seasons,
Winter and the Fourth of July"
remained devoted to the dependable warm
sunshine of Southern California and
spent much of his time traveling in
hot countries. The climate that Vera
hated allowed Igor to remain active
and composing to the age of 89 years.
Fortunately for me
a local university library has a circulating
copy of the multi-volume CD set of the
CBS/Sony Stravinsky conducted recordings
of most of the earlier and all of the
later works.* I warn you if you get
really involved in this and other books
on Stravinsky you may find yourself
seriously considering buying that very
expensive set. It is impossible to resist
searching out and hearing a recording
after reading the circumstances of it
discussed so fascinatingly by Walsh.
It would be good business for Sony to
donate free copies of these books to
every public library in the world.
*At the recording sessions,
and at many concerts, after Craft rehearsed
and prepared the orchestra, Stravinsky
would conduct the final run-throughs.
However, the engineers ran a continuous
tape and, if necessary, some material
from the rehearsal, conducted by Craft,
may have found its way into the final
edited mix. As all session notes are
gone there will never be any way to
know for sure. In the early days of
this process, most of the result was
Stravinsky’s but by 1964 nothing Stravinsky
did could be commercially released.
In the last days, Stravinsky would drop
in at the recording studio and leave
promptly, but this would allow CBS to
claim that the work was conducted by
Craft "in the presence of the composer."
In June of 1961 I saw
and heard Stravinsky conduct his Violin
Concerto and his Symphony of
Psalms and these were the best performances
of the works I have ever heard. He achieved
subtleties in rhythm and sonic balance
that I have otherwise never heard. I
think it would have been impossible
for the orchestra simply to have played
by memory from rehearsals by Robert
Craft because this was at the Los Angeles
Festival in UCLA’s Royce Hall and the
orchestra had each evening for weeks
been playing unfamiliar difficult major
works by at least three different modern
composers.
Paul Shoemaker
