Stravinsky
Page 86
8 But Stravinsky already knew he was writing a concerto—if only with a small c—by 29 June 1935, when he mentioned the work in a letter to Ramuz; see Guisan (ed.), C.-F. Ramuz, ses amis et son temps, vol. 6 (Lausanne and Paris: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1970), 272–3.
9 See Stuart Isacoff, “Musical Life with Father” (an interview with Soulima Stravinsky), Keyboard Classics (September/October 1981), 17–18.
10 Mann, The Magic Mountain, trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (London: Secker & Warburg, 1946), 8. Mann’s wife, like Stravinsky’s, suffered from tuberculosis.
11 Ibid., 6.
12 In the main only Katya’s letters to her husband appear to have survived. His to her, admittedly less frequent, can sometimes be glimpsed from the contents of her replies. She certainly corresponded with the rest of the family as well, but these letters, if they survive, remain in private hands.
13 Letter of 2 September 1935 (PSS).
14 Letter of 10 July 1935, Katya to Igor (PSS).
15 Letter of 16 May 1935, Katya to Igor (PSS).
16 Letter of 7 June 1935, Katya to Igor (PSS).
17 Letter of 28 May 1935, Katya to Igor (PSS).
18 Though he only abandoned it conclusively in late November: see his telegram to Dushkin of 25 November 1935 (PSS).
19 Letter of 17 September 1935 (PSS).
20 Rosenstiel, Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music (London and New York: Norton, 1982), 259.
21 Much of my information about Stravinsky’s teaching method at the École Normale comes from Maurice Perrin, “Stravinsky in a Composition Class,” The Score, 20 (June 1957), 44–6. An undated letter from Nadia Boulanger to Stravinsky (PSS) indicates that she had also invited him to help with her summer teaching at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau. But Stravinsky, though he visited Nadia at Fontainebleau (for instance, in July 1935), seems never to have taught there.
22 “Novoye proizvedeniye I. F. Stravinskavo,” Posledniye Novosti, 7 December 1935.
23 The actual first performance was an afternoon matinee, after which the whole was repeated in the early evening of the same day, with a third performance the following evening (the 22nd). Craft’s mention of Polignac run-throughs on the 21st, 22nd, and 27th appears to be without foundation (see SSCII, 466), though the princess refers in an undated letter of (probably) 23 November (PSS) to “the exposé Nadia gave of it for me in my studio,” which might mean a formal talk to an invited audience with, perhaps, a performance in whole or part, or a private tutorial for the princess’s benefit. I am grateful to Sylvia Kahan for drawing this letter to my attention, and to Colin Slim for detective work on the dates.
24 The talk was published in Conferencia (the journal of the Université des Annales), 15 December 1935, 42–50, under the title “Quelques confidences sur la musique,” with a number of analytical music examples which do, in fact, shed light on the work’s conception, especially the emergence of the theme in the variation movement. The examples were also included in the program handout at the concert, but unfortunately the reprint of the article in White, Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), 581–5, omits them.
25 Figaro, 3 December 1935.
26 Vendredi, 29 November 1935. Prokofiev wrote to Myaskovsky a few days later that “one is bound to feel he has constructed his work splendidly, but the themes are thin—not themes but themelets” (letter of 3 December 1935, in PMP, 443; Robinson, Selected Letters of Prokofiev, 317).
27 See Chron, 29; Chroniques de ma vie, vol. 1, 33. The acquired English sense of the word “trouvaille”—a “find”—is exactly Stravinsky’s meaning.
28 Vittorio Tranquilli, “Strawinsky in prosa,” Il Piccolo di Trieste, 23 April 1931.
29 Vendredi, 29 November 1935.
30 Stravinsky’s letter of thanks to Pierné is dated 8 July: SSCII, 482. In his own letter of 14 July (PSS), Pierné refers to the Firebird premiere, but not to the anniversary.
31 “Ma candidature à l’Institut,” Le Jour, 28 January 1936. A partial English translation is in SSCII, 485–6.
32 In his autobiography, the singer Doda Conrad asserts that Stravinsky only agreed to stand on condition that the visits be waived. But there is no sign of any such stipulation in his correspondence with Blanche or Pierné, and he certainly did pay calls. On 13 January, Katya wrote from Sancellemoz (where she had just arrived from Paris): “Obviously you are paying calls now … Tell me as much as you can about your latest visits” (PSS). Conrad’s story is that the Princesse de Polignac set up a series of receptions in lieu of the visits, then, on the day of the election, held a final reception with the secret intention of announcing Stravinsky’s victory. But everything about this tale is improbable. For one thing, it was evident several days before the ballot that such a victory was highly unlikely, a fact of which the worldly and well-connected princess would hardly have been unaware. For another, Conrad says that when Stravinsky failed to turn up at the reception, he telephoned him, and spoke to Katya, who told him that her husband was ill and had been advised by the doctor not to go out. Alas for this fable, Katya was in Sancellemoz on the 25th, with her husband, who had arrived there the previous day. See Doda Conrad, Dodascalies: Ma chronique du XXe siècle (Arles: Actes Sud, 1997), 133–4.
33 “Divertissements académiques,” La Dépêche de Toulouse, 1 February 1936.
34 André Coeuroy, “Trois convois,” Gringoire, 24 January 1936. I have failed to identify the review of Les Noces to which he refers.
35 Letter of 15 January 1936, Pierné to Stravinsky, with a postscript by Blanche (PSS).
36 See his reply of 15 January. Craft suggests (SSCII, 484) that Stravinsky ignored his wife’s pleas that he withdraw; but her letter is dated the 18th, three days after the composer had made his instant decision.
37 “Le Sacre de l’automne,” Figaro, 17 January 1936. Presumably “Guermantes” was a pseudonym.
38 “Ma candidature à l’Institut,” loc. cit.
39 “How interesting and strange,” Katya wrote on 28 May 1935, “that you are conducting such a program” (PSS). The concert was on the 29th.
40 Chron, 248–50.
41 See John Lowe, Edward James: A Surrealist Life (London: Collins, 1991), for more on this whole episode and the painful and very public divorce which followed.
42 Bernard Taper, Balanchine (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1987), 148.
43 Letter of 11 August 1935, quoted in SSCII, 312.
4 AN ENEMY OF DEMOCRACY
1 As stated by Ocampo herself, in her Autobiografía (Buenos Aires: Sur, 1979–84), vol. 6, 53.
2 Ibid., vol. 3, 21.
3 “El poeta de la arquitectur,” in Testimonios VII, 140; quoted in Doris Meyer, Victoria Ocampo: Against the Wind and the Tide (New York: George Brazilier, 1979), 97. I am indebted to Dr. Meyer’s masterly study for much background information on Ocampo.
4 See her undated letter of July or early August 1934, sent from London (PSS).
5 Letter of 17 March 1936 (PSS).
6 On 4 April 1935, for instance, he had written to Theodore from New York that he was so obsessed and agonized by Katya’s illness that he had completely forgotten about Theodore’s birthday (PSS).
7 See Joan Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music in Hitler’s Germany,” 543–4; also Evans, Hans Rosbaud—A Bio-Bibliography (New York: Greenwood, 1992), 29–30. Exactly what was planned for Frankfurt remains somewhat unclear. Evans mentions both the broadcast lecture-recital and a public concert organized by Gerhard Frommel’s new-music workshop. Strecker had also tried to persuade Stravinsky to play the Capriccio under a local conductor called Wetzelberger, but he objected that he was too out of practice as a concerto soloist and instead proposed that he conduct Soulima in this or the Piano Concerto (letter of 1 February 1936 [PSS], published without the material on Soulima in SSCIII, 240).
8 Letter of 27 January 1936, in SSCIII, 239.
9 Letter of 26 February 1936 (PSS).
10 Letter of 4 March 1936 (PSS).
11 Quoted in SPD, 552. Craft was the first to pull together much of this information on Stravinsky’s politics in the thirties, though the picture he paints is curiously unsympathetic to the intimate logic of the composer’s worldview.
12 See SCS, 430, for an account of this incident.
13 Letter of 4 March 1936.
14 See his letter of 14 July 1936 to Yury Schleiffer-Ratkoff, a Russian friend living in Rome. Stravinsky had handed the book and medal to an aide, asking that there be no publicity. “However,” he pointed out to Schleiffer, “I don’t think this can be the reason for so complete a silence on the part of the Duce, who would usually always thank me on receiving music, books, or messages of congratulation from me” (PSS). Three months later, he “joyfully” agreed to open his Naples concert on 29 November with the Fascist hymn, “Giovinezza,” presumably played on a piano, since the concert was a joint recital with Soulima (13 October 1936, quoted in SPD, 552).
15 SPD, 328.
16 “Igor Strawinski nos habla de las orientaciones futuras de la música y de su arte,” La Nación, 25 April 1936.
17 “Stravinsky es enemigo de la democracia,” Crítica, 25 April 1936.
18 “Comentarios: Strawinsky y el materialismo,” Criterio, undated cutting in PSS (May, 1936).
19 “Concepto deplorable,” El Liberal, 6 May 1936.
20 José Gabriel, “Igor Strawinsky ha venido succionar el tesoro argentino,” Señales, 6 May 1936.
21 From an interview by Danubio Torres Fierro, Plural (December 1975), quoted and translated by Doris Meyer, Victoria Ocampo, 115–6.
22 Undated note, presumably 24 or 25 April 1936 (PSS).
23 “Igor Strawinsky se presentó en el Teatro Colón,” La Nación, 29 April 1936.
24 See Katya’s letter of 18 March 1936 to her husband (PSS), also “Igor Strawinsky se presentó en el Teatro Colón,” loc. cit. Nevertheless, Soulima’s Buenos Aires appearances were not without incident. At one of his Buenos Aires recitals, the piano’s music rack collapsed and Soulima crushed one of his fingers in the piano lid, according to his own account in his unpublished memoirs, Are You the Son …? I am grateful to Soulima’s son, John Stravinsky, for showing me this typescript.
25 Robert Craft’s description in SCF (94), 229.
26 La Prensa, 18 May 1936.
27 In an undated note (PSS), Victoria upbraids herself for coming to Rio and letting down various people in Buenos Aires.
28 Letter of 25 February 1954 (PSS). I have been unable to identify the “G’s” or, perhaps fortunately, the tenor.
29 Letter of 23 June 1936 (PSS).
30 First Person Plural, 216–7.
31 Letter dated June 1936 (PSS).
32 First Person Plural, 217.
33 Chron, 22.
34 Expo, 55.
35 First Person Plural, 218.
36 Ibid., 219–20. I have accepted Dagmar’s account since, allowing for some mild exaggeration, it tallies—or at least does not conflict—with Stravinsky’s own brief memoir and other known facts. Despite this breach, Stravinsky accepted membership of a committee of honor for a celebration, at the Metropolitan Opera House in July 1937, of the fiftieth anniversary of Hofmann’s New York début.
37 ImpLif, 197.
38 Ibid., 115, 197; SPD, 331.
39 Craft, private communication. Ocampo, Autobiografía, vol. 4, 149–50.
40 Anne Ansermet, Ernest Ansermet, mon père (Lausanne: Payot, 1983), 73.
41 Autobiografía, vol. 5, 18.
42 Letter of 14 April 1936, in DB, 77.
43 Letter of 10 July 1936 (PSS).
44 ImpLif, 115–6. Vera’s move seems to have been to an apartment with better heating. See Katya’s letter to her husband, 18 March 1936 (PSS).
45 ImpLif, 115. Craft adds that photographs exist of them together in her hotel room at Wiessee.
46 See Vera’s letter to Igor of 6 May 1936, in DB, 79. Craft suggests in a footnote that the rift was caused by Lourié’s book on Koussevitzky. But that book came out in 1931, and while Stravinsky certainly disliked it and told Lourié so (see Lourié’s letter of 21 April 1932 [PSS]), subsequent correspondence shows that they were back on a friendly footing in 1933 and 1934, if less close than before. Nor was the present breach final, as we shall see.
47 Letter of 6 June 1936, in DB, 81.
48 See Strecker’s letters to Stravinsky of 6 July, 21 July, and 3 August 1936, respectively; also Stravinsky’s letter of 1 August (all in SSCIII, 243–4). For more information on the whole affair, including the reviews cited here, see Joan Evans, “‘Diabolus triumphans’: Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” in J. Daverio and J. Ogasapian (eds.), The Varieties of Musicology: Essays in Honor of Murray Lefkowitz (Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 2000), 175–85.
49 Sfam, 124.
50 See Katya’s letter of 20 July 1936 (PSS). Two months before (letter of 19 May), Katya had provided an almost comical history of her younger daughter’s ailments. She had had her throat cauterized on the advice of her singing teacher, and she had been to a homeopath, who had diagnosed a weak liver, and problems with her sympathetic nervous system and circulation. That Milène is still alive and well in Los Angeles as I write—in January 2005—might seem one of the happier miracles of valetudinarianism.
51 See her letter of 17 January (PSS).
52 Letter of 20 February 1936, Balanchine to Stravinsky: SSCII, 314–5 (but wrongly dated 29 February). In T&C, 44 (T&E, 35), Stravinsky claims to have written a fragment of the final tableau on the boat to South America; but the statement cannot confidently be taken as authentic and (like other program-note details in that volume) may be an editorial assumption based on a study of the autograph materials.
53 Letter of 30 June 1936: SSCII, 315. Balanchine’s letter (quoted ibid.) is dated 11 June.
54 Letter of 20 September 1935, in SSCII, 312, but inadequately translated. “Changerais-tu mon texte, que je m’inclinerais”—“Should you change my text, I should acquiesce.” The reasonable assumption that this refers to the new ballet is Craft’s.
55 T&C, 45. T&E, 36, has a slightly different wording of the same memoir.
56 See Katya’s letter of 21 July 1936 (PSS). Her letters of February had revealed that Milène was also for a time roped in to help with the libretto, perhaps as a distraction from various unsuitable young men.
57 The letter has not survived but is quoted by Katya in her letter of 27 July to her husband (PSS).
58 Le Jour, 3 February 1938, quoted in White, Stravinsky, 394 (note).
59 Letter of 29 July 1936 (PSS).
60 See especially her letter of 13 April 1937 (PSS). “Malayev cannot be left alone at present, and he was in a sanatorium not long ago having tried to poison himself with phenobarbitone.”
61 See Strecker’s letter of 20 August 1936, partially quoted in SSCIII, 244–6, note 45.
62 The terms were conveyed by Dushkin in a letter of 2 August 1936. Stravinsky’s acceptance (limiting the exclusivity to the U.S.A.) is dated 12 August. He had tried to insist (once again) on Theodore being engaged as designer, but this was refused, on the possibly genuine grounds that Theodore was not a member of the relevant trade union. See SSCII, 316–7.
63 See Katya’s letter of 6 September 1936 (PSS).
64 For instance, by 17 September Strecker had 82 pages of score (up to fig. 92, the entry of the Joker in the second deal), but he did not yet have the third variation, which Stravinsky was still writing on the 18th. On 16 October he sent another 61 pages (up to the Combat between Spades and Hearts), but the waltz-minuet was tipped in later, probably in November. Meanwhile Stravinsky had composed the ending of the whole ballet on 19 October.
65 Letter of 15 November 1936, SSCIII, 246.
66 See, for instance, Strecker’s letter of 12 December 1936, and Stravinsky’s reply of the 15th, in SSCII, 319–20. The score is prefaced by the moral from La Fontaine’s “Les Loups et les br
ebis”:
… Il faut faire aux méchants guerre continuelle
La paix est fort bonne de soi,
J’en conviens; mais de quoi sert-elle
Avec des ennemis sans foi?
which seems a singularly inapt epigraph to a work in which good triumphs (in La Fontaine the wolves, having made a treaty with the sheep, gobble up the lambs and strangle the sheepdogs). But this may be a survival from the aborted collaboration with Cocteau.
67 T&C, 43, where the composer also claims a lifelong interest in card games, “ever since I learned durachki as a child” (note, as before, the slightly variant text in T&E, 34). His supposed enthusiasm for poker while writing Jeu de cartes, though, should be set beside his statement in Expo (136) that he could not gamble because “I hate to regret.” A month after finishing the ballet he told an interviewer in Toronto (Evening Telegram, 4 January 1937) that he spent his evenings at the cinema or playing bridge, which (unlike poker) is not by its nature a gambling game.
68 The theme itself, halfway down the page, is circled in the same red crayon. See SPD, 332, for a facsimile reproduction of the page. Stravinsky often labelled his sketches ex post facto in this way.
69 He told Alberto Gasco, “I write music in the morning, devote the afternoons to less demanding activities, and play cards in the evening.” See “Strawinsky e il Fascismo,” in Gasco, Da Cimarosa a Strawinsky (Rome: Edizioni de Santis, 1939), 458.
70 Letter to Balanchine, 30 June 1936: SSCII, 315. This was, on my argument, before the subject was chosen, but that hardly affects the point.
5 DEATH DEALS …
1 The matter is referred to in Katya’s letters of January 1937. See also SSCI, 15, note 30. In the end Malayev did not go and the wine was delivered by the violinist Jeanne Gautier.
2 Lincoln Kirstein, “Working with Stravinsky,” in M. Lederman (ed.), Stravinsky in the Theatre (New York: Da Capo, 1975), 137, 139–40.
3 Toronto Evening Telegram, 4 January 1937.
4 Toronto Daily Star, 4 January 1937.