Contemporary Russian Music
We then talked about contemporary Russian music. “I know very little about the current music of my country,” Stravinsky declares, “and I think deep down there isn’t much there, or to put it better, nothing new. I think that, for the time being, a nation that has suffered such upset in its social structure cannot produce an interesting work of art. They are doing ‘something else,’ I know, but unfortunately this thing is not real art since it is simply used for propaganda. When Bolshevism broke out, everything that was produced was for the Left, and anything that the Left produced was good. It was really insignificant work, written with a doorman’s taste in mind. Now, they’re starting to compose for the Right, and the approach hasn’t changed much. There is, however, a talented young composer, Dmitry Shostakovich. I know good compositions by him, as well as a Lady Macbeth—which is detestable in terms of its libretto, and backward in its musical spirit, resembling in its tendency something out of Musorgsky’s era. This is what I can say about contemporary Russian music, which definitively confirms what I said before—that is, audiences in general are fifty years behind the truly original creator.”
Emerging Compositions
Discussing the most important works to emerge in recent years, independently from his own, Igor Stravinsky says he knows very little about what is being produced these days. “My life is quite isolated. I work a lot, I compose, I write, I don’t neglect the piano, because ever since I became convinced that most of those who perform my works don’t know how to reproduce my way of thinking, I resolved that, while I can, I will perform my works myself, along with my son Soulima, who is a conscientious artist.87 That is why I am not well informed about emerging compositions. I can say, however, that there are some composers I like a lot and others I don’t care for at all. Among the young ones,” he adds, “the name Conrad Beck attracted my attention at Baden-Baden not long ago—he is a Swiss musician of German culture—and among the Italians, I consider Rieti and Petracchi [sic] talented.88 As to my personal preferences, quite honestly I am for Italianism, for Cimarosa, Rossini, Bellini, and Verdi, whom I adore.
“I also continue to have an enormous veneration for Debussy, with whom I had a deep friendship. However, it’s very difficult to talk with precision today about the Impressionists who after all lay the groundwork for the vanguard movement that in its time we started: Picasso, Derain, Ravel, and others.89 Then, to move on to other authors, I like Manuel de Falla a lot, even though he is not of my time. But I admire his profoundly religious spirit, and this pleases me, because with faith one can create great works. You probably know that when the Republic was established in Spain Falla was named honorary citizen of Granada and he, who considered a town that would burn down churches and convents to be sacrilegious, responded: ‘I believe in Christ; therefore I do not accept such an award.’90 That’s beautiful, isn’t it? And I find it beautiful because materialism is something very distant from me. It is what forbade me from going back to my homeland. For men to give up their lives for a materialistic paradise I find degrading; whereas I can perfectly understand the ideal that inspires the spirit of the Crusades, for example. The oscillations of politics seem very alien to me. I am neither royalist nor republican. But I am anti-parliamentarian. That I can’t stand, like a horse that can’t put up with a camel.”91
Chroniques de ma vie
We talked about his two-volume Chroniques de ma vie, which has been of such vivid interest to the musical world. “For the time being,” he says, “I am not thinking about publishing a new volume. It will come, probably, later. Here too, there has been a certain incomprehension as far as the public is concerned. I didn’t want to present an anecdotal life story, the picturesque aspects of my behavior, or sentimental confidences, which do not interest anyone, after all. I only wanted to express what I think using simple, concise, and clear language—neither more nor less than I do musically—and not about doctrine, but about the practice of life from a creator’s and a performer’s perspective, because these are things I do myself. Here I lay out more broadly the reasons I decided to be the interpreter of my own works, after not having done so for a long time. That is why my trips have multiplied lately, and I always have the pleasure of confirming, by the way I am honored, that my purpose has been met. I have also begun explanatory conferences on my new works. That is what I did last year at the Université des Annales, in Paris, for the Concert for Two Pianos that I performed with my son Soulima.92 Mr. Palma has invited me to repeat that conference at the Colón, which I will do with great pleasure.” Finally, he concludes by saying: “Tomorrow I will begin rehearsals at the theatre, and please send my greetings to the great newspaper La Nación, the most important one in South America; the name was already familiar to me from having always seen it on the Avenue des Champs Elysées in Paris.”
The Program He Will Perform at the Colón
The programs of Igor Stravinsky to be performed at the Colón have been definitely set in the following manner: First concert, Tuesday the 28th, Pulcinella Suite; Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments; and Symphony of Psalms. Second concert, May 2, Feu d’artifice; Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra; Les Cinq Doigts; and The Rite of Spring. First dance performance on May 6, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas; The Firebird; and Petrushka. Second dance performance on May 9, The Fairy’s Kiss and Apollon musagète (premiere). Third concert, May 10, Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments and Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra; soloist Soulima Stravinsky. Fourth concert, May 14, premiere of Perséphone thanks to the collaboration of Mrs. Victoria Ocampo and Mr. Carlos Rodríguez. Third concert-conference, May 16, conference by Igor Stravinsky; premiere of Concerto for Two Pianos (Igor and Soulima Stravinsky); Serenade in A, Piano Sonata, Soulima Stravinsky; and second performance of Concerto for Two Pianos. Last concert, May 16, repetition of Perséphone with some of the previous works.
El Universal (Mexico City), 23 July 1940
Igor Stravinsky, the Eminent Composer and Conductor, Arrived in Mexico Yesterday and Will Conduct a Concert of the Orquesta Sinfónica de México
The distinguished Russian composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky is among us as of yesterday morning.93 He came with his wife and is staying at the Hotel Reforma, where he met with a group of journalists who came to interview him last night.
Stravinsky had to leave Europe because of the war. Most recently he was in France. His sons remained there, but he knows nothing about them due to the lack of communications and the prevailing chaos in the territory conquered by Nazi forces.
We see in Stravinsky the terrible imprint he still carries from the European conflict. As he talks about the war, telling us that all his sympathies are with France, we see reflected in the face of this brilliant musician the dreadful situations he experienced.
“It is horrible!” he tells us.
But he didn’t come here to talk about the conflict that has brought grief to so many nations, but to conduct a series of concerts with the orchestra of Maestro Carlos Chávez.94
In French—the language he prefers, though he is full of praise for Spanish—he tells us about his brief stay in the United States, where he gave a series of conferences at Harvard University about a variety of musical topics.95
He is accompanied by Carlos Chávez and Alfonso Reyes, two of his closest Mexican friends.96 Everyone listens attentively to the voice of the Maestro, who talks tirelessly about the topic that brought him to Mexico: music.
“Mexico,” says Stravinsky, “must be a musical country par excellence, since that was and is true of the Spaniards, from whom Mexicans descend. This is the first time I’ve come to Mexico, but I am certain that for me the trip will reveal many beautiful things. As soon as I finish my engagement with Maestro Chávez, I will go to the countryside to rest, to breathe in the sun, the air, to learn about the vernacular music of this very musical people.”
Stravinsky will start rehearsals tomorrow with the orchestra of Carlos Chávez, because
on Friday this week he will be performing before the Mexican public.
He is very thankful for all the kindness he has received and sends through El Universal his warmest greetings to the Mexican people, society, and those who love the art he so prominently represents.
El Nacional (Mexico City), 23 July 1940
An Hour with Stravinsky
Arqueles Vela
The intellectual figure of Igor Stravinsky is so strong that any physical effect vanishes with the power of his conversation.97 We cannot see the man of daily life. His internal gesture imposes itself in such a way that we barely perceive any expression of emphasis to his words, words that encompass his feeling so purely. When his outward disposition surprises us, it is because it reveals the intimacy of an idea, an inner attitude. We ask him nothing. His passion for expressing what he thinks about music impels the conversation without any prior discussion—in a tonality so communicative, so much his own that we remain suspended, listening to him as if he had guessed what we wanted to know about his artistic life.
He begins by talking about his first contact with Mexican musical life, with his own musical life in Mexico: the rehearsals with the Orquesta Sinfónica that he will conduct, as a guest conductor, next Friday.
“It’s a good orchestra … the musicians in it respond with enthusiasm, do a good job of interpreting what’s called for. I don’t say this to flatter, but it is a good orchestra. I work with pleasure, with …”
Now a question arises and Stravinsky is transported to France. “I remember it,” he says, “the way we remember paradise. Not the paradise that’s beyond life, but the paradise of our own life. The terrestrial paradise …”
The paradise where he so splendidly cut the fruit of art in order to share it with the uncertainty of creation—that’s the important thing for Stravinsky, creation, the transformation of life into delectable material.
Someone asks another question: this time about modern music. And Stravinsky wonders aloud, partly to himself: “What does modern mean?”
And he answers: “All music has been modern, in all times. Schubert and Bach were modern, and all the musicians who were of their times. But the word modern has to mean ‘classical’ and ‘neoclassical’ as well or else it loses its meaning.”
And he remembers how the critics appraise his work: “You are a neo-classical composer … Very well, if you believe that neoclassical means someone who creates by ordering material. Very well, I am neoclassical. If you think that label will do for me … Very well, thank you very much.”
Then he talks about creative work, about considering life as the raw material of artistic creation, and says: “The important thing is to compose—in the most immediate sense of the word. Compose: put one thing after another, next to another; arrange things in such a way that they spark an interest in those things—for what they suggest in isolation and only say once ordered. The important thing is to present the material as it is, so it can say what it is. Nothing has told me more about Mexico than a book by Alfonso Reyes: Anáhuac.98 More than from histories about Mexico, I learned what Mexico is by reading Alfonso Reyes, because he has taken the subject of his country and presented it so that it speaks for itself. Pure material has the most eloquence. The great artist does nothing but put it in order so that we can go deeper into it and understand it.”
In the suspenseful pause, I make the following suggestion: “Excuse me if I insist that you talk about the Orquesta Sinfónica de México. That touches me more closely.”
“No more than it touches me,” Stravinsky answers quickly. “Mexico is a musical people. I believe there are musical races. And you are a musical race. And this is not just a phrase. The ancient Mexicans have left vestiges of their musical racialities.99 And since the Spaniards are also a musical race, the musicalities of those two racial types have merged and produced your musical imperative. Because I feel that Mexico has a musical imperative.”
And then—as if we didn’t fully believe him—he resorts to an essay by Paul Valéry about the power of music. About its power to provoke a physiological potentiality in the body.100
“I have worked with the orchestra with great pleasure. It has made my glands work … It has inspired me …”
Suddenly, another question arises, about good music, and Stravinsky smiles for the first time and asks a question as well, emphatically: “What do we call good music?”
And he answers himself: “That which we must play. There is music we must play because it awakens vital sensations in us, and music that we must not play: that which is incapable of moving us, of extracting from within ourselves an inner energy that can increase the value of the material.
Remembering his last comment about critics, he quotes a letter of Schubert’s, on the subject of the poetic and then he tells us:
“I did not mean any of those things that appear in the review. The poet is he: the critic.101 I just tried to compose sonorous material. Music is made with sounds, like poetry is made with words, not with ideas … as Mallarmé said all so well.”102
While I’m saying good-bye, already alone with Stravinsky’s effusive handshake, I tell him: What beautiful things you have said about art!
“Beautiful because I have lived them,” he answers. “Everything that is lived with passion is beautiful.”
This is how Stravinsky has lived, to the depth of his material. That’s why he is always so close to the popular. No great artist can distance himself from the popular, if he wants to convey the purest part of life.
Excélsior (Mexico), 25 July 1940
“Art Would Not Be Art Were It Not Done for the Glory of God,” Stravinsky Says on Arriving in Mexico
Ana Salado Alvarez
Stravinsky, the most outstanding composer of our time, is in Mexico.103 He has come here to conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica: Mexico City audiences will have the privilege of listening to one of the most outstanding musicians of our time as he conducts—one who, despite having revolutionized music, is loyal to musical tradition and a Bach disciple.
Though Russian by nationality, his facial features do not show the physiognomy of a man of his race. Of medium height, thin, with a pronounced nose, he dresses carelessly and has kind and elegant manners, like someone accustomed to constantly interacting with people and being in the public eye.104
The Maestro speaks a clean and correct French, and it is in this language that he prefers to express himself. He does so with clarity, and his ideas are of such depth that they reveal both the man of talent and the philosopher who sees everything from this perspective—especially when the topic is music.
Music was, of course, the topic of conversation when we entered the suite at the Reforma Hotel where he is staying. The Maestro was conferring with men greatly interested in the subject: Adolfo Salazar, Alfonso Reyes, Maestro Chávez, and Arqueles Vela.105 They would not have wanted or intended to speak of anything else. The topic was mandatory and thus extremely interesting. The war was a variation on the theme.
Questions came from all of us there: Maestro, where were you when the war broke out? Will this worldwide commotion influence music? What effects will it have on the feelings of humanity? What will happen afterward?
“I left France on 16 September, a few days after war was declared. The French people are brave; they prepared for it with goodwill, even enthusiasm. They were doing their duty heroically. Still, there was sadness, alarm, uncertainty, maybe because of the sense of a coming catastrophe.
“But the French have a spiritual vitality unlike any other people on earth, and will not succumb. What will happen afterward? That is the tragic question. How will it affect humanity? Only God can know.”
However, returning to the topic of music: Since we know the Maestro has come from the United States, he is interrupted with questions about musical trends in that country, about the American people’s taste and capability for the art of music.
“There are truly great musicians, and of high quality. I have been tea
ching classes at the University of Cambridge106 about the philosophy of music. I was asked to teach in French, and now the lectures are being translated into English so they can be published by the Harvard Press.107 And there, in those classes, I had the opportunity to meet very serious musicians with the true qualities of composers and performers. There are peoples—races, I should say—that are naturally musical, and others that become musical by force of study. The latter can be compared to distilled water, which isn’t as pleasant as natural water, but possesses the same essential qualities. Musically educated peoples are similar.”
And how would you classify the Mexican people, Mr. Stravinsky?
“I would be surprised if the Mexican people were not musical. It has this inheritance by tradition. I had nothing less than proof of it today when I was rehearsing this afternoon with the orchestra. The Orquesta Sinfónica is a great orchestra, composed of magnificent musicians. Paul Valéry explained everything biologically; it was a curious obsession of his. He said that true writers or musicians or painters were those who made his glands work—the glands that awakened in him the feeling of enjoying these arts. And in the same way these Mexican musicians had the privilege of ‘making my musical glands work.’”
Stravinsky and His World Page 28