Stravinsky and His World

by Levitz, Tamara

  We laughed at this amusing explanation from the great maestro, and asked him to tell us what modernism in music is.

  “There is no modernism in music,” he explains. “Music has been modernist in every age. Bach was a modernist in his time, and the modernist tendencies today or three centuries ago are the same, good or bad. If they are good, music is good, then and now; if they are bad, music is bad, then and now. In literature, in painting, in all the arts, there have always been certain rules to follow in order to produce a work of art, and good music is written or composed in these times just as it was in the past.”

  And addressing Mr. Alfonso Reyes, Stravinsky warned him that he had no intention to flatter him, but that Mr. Reyes’s book, La Vision de Anáhuac, had given him a better knowledge of Mexico than any history he could have read, because the ideas in it were expressed with great harmony.

  “That is the difficulty in any kind of art,” Stravinsky continues. “To put ideas in the strictly required order, in the harmonious form that creates the whole in a composition. Without this perfect order, there is no art. And in literature, Alfonso Reyes possesses this sublime ease.”

  It was getting late, and we would have liked to continue talking with the Maestro, but time was running out for everyone. He stands up and says simply and naturally: “Art would not be art if it were not done for the glory of God. Even those who think they are creating it for other reasons and ideals glorify God with it, without meaning to.”

  And on the lips of this great man, these words resound richly and sweetly.

  Russian by Origin, His Love Is France

  Igor Stravinsky’s presence in Mexico reminds us immediately of two names both familiar and beloved: Ana Pavlova, the eminent Russian and a singular character in the history of choreography, and the great pianist José Iturbi.108 Through their days of glory, the biography of our guest the distinguished Maestro is linked to these two figures so loudly applauded here among us. We should also remember at this time the figure of the great Ansermet, whose performance as guest conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de México is one of those impossible to forget; and Ansermet, in fact, has been one of the most effective propagators of Stravinsky’s work.109

  Our educated audiences already know a lot about the illustrious author of The Firebird and Petrushka, thanks to the prolific work one afternoon of the Ukrainian Chorus, which found in the Plaza of “El Toreo” the perfect setting to delight us with the latter of these ballets;110 they are also familiar with Stravinsky’s autobiography, first published in Buenos Aires by Sur, with a beautiful prologue by Victoria Ocampo.

  Buenos Aires had already had the privilege—after New York and before Mexico—of receiving a visit from the brilliant Russian musician, given that Ansermet had already conducted The Firebird in a memorable performance at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1917.111 For the Mexican people—who hold music as one of the purest sources of human freedom—Stravinsky’s arrival will be a powerful stimulant, since his genius is in full maturity and—as he has expressed so well—he is not only continuing to create, but also to perform his own music.

  Son of a remarkable singer at the St. Petersburg Imperial Opera, nephew of one of the most socially eminent in the Czarist Russia, disciple of Rimsky-Korsakov, great cultural traveler who has been able to enrich his culture with the most serious discipline, Stravinsky emphasizes here, while among us, his passionate love for France, his devotion to what he still considers his second homeland, as do other Russians of extraordinary quality both in science and art.

  A Genius Who Is Able to Admire Others

  Stravinsky—like all authentic geniuses—is one of the people most capable of admiring others, and enthusiastically burns magnificent myrrh in honor of others who have collaborated with him in brotherly artistic exploits.112 What he says about Ansermet could not be more eloquent: “His reputation as a perfect performer of my works is already established, but what has surprised me most is that certain—apparently learned—people who have admired his performances of contemporary music have not paid enough attention to the way he interprets works from the past. Ansermet belongs to a category of orchestra conductors that confirm the conviction developing in me for a long time about the relationships between early and modern music.”

  Revista de Revistas, 4 August 1940

  Stravinsky “The Yankee”!

  Jorge Mendoza Carrasco

  My first impression of the distinguished musician—personally, not artistically—was quite strange.113 Tall, regular build, light eyes with a penetrating gaze and austere gestures, he seems terribly dry, maybe even despotic. A few minutes into the conversation with him one is convinced, however, that though he may well be the former, he is never the latter.

  “If my life has any significance that merits writing articles about,” he tells me, “its most important phases can be found in the pages of Chroniques de ma vie.114 Not long ago,” he adds, “I devoted my best efforts to becoming a pianist and a conductor. It’s not up to me to say whether I have achieved my goal well, nor to talk about my own compositions.”

  Stravinsky recalls with a bit of irony that in Paris in 1913, when he premiered his work The Rite of Spring, the audience made it impossible to hear the last chords because of their whistling, screaming, and protests of all kinds. Only a year later—at the very beginning of the First World War—that same audience applauded wildly the same work by the Muscovite composer.115

  “My aesthetic ideal is to have no imitators,” he says.

  “By a strange coincidence,” Stravinsky adds, “I’m ending up in Mexico, where I was invited by Maestro Chávez to conduct the magnificent orchestra of Mexico in my first symphony, which will have its premiere at the end of the year with the Chicago Orchestra to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.”116

  In fact, Igor Stravinsky had until then composed only “ballets.”117

  “How did you meet Pavlova?” the reporter asks.

  Figure 1. “Igor Stravinsky, Mexico’s Illustrious Guest.”

  Cover of Revista de Revistas, 4 August 1940, caricature by Fa-cha.

  The Russian takes a minute or two to answer: “Maybe she was attracted to my music, as I was attracted to her dancing. Two Russians who identify with each other is nothing strange.118

  Speaking of his native country, the visiting musician compares his people with ours. “Also, I have found many affinities between the Russian people and the Mexican,” he says.

  Perhaps what best portrays Stravinsky’s personality, apart from his music of course, are the anecdotes that abound in his life, spiced as they are with grace and wit.

  It is said, for example, that a certain Italian association invited him to play their auditorium, advising him that the most important personalities of the musical world had performed there, although the society was so poor that they would never be able to pay what he might ask as honorarium. Stravinsky read the invitation and responded laconically by wire: “I hate the poor.”

  This brilliant Russian became a French citizen three years ago,119 but now that the traditional land of freedom has fallen to Nazi cannons, Igor Stravinsky has the intention of becoming an American citizen.

  Ultimas noticias (Mexico City), 25 July 1946

  Stravinsky Says That the OSM Is Magnificent

  Antonio Rodríguez

  Those who know Stravinsky through his photos, or imagine him through the renown of his brilliant productions, will certainly not recognize him to see him as he is: a tiny body; “nonchalant” in dress; with a demanding look that hides behind a pair of half-chipped glasses; his absolute baldness covered with a small wool hat like a clown’s, giving him the air of an eccentric tourist.120

  Protective of his time, the author of Petrushka gives us only the few minutes it takes for the car to cover the distance between Bellas Artes and Prendes,121 along with another few minutes, the following day, while he changes his rehearsal clothes for street clothes. Luckily, Stravinsky has the same prodigious capacity for s
ynthesis in conversation that shows in his music, so that each of his answers contains the essence of an entire conversation.

  Rule and Emotion

  In a second he states, quickly but clearly, his criteria for so-called national music. He doesn’t think that music should have that “profession,” and cites, as examples, the cases of Copland, the American, and himself, Russian by origin, who do not produce national music.122

  We talk about Béla Bartók and his theory about absorbing the national and expressing it by means of the personal language of each composer.123 When we slip in the word “system,” Stravinsky declares:

  “I don’t defend his system, or any system in music.”

  Looking for a connection, we allude to a phrase from Chávez: “The recipe, in art, is the barometer of mediocrity,” except that, in lieu of barometer, we said the “rule.”124

  “I don’t know if Chávez said that,” replied Stravinsky. “As for me, I’m for the rule. The French painter Braque said one day, ‘I love the rule that corrects emotion.’125 I also think that the rule corrects emotion.”

  “Nonetheless, many say that emotion is everything in a piece of art, that intelligence, too much culture, ‘cerebralism’—they say—kills inspiration.

  “Emotion!” Stravinsky exclaims, raising his arms in the air. “We all have emotion. Le bon Dieu—the good Lord—gives it to everyone. But we need rules to make it into a work of art.”

  Once Rivera told us, on almost the same topic: “Can you imagine Leonardo da Vinci being ignorant?”126

  Shostakovich: So Backward!

  Stravinsky confesses that he doesn’t know Latin American music; that among the Russians he is interested in Tchaikovsky and Glinka; that he barely respects some of the innovations of Musorgsky; and declares finally that he feels more Latinist or Latinizing than Slavic.

  Naturally, we spoke to him about Shostakovich, the musician about whom Serge Koussevitzky had this to say: “He is the greatest master of musical opulence, the master of what he wants to do; he has an endless melodic inventiveness; his musical language is as rich as the world; and his emotion abundantly universal.”127

  Stravinsky declares sharply: “Shostakovich is not interesting. His symphonies are monsters that last one hour and make a lot of noise. I don’t deny his talent. He has it, but he’s stayed where music was forty years ago. He’s a musician like Mahler, nothing more.”

  Moving from the artist to his concepts, we mentioned Shostakovich’s viewpoint that “music is not only a combination of sounds, but an art capable of expressing the most diverse ideas and feelings.”128

  “Music expresses nothing,” he replies energetically. “It is expressive in and of itself, but it does not express.”

  It can suggest, we suggest …

  Everything he said in response to that can be summarized with these words:

  “That is literature.”

  Throughout the conversation, he referred to his music as architectural construction: pure, free of anecdotes.

  You try, then, to make—we were about to say, but he interrupted us, proclaiming:

  “I don’t try to make. I make!” And he told us how Picasso answered those who called him a researcher: “I’m not a searcher, I’m a finder!” (Discoverer, let’s say.)129

  Mexico, the Symphony, and Carlos Chávez

  And discussing the Symphony:

  “It’s a good orchestra. Its members are very enthusiastic. They never get tired. And you know, I am very demanding.”

  But you are a guest. Isn’t this flattery?

  “You are wrong. I am not a flatterer. Yes, it’s a good orchestra. Many believe the only good orchestras are in the United States. Here’s proof of the contrary. I am interested in the mise au point. That is to say, I am interested in perfect adjustment, in precision rather than range. This is something I achieve with the Orquesta de México. Chávez created a great musical instrument with the symphony. Someone who comes up with an orchestra like that can achieve many other important things. As a composer I don’t know him deeply, but I know he is a good composer.”

  Period.

  Pro Arte (Santiago de Chile), 2 June 1949

  Stravinsky Judges Today’s Musical Moment

  Santiago del Campo

  Hollywood, May 1949 (by airmail).130 A voice may well become cosmopolitan over the phone, but Igor Stravinsky’s Russian accent reached the height of Slavism when he told me in English, then French:

  “Let’s meet for tea at my home—1260 Wetherly Drive,131 around the corner from Sunset Boulevard. To find your way, look for the café on the corner, A Bit of Sweden.”

  I don’t know why it’s been my lot to meet musicians in the middle of having tea or coffee. First, Gustav Mahler’s widow. Then, Darius Milhaud. Now, Stravinsky. I can’t complain. The tea hour brings on that feeling of literary circles, a kind of intimacy of the trenches. And, on another note, the Eastern magic of learning character through tea leaves contains more wisdom than the mental acrobatics of psychiatrists.

  After crossing the paved jungle of Sunset Boulevard’s hundreds of cars, hundreds of stores, hundreds of film agencies, the gimmick that’s supposed to attract tourists to Ciro’s,132 the well-trained legs of Earl Carroll’s girls,133 the models of designer Don Loper,134 Schwab’s Restaurant135 with its big tables filled with girls who are still waiting for something, and the endless parade of shop windows, gas stations, hotels I see the guiding sign: “A Bit of Sweden.”

  I turn onto a street that goes up the hill. The decor changes: instead of bright advertisements, the appealing green of lawns and gardens. There is something in the air that comes from the Mediterranean, as if the European sea had come to California for vacation.

  The gates at 1260 Wetherly are open. They are short fences facing a garden that rises, among flowers and more flowers, particularly geraniums and roses. In the back, between the trees, the Pacific peeks out and hides, like a moon scattered and in pieces. The doors of the house open to a white, spacious, single-story house with a terrace on one side. An elderly maid—I’m reminded of Chile, maybe Providencia Street136—lets me into a long entrance hall, a mix of living room and library. I look at the paintings: several Picassos, five Dalís, two paintings by the lively Yves Tanguy,137 sketches of scenery, a big painting by Theodore Stravinsky, son of Igor, who lives in Switzerland and is a stained-glass artist. There is order; none of that “craziness” that the public would applaud. A European would call it proper. A North American would call it “nice.”

  Madame Stravinsky comes in, tall, beautiful, sweet. She has such gentleness about her that even Dalí’s raptures seem to render themselves romantic on the walls. I ask her about her sons: Soulima, the pianist, Theodore, the painter.138 At the very moment she starts telling me that Soulima also lives in Hollywood, Stravinsky enters the scene.

  I can’t contain my astonishment. I imagined him very tall and thin, like that sketch by Cocteau where you see him bent like a Russian greyhound over Picasso’s short pipe.139 But he is short, incredibly short; nervous, active, tense, alert. It’s impossible to judge his age by his strong, flexible and confident gesticulations. However, on June 17 he will be 67 years old. Below his scarce hair, Stravinsky’s face is reflected in his large glasses—the woodpecker nose, the thick lips, the sharp ears. He bears an amazing resemblance to Mischa Auer, the Hollywood basso buffo.140 And he is elegant, lordly, skillful at using a cigar box and his hands, for emphasis.

  Within that second of first sight, similar to the second of death, I am excited to meet him, to be talking with him, to be participating in his home life. And rising within the excitement, contained, complete, synthesized, is all that this man represents for the history of contemporary music. And I see passing quickly before me his birth in Oranienbaum and the home of his father, who was a bass with the Imperial Opera. And the press clips from St. Petersburg that read, “The pianist boy Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky showed great talent.” And his encounter with Rimsky-Korsakov in Heidelb
erg. And his studies with Kalafati.141 And then, the trajectory of his work: the premiere of his first symphony in St. Petersburg in 1908; the Debussyan style of The Faun and the Shepherdess in 1909. And the poem with Maximilian Steinberg, four days before Korsakov’s death. And his encounter with Diaghilev, through the Scherzo fantastique, and the triumph of The Firebird ballet in Paris on 25 June 1910, date of the independence of modern music. And a year later, the success of Petrushka, the work that marks all of contemporary production with its polytonalist influence. And later, the public scandals of The Rite of Spring, and the Slavic accent of Les Noces, the burlesque irony of L’Histoire du soldat, and the use of jazz in Ragtime. And the last twenty-nine years, starting with Pulcinella, continuing with Mavra, Apollon musagète, Oedipus Rex, the Symphony of Psalms, Perséphone, Jeu de cartes, the Concerto in E-flat (“Dumbarton Oaks”), the Berceuses du chat, Cinq Pièces faciles, Le Roi des étoiles, Serenade in A, and culminating with the Biblical Symphony.142 This whole ocean of musical life, tireless, throbbing, powerful, emerges in summary in the first look.

  The taste of tea quiets the atmosphere, makes it more comfortable. Stravinsky talks about his life in California:

  “In 1941, I came to Harvard to teach a course. The lectures of that season were published in a book, Poétique musicale. Since then, I haven’t left North America. I don’t know why people try to make me travel to Europe no matter what. It’s the first thing they ask me: what am I going to do in Europe? I am doing well here, I’m happy. Apart from that, everyone is going to Europe right now. Let me work in peace. I have many things to do. Last year, I premiered a Mass, I have just finished the Orpheus ballet, and I am now preparing an opera with a libretto in English: The Rake’s Progress. The poet William Auden has written an excellent text. It has three acts and nine scenes for a small orchestra, like Cosí fan tutte.”