Stravinsky and His World

by Levitz, Tamara

  Without my asking, he gets excited talking about the musical quality obtained from chamber orchestras and few characters onstage:

  “I was never able to understand Stokowski’s obsession with using crowds of performers to play Bach and Mozart. It’s a monstrosity. The only thing he succeeded in doing was moving the character of the music off-center and out of proportion. Bach’s Passions were written for thirty people at most, including soloists, choir, and orchestra. I don’t understand the reason to give them a superdose of vitamins. That’s why I always prefer small, almost intimate spaces. People have talked to me about the Metropolitan Opera House several times. It terrifies me.”

  He smokes in between sips of tea. He moves, leans forward, switches from French to English. Madame Stravinsky watches him, pleasantly silent. To annoy him, I ask:

  “Critics don’t understand the religious tendencies in your music since your Biblical Symphony in 1940, and the complete departure from Russian-inspired themes.”

  He is visibly annoyed. He shakes his sharp face, he vibrates:

  “That’s like the critics, trying to find these little reasons to sink into what has become known as ‘artistic feeling’! When they ask me if there’s emotion in my music, I don’t know what to answer. I don’t know which emotion they are talking about. There are so many in this world. Of course there is emotion. I don’t deny it. But in a work of art, emotion is implied. We always work with emotion. But the problem of art is a different one. It’s what the Greeks called poetry: ‘to know how to do.’143 Music is a question of technique, of culture, of knowledge. It’s an objective. It’s as important as philosophy or mathematics. Emotion is for the audience. There’s no reason to talk about it!”

  “So your ‘religious influence’ …?”

  “Has never existed. I have written a Mass and a Biblical Symphony, like all composers who have used religious themes. Like Mozart, or Haydn, or Brahms. As a problem of form. As an incentive for musical development. I imagine that after listening to my ballet Orpheus, the critics won’t think that I am looking for the path to hell…”

  We talked about music in general. Here, in summary, are his words on a variety of topics:

  “What is it they call classicism? We should talk in terms of periods: the classicism of the seventeenth century, of the eighteenth century, of the nineteenth century, and in sixty years, the classicism of the twentieth century. All great musicians become classic. Musicians of today, you ask? I don’t know them much. Benjamin Britten, barely. Not Ives’s music, either. Definitely, I do not like Messiaen. When it comes to current Russian musicians, it’s better that we don’t get into it—horrifying. The old Russians? Well, Rimsky-Korsakov was a great musician, a great teacher, but he was never a composer. He built his works like someone sculpting with marble. Musorgsky? A natural with lightning—uncultured musically, movingly so—great memory, sparks, but with a Franciscan poverty of technique.”

  I take advantage of his dive into this topic, his frank triple somersault of opinions and theories. I ask him to summarize his general ideas about music.

  “Do you consider yourself a musical revolutionary?”

  His answer is sharp, fast, incisive, without losing his elegance:

  “Art is never revolutionary. Revolution implies a provisional chaos, and art is the opposite of chaos. The Middle Ages were correct in referring to art as craft. It was the Renaissance that invented the word artist. Why burden art with the resounding and ominous flavor of the term revolution …? As to my personal preferences, I think the mere fact of creating is enough. If through a miracle—that fortunately will never happen—I was handed my work completed, before I had started creating it, I would feel deeply distressed. It’s working that saves an artist, not the theories. Here’s what Paul Valéry once said to me: ‘I prefer work to recipes.’”

  The afternoon has been whole, round as an apple. The trip from Hollywood to Los Angeles is so long that I move to make my good-byes. Stravinsky shows me around his house, the ocean view, the manuscripts of his new opera, the canvas chairs on the terrace, the flowers he likes best. And throughout our final handshake, he talks about Madame Errázuriz, “our best friend,” “our unforgettable Chilean friend.”144 I promise to give her his regards when I return to Chile.

  Back in the street, I steal a geranium.

  NOTES

  1. Tamara Levitz chose the interviews here from a selection Stravinsky himself kept that is today housed in his Nachlaß at the Paul Sacher Stiftung (hereafter PSS). She focused on the period from 1916 to 1949, and included Stravinsky’s essay from the French newspaper Comoedia because it is one of few public statements he made about Spanish culture and music, and is thus of crucial importance in understanding his developing relationship to Spain in the early 1920s.

  2. Jesús Bal y Gay and Rosita García Ascot, Nuestros trabajos y nuestros días (Madrid: Fundación Banco Exterior, 1990), 142.

  3. Stravinsky’s attentiveness to Spanish street music and soundscape is well documented. See, among many examples, Oriol Martorell, “Stravinsky a Barcelona: Sis visites i dotze concerts,” d’arte 8–9 (November 1983): 103, 120; and Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1936; repr. 1962), 62–64.

  4. On Stravinsky’s opinions on Manuel de Falla’s El Sombrero de tres picos and El Retablo de Maese Pedro see his Autobiography, 133; and Memories and Commentaries (1960; repr., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 81 (76 in 1960 ed.).

  5. It is interesting, especially in the interviews of the 1920s, to see Stravinsky seeking to form spiritual and aesthetic alliances with countries on the European cultural periphery. In 1921 he even posits the existence of a Russian-Andalusian community that bypasses the Latin element in Spain. Later, he positions the entire Latin world against Germany.

  6. Stravinsky received many presents from Eugenia Errázuriz after first meeting her in Madrid on 30 May 1916; he received a monthly subvention from her for a time, composed as a commission from her his Etude for pianola, dedicated his Ragtime for Eleven Instruments to her, and had an affair with her nephew’s wife in London in 1921. See Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 143, 618n231, hereafter SPD; and Stephen Walsh, Stravinsky, A Creative Spring: Russia and France 1882–1934 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 266.

  7. Anáhuac refers to the Mexican highlands, where the ancient Toltec and Mexican civilizations took root and Mexico City was founded in 1521. Alfonso Reyes offers a delightful account of a dress rehearsal he attended of Les Noces in “Improvisación,” Obras Completas (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956), 2:298–300. Picasso probably introduced Stravinsky to Reyes.

  8. These programs were crucial for the aesthetic orientation of the Argentine composers who belonged to the Grupo Renovación, which included Juan Carlos Paz, Jacobo Fischer, Juan José Castro, Gilardo Gilardi, and José María Castro.

  9. Igor Stravinsky, Crónicas de mi vida, trans. Guillermo de Torre (Buenos Aires: Sur, 1935).

  10. Stravinsky also presented her with a manuscript copy of Perséphone. See Omar Corrado, “Victoria Ocampo y la música: Una experiencia social y estética de la modernidad,” Revista musical chilena 61 (July–December 2007): 49.

  11. See Omar Corrado, “Stravinsky y la constelación ideológica argentina en 1936,” Latin American Music Review 26 (Spring–Summer 2005): 88–101.

  12. Salazar and Stravinsky met in Spain in 1916. Stravinsky may have met Jesús Bal y Gay and Rosa García Ascot through Manuel de Falla or the Residencia de Estudiantes in Barcelona in the 1930s, but they became friends only in Mexico.

  13. In contrast with Vera Stravinsky’s unfortunate description of Chávez’s last visit with Stravinsky in a diary entry of 31 January 1971 (cited in SPD, 498), Chávez wrote a very moving account of it in a letter to his closest friend, Aaron Copland, 21 November 1971, Fondo Carlos Chávez, Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City.

  14. Stra
vinsky also recorded with the OSM his Divertimento, which is a suite from Le Baiser de la fée. See the discussion of the Divertimento in “Igor the Angeleno,” Tamara Levitz’s essay in this volume.

  15. Salazar reviewed Stravinsky’s Poétique musicale in “Artes y letras: Igor Strawinsky, filósofo y poeta,” Novedades, 16 February 1946. Carlos González Peña, noticing Stravinsky’s reticence to be interviewed, published an avowedly fictive interview (“Una entrevista con Stravinsky,” El Universal, 1 August 1940), in which the composer’s answers were taken entirely from Chroniques de ma vie.

  16. On Falla and Salazar see Consuelo Carredano, Adolfo Salazar: De la España del resurgimiento musical al México de la modernidad postrevolucionaria (Madrid: ICCMU, forthcoming). I am grateful to the author, who shared her ideas and prepublication materials with me. Salazar wrote numerous books on twentieth-century music, where he discussed Stravinsky’s and Falla’s music. For an interesting description of the relationship between Falla and Stravinsky see Gianfranco Vinay, “Falla et Stravinsky: Confrontation en deux volets,” in Manuel de Falla: Latinité et universalité: Actes du colloque international tenu en Sorbonne, 18–21 novembre 1996, ed. Louis Jambou (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1999), 405–18.

  17. Spanish title: “Los grandes compositores: Una conversación con Stravinsky—Sus propósitos—Los Bailes españoles—Música para pianola,” La Voz, 21 March 1921. Stravinsky conducted Petrushka at the Teatro Real in Madrid on 19 March 1921. The expression “drum and the bass drum” (el tambor y el bombo) refers to instruments brought to Spain in the medieval period.

  18. Real Conservatorio Superior de Música.

  19. King Alfonso XIII invited Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes to stage shows in Madrid and San Sebastián from May to August 1916.

  20. Stravinsky refers here to Diego Velázquez’s famous portrait of Philip IV of Spain, kept in the Prado.

  21. In Spanish, “sensación acústica.”

  22. Spanish critics were debating the role of feeling (sentimiento) in musical expression in this period.

  23. “Huyo de todo lo hecho, proque es convencional, académico.” Jacques Maritain was just popularizing the idea of “making” music with his Art et scolastique in 1921. Much later, in the 1930s, Stravinsky embraced the term hecho or “made” as central to his neo-Thomist aesthetics.

  24. Pianist Alexander Brailowsky presented an all-Scriabin concert on the same day that Stravinsky conducted Petrushka in Madrid, leading some critics to compare the two composers. See Julio Gómez, “Tribunales de música: Scriabin en la Nacional y Stravinsky en el Teatro Real,” El Liberal, 20 March 1921; and Carol Hess, Manuel de Falla and Modernism in Spain, 1898–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 169–70.

  25. The flageolet and the drum (el caramillo y el tambor) are popular instruments in Spanish folk music.

  26. Stravinsky lived for a time in 1920 with his family in Gabrielle Chanel’s home in the Parisian suburb of Garches, which is close to Saint-Cloud.

  27. Stravinsky’s commentary on the pianola inspired further discussion in the Spanish press. See “Música para ‘Pianola’: Una curiosa innovación de Igor Strawinsky,” El Sol, 22 March 1921.

  28. French title: “Les Espagnols au Ballets russes,” Comoedia, 15 May 1921. The Ballets Russes premiered Manuel de Falla’s Le Tricorne (El Sombrero de tres picos) at the Alhambra Theater in London on 22 July 1919, and the Cuadro flamenco, starring María Albaicín (Pepita García Escudero), at the Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique in Paris on 17 May 1921. The Sevillian Félix Fernández García (“Félix el Loco”) danced in rehearsals of Le Tricorne, which was staged with sets and costumes by Picasso. Images of María Dalbaicin (as she was known in France) and Igor Stravinsky in a “photograph taken in Seville” accompany this article.

  29. Stravinsky tried to impress his French audiences and appeal to their taste for Orientalist music by drawing a connection between his own works and Andalusian music, the Romani origins of which were well known.

  30. Spanish title: “Un gran compositor: Igor Strawinsky y la música moderna: Los músicos que prefiere—Cómo trabaja—Su autocritica—En España,” ABC, 25 March 1924. A. R., André Révész (1896–1970), was a Hungarian-born philosopher, intellectual, translator, political commentator, and journalist who lived in Spain for over thirty years, edited El Sol, published numerous books, and became an important international commentator in ABC (interviewing Albert Einstein when he visited Spain). Fernando Fresno (1881–1949) was one of the most prominent caricaturists in Spain in the first half of the twentieth century. He published caricatures in almost all of the Madrid press, including ABC.

  31. Stravinsky stayed at the aristocratic Hotel Palace, today the Westin Palace Hotel.

  32. Stravinsky traveled to Madrid to conduct the Firebird and Pulcinella suites with the Orquesta Filarmónica at the Teatro Real on 25 March 1924, in a concert that included Pérez Casas conducting Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Capriccio espagnol, and Tcherepnin’s Prelude to The Distant Princess. This was a charity event funded by the marquise of Salamanca. See “Un concierto de música rusa,” La Epoca, 26 March 1924.

  33. Révész’s question may have been inspired by the fact that Manuel de Falla and Ravel were also in Madrid around this time. See V. Arregui, “Stravinsky, Ravel y Falla en Madrid,” El Debate, 20 March 1924; and Carol Hess, Manuel de Falla and Modernism in Spain, 1898–1936, 187.

  34. The Ballets Russes premiered Francis Poulenc’s Les Biches on 6 January 1924 and Georges Auric’s Les Fâcheux on 19 January 1924 at the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo.

  35. Except for Bizet’s Carmen, all these operas are by Charles Gounod.

  36. Stravinsky’s comments on Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov angered Maurice Ravel, who responded to them in his own interview with André Révész a few weeks later. (See “El gran músico Mauricio Ravel habla de su arte,” ABC, 1 May 1925.) “Stravinsky’s fanaticism for Tchaikovsky is a paradox,” Ravel comments. “The Nutcracker is a fine little work but less important, for example, than Delibes’s Coppélia and Sylvia. Tchaikovsky is the least Russian of the Russians, and for that reason the one that can interest us least. Musorgsky is much superior to him. And concerning Rimsky-Korsakov, I think Stravinsky shows himself to be very ungrateful toward his teacher.”

  37. Stravinsky uses the expression “higiene del trabajo.”

  38. Sergey Yesenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Stravinsky had met Mayakovsky in Paris a few years previously. See Mayakovsky, “Parisian Sketches,” in the section in this volume titled “Who Owns Mavra? A Transnational Dispute.”

  39. In Spanish, “objetos musicales, hechos musicales.”

  40. In the interview a handwritten image is inserted at this point of the opening bass line of Firebird: EH–C-H,–B-H–A–CJ–DJ–EH) with the Hungarian word Tüzmadár (Firebird) signed by Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky clearly offered this autograph to Révész, who was Hungarian.

  41. Stravinsky performed the Pulcinella Suite at the Liceu in Barcelona on 16 March, and at the Teatro Real in Madrid on 25 March 1924.

  42. Hans Christian Andersen.

  43. King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenie.

  44. In Spanish, “aristocracia de la sangre y del arte.”

  45. Gran Teatre del Liceu. Stravinsky participated in concerts at the Liceu on 13, 16, and 19 March 1924, which included repertoire by Mozart, Wolf, Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Brahms, and Korngold. On 13 March he conducted Feu d’artifice and Le Chant du rossignol, on 16 March he conducted Song of the Volga Boatmen, Scherzo fantastique, and Pulcinella Suite, and on 19 March The Nightingale, Pastorale, Tilimbom, and The Faun and the Shepherdess with the soprano Mercè Plantada.

  46. Devotional songs sung during Holy Week in processions in Andalusia.

  47. Spanish title: “Un gran compositor ruso: Stravinsky, en Barcelona, nos habla de sus viajes por América,” La Noche, 25 March 1925. Rafael Moragas (1883–1966) was a Catalan music critic, intellectual, artistic di
rector of the Gran Teatre del Liceu from 1912 to 1939 and a friend of Stravinsky’s. He went into exile in Montpellier in 1939. See Luis Cabañas Guevara (pseud. Rafael Moragas), Cuarenta años de Barcelona (1890–1930) (Barcelona: Ediciones Memphis, 1944); and Artur Bladé i Desumvila, El senyor Moragas “Moraguetes” (Barcelona: Editorial Pòrtic, 1970).

  48. Juan Mestres Calvet organized a Stravinsky festival to take place at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 28 March, 2 and 5 April 1925. Stravinsky conducted known works such as the Pulcinella Suite, as well as works not yet heard in Spain, including the suite from L’Histoire du soldat, the Octet, Ragtime, and the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (in which he performed as a soloist and Pierre Monteux conducted). Frederic Longàs performed Three Movements from Petrushka for piano on the first concert and Mercè Plantada sang a selection of vocal works including Three Japanese Lyrics on the last one. See Martorell, “Stravinsky a Barcelona: Sis visites i dotze concerts,” 104–7.

  49. Felipe Rodés Baldrich (1878–1957) was a lawyer and politician who served as Minster of State Education and Fine Arts under King Alfonso XIII. Pedro Soldevila was a city councilor, Luis Salgado was a lawyer, and Juan Mestres Calvet was the impresario of the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

  50. One of Picasso’s well-known drawings of a frontal view of Stravinsky’s face is inserted at this point in the interview. This drawing was frequently reprinted in Spanish articles on Stravinsky.

  51. Stravinsky toured the United States for ten weeks from January to March 1925. He spent one month in New York City, where Serge Koussevitszky had conducted The Rite of Spring less than a week before he arrived, and where Willem Mengelberg conducted the New York Philharmonic in his Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments. He then traveled by train to Cleveland, Philadelphia (where Fritz Reiner conducted his concerto), Chicago, Detroit, and Cincinnati (where Reiner again conducted his concerto).

  52. Stravinsky recorded seven of his eight pieces from Les Cinq Doigts and Valse pour les enfants on a Steinway for Brunswick while in New York in March 1925.