Stravinsky and His World

by Levitz, Tamara

  “We have been honored to have had two great artists,” [the President said]—I am wondering if I. S. realizes that [Pablo] Casals is meant by the other—“here with us in the last months. As a student in Paris, my wife wrote an essay on Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, and Diaghilev” (I. S. later: “I was afraid he was about to say his wife made a study of homosexuality.”) “I understand that you, Mr. Stravinsky, were a friend of Diaghilev. And I was told that rocks and tomatoes were thrown at you in your youth.” The President’s speech is based on [Vera’s] briefing during dinner, and the story of the Sacre première amazed him and even made him laugh aloud. Rocks and tomatoes, I explain later—I. S. has understood the phrase literally—is an American interpretation; they are thrown at baseball umpires. But the speech is short and—because an American President is honoring a great creative artist, and that is so absolutely unheard of in American history—it is moving.109

  Arthur Schlesinger, in contrast, remembered Stravinsky as “an amiable man, very tiny, with a manner of twinkling gravity” and totally drunk. When the President toasted him, “Stravinsky, obviously moved, responded with immense charm.”110 The event was highly publicized.

  15. Igor Stravinsky to Pyotr Suvchinsky

  Hollywood

  14 February 1962

  Dearest Pyotr Petrovich. With these lines I’m sending a picture of our visit to the President. At this small dinner party there was an atrocious selection of 25 people who had nothing in common with me. There was a lot of drinking and everyone (especially I) drank too much. When the President’s secretary111 asked me, “How do you feel, Maestro?” the maestro answered, “drunk,” and we went home early, because what are we to do at such parties other than drink. She is very striking and charming, he is quick-witted, but both have very little to do with art. I think I was not invited for my music so much as for my age (and, I think, to be ahead of the Russians, whom I will not visit. To hell with them!—It is the mrakobesie112 that invited me, and not those who interest me and who need me—they will not let me see them!!!)

  I have begun working here until April 15. …

  Write!!!

  16. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Igor Stravinsky

  Paris

  21 February 1962

  Dear Igor Fyodorovich!

  Thank you very much for your letter! It is an utter joy for me. …

  What you write about mrakobesï and the youth in Moscow is confirmed by the stories of Nathalie Sarraute (she is the “leading” writer in the group of M. Butor, A. Robbe-Grillet, a Russian Jew by descent, and a very nice and intelligent sixty-year-old lady).113

  N. Sarraute was invited to Moscow and Leningrad as part of a “cultural exchange” and spent two weeks in Russia. … The youth is wonderful, interested in everything, ready to retype books and manuscripts on a typewriter, but—according to Nathalie Sarraute—when she was alone, she was seized by a feeling of horror: no matter what, the world around her seemed alien and incomprehensible. She told me all of this more or less confidentially, so I am writing to you about this “between the two of us.” Of course, she is not you and “concealing” you is impossible, but mrakobesï, whether literary or musical ones, are always on guard and they are the bosses on their turf. But most important, is it really worth it for you, you in particular, to begin to argue and debate with all of these mrakobesï and all of these fools?—— Of course, I believe and know that an entire generation of musicians is expecting you there, but—— let them figure things out themselves and find their own way. When a real musician finally appears in the Soviet Union, he should come visit you, despite all obstacles.——

  Of course, poor Maria Veniaminovna will be in despair and horror, but—I ask myself this question—are there people (musicians) in Moscow right now, worth the moral effort this trip will cost you? …

  I embrace you with all my heart.

  Yours truly

  P. Suvchinsky

  17. Igor Stravinsky to Maria Yudina

  26 February 1962

  My deepest respects and heartfelt thanks to M. V. Yudina for sending the drawings and the books about my father.114

  Happy New Year.

  Sincerely,

  I. Stravinsky

  18. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Igor Stravinsky

  Paris

  9 March 1962

  Dear Igor Fyodorovich!

  The day before yesterday M. V. Yudina called me from Moscow. She heard rumors that you are not going to Moscow and, completely in despair, she turned to me regarding this rumor. I of course answered that I don’t know anything definite and suggested that she write you frankly and in detail.

  Don’t think that I am deciding and allowing myself to get involved in this enterprise which is so complicated for you, but I tend to think about it as follows: it seems to me that the anniversary year (1962)—is the year least suited for your trip: how many empty, official and bombastic words will be said! On the other hand, this year will show (in the quantity and quality of concerts and performances dedicated to you, as well as lectures, articles, books——) to what extent and degree Soviet musicians (and the public) have understood who you are and what your entire oeuvre represents?

  If the results should actually turn out to be positive and impressive, then the ground will be prepared for a visit in 1963 during which you will be able to, as it were, forever “enshrine” in the minds of young musicians and the Russian musical world your principles, ideas, and traditions. Besides, this year will also clear up very many things in terms of the relationships between Russia and the West and the USA.

  Once again, I implore you not to read these words as an attempt, even the tiniest one, to interfere in an already very complicated situation.

  Perhaps “my thoughts” will be of use to you one way or another—— If Russian musicians have come to their senses due to your birthday, then before they invite you, they will prove that they are worthy of such a visit.

  In that case, your visit in 1963 will be an answer to their efforts, will take on a different aspect, and will be carried out in the best of circumstances.

  I don’t think that such a postponement could offend Soviet musicians, even though M. V. Yudina was extremely concerned (“all our work will be lost!”——) with the rumors that reached her. In addition, she had time to tell me about the interview you gave, but I didn’t quite understand what was the matter, where, how, and why.

  Forgive me for bothering you with all these propos, but I couldn’t not write about this. Maybe I am thinking and reasoning incorrectly——

  I’m sending you the text of my presentation, which I read on Radio Cologne.115 Forgive me and don’t be angry if something in it should not be to your liking.

  Yours truly

  P. Suvchinsky

  P.S. Perhaps I’m expressing myself poorly, but it seems to me that it is important now to show how much more difficult your historical task was than the task of Schoenberg, and that the aesthetic fact of your music is immeasurably higher and more deserving than the aesthetic contribution of Schoenberg.

  19. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Maria Yudina

  Paris

  12 March 1962

  … Now about our dear I. F. Str.

  Remembering my last meeting with him in Zurich and judging from his letters—I am beginning to think that it might be better to postpone his visit to Moscow by one year. I fear that his visit (this year) will do more harm than good. That’s my personal opinion.

  I. F. has become very nervous and is not careful in his views and conversations.

  His point of view is the following: I want to see Yudina and the youth in Moscow, but since I’m invited by officials I will not be allowed to see them, and I don’t want to argue and speak with musical mrakobesï I have neither the time nor health for that.

  Aside from that, he is of course afraid of “shock.” After all, in spite of everything, for him Russia and the Russian language are values and facts of which he was deprived (through no fault of his own, as he probably thi
nks) and without which he was forced to live his entire life and with which he was always very intimately and inwardly connected. And this deprivation has become to him a personal offense, for which “someone” is responsible.

  Don’t forget that, despite the surprising and perhaps only seeming rationality of his work, I. F. is not an intellectual, but a sensitive, emotional, and I would say artistic soul, in the widest sense of that word. It takes very little to offend and enrage him, and then communication becomes impossible.

  To converse with I. F. is the greatest delight. He is brilliantly witty in his every word, but there are topics that must not be touched, since he simply doesn’t understand and acknowledge them. Exactly that is what I am afraid of.

  It seems to me that in a year, when the “anniversary year” will end and it will become clear how they truly feel about him in Russia, his trip will be advisable.

  Besides, don’t forget that there are all sorts of people flocking around I. F. and from a distance I find it very difficult to discuss all the “pros” and “cons” of his visit. In any case, write to him again, in detail and frankly.

  May I send you the text of my talk about I. F. which I read on Radio Cologne? I would very much like to hear your opinion about this talk. …

  Don’t be upset with me if I am of a slightly different opinion than you in some regards. I know I. F. too well, I know his sharp polemical pronouncements too well not to warn you about it. But of course, he has to decide for himself. I repeat, in a year, when the “anniversary” period will be over, which he hates (he recently wrote me: “I am invited everywhere not because of my music, but because I’m 80 years old!”) it will be easier and more sensible for you and everyone to meet with him.——

  Always devoted and loving you,

  P. S.

  From your last letter I see that you have fairly “complicated” relations with the Composers’ Union. This fact worries me for two reasons: 1) Won’t you get in trouble when I. F. S. comes to visit; and 2) How will you “share” him (that is, I. F.) between you, his friends, and the officials? For he is invited, unless I am mistaken, specifically by the “Soviet Composers Union”? Write me about this.

  20. Igor Stravinsky to Pyotr Suvchinsky

  Hollywood

  17 March 1962, at night

  Dear Pyotr Petrovich!

  I received your wonderful article about Spring and read it voraciously and with gratitude. Who crossed out in pencil on page nine what you wrote about the influence of L’Histoire du soldat on Schoenberg’s Serenade?

  Thank you also for your letter. Overall I agree with its reasoning about my planned visit to Russia, but it seems that I will nevertheless have to make an appearance there (in late September; earlier that month I will be in Israel by invitation of the government).116 To tell you the truth, I don’t see a big difference in visiting in September of this year or in 1963. Either way I won’t see anything new in one year, in terms of their relationship toward my music. And if I don’t go, I will upset many (which I don’t want), for whom my appearance there is essential (and not just desirable—Yudina)117 ….

  I will be so pleased to see you, if only briefly.

  I embrace both of you. WRITE ME.

  Your I. Stravinsky

  21. Igor Stravinsky to Pyotr Suvchinsky

  Hollywood

  12 April 1962

  Dear Pyotr Petrovich!

  I’m sending you this hysterical, 25-page letter by dear Yudina.118 Once again I’m simply becoming afraid to travel there. I fear that I have neither enough strength nor nerves to bear this mixture of admiration, provincialism, and “cultural exchanges” with Western Marxists “who rise up against the formal and inhuman decadent art of the bourgeois world” (I am copying this out of the Le Monde article you sent me about the USSR.)119

  Read this never-ending letter, and return it to me in Paris, when, I hope, I will be able to embrace you in the first half of May, as I am doing now mentally.

  Your

  Stravinsky

  22. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Maria Yudina

  Paris

  16 April 1962

  … Over the last years, Stravinsky’s prestige and significance has increased immeasurably. He is of course the genius of our time. His creative biography is unmatched. Everything I’m writing here—so disorderly and brief—is not just my personal opinion. All my young friends think so too.

  Stravinsky’s interaction with Boulez and Stockhausen is quite significant. …

  I deeply believe in the cyclical structure of life, and that the transition from one cycle to another is a transition into “otherness,” and the otherness of the new cycle prohibits returning to the previous one.

  In any case, thank you, dear, sweet Maria Veniaminovna, for thinking that I might visit together with I. F. But I am not needed by anyone and not interesting to Russia; whereas you, after B. L. P.,120 personify all that is necessary and dear to me out of what is “there.” That is all I need——

  The other day I received the book Balakirev: Issledovaniya i stat'i, Gos. Muzïkal'noye izd-vo, Leningrad, 1961. Regarding the article of some Gozenpud, they write that I. F. is a “composer, ideologue (!?) of formalism and cosmopolitanism (?!).”121 What wretchedness; it is time to wise up. …

  I have long wanted to tell you: keep in mind, just in case, that I. F. does not like the music and aesthetics of O. Messiaen. This “distaste” is one-sided on the part of I. F., since Messiaen does wonderful analyses of Stravinsky’s music in his class at the conservatory. I don’t understand why the Russian “dandies” [stilyagi] are attacking Stravinsky “from the left” in the name of John Cage. Cage is a wonderful creature and I love him. Boulez, on the other hand, feels “ambivalently” about him.122

  Send me, if possible, clippings from Soviet newspapers about the ballet performance of Stravinsky.123 He is very interested in it. …

  P. Suvchinsky

  23. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Igor Stravinsky

  Paris

  17 April 1962

  Dear Igor Fyodorovich!

  Indeed, one can only withstand such a Russian force of nature in the Russian way: by grabbing the back of one’s neck and scratching one’s ears!

  All that is clear is that M. V. Yudina is an awfully talented, temperamental personality, who finally rushed greedily toward her happiness and is choking on it, if she hasn’t choked yet!——

  I am very afraid that her enthusiasm and the joy of the many young musicians, who are of course expecting you in the state of a completely justified and understandable ecstasy, does not allow her and them to consider all the circumstances of your visit. For example, in her last letter to me, M. V. Yudina asks me to send her various scores “which the Union of Soviet Composers has, but I am not able to and do not want to ask them for anything.”—— It follows that Yudina is on bad terms with official music circles. …124

  I will also ask her to send press reviews about the “ballets of Stravinsky.” It will be interesting to read how your music is being received and treated now. It seems to me, dear Igor Fyodorovich, that you already can’t change the decision you have made: everyone knows that you are going to Moscow and, I should say, everyone is unanimously excited. You and Vera Arturovna will have to “chloroform” your sensitivity and impressionability and to sink to the bottom, as though down into a coal mine. But I’m also convinced that there will be many unexpected good things. After all, the country, nation, people—all that cannot be compared with anything else!

  Whatever the case might be—now, at this time, “the cultural migration” is turning in this direction. Your visit will be a historical fact. … I embrace you warmly and look forward to seeing you—— like Yudina!

  Faithfully

  P. Suvchinsky

  24. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Maria Yudina

  [Paris]

  21 May 1962

  Dear, kind, esteemed Maria Veniaminovna,

  The day before yesterday I sent off I. F.—to South Africa (Johannesburg,
Pretoria, Le Cape——)!125 This trip, which to many seems like a form of madness, fills him with such enthusiasm. When he isn’t writing music, he is terribly bored. Such travels are not only an amusement, a diversion for him but also, how to put it, an “escape forward.” Besides, he says that he prefers spending money on all sorts of tours126 rather than giving it to the American treasury. His health is very good; he was cheerful and affectionate, and apparently very pleased by his usual stay in Paris.

  The misunderstanding with your phone call upset him terribly. Here is how it all happened: after his illness, I. F. had been having difficulty walking, for 3 years now; so that he wouldn’t have to walk downstairs, they redirected the call to his room; he was busy and asked them to wait for two minutes; [but] when he picked up the phone the connection with Moscow was interrupted—— He apologizes very, very much to you.

  I talked to him about the typographical errors in the Concerto, Serenade, and Sonata. He asked me to tell you that there is such a list of typos, but that he doesn’t know where to find it. I. F. asked you not to worry about it: “A good musician knows everything himself and can play with errors, that isn’t important.” …127

  Yours truly

  P. Suvchinsky

  25. Maria Yudina to Marianna and Pyotr Suvchinsky

  Moscow

  5–15 June 1962

  … I am writing only the most important things: the center of my life is now not the “Warsaw autumn”—I still haven’t planned the trip but will soon—but Igor Fyodorovich, his colossal figure, his path and—our Exhibit.128 It is already time to start “tying up loose ends,” but in my view the material is still insufficient. A lot of different things, especially about his years before America, and very few things about that. …