Stravinsky and His World

by Levitz, Tamara

  Always yours,

  M. V. Yudina

  29. Maria Yudina to Yelena and Mikhail Bakhtin160

  Moscow

  21 November 1962

  … I asked [you] for the last 100 rub. since I could no longer defer payment for the photographers, whom I also paid myself; that was the Stravinsky exhibit at the House of Composers with which I was tasked. And it was very successful—— I put in about 1,500 rubles (in the new currency!——) i.e. more than I will now put into the new house—— In addition to everything else, I traveled from Moscow to Leningrad and back 5 times for the materials, to meet Stravinsky, to sit in on his rehearsals and meetings. When I was invited to the banquets, I did not have time to go, so I ate only a few official caviar sandwiches the evening he arrived!—— Some partied—the majority—the orchestras rehearsed, which is what they should do, some worked day and night, among those—chiefly—your humble servant. Comme toujours——161 I have been corresponding with him for 4 years! He is charmingly youthful, agile, wise, witty, resourceful, sarcastic, educated, a polyglot, has seen the whole world, but at the same time he is an old slave of God, dreaming about eternity. In his art, his compositions, and in his conducting there isn’t the slightest trace of decline—— Now I am moving on to the late Schoenberg, who is also a grandiose figure—but of a different order. …

  If it will be possible to translate the “Stravinsky–Craft Dialogues” it will be “marvelous”—— His Autobiography was translated by Lyubov Shaporina, who is 82 years old, how about that!!162 Craft is Stravinsky’s assistant, a magnificent example of an absolutely abstract person: extremely educated, but perhaps a touch too remote from all that is living. He is indispensable to Stravinsky, as a son, helper, commentator; his three adult children163 live in different cities and countries, they have their own life. He helps them, and is generally very family-oriented. His wife is a former beauty, an artist, who somehow effaces herself, but is one and a half times as tall as her already tall husband. …

  M. V.

  30. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Maria Yudina

  [Paris]

  7 January 1963

  … Thank you for the program of the premiere of Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony. Everything you write about it (the symphony) and him (Shostakovich)—is deeply intelligible to me if I use my imagination and put myself in your place. But what am I to do if this music, awfully talented and historically validated in the Russian “place of development” (using a translation of the term “Entwicklungsort” from the field of geopolitics)—drives me to mental and nervous despair!? It seems to me that Shostakovich is simultaneously hero and victim; in his music and in his fate all the fundamental contemporary problems of music, art, aesthetics meet. Someday, someone will write about him (about his intention)—a real treatise on the psychology and culture of our (transitional) epoch. … Yesterday I received a long Christmas letter from I. F. He is surprised that he hasn’t seen a single line from you since his visit to Moscow.

  About I. F.—I would like to tell you the following: it is just as easy to “overlove” as it is to “underlove” him. Actually, in all relations with him exclude all psychology once and for all. The supreme level of his artistic persona and the always surprising contradictions of his character (the seismographic sensitivity of certain centers and the paralyzation of others) determine all “contact” with him. He should be loved above all (and only) as a miracle. That is not so easy, of course, since a “miracle,” precisely because of its “foreign-ness”—doesn’t evoke feelings of love, but more likely feelings of gratefulness of a higher order, which is related to surprise and delight. …

  Forever faithful to you, P. S.

  Write! Faithful and loving you, P. S.

  In spring 1963, Yudina began to feel more severe consequences of her advocacy of Stravinsky and contemporary music. She had been playing a delicate balancing act with the powers that be for decades and her luck was about to turn. After returning from a tour in March, she was denounced by teachers at the Khabarovsk Music School who were upset that she talked for hours about Berg, Hindemith, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, rather than performing a concert, and that she praised Volkonsky but would not speak about Shostakovich’s music. Concert organizations of the Soviet Union were ordered to stop programming her and she returned to concertizing only in 1966.164

  31. Maria Yudina to Marianna and Pyotr Suvchinsky

  Moscow

  8 June 1963

  … They wrote a “letter” (in fact it’s called something a little different!—) about me from Khabarovsk to the ministry about the “incorrect illumination of contemporary music”—— I answered that I still think Stravinsky is a genius, Pasternak’s poetry is genius, Volkonsky is on the verge of genius, Shostakovich’s XIII Symphony is remarkable, Rachmaninoff is a hopelessly dated composer, etc. Seeing as how these facts are fully official, I have the moral opportunity to write about them to you in Paris. … I finally overcame myself and sent Rufina Vsevolodovna Ampenova165 a list of fifteen musical scores by Igor Fyodorovich. The thing is that except for the Symphony of Psalms, the Mass, and Oedipus, I gave everything away. After all, we all live through the gifts of others and this is the most essential law of existence, I think—so I did the right thing. Just think, I even gave away my beloved Threni, Perséphone!! That’s why I asked her for all of this, making reference to Igor Fyodorovich himself and —— to you, too, dear Pyotr Petrovich! Don’t be too hard on me, but I didn’t even have Spring and Renard, I was ashamed to admit it!. …

  Figure 1. Maria Yudina meets Igor Stravinsky, 6 October 1962.

  Of course, I will write to Igor Fyodorovich, but he’s not someone to listen to your problems. He is “in the empyrians.” And Vera Arturovna— God forgive me!—it seems to me that she thinks all strangers are unnecessary, wearying, incomprehensible. And Craft-cipher166—how can anybody be friends with him? How aptly you described him! Exactly, he has everything, internally, and is somehow utterly out of place—— But I only sung his praises to strangers. … One has to spare others’ sense of honor and all of this does not concern me, whether it is in place or not, but all together—but still it is sad that I didn’t really get to exchange even two words with Igor Fyodorovich. …

  Your M. V. Yudina

  32. Maria Yudina to Marianna and Pyotr Suvchinsky

  Moscow

  22 July 1963

  … About I. F.—— Perhaps the only correct way of living is: “not to get offended”—— But it is impossible not to be upset—— I phoned Milan twice, at the Hotel Continental. At first I was told: “We are expecting them, but they haven’t arrived yet” (June 18); the second time: “They have arrived but are rehearsing” (June 19); then I sent a telegram letter (because of the cheaper price), those take twenty-four hours, no longer, that was on the 20th or 21st [of June]. It was not returned to me—— that means they received it—— In it were congratulations, respects, and kisses to all three,167 a request for a “little message” and my new address—all very detailed—— Until now he (I. F.) has always answered me. For example, he received Rublev168 from me in Italy and responded immediately—— I know from Xenia Yuryevna—no, no, that’s wrong, from Lina Ivanovna Prokofiev, who is on good terms with Khrennikov and his wife, Klara, that Khrennikov received a lengthy congratulatory telegraph on his fiftieth birthday from I. F. and Ks. Yur. Stravinsky169 (his niece) wrote me about how Khrennikov called him (I. F.) to invite him to Moscow and how I. F. “recognized Khrennikov’s voice”170—— So, he “exchanged” me with those who are at the helm—— I did everything that was possible and impossible—— and am no longer needed and, ergo, can be disregarded. When something like this happens to another, one can talk a lot; when it happens to oneself, one can only step aside and be silent—— To be honest, there were analogous touches when he was here, too, but I looked at them “over the barriers,”171 but now I have somehow—— lost all desire—— no one should have to aufbinden172 one’s friendship and one’s—— understanding
—— His brilliance and overall charm remain, of course.

  And the heart forgave

  But the heart cooled——173 …

  It is almost no secret to anyone that for the expenses for the exhibit about Igor Fyodorovich I had to put in very large sums myself, or borrow them from others, since the House of Composers couldn’t exceed its limit and there was neither time, nor help, nor money. I was helped by artists, workers of the Hermitage, and just friends from my days in university. I invited everyone, except for Valerian Mikhailovich Bogdanov-Berezovsky; I even paid for Nina Konstantinovna Bruni’s trips. But the House of Composers—no matter how much I insisted!—did not organize a guestbook, did not photograph the exhibit, and spoiled a few things—— The Melos correspondents didn’t even mention me—— The Polish Ruch Muzycny correspondents did, but did not understand (or want to understand) the key to everything. Only Ralph Albertovich Parker174 wrote in his report to London about I. F.’s visit to the U.S.S.R., briefly, but accurately—— And I created the exhibit at the Maly Opera Theatre in advance, calmly, and then I gave it into the knowing hands of their museum—I. F. saw that I could not even come to the (actually pleasant and modest) dinner with him and the composers, since I was still rehearsing the Septet at night, and in the evening we were finishing everything: hanging, gluing, labeling—— I met him in my “working gear” and that is how we were photographed—— Forgive me for returning to things that have been suffered through and forgotten—— But his indifference, his orientation toward the powerful people out of those whom he saw in his homeland—alas, slightly upset old wounds—— Of course, only the Lord God passes judgment and it is not my place to judge our— universal master. …175

  Your MVY …

  33. Pyotr Suvchinsky to Maria Yudina

  Saint Maurice

  5 August 1963

  … I also received a long and very touching letter from our dear, lovely, unique Igor Fyodorovich. He is now in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  I understand everything that happened between him and you, and sympathize very, very much. But, believe me, he knows perfectly well who and what you are, he always speaks about you with great interest and affection, but—he really must be understood and forgiven. He doesn’t really correspond with anyone (apparently only with me, according to Vera Arturovna), and life (I mean day-to-day life) is very difficult for him, for various reasons. That’s why he “slips away” from many things and many things “slip away” from him.

  It’s difficult to write about this, but you must understand.

  By the looks of it, his life continues on in the happiest, most indifferent, and I would even say banal, manner——

  But inwardly—this is a man (in spite of his genius, or perhaps because of it)—who lives a deep, secret and tragic life. None of those around him understand this. At some point I will try again to tell you about his typology, which is very strange, contradictory, and, I would say, doomed—— …

  Devoted and loving you

  P. Suvchinsky

  NOTES

  Svetlana Savenko suggested the publication of these letters in this volume, and prepared the first draft of an introduction and their selection. She provided crucial input on the Russian sources and on information she wanted included in the introduction. The notes profited from her input and from Anatoly Kuznetsov’s notes in the published edition of Yudina’s letters, and from the draft notes Viktor Varunts originally planned for his edition. I am deeply indebted to her scholarly groundwork and productive collaborative efforts in completing this edition.

  The letters were translated by Philipp Penka. Alexandra Grabarchuk contributed significantly to these translations by reviewing and checking them against the originals. She also translated major additions to the letters in the second round of editing, as well as all of letter 28.

  1. The “Nansen passport” was developed by Fridtjof Nansen as part of a League of Nations initiative for stateless refugees. Vera Sudeikina still had her Nansen passport when she arrived in the United States to marry Stravinsky in 1940.

  2. See Tamara Levitz, Modernist Mysteries: Perséphone (New York: Oxford, 2012), 304–5, 329–30.

  3. “Stravinsky auf der Probe,” Neues Wiener Tageblatt, 18 March 1926.

  4. For an extensive examination of this friendship in the 1930s, see Levitz, Modernist Mysteries: Perséphone, 117–81, 290–395. For broader insight into Suvchinsky’s intellectual and musical life see Irina Akimova, Pierre Souvtchinsky: Parcours d’un Russe hors frontière (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011).

  5. On Suvchinsky’s possible dealings with agents in the Soviet Union, see Dmitry V. Shlapentokh, “Eurasianism: Past and Present,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30/2 (1997): 136–44. For a list of Suvchinsky’s political writings, see Eric Humbertclaude, La Liberté dans la musique (Château-Gontier: Edition Aedam Musicae, 2012), 83–98.

  6. See Valérie Dufour, The Poétique musicale: A Counterpoint in Three Voices,” in this volume.

  7. See Stravinsky to Ernest Ansermet, 4 April 1935, in Correspondance Ansermet-Strawinsky (1914–1967) (Geneva: Georg, 1992), 3:50. In this same letter to Ansermet, Stravinsky compares the reception of Lady Macbeth to that of Kurt Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik and Mahagonny in Paris in June 1933, complaining about the audience’s snobby affection for leftist art on both occasions.

  8. “Sumbur vmesto muzïki” (Muddle instead of music), Pravda, 28 January 1936. Suvchinsky remarked in the letter accompanying this article, “I am sending you a curious clipping from Pravda about Shostakovich. Apparently, this notice was written under the direct instruction of Stalin!” See Suvchinsky to Stravinsky, 1 February 1936, in I. F. Stravinskiy: Perepiska s russkimi korrespondentami. Materialï k biografii, ed. Viktor Varunts (Moscow: Kompozitor, 2003), 3:597 (hereafter SPRK).

  9. See “Igor Stravinsky Talks About the Future Directions of His Music and His Art” in “Stravinsky Speaks to the Spanish-Speaking World,” in this volume.

  10. Stravinsky had first expressed exaggerated affection for the United States during his tour there in 1925. See, for example, Charles Ludwig, “‘I Love America,’ Composer Declares,” Cincinnati Times-Star, 4 March 1925.

  11. Stravinsky, quoted in “Stravinsky, Russ Composer, Will Become U.S. Citizen,” Minneapolis Star-Journal, 16 December 1940.

  12. G.D.G., “Stravinsky Bares Aversion to Canned Music on Radio: Famous Composer, Conducting Here Tomorrow, Seeks U.S. Citizenship,” Washington Times-Herald, 7 January 1941.

  13. “Russian Music Declared in State of Transition,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 26 February 1945.

  14. Stravinsky, quoted in Jean-Louis Roux, “Igor Stravinsky,” Le Quartier Latin (Montréal), 23 March 1945.

  15. Marjory M. Fisher, “Stravinsky Sees Freedom as Inspiration for Music,” San Francisco News, 21 March 1946.

  16. See Leslie Sprout, “The 1945 Stravinsky Debates: Nigg, Messiaen, and the Early Cold War in France,” Journal of Musicology 26/1 (Winter 2009): 85–131.

  17. As Sprout documents, Messiaen admired the Rite, but rejected Stravinsky’s neoclassicism. See Sprout, “The 1945 Stravinsky Debates,” 110–16.

  18. Pyotr Suvchinsky, “Igor Strawinsky,” Contrepoints 2 (February 1946): 19–31; included in Un Siècle de musique russe (1830–1930), ed. Frank Langlois (Paris: Actes Sud, 2004), 195–208.

  19. See André Schaeffner to Stravinsky, 1 September 1946, and Stravinsky to Schaeffner, 12 September 1946, microfilm 102.1, 2744–46, Paul Sacher Stiftung (hereafter PSS).

  20. See “Foreign Relations: Tumult at the Waldorf,” Time, 4 April 1949; “Red Visitors Cause Rumpus,” Life, 4 April 1949, 39–40. The “Prague Manifesto” is the name given to the resolutions promoting national, accessible music in the tradition of socialist realism that emerged from the Second International Congress of Composers and Music Critics in Prague from 20 to 29 May 1948. Suvchinsky became involved in the debate about these issues in France.

  21. Stravinsky, quoted in Franz Myers, “Stravinsky L
ikes Money, But ‘Only With Pleasure,’” News-Gazette (Illinois), 3 March 1949. Stravinsky also commented in this interview on how “tactless” it was for Walter Gieseking’s agents to invite him to the United States when he was “too much mixed up with the Nazi Party.”

  22. In his file on “Olin Downes/Shostakovich 1949,” Stravinsky kept a note from the Communist Party USA in which he underlined the statement “American communists would support Russia in the event of a war,” and wrote in the margins “The U.S. needs more Patriots like Stravinsky.” See Charles M. Joseph, Stravinsky Inside Out (New Haven: Yale, 2001), 18–20.