Conversacion Igor Stavisky

CONVERSATIONS WITH IGOR STRAVINSKY

IGOR STRAVINSKY AND ROBERT CRAFT

1959 DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and thanks are due to Madame de Tinan for permission to reprint letters by Claude Debussy; to Madame Jacques Rivière for letters by Jacques Rivière; to Monsieur Edouard Ravel for letters by Maurice Ravel; and to Harold Ober Associates, Incorporated,and the Dylan Thomas Estate for letters by Dylan Thomas, copyright copy; 1953 by Dylan Thomas. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 59-6375 COPYRIGHT © 1958, 1959 BY IGOR STRAVINSKY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FIRST EDITION

CONTENTS

6 1: About Composing and Compositions 11 13 14 16 17 18 26 27 33 37 41 42 46 54 66 67 68 70 71 74 75 78 79 The Series TechniqueInstrumentation Gesualdo Translation Saint Petersburg Diaghilev Debussy Jacques Rivière Ravel Satie Schoenberg, Berg, Webern Dylan Thomas Painters Of The Russian Ballet Harmony, Melody, Rhythm Electronic Music Contemporary Music and The General Public Jazz The Performance Of Music Music and The Church The Younger Generation The Future Of Music Advice To Young Composers

18 2: About Musiciansand Others

49 3: About My Life and Times and Other Arts 65 4: About Music Today

"In the Kingdom of the Father there is no drama but only dialogue, which is disguised monologue." RUDOLPH KASSNER

CONVERSATIONS WITH IGOR STRAVINSKY

1: About Composing and Compositions
R.C.When did you become aware of your vocation as a composer? I.S.I do not remember when and how I first thought ofmyself as a composer. All I remember is that these thoughts started very early in my childhood, long before any serious musical study. R.C.The musical idea: when do you recognize it as an idea? I.S.When something in my nature is satisfied by some aspect of an auditive shape. But long before ideas are born I begin work by relating intervals rhythmically. This exploration of possibilities is alwaysconducted at the piano. Only after I have established my melodic or harmonic relationships do I pass to composition. Composition is a later expansion and organization of material. R.C.Is it always clear in your mind from the inception of the idea what form of composition will develop? And the idea itself: is it clear what instrumental sound will produce it? I.S.You should not suppose that once themusical idea is in your mind you will see more or less distinctly the form your composition may evolve. Nor will the sound (timbre) always be present. But if the musical idea is merely a group of notes, a motive coming suddenly to your mind, it very often comes together with its sound. R.C.You say that you are a doer, not a thinker; that composing is not a department of conceptual thinking; that yournature is to compose music and you compose it naturally, not by acts of thought or will. A few hours of work on about one third of the days of the last fifty years have produced a catalogue which testifies that composing is indeed natural to you. But how is nature approached? I.S.When my main theme has been decided I know on general lines what kind of musical material it will require. I start tolook for this material, sometimes playing old masters (to put myself in motion), sometimes starting directly to improvise rhythmic units on a provisional row of notes (which can become a final row). I thus form my building material. R.C.When you achieve the music you have been working to create, are you always sure of it, do you always instantly recognize it as finished or do you sometimes have totry it for a greater period of time? I.S.Usually I recognize my find. But when I am unsure of it I feel uncomfortable in postponing a solution and in relying on the future. The future never gives me the assurance of reality I receive from the present. R.C.What is theory in musical composition?

I.S.Hindsight. It doesn't exist. There are compositions from which it is deduced. Or, if this isn't...