1 12). In 1 935, Sokolovsky left the theater under duress; so0n afterward, TRAM was shut down.
During World War II, Sokolovsky went to the front with the People's Volunteer Brigade and died near Leningrad (as did Shostakovich's student Fleishman).
3 1
S.RAVINSKY is one of the greatest composers of our times and I truly love many of his works. My earliest and most vivid impression of Stravinsky's music is related to the ballet Petrouchka. I saw the Kirov Theater of Leningrad production many times, and I tried never to miss a performance. (Unfortunately, I haven't heard the new edition of Petrouchka for a smaller orchestra. I'm not , sure that it is better than the earlier one.) Since then this marvelous composer invariably has been at the center of my attention, and I not only studied and listened to his music, but I played it and I made my own transcriptions as well.
I recall with pleasure my performance in the premiere of Les Noces in Leningrad, extraordinarily well per.formed by the Leningrad Choir under the direction of the outstanding choirmaster Klimov. One of the four piano parts-the second piano-was entrusted to me. The numerous rehearsals turned out to be both pleasant and beneficial for me. The work amazed everyone by its originality, sonority, and lyricism.
I also performed the Serenade in A. At the Conservatory we often played the piano concerto transcribed for two pianos. My student days 32
hold another memory of a work by Stravinsky-the excellent opera The Nightingale. Of course, my acquaintance with it was made under
"fatal" circumstances: during an exam on reading scores. I'm a little angry with the opera for that. It was like the Spanish Inquisition-a cruel sight. But I managed somehow and conquered The Nightingale.
Stravinsky gave me a lot. It was interesting to listen to him and it was interesting to look at the scores. I liked Mavra, I remember, and L'Histoire du soldat, particularly the first parts; it's too boring to listen to the work in its entirety. It's fashionable now to speak disparagingly of Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and that's a shame. The work is deeper than a first glance would lead you to believe. But we've become lazy and lack curiosity.
I have special memories of the Symphony of Psalms. I transcribed it for four-hand piano as soon as I got my hands on the score, and showed it to my students. I must note that it has its problems in terms of construction. It's crudely worked out, crudely. The seams show. In that sense the Symphony in Three Movements is stronger. In general, Stravinsky often has this problem; his cons�ruction sticks out like a scaffolding. There's no flow, no natural bridges. I find it irritating, but on the other hand, this clarity makes it easier for the listener. That must be one of the secrets of Stravinsky's popularity.
I like his violin concerto, and I love his mass-that's marvelous music. Fools think that Stravinsky began composing more poorly toward the end. That's calumny and envy speaking. To my taste, it's just the reverse. It's the early works I like less-for instance, Sacre du printemps. It's rather crude, so much of it calculated for external effect and lacking substance. I can say the same for Firebird, I really don't like it very much.
Still, Stravinsky is the only composer of our century whom I would call great without any doubt. Perhaps he didn't know how to do everything, and not everything that he did is equally good, but the best delights me.
It's another question as to how Russian a composer Stravinsky is. *
*Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( 1 882-1971) lived primarily outside Russia after 1908, and in 1914 moved abroad permanently-first to Switzerland, then to France, and finally to the U.S.A.
For many years, Stravinsky's music was not performed in the Soviet Union at all. In 1 962 the aged composer visited Leningrad and Moscow. The visit was accompanied by maximal official pomp, and Premier Khrushchev received the composer. Stravinsky's visit to the U.S.S.R. was a signal for his "rehabilitation" after several decades of sanctioned attacks, However, the question of Stravinsky's "Russian roots" is still an awkward one for Soviet criticism.
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He was probably right not to return to Russia. His concept of morality is European. I can see that clearly from his memoirs-everything he says about his parents and colleagues is European. This approach is foreign to me.
And Stravinsky's idea of the role of music is also purely European, primarily French. My impressions of contemporary France were mixed. I personally felt that it was quite provincial.
When Stravinsky came to visit us, he came as a foreigner. It was even strange to think that we were born near each other, I in Petersburg and he not far from it.
(I don't know if anyone's paid any attention to this, but both Stravinsky and I are of Polish extraction. So was Rimsky-Korsakov. And we all belong to the same school, even though we expressed ourselves, so to speak, differently. Sollertinsky also came from a Russified Polish family. But that's just an aside. I don't think this has any serious import.) The invitation to Stravinsky was the result of high politics. At the very top it was decided to make him the number one national composer, but this number didn't work. Stravinsky hadn't forgotten anything-that he had been called a lackey of American imperialism and a flunky of the Catholic Church-and the very same people who had called him that were now greeting him with outspread arms.
Stravinsky offered his walking stick instead of his hand to one of those hypocrites, who was forced to shake it, proving that he was the real lackey. Another kept hanging around, but didn't dare come up to him. He knew that he was at fault, so he stayed in the foyer the whole time, just like a lackey.* "Lackey, stay in the foyer, I'll deal with your master," as Pushkin once said.
I assume that all this disgusted Stravinsky so much that he left earlier than planned. And he did the right thing. He didn't make the mistake of Prokofiev, who ended up like a chicken in the soup.
Prokofiev and I never did become friends, probably because Prokofiev was not inclined toward friendly relations in general. He was a hard man and didn't seem interested in anything other than himself and his music. I hate being patted on the head. Prokofiev didn't like it either, but he allowed himself to be quite condescending to others.
*The references are to Boris Mikhailovich Yarustovsky (191 1-1978) and Grigori Mikhailovich Shneyerson (b. 1 900), musicologists who were both apparatchiks directing Soviet culture. ·
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I doubt that a final summing up of Prokofiev's music is possible now. The time hasn't come for it yet, I imagine.
It's quite strange, but my tastes keep changing, and rather radically.
Things that I liked quite recently I now like less, considerably less, and some I don't like at all. So how can I speak of music that I heard for the first time several decades ago? For instance, I remember Shcherbachev's piano suite, Inventions, written long ago, in the early twenties. At the time it seemed rather good to me. I recently heard it by chance on the radio. There's no inventiveness there at all.
And it's the same with Prokofiev. So many of his works that I liked once upon a time seem duller now.