Volume 21, Number 2 · February 21, 1974
Stravinsky's Russian Letters
By Robert Craft
I. F. Stravinsky: Essays and Materials
compiled by L.S. D'yachkova, edited by B.M. Yarustovsky
Moscow: Soviet Composer
F. Stravinsky: Essays, Letters, Memoirs
compiled and annotated by L. Kutateladze, edited by A. Gozenpud
Leningrad: Muzyka
Of these two recent books from the USSR, one, I. F. Stravinsky: Essays and Materials, includes some sixty of Stravinsky's letters from the early Diaghilev period that appreciably expand our view of the composer's personality. They do not revise or correct it, the Stravinsky we know being recognizable in every line, but these more than 23,000 words enlighten the student on the formation of Stravinsky's artistic philosophy, explain some of his traits of character, and help to complete a picture of the composer at the time of his first great achievements. Both volumes contain much material in addition to Stravinsky's letters, but little of general interest—which, one supposes, is only minimally concerned with the composer's family before his appearance in it and barely if at all with the eulogies of Shostakovitch, Khatchaturian, and other state-owned composers. Of the twelve essays in I. F. Stravinsky: Essays and Materials, perhaps only the last, A. Shnitke's 'Paradox as the Line of Stravinsky's Musical Logic,' is worth translating.
Review, 7918 words
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