Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship - Hardcover

Craft, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826512585 ISBN 13: 9780826512581

Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press, 1994

Synopsis

The standard biographical source for the last decades of Stravinsky's life and a unique trove of primary material on twentieth-century cultural and intellectual history, now again available, in expanded form.

For nearly the last twenty-five years of Igor Stravinsky's incredibly full life, the noted musician, conductor, and writer Robert Craft was his closest colleague and friend, a trusted member of his household, and an important part of all of the composer's activities. Throughout these years, Craft kept a detailed diary, impressive in its powers of observation and characterization. That diary forms the basis for Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship, now released in a substantially revised and expanded new edition.

This edition includes nearly twice as many illustrations and more than 35% entirely new textual material. In addition, Craft adds an evocative "Postlude" in which he summarily brings matters forward to the death of Vera Stravinsky, several years after that of the Maestro.

Anyone interested in Stravinsky and his music, in Stravinsky's relationship with Craft, and in many of the luminaries and landmarks of twentieth-century Western cultural history will find this book essential reading. Here are revealing glimpses of Stravinsky's friendships and encounters with some of the great personages of twentieth-century culture, as well as intimate portraits of Stravinsky and Craft themselves.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Craft is the recipient of the 2002 International Prix du Disque Lifetime Achievement Award, Cannes Music Festival. He has conducted and recorded with the major orchestras in this country and abroad. In addition to his special command of Stravinsky's music, Craft is well known for his recordings of works by Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Schutz, Bach, Mozart, Berg, Schoenberg, and Varese.

From the Back Cover

For the last twenty-three years of Igor Stravinsky's incredibly full life, the noted musician, conductor, and writer Robert Craft was his closest colleague and friend, a trusted member of the Stravinsky household, and an important participant in virtually all of the composer's worldwide activities. Throughout these years, Craft kept a detailed diary, impressive in its powers of observation and characterization. This diary forms the basis for Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship, now released in this substantially revised and enlarged edition. The original edition of this classic memoir has long been out of print. This new revised edition extends the material by more than a third. The text now includes several previously unpublished and historically important letters from prominent musicians, including Arnold Schoenberg, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Glenn Gould. More than fifty photographs and drawings (fourteen in color), most of them previously unpublished, illustrate the new edition. Each of the first twenty-three chapter-years now ends with a Postscript that provides supplementary information and a reflective connecting thread to the text. Craft has also added a Postlude in which he shares important moments of his friendship with Vera Stravinsky during the last years of her life. The whole Chronicle offers both a personal testament and an expansive embrace of the author's world.

Reviews

Theirs always seemed an odd association-the tiny, obsessive master and the lanky, calm young American musicologist and conductor-but each was lucky in the other. Stravinsky found a superb biographer, devoted interpreter and endlessly resourceful companion, and Craft was given entree to a magical world of artistic figures and exotic places. The original Stravinsky, covering 24 years, was published in 1972, a year after the composer's death, and has been long out of print. This is an extensively revised edition, more than a third longer than the original, with the years 1948-1971 given fuller treatment, and with updated thoughts by the author. Craft notes that he had hurried the original book and was dissatisfied with it. The reader is the beneficiary of the revision. The sketches of Aldous Huxley, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Ingmar Bergman, Arnold Schoenberg, Albert Giacometti and others are intimate, the anecdotes about "I.S." irresistible, the endless travels full of delectable detail. The production is lavish, with some 50 pictures, many in color.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826512585
• ISBN 13: 9780826512581
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 608