Klarinet Archive - Posting 000441.txt from 1997/01

From: "Nichelle A. Crocker" <crockena@-----.EDU>
Subj: Stravinsky's Autobiography
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:43:05 -0500

In response to a private e-mail which says:

>I am writing about the Stravinsky autobiography. As I recall, the version
>by Robert Craft (which may be the only one) was acknowledged by Mr. Craft
>to have been much more a biography than an autobiography, and in fact the
>author admitted that numerous separate events and quotations which took
>place over periods of years were compressed (and enhanced) to give the
>impression that they took place at the same time. It was attributed to
>literary license by one who undoubtedly knew and understood Stravinsky as
>well as (or better than) anyone else. The upshot of this is that
>Stravinsky was credited with being almost as great a writer as a musician,
>and where Stravinsky ended and Craft began has thus become a bit fuzzy.

I made a little trip to the library, so I'm pretty sure I'm not sticking my
foot in my mouth. Stravinsky's Autoboigraphy (Simon & Schuster: NY 1936) is
the work of Stravinsky himself. (Published again by M&J Steuer: NY 1958, and
W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.: NY, 1962) I have no reason to believe that this work
was a collaboration with Robert Craft, whose collaborations with Stravinsky
began to be published in the late fifties.

The works in which Craft and Stravinsky collaborated are clearly labelled as
such. These include (although I'm not sure if this is a complete list):

Conversations With Igor Stravinsky (Doubleday: NY, 1959)
Memories and Commentaries (Doubleday: NY, 1960)
Expositions and Developments (Doubleday: NY, 1962)
Dialogues and a Diary (Doubleday: NY, 1963)
Themes and Episodes (Knopf: NY 1966)
Retrospectives and Conclusions (Knopf: NY, 1969)
Themes and Conclusions (Faber and Faber: London, 1972)
(a one-volume edition of Themes and Episodes and Retrospectives and
Conclusions)
Stravinsky Selected Correspondence (ed. Craft, Knopf: NY, 1982)

Additionally, Stravinsky's Poetics of Music (which is a translation and
transcription of six lectures originally in French) is to my knowledge also
independent of his collaborations with Craft. (Translated by Arthur Knodel
and Ingolf Dahl, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass. 1942, 1947, 1970).

Not to mention the many books about Stravinsky by Craft...

Please correct me if I am wrong...

Nichelle Crocker
crockena@-----.edu