Memories and Commentaries

Few would dispute that Igor Stravinsky was the greatest composer of the twentieth century. Conductor and writer Robert Craft was his closest colleague and friend. Together they published five acclaimed collections known as the "Conversations "series, which sprung from informal talks between the two men. In this newly edited and re-structured one-volume version, Craft brings Stravinsky's reflections on his childhood, his family life, professional associates, and personal relationships into sharper focus and places the major compositions in their cultural milieux.

Review :
"These dialogues between the composer and Robert Craft are nearly as irresistible as Johnson's with Boswell." --Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post""This book is a must for every fan of Igor Stravinsky. Robert Craft's collection, which is finally published together in a single volume, is highly informative and witty. It reads like a novel and at the same time is an important guide to the multi-faceted mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest geniuses. Every professional musician, student and music lover should read it." --James Conlon"In an increasingly dumbed-down world, where the cultured past is fading forever, it is a relief to rediscover Stravinsky's unique conversations with Robert Craft. Nothing a great man says is inconsequential; all that Stravinsky says is, in fact, consequential. He tells us, in words, what music is, and he does this by reviving (in words) every piece he ever composed. Of course, nothing a composer explains about his own music is as explicit as the music itself-except how it came to be made. In this Stravinsky is a marvelous historian, reanimating Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Thomas Mann and Ansermet, Varese and Auden . . . . This . . . collection is a masterpiece of nostalgia, instruction, originality, and intellectuality of the highest order." --Ned Rorem"These conversations, deftly edited by Robert Craft, confirm that Igor Stravinsky had the most fascinating mind and the sharpest tongue of any classical composer-and perhaps any artist-of the twentieth century." --Howard Gardner, author of "Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi""Stravinsky was a fascinating thinker, and in "Memories and Commentaries" he lives brightly and pungently, while providing a cultural history of Music's last grand epoch. Thank goodness the master had Robert Craft in his life." --David Dubal""Memories and Commentaries" is the fascinating story of the journey of a genius. Stravinsky is here revealed not only as one of the most original gifts of the twentieth century, but as a witty, erudite, and profound observer of his remarkable confreres, of himself, and of his life and times." --Leon Kirchnerd"Stravinsky's reminiscences and reflections, engagingly introduced and ingeniously reassembled by Mr. Craft in biographical order, reemerge as an irresistibly readable record of the composer's life and views-and the closest thing we have to a full "Autobiography" by him. Like his music, formal yet bracingly (sometimes bitingly) direct, shot through with joy, poignancy and poetry, brimming with immediacy, Stravinsky's words rivet the reader's attention on every page and contain an entire education's worth of literary, artistic, musical and intellectual references. From its opening memories of a Saint Petersburg childhood and the Diaghilev years to the closing comments on Beethoven's symphonies and late quartets, the book is a gold-mine of personal recollections, indelible human portraits created with telling detail, and fascinating musical observations drawn from an astonishing life." --Allen ShawnPraise for the original "Conversations" series: "Craft is the ideal chronicler of Stravinsky's life, times, and ideas." --Simon Karlinsky, "The New York Times Book Review""These books are a treasured contribution to the documentation of music in our time." --David Drew, "The New Statesman""Aseries of books of extraordinary interest." --David Dubal"Stravinsky . . . has a remarkable eye for human singularity and a gift for making it vivid in a few quick strokes."--Alfred Frankenstein, "The New York Times Book Review""An absolutely scintillating series." --Nicolas Slonimsky, "The Christian Science Monitor"