Robert Craft

First published in 1972, this highly-acclaimed biography of one of the century's greatest composers now features nearly twice as many illustrations and one-third more text. Based on Craft's 25-year diary of his friendship with Stravinsky.

Chronicle of a Friendship

Stravinsky

In this collection of essays, the noted critic and conductor writes about the music of Vivaldi, Nadia Boulanger, and Liszt, the literature of T.S. Eliot and Evelyn Waugh and also writes about Stravinsky and his own unusual relationship with the composer a

Present Perspectives, Critical Writings

Discoveries and Memories

Igor Stravinsky

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

Expositions and Developments

Glimpses of a Life

Igor 1882-1971 Stravinsky

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Dialogues and a Diary

Craft's musical observations are pertinent and witty, and it is music that underpins this collection of memoirs. However, his descriptions of Stravinsky's collaborator-friends, such as George Balanchine, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley and other makers the twentieth century, also provide a fascinating contribution to the intellectual and cultural history of our era.

Down a Path of Wonder

Dialogues

"In this rich volume of cultural commentary, Robert Craft's flashing intellect illuminates, communicates, and assesses the thought and genius of half a decade of ferment in the arts. Whether expressing his own precepts or offering his take on the cultural contributions of others, Craft is at his best in these thirty-two essays and reviews that bring to his reader glimpses, insights, first-hand historical contexts, critiques, and studied appreciations from the worlds of painting, music, dance, and literature." "Craft's apparently universal scope provides him with comfortable command, whether the subject is W. H. Auden's and T. S. Eliot's politics, body language in Renaissance painting, the little known (to American audiences) Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen and Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, Martha Graham's boudoir, or authoritative considerations of the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. These critiques constitute the kind of reading that challenges and informs while it moves to laughter and to the deepest emotions." "Rounding off this banquet is a small dessert in the form of an interview with Craft, drawing from him his contrast of our own fin de siecle with that of the last century."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Music, Literature, and the Arts, 1990-1995

The Moment of Existence

Conversations with Igor Stravinsky is the first of the celebrated series of conversation books in which Stravinsky, prompted by Robert Craft, reviewed his long and remarkable life. The composer brings the Imperial Russia of his childhood vividly into focus, at the same time scanning what were at the time the brave new horizons of Boulez and Stockhausen with extraordinary acuity. Stravinsky answers searching questions about his musical development and recalls his association with Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet. There are sympathetic and extraordinarily illuminating reminiscences of such composers as Debussy and Ravel ('the only musicians who immediately understood Le Sacre du Printemps'), while mischievous squibs are directed at others, most notably perhaps against Richard Strauss, all of whose operas Stravinsky wished 'to admit ... to whichever purgatory punishes triumphant banality'. The conversations are by no means confined to musical subjects, ranging uninhibitedly across all the arts: Stravinsky gives unforgettable sketches of Ibsen, Rodin, Proust, Giacometti, Dylan Thomas and T S Eliot. 'The conversations between Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft are unique in musical history. The penetration of Craft's questions and the patience and detail of Stravinsky's answers combine to produce an intimate picture of a man who has sometimes puzzled, often delighted, and always intrigued ...' The Sunday Times

Conversations with Igor Stravinsky

For the first time in one volume--the celebrated Stravinsky and Craft Conversations 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, and for over twenty-one years he lived with the Stravinskys in their Hollywood home. In the early 1950s he accompanied the composer on his concert tours, and from the mid-1950s to Stravinsky's death in 1971 he co-conducted his concerts. Together Stravinsky and Craft 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. The Conversations books are the only published writing attributed to Stravinsky that are actually "by him" in terms of fidelity to his thoughts and opinions, making this volume required reading for all fans and students of Stravinsky's music.

Robert Craft

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