My love affair with Igor S.

[Lawrence Bryan]

I was 16 and had just started a modest collection of "serious" music  
in the form of 33.33..." vinyl discs. At that time I was mostly  
interested in Russian composers, Rimsky Korsakov, Borodin,  
Moussorgsky. I worked part time to earn the $3.98 plus tax cost of one  
LP a week. The third week of my efforts after having purchased  
Sheherazade and a collection that included "Night on Bald Mountain",  
"Steppes of Central Asia", "Khovanshchina", and "Pictures at an  
Exhibition", I was browsing through the discs and came across a cover  
with a highly stylized picture of a woman in a jungle and a French  
title, "L Sacre du Printemps" . Antal Dorati conducting the  
Minneapolis Symphony and a composer with a Russian sounding name,  
Stravinsky. The clerk knew nothing about this Stravinsky guy, but the  
blurb on the back. "... riots at the premier..." sounded intriguing,  
so I coughed up my four bucks and change and pedaled home with the disc.

When Mom and Dad came home a couple of hours later, I had already  
listened to it three times. "Listen to this!", and I put the needle  
down at the beginning. My poor parents.

Since then I've gone through a dozen different recordings, (I liked  
Boulez's best and detested Berstein's) and have watched the ballet a  
half dozen times.

In the winter of 1966-67 the company I worked for flew me from San  
Diego to St Paul for an important meeting. I got in the night before  
and found a picture of Stravinsky in the newspaper with an  
announcement of a concert with the composer conducting. I called the  
box office. Sold out. The next morning I made some more calls and  
found there was a final rehearsal at 10AM that morning. So I called my  
boss and told him I wouldn't be at the meeting that morning. "Miss  
your flight?", "No." "Sick?". "No." "Quitting your job?" "Nope.  
Stravinsky is in town and I'm going to go see him." "Who?" "The  
composer, Stravinsky." "Who?"  <sigh> "If Beethoven were in town would  
you go to a meeting instead of going to see him?" "I'd go to my  
meeting." "Well I'd go see Beethoven. I'll be in this afternoon. Gotta  
run now. Bye." "Wait!..."

I talked my way in to the rehearsal and for the first time watched an  
orchestra put Le Sacre together. Robert Craft was conducting it. An  
incredible experience trying to sit still and not start singing or  
pound the seat in front of me. Apparently most of the problems had  
been worked out in previous rehearsals as they didn't play the whole  
piece. But then after a short break, the orchestra stood up and  
applauded as the Master came out on stage to conduct "The Fairy's  
Kiss". He was a bit bent over and seemed frail, accompanied by someone  
whose job it seemed was to catch him if he fell over. But he got on  
the podium mumbled something to the orchestra and gave a downbeat. His  
conducting was somewhat perfunctory and with little emotional  
movement. I think he stopped once or twice to ask for something a  
little different but mostly he just went through the whole piece.

After I rushed out and around to the back to see if I could say hello  
as he left. He came out with a large entourage, bowed slightly to  
other fans there who were calling out his name, and turned towards me.  
Alas it was only because I was standing in front of the exit. However  
he did pass close enough I could have touched him if I had been so  
inclined. Instead I just stood there paying silent homage to a man who  
had given me so much pleasure already and would continue to do so lang  
after he died.

Oh. No, I didn't get fired. I don't remember what the meeting was  
about or who my boss was. Not really important, in any case.

Lawrence

On Dec 26, 2008, at 1:01 PM, Dave Monroe wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 2:56 PM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Nicholas Slonimsky's "Lexicon of Musical Invective":
>>
>>       One musical curiosity that was not destined to become an
>>       immortal masterpiece was the Network of Noises by the Italian
>>       futurist Luigi Russolo. When he conducted it in Milan on April
>>       21, 1914, the excitable audience actually threatened bodily
>>       harm to the futurist offenders. A skirmish followed, as a  
>> result of
>>       which eleven members of the audience had to be hospitalized,
>>       but the futurists suffered only minor bruises. Who remembers
>>       now these excitements? The Italian futurists seem to have a
>>       brilliant future behind them.
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0106&msg=56608
>