| Abstract |
This volume focuses on the composer's musical life, presenting facsimiles of some of his completed manuscripts, sketches, and notational jottings, as well as views of him at the piano, conducting, and listening--at rehearsals, recording sessions, and as part of the audience. The book contains a number of sections in which the material is devoted to a single composition and the circumstances of its performance, from Orpheus--when Stravinsky first appeared on the scene--through The Rake's Progress, the Shakespeare songs, the septet, the Canticum Sacrum, Agon, Threni, Movements, A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer, The Flood, Abraham and Isaac, and the Requiem Canticles. This volume does not feature Stravinsky in company with other celebrities, and the pictures of him on his travels are largely of the performing artist en route to his concert engagements. Other aspects of Stravinsky's work are also shown: his calculations of expenses, replies to questionnaires, and memos for program notes. More important even than the pictorial record of Stravinsky's final thirty years are his medical diaries, since these were written as reminders and intended only for his own eyes and those of doctors and tax accountants. |
