Stravinsky

October 4, 1999
Walsh, a lecturer in music at the University of Wales, has undertaken a staggering task in this, the first of an exhaustive two-volume study of the man who is arguably the 20th century's greatest composer. Both on his own and by the medium of the amanuensis of his later years, Robert Craft (Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship), Stravinsky (1882-1971) drew many layers of deception and distortion over the thoughts and events of his youth, and Walsh has taken it as his task to disperse them. While respectful of Craft's encouragement of Stravinsky's muse in his later years, Walsh shows how many of Craft's judgments, fueled by Stravinsky's revisionist tendencies and retrospective malice, were flawed. Walsh also pays tribute to Richard Taruskin's pioneering work on Stravinsky (Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions). Walsh gives the most complete picture yet of the liberal, bourgeois and musical Petersburg family in which Stravinsky grew up; his early years at the conservatory under Rimsky-Korsakov; the sensation caused by his ballets for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes; the Rite of Spring scandal; and the long string of masterpieces in various styles that followed. Here, too, is the tale of a passionately Russian artist deprived by revolution of his homeland and the copyright of his works, as well as the insecurity he felt as he wandered Europe, mostly in France and Switzerland. He moved always among a host of glittering artists--Ravel, Debussy, Cocteau, Picasso, Gide, to name only a few--in those fecund years, and, always, a crowd of Russian exile hangers-on who hoped that increasingly wealthy Igor, as uncle, cousin or compatriot, would help them out. Thus was born the penny-pinching, materialist, cynical composer of the later years, as Walsh convincingly shows in this overwhelmingly detailed and often witty portrait.

Starred review from September 1, 1999
Walsh, a British musicologist who has written extensively on Stravinsky and his works, has produced the first of a massive two-part biography of the century's greatest composer. The first part takes the reader in a comprehensive chronology from Stravinsky's birth to the end of his Paris years. In the process, Walsh carefully and exhaustively lays bare Stravinsky's genealogy and convincingly details his complex relationships with family, friends, and fellow composers. Drawing extensively on hitherto unexamined primary sources as well as on such indispensable secondary sources as Robert Craft's writings and Richard Taruskin's recent groundbreaking tome, Stravinsky and the Russian Tradition, Walsh performs this feat with admirable clarity and discretion. While there are no musical examples, nor any semblance of analysis, there is nonetheless a great deal of illuminating commentary on each work written during this time period. This is an important source for Stravinsky scholars and an enjoyable read for the casual reader. Highly recommended for all collections.--Larry A. Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 1999
Igor Stravinsky is perhaps best remembered for the folk melodies and driving rhythms of his early ballets, such as "The Firebird" and "The Rite of Spring." Initially incorporating Russian elements but then quickly embracing the French idiom, his style evolved from late romantic to modernist without ever adopting the serialism of Webern and Schoenberg. Stravinsky fled the Bolsheviks to settle in Switzerland and, later, France. With a growing family and a tubercular wife, he turned to conducting and playing his own piano concertos to support them and, in Paris, a mistress. Inspired by literature and myth, he often collaborated with the Russian emigreballet impresarios Diaghilev, Massine, and Balanchine, producing much of his most familiar music. His songs, symphonies, and chamber works are less played today. In this reference-oriented biography, Walsh uses diaries, press clippings, and other materials to probe in detail the life of a man kept very busy with effectively dividing his time between performance, composition, family, and mistress. ((Reviewed October 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)