Composers: View from the Top

Igor Stravinsky says that there is no triumph in being 84. He confesses to a feeling of loneliness for his generation, a detachment from younger people “who see me as an elderly crackpot always in a snit.” He’s far from that. In an interview in the New York Review of Books this week, Composer Stravinsky shows that his mind is as sprightly and incisive as ever.

While he admits to some strong reservations about today’s “mass-produced avant-gardes,” Stravinsky takes heart from the younger generation of musicians. “We all know, or should know,” he says, “that America produces the finest instrumentalists in the world. This knowledge did not prepare me for the abundance of performing talent of the highest quality that I have discovered of late on visits to colleges and music schools such as Oberlin, Eastman, the University of Texas. I found not only talent but a sensible new generation of human beings. Last spring at an agricultural college in Indiana, I saw my Oedipus Rex in an excellent production by students whose other time, for all I know, was occupied with lectures on fertilizer. Then, only a few weeks ago, I heard the Eastman School orchestra play to perfection, on a minimum of rehearsal, some of my most difficult later music, which at least one renowned professional orchestra could not manage after a week of rehearsals and a dozen performances.”