Chronicle of A Non-Friendship - Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky

Chronicle of a Non-Friendship: Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky
Author(s): Victor Yuzefovich and Marina Kostalevsky

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Winter, 2002), pp. 750-885
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600975
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Institutions, Technology, and Economics and Texts and Contexts
Chronicle of a Non-Friendship: Letters

of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky
Edited, Introduced, and Annotated by Victor Yuzefovich

Translated by Marina Kostalevsky
When people ask me, "Why does he [Stravinsky] not speak about [you] but bows
and scrapes before conductors who in essence have done nothing for him?" I reply
that I have done so much for him that he has no words to express his gratitude."
-Serge Koussevitzky to Gavriil Paitchadze, 18 November 1936, Boston
(Koussevitzky Archives, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
Published here for the first time, the correspondence between the families
of Igor Stravinsky and Serge Koussevitzky contains 108 documents
spanning nearly three and a half decades, from 1924 to 1957, and is now
housed in the Koussevitzky Archives at the Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C.1 Letters from the first period of the two musicians'
professional contact, that is, from Stravinsky's first collaborations with the
Edition Russe de Musique (ERM)2 to their numerous joint concert
performances in Europe in the early 1920s, remain unpublished.
Koussevitzky, who had a deep interest in new trends in music, was a
great promoter of Stravinsky and his work. Thoroughly convinced of the
artistic value of the music, he stood his ground against conservative audi-
ences not ready to accept the composer's revolutionary innovations and
against rivals who, for creative or merely commercial reasons, wanted to be
the first to present Stravinsky's work to the public. Most important, however,
was Koussevitzky's struggle with his own limitations as a conductor. If one
is to believe Nicolas Slonimsky, in the early 1920s Koussevitzky did
not have the technical skills necessary to represent this music with confi-
dence and therefore faced considerable difficulties preparing the Paris
performance of The Rite of Spring.3 However, in 1928 Stravinsky himself
acknowledged the score's difficulties when he conducted the piece for the first
time. The collaboration between Stravinsky and Koussevitzky was never an
easy one. Despite longstanding personal and creative contacts, Stravinsky
never came to admire Koussevitzky as a person, and even less so as a
The Musical Quarterly 86(4), Winter 2002, pp. 750-885; doi:10.1093/musqtl/gdg026

? 2004 Oxford University Press 750
Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky 751
conductor: Vera Stravinsky would later write that "Stravinsky was sharply
critical, even contemptuous, of Koussevitzky's conducting."4 Feelings of
animosity and interest alternated, with the former dominating Stravinsky's
emotions. Several factors contributed to this attitude.
Stravinsky and Koussevitzky came from very different backgrounds
that afforded them widely divergent experiences. Stravinsky's father, the
celebrated Russian opera singer Fyodor Stravinsky, was a well-educated
man with close ties to many significant cultural figures of the time. Fluent
in four European languages, he was a passionate bibliophile whose collec-
tion of over 12,000 books was considered the most significant private
library of old St. Petersburg. Igor Stravinsky would recall that he "passed
[his] childhood on the stage of the Imperial Opera Theater, where [he]
inherited [his] love for music [from his father]."5 He not only developed a
love of music early on, he also acquired a thorough knowledge of it. His
father, furthermore, instilled a great love of reading in all his children.
Koussevitzky's father, by contrast, was a modest Jewish fiddler who
served two and a half decades in the czar's army and, limited by both his
financial situation and his intellectual horizons, was unable to provide his
children with a decent education. Koussevitzky, furthermore, spent his
childhood far removed from a cultural center, in the provincial town of
Vyshnii Volochok. He played with his father and brothers in small
klezmer ensembles from an early age and acquired much of his musical
and general education only later in life, after running away from home to
study music in Moscow. In order to live and study legally outside the
Jewish settlements of czarist Russia, he converted to the Christian faith,
thus relinquishing any hope for a reconciliation with his father.
Stravinsky's and Koussevitzky's views on musical performance were
diametrically opposed. Stravinsky saw conductors in general in a negative
light, be they Koussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski, or Fritz Reiner. Robert
Craft, one of his most ardent admirers, reports of Stravinsky's contempt
for the profession and that he "could be remarkably rude" to conductors.6
Koussevitzky, on the other hand, was a student and follower of Arthur
Nikisch's romantic school of conducting, and Stravinsky's many perfor-
mance instructions in his scores severely limited Koussevitzky's interpretive
aims. To Stravinsky, the performer was only to communicate the com-
poser's intent and nothing more. In addition, Stravinsky's first direct
impression of Koussevitzky as a conductor dated from the London pre-
miere of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments on 10 June 1921, which was a
fiasco and one of the saddest episodes of Koussevitzky's creative life.7
Stravinsky's attitude toward Koussevitzky was colored in part also by his
negative feelings toward anything connected to his own early career in
Russia. "One must not forget," wrote Pierre Souvchinsky, "how difficult
752 The Musical Quarterly
the beginning of Stravinsky's career in Russia was. He harbored deep

bitterness toward this period for the rest of his life."8 Stravinsky's anti-
Semitism no doubt also influenced his relationship with the conductor.9
Koussevitzky, on the other hand, had the greatest respect for
Stravinsky's genius and accepted him as the person he was.10 Soon after
establishing ERM, he turned his attention to Stravinsky's music and
agreed to the unconditional publication of all his works, the requisite the
composer had insisted on for a collaboration. Stravinsky left Belyayev and
Jurgenson, his publishers up until then, and in 1911 ERM issued the first
in a long list of works: "Forget-Me-Not" and "Dove," two poems by
Konstantin Balmont set for voice and piano (see Appendix for a list of
Stravinsky's works published by ERM).1 Stravinsky's alliance with
ERM rather displeased Russian musicians and critics, and the Russian
premieres of Petrushka (1913) and The Rite of Spring (1914)-both con-
ducted by Koussevitzky-met with vociferous criticism. Some reviewers
were enraged by Koussevitzky's advancement of the "composer-modernist,"
while others, among them Nicolas Miaskovsky, simply seemed
jealous: "That ERM poses as innocent again is deplorable," he wrote.
" [T]heir publication of Stravinsky's Rite of Rubbish is blatant
commercialism."12
The ERM publication of the four-hand piano score of The Rite of
Spring was soon followed by the piano score for the opera The Nightingale.
Two letters by ERM's director, Nikolas Struve, show the attitude of the
publishing house to the composer. In the first, referring to the publication
of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, Struve entreats, "Please do us the great
favor and send us detailed suggestions for the publication before we send
it to the printer."13 In the second he writes, "I await The Nightingale with
great eagerness. Your description of the piece has greatly intrigued me and
captured my imagination, Igor Fyodorovich. Everything about the
opera-the subject, the setting, your excitement, your joy-indicates a
grandiose work of original and magic beauty! Thus, good luck-indeed,
the best of luck; may you finish your 'song of the nightingale' on an inspi-
rational high! ! "14 Struve would take on the role of mediator in discussions
for an ultimately unrealized production of The Nightingale for the 1913-14
season between Konstantine Mardzhanov, general director of the Free
Theater in Moscow, the composer himself, and Serge Diaghilev, who
wanted to stage the opera with his own company.
Koussevitzky was struck by the richness and stylistic diversity of
contemporary Russian music and began work on his own ability to realize
it by studying orchestral scores of composers of the older generation,
such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatol Liadov, Alexander Glazunov,
and Serge Taneev, as well as scores based on principles of sound
organization that were then still alien. Following the example of

Aleksandr Ziloti, who had introduced the Suite from Stravinsky's ballet
The Firebird to a Russian audience on 23 October [5 November] 1910,
Koussevitzky organized the Russian premieres of Petrushka, whose Paris
premiere he had attended on 13 June 1911 and whose score had already
been published by ERM, and of The Rite of Spring. At first Stravinsky
categorically declined the conductor's suggestion to perform excerpts
from Petrushka. His close friendship with Ernest Ansermet guaranteed
him the uncut performance of all new works in Switzerland, but since
Koussevitzky was important as a local promoter of his work, he
ultimately agreed (Stravinsky would later conduct the Suite himself).
Koussevitzky's arrangement included the Russian dance from the
first act, the entire second act, and selected dances from the fourth act.
The Russian premieres of Petrushka took place under Koussevitzky's
baton on 23 January [5 February] 1913 in St. Petersburg and on 30
January [12 February] in Moscow. Just as the first performances of
Scriabin's Prometheus had done, the premieres met with enormous interest
from the cultural elite in Russia and placed Koussevitzky at the epicenter
of a spirited and divisive debate. Far from being unanimous in their judg-
ment of Stravinsky's music, critics accused the composer of exaggeration,
of "turning music into the photograph of a drunken binge"15 in his quest
for realism; "his male characters eschew handkerchiefs to blow their noses
into their sleeves, while his female characters wear them."16 Reviews stated
that "Stravinsky hates pure music" and emphasized that he allowed "music
only a limited role in the overall design,"17 while rendering "the purely
musical aspects... absolutely insignificant."18 One reviewer conceded that
"Stravinsky has found his artistic signature"19 and considered Petrushka "a
prelude to one form of musical futurism." However, he closed with the
statement that "it may be better for him never to have been born!"20
Koussevitzky was not at all disconcerted by the fact that Petrushka
was considered akin to an artistic lubok [cheap popular folk print], or by
the accusation that Stravinsky "tramples old principles upon which we
have been raised and educated."21 On the contrary, along with other
progressive figures in Russian music, such as Miaskovsky, Vladimir
Derzhanovsky, and Viacheslav Karatygin, he embraced Petrushka.
Response to Koussevitzky's realization of Petrushka was more singularly
enthusiastic than the judgment of the music itself. "The performance
of the excerpts was superb, exciting the public with the work's unusual
qualities," wrote Leonid Sabaneev, who had denounced Stravinsky's
music as lacking in warmth and inspiration.22 Miaskovsky noted that
"it proved even more exciting [in performance] than in the score."23
Calling Petrushka "undoubtedly one of the most brilliant, talented,
and interesting works not only in Russian but European contemporary

music," Karatygin emphasized that his "impression of Petrushka was made
all the more powerful by Koussevitzky's brilliant delivery."24
The Russian premieres of The Rite of Spring on 5 [18] February
1914 in Moscow and on 12 [25] February in St. Petersburg focused public
attention again on "Koussevitzky's Concerts." Koussevitzky cabled to
Stravinsky: "Rite of Spring great event in Moscow, was performed yester-
day with huge success. Terribly regret your absence."25 The conductor did
not exaggerate the impression of the premiere: "All this past week I lived
immersed in the sounds of the Rite of Spring," wrote Aleksandr Benois to
Stravinsky, "first in Moscow and then in St. Petersburg. I am positively
grieving that there will not be another chance to hear this music some
time to come."26
Miaskovsky and Karatygin each published two articles about the
Rite. For Miaskovsky, the work, though "seemingly chiseled from stone,"
was "uniquely alive and refreshing and both moving and captivating." 27
"The impression it produces is overwhelming but also ambiguous," wrote
Karatygin in his first article. "There is much that is ostentatious and
exaggerated in this music, but there is also plenty of interesting material."28
But again, critical reaction was not unanimous. To Cesar Cui the score
was no more than "rotten garbage";29 and Sabaneev, reacting to the
Moscow premiere, declared it to be "a kind of charlatanism, though some
people consider this trash to be a revelation."30 A St. Petersburg critic
echoed the sentiment, stating that "it is hard to separate art from boorish
hooliganism."31 Composer Jan Vitol confessed, "I have no special desire to
dwell upon the Rite of Spring... my field is the art of music, and in this par-
ticular case, a guard from the zoo would make a more competent critic."32
The quality of the performance was not spared harsh criticism either
this time around. One critic wrote that "we have to thank the conductor
and the orchestra for their enormous effort in learning Stravinsky's
score.... But here's the rub: even though the conductor managed to
emphasize rhythmic patterns at times and I on occasion could hear the
virtuoso qualities of the orchestra, I dare not call the performance of
the Rite of Spring on the whole good. It was quite impossible to grasp
Stravinsky's style and harmonies."33 Another critic wrote: "Koussevitzky
and his excellent orchestra were playing at full blast, trying to overcome
the denial of rhythm that is the essence of Stravinsky's music. The musi-
cians were visibly relieved when they managed to stop at fermata."34
Karatygin, blaming Stravinsky for the monotony and artificiality of The
Rite of Spring, suggested that "the music's artistic meaning is overwhelmed
by its historical importance."35 Koussevitzky's first performances were
described in similar ways. "Koussevitzky did not have command of Spring,"
complained Miaskovsky, "but let's not blame him for that; he performed it
nonetheless."36
Koussevitzky's Russian premieres preceded the April 1914 perfor-
mance in Paris by Pierre Monteux, an event Stravinsky would later call
the "brilliant renascence of the Sacre" after the scandalous premiere of
1913.37 And what is more, the premieres helped establish Stravinsky's
works in Russia and were the beginning of Koussevitzky's long involve-
ment with, and his work on, the score.
World War I disrupted the contact between Stravinsky, Koussevitzky,
and ERM. The firm found itself in a catastrophic financial situation,
forcing it to relocate its offices from Berlin to Moscow, to change printing
houses on several occasions, and to limit itself to the reprinting of older
editions. In 1915 Nicolas Struve informed Stravinsky that "business has
become increasingly more difficult due to the current situation and, for
the time being, even has to be frozen in part." He added prophetically that
"more storm clouds will appear on the horizon."38 In the spring of 1919,
Stravinsky responded to a telegram from Struve with a lengthy letter:
"I was extremely happy to learn that you are safe and sound, and full of
energy... which is so vital to the continuing existence of ERM. I must con-
fess that it is my only safe haven." Completely unaware of ERM's dire situa-
tion, Stravinsky offered for publication several works composed during the
war and asked for financial backing. "The news of the revival of our publish-
ing house has encouraged me," he wrote, "as I am certain it will provide me
with the livelihood to exist solely on the fruits of my work as a composer."39
Struve had no choice but to inform Stravinsky of the true state of
affairs at ERM and of his personal uncertainties, concluding his letter with "it
would be unfair to complain however.... One way or another, these times are
difficult for Russians everywhere, not to mention the suffering in our coun-
try."40 During a stay in New York, Struve tried to arrange an invitation for
Stravinsky to tour the United States and for his ballet to be staged at the
Metropolitan Opera. "We are still cut off from Moscow and the Koussevitzkys,
and thus ERM's situation remains difficult and uncertain. But we must
persevere and move, even if slowly, toward a restoration of our old projects,"
he wrote to Stravinsky.41 But by this time Stravinsky had already transferred
all rights to his works to the publishing house Chester. Struve would soon
learn about this arrangement from Otto Kling, Chester's director.
Hopes for a reunion with Koussevitzky were not in vain. The
collaboration and correspondence between the two musicians recom-
menced after Koussevitzky's emigration from Russia in 1920.
Koussevitzky's financial situation, though, was quite a different matter.
His fortune had been considerably diminished by Soviet Russia's
nationalization efforts and their aftermath, and it was impossible
for him to improve ERM's situation or to pay off the company's debts
to composers in a timely manner.
The opportunity to observe the Western public's reaction to Russian
music allowed Koussevitzky to find a new angle in his appreciation of
Stravinsky's work. He realized the fundamental innovations with greater
clarity and recognized Stravinsky's contribution to the effort to liberate
Russian music from Western influences. This process had begun during
Mikhail Glinka's time but came to full fruition only with Stravinsky.
Koussevitzky shared the opinion of Arthur Lourie, who declared in 1926
that "it fell to Stravinsky to cut Russia's existing ties to Western tradi-
tion"; in Stravinsky's works, "Russian music for the first time loses its
'provincial and exotic' qualities, becoming instead the leader of a
universal music."42
Koussevitzky and his colleagues at ERM were always aware that it
was the collaboration with Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as the perfor-
mance of their works in Boston, which guaranteed the publishing house's
commercial success. As Ernest Oeberg, director of ERM, wrote, "For our
firm, Stravinsky is an extremely attractive composer. Sales figures of his
works are presently the highest in Paris."43
The Koussevitzky Archives in the Library of Congress contain the
original letters of Igor Fyodorovich, Ekaterina Gavrilovna, Vera
Arturovna, and Theodore Igorevich Stravinsky, addressed to Serge
Alexandrovich Koussevitzky, Natalia Konstantinovna Koussevitzky,
and Olga Alexandrovna Naumova-Koussevitzky, as well as copies of
letters to the composer from Serge, Natalia, and Olga Koussevitzky. This
publication also includes Koussevitzky's notes on Stravinsky's Petrushka,
along with letters from Stravinsky to Ernest Alexandrovich Oeberg; Otto
Kling, the British music publisher; Margaret Grant, the acting director of
the Berkshire Musical Center; and Mrs. Arthur Rice, the president of the
International Committee of the American League of Composers. It also
includes a letter from Koussevitzky to Aaron Sapiro, Stravinsky's lawyer;
the correspondence of Stravinsky, Koussevitzky, and Olga Naumova with
A. Walter Kramer, the acting director of the music corporation Galaxy; and
a letter to Koussevitzky from Irwin Rosenthal, owner of a used-book store in
Berkeley, California. All letters are housed in the Archives and are directly
linked to the relationship between the composer and the conductor. The
story of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky's relationship is further illustrated by
Koussevitzky's extensive correspondence with the directors of ERM, Ernest
Oeberg and Gavriil Paitchadze. Excerpts from this correspondence, also
housed in the Koussevitzky Archives, are quoted below. Their relationship
may well be further illuminated by Stravinsky's correspondence with Oeberg
and Paitchadze, which is housed in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.
A Note on the Correspondence
The letters published here were originally written in Russian, French, and
English; the language of the original is noted in each case. Typos and
errors in the originals are corrected without comment. Words missing
from the originals are reinstated in brackets. Dates, places, names, and
geographical locations are presented in English, regardless of the original
language of the letter. In cases where words are illegible, a note to that
effect is included in square brackets, followed by the number of words that
have been left out; in some cases, the most logical word is given. Also, the
dates of letters not dated by the authors themselves but established by the
postmark on the envelope are included in brackets. Finally, cuts in the
citations are indicated by an ellipsis.
It is my hope that these letters will add one more chapter to Stravin-
sky's many-volumed literary heritage; this is a task for the future. I would
like to express my sincere thanks to the Koussevitzky Foundation in New
York, to the composer's grandson, John Stravinsky, and to Robert Craft,
without whose kind permission this publication would not have been pos-
sible. My thanks also go to the research staff of the Performing Arts Divi-
sion of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., who assisted me in
my research over the course of many years. And finally, thanks to the late
Victor Varunts, who kindly allowed us access to his collection of
Stravinsky's letters to Russian addressees before their publication.
1. Stravinsky to Natalya and Serge Koussevitzky

June 1923, Paris.1
For Natalya Konstantinovna and Sergei Alexandrovich Koussevitzky,

a keepsake from your devoted Igor Stravinsky. Paris, June 1923.2
2. Stravinsky to Natalia Koussevitzky

Easter 19241
Paris, Holy Pascha 1924. Christ has Risen!
Having reestablished communication with Stravinsky in 1919, Struve

informed Koussevitzky that the composer "ha[d] made a slew of sugges-
tions, but unfortunately [our] circumstances do not allow us to accept
them" (letter, 18 Aug. 1920, New York; KA-LC). Nonetheless, Struve
was able to bring the composer back to ERM, publishing Stravinsky's

recent works, up to Persephone (1934), on a regular basis. His works were
performed regularly as part of Koussevitzky's Concerts in Paris, where
each program book featured a portrait of Stravinsky, regardless if his works
were to be performed that evening or not.
In the summer or 1923 Koussevitzky met with Stravinsky in Paris
and Biarritz. Having completed work on the Octet, the composer con-
firmed a previous agreement about its premiere on one of Koussevitzky's
concerts at the Grand Opera. The premiere, Stravinsky's debut as
conductor, took place on 18 October 1923. The success convinced
him of his ability to perform in this capacity.
Though Koussevitzky had provided him with the best possible
rehearsal arrangements, Stravinsky had to admit that rehearsals were not
easy because of the score's peculiarities and his own inexperience as a
conductor. Stravinsky's conducting skills would improve over the follow-
ing years, as Koussevitzky happily reported after the American premiere of
Persephone: "He conducted very well (considering that he is a composer),
clear, precise, and with full understanding of what to demand from the
musicians" (letter to Paitchadze, 16 March 1935, Boston, KA-LC).
The series of Koussevitzky's Concerts continued in Paris after the
conductor's 1924 move to the United States. The conductor returned to
Paris, where he performed after the Boston winter season regularly until
1928. Alongside Stravinsky's latest compositions, the programs also
included some of his earlier works. Among them were Fireworks (3 June
1926), the Firebird Suite (22 and 29 May 1924), the Petrushka Suite
(6 May 1921, 4 March and 20 April 1922, 22 and 29 May 1924, 13 June
1925), excerpts from The Nightingale (3 May 1923), and the symphonic
poem Le chant du rossignol (26 October 1922, 10 May 1923).
The Rite of Spring had a special place among these. Ten years had
passed since its scandalous premiere, and a first Parisian concert perfor-
mance of music from the ballet was announced for 24 May. Many listeners
were well acquainted with Leonide Massine's version of the ballet under
Diaghilev, with Pierre Monteux's and Ernest Ansermet's interpretations
of the score, and the image of the Chosen One as presented by Lydia
Sokolova. Koussevitzky had to convince audiences that the music could
stand on its own. He succeeded brilliantly.
Boris de Schloezer applauded the conductor's great inner freedom
and wrote that Koussevitzky's interpretation emphasized the dramatic and
lyrical qualities of the music, revealing many aspects which had not come
across in Ansermet's performance, e.g. the score's Rimsky-style vividness,
imagery, and exotic character. The critic, analyzing the originality and
persuasiveness of Koussevitzky's reading, stated about the bassoon's
opening solo: "The entire episode acquires a poetic, sad, and melancholy
tone. Ansermet depicts a picture here, an image of the hollow rumble of
nature vaguely awakening to life. Koussevitzky, on the other hand, evokes
poetic dreams, emotions, and human impulses. And this is true
everywhere: where Ansermet draws on pure dynamics, Koussevitzky
brings passion." The psychological nuances Koussevitzky added to "Spring
Divinations" and "Spring Rounds" achieved "a titanic tension between
will and passion." In conclusion the critic noted that "had he listened to
Koussevitzky's performance, Massine would have had to change his
choreography completely, devoid of everything human and psychological
(with the exception of the "Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One") as
it is" ("The Last Concert of S. A. Koussevitzky," Zveno, 4 June 1923).
Koussevitzky himself expressed surprise on several occasions that Rite of Spring
was well received by audiences. He wrote after one of his performances:
"Obviously, lodged deep in this work, there is a [illegible word] which has a
physical effect on the listeners" (Sketches of S. Koussevitzky, KA-LC).
Following Slonimsky's suggestions, Koussevitzky made some changes
to the score of the "Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One." The complex
episode rich in changes of meter (5/8, 6/8, and 9/8) and syncopations was,
in Slonimsky's words, "re-barred" in 3/8. As a result, orchestral chords
appeared to fall to the accented beat. Corresponding changes were also
made in the orchestral parts. Interestingly, after the 1924 St. Petersburg
premiere Karatygin had written that "the final dance of the doomed
sacred victim is a real paradox... it seems that the dance could have been
done just as well in duple and triple meter, if there are syncopations of
course" ("The Rite of Spring," Rech', 16 February 1914).
For his later performances of the piece in Paris (25 October 1923,
22 and 29 May 1924, 13 June 1925, 11 June 1927 ) and in Boston,
Koussevitzky always used the rebarred score. Leonard Bernstein also con-
ducted from that score (see his letter to Slonimsky in Perfect Pitch, 76). Despite
its practicality for conductor and orchestra, the advantages are question-
able. The music loses some of the tension-the electric arc-between
musicians and listeners of the version.
Now that he was conducting himself, Stravinsky had to admit the
difficulty and, in some cases, the impracticality of the original score.
"Stravinsky is rewriting some parts of Le sacre to simplify the task of con-
ducting," wrote Paitchadze, "and we are hurriedly preparing a score with
the new material for the concert in Holland at the end of February" (letter
to Natalia Koussevitzky, 11 February 1926, Paris, KA-LC).
Stravinsky's music was not new to Boston audiences. Koussevitzky's
predecessor, Pierre Monteux, was a great interpreter of The Rite of Spring,
and Koussevitzky's decision to conduct the piece in Boston and New York
carried with it great responsibility. Critical voices were divided. Ernest

Newman, for example, wrote that the performance's "technical finish and
understanding of the composer's intentions probably cannot be bettered"
(Newman, "Koussevitzky," The Evening Post, undated clipping [1925],
KA-LC). Olin Downes, on the other hand, stated that Koussevitzky missed
the brilliance and subtlety of sound that had characterized the BSO perfor-
mance of Le sacre under Monteux ("A Kaleidoscope of Noted Conductors-
Reactions of Audiences and Critics," New York Times, 12 April 1925).
Koussevitzky programmed the piece frequently and after a 1933
performance wrote that "Stravinsky could not have dreamed of hearing
this work performed with more clarity and precision. The performance
had the most astounding effect on the audience, the critics, and the
orchestra itself: Sacre is not outdated-on the contrary, it sounds like it
was written yesterday. Having created a work of such super-genius,
Stravinsky can be forgiven for many things" (letter to Paitchadze,
9 March 1933, Boston, KA-LC).
Six years later, Downes, who in the meantime had changed his
opinion of Koussevitzky, stated that the conductor's reading had revealed
the full depth of Stravinsky's score: "There is an expression of primordial
might and rage, and, on the other hand, a deep mystery and poetry, all
expressed in unusual modern forms. And there is melancholy and even
tenderness, great inner powers that simultaneously balance each other
and compete amongst themselves" ("Series Here Ended By Koussevitzky,"
New York Times, 2 April 1939).
3. Ekaterina Stravinsky1 to Koussevitzky

8 April 1924, Biarritz2
Most-respected Sergei Aleksandrovich,
I[gor] F [eydorovich] is sending the Chester score and parts of The

Firebird3 by express mail today, in response to a letter from Mr. Zederbaum.4
The orchestral score belongs to I[gor] F[eydorovich] and the
material (all corrected) to Ansermet.
You will be able to use this material to correct the new one, if you
have already acquired it from Chester, when you return from Warsaw5
and I[gor] F[eydorovich] is in Paris.
Igor Feydorovich wants you to note the following: he has composed
eight additional measures to connect "Poganyi Plias" ["Savage Dance"]
with "Berceuse." You can find these measures on the last page of the score
(p. 78, in his own handwritten score).
The first of these eight measures (in 4/4) is now the last measure of
"Poganyi Plias." It is on page 65, marked by the inscription "pour
enchouner" and replaces the former last measure of "Poganyi Plias" in
(3/4) with the inscription "pour finir." I[gor] F[eydorovich] did this to
continue the music without stop to the very end of the Suite.
I[gor] F[eydorovich] sends his warmest regards to you and Natalia
Konstantinovna and apologizes that he could not write himself, as he is
incredibly busy finishing the Concerto.7
Best regards to you and Natalia Konstantinovna,

E. Stravinskaya.
P.S. I: You will find enclosed one extra copy of the tuba part, copied
separately from the 3 Trombone et Tuba part for convenience.
P.S. II: In the third [illegible] (p[age] 4 of the score) there are,
besides wind and percussion parts, seven parts for the first violins, six for
the second violins, four parts for violas, four for cellos, and three for
contrabasses.
4. Stravinsky to Koussevitzky
22 September 1924, Biarritz1
The material for The Bird was sent yesterday, in four packages with
an explanatory letter.2 A thousand greetings to both of you.
Stravinsky
5. Stravinsky to Natalia and Serge Koussevitzky

12 January 1925, New York1
Dear Natalia Konstantinovna and Sergei Aleksandrovich,
I was very touched by your kind telegram which I received just

moments before going on stage.2
I am leaving for Boston at midnight on the 20th and will arrive early
in the morning: 6:20 am at the station, apparently until 7 on the train, and
then to the hotel to wash and change clothes-Hotel Copley Plaza. I'd be
most grateful if you could drop me a line, telling me when the rehearsal
begins and at what time I will be picked up.
We had tremendous success with all three performances,3 though

the amount of work was deadly. It is very tiring here, not so much the
work itself really but people, with their invitations (breakfasts, dinners
suppers, [illegible], and etc.), do not give me any chance to rest.
See you soon. I send my sincere greetings to both of you.
P.S. Please let me know if you have the Concerto materials4

in hand.
20 January 1925, New York1
I will be at the Hotel Hemenway in the morning.
Greetings,
Stravinsky
7. Koussevitzky to Stravinsky
1 September, year and location not indicated [1925, Paris]1
Dear Igor Feydorovich,
Something very curious: though I met with you numerous times

during May,2 I have not been able to talk to you about a very important
matter. As I mentioned to you in passing, I have decided to stage Les noces
in America.3 I discussed the matter with Kling4 when we met in London
in May5 and he gave the impression that it all had been decided; we
agreed upon the delivery of the material. Kling did not once mention that
the rights to the American premiere of Les noces had to be obtained from
you. And circumstances conspired that I have not been able to discuss
matters with you. A few days ago, in response to my query when the mate-
rials would be delivered, Kling apologized and said that the rights to the
premiere of Les noces had been given to Salzedo6 and that I had to change
my plans so they correlated with Salzedo's. On top of it, it is not even clear
when the premiere will take place.
Meanwhile, having taken Kling at his word and thinking the matter
decided, I invited several Russian singers to perform as soloists. I have
letters from them telling me that they've learned the parts over the summer.
It is quite impossible for me to cancel the performance of Les noces in
view of all this. How am I to solve this situation? I am not vying for the
premiere of Les noces in New York, seeing that you have an agreement
with Salzedo, but I ask you to give me a chance to perform the piece in
Boston, independent of the New York premiere. You would not breach
your contract with Salzedo by giving me permission to proceed.
The Boston Symphony will pay you and the publisher all fees
related to the performance of Les noces as stipulated by you.
I hope that you will not find it difficult to grant my request and I
await your reply.
I send heartfelt greetings to your wife and children.7
Yours,
S. Koussevitzky8
8. Stravinsky to [Kling?]1
undated [between 1 and 5 September 1925]2
Messieurs,
Mr. Koussevitzky seems determined to perform Les noces in the United

States during the coming season (in concert), but I will agree only if his per-
formance takes place after the premiere which was promised to Mr. Salzedo.
Mr. Salzedo must inform you in a timely manner if he indeed plans to perform
the work. If he does, he must inform you of your rights and me of mine. He
needs to let you know his intent as soon as possible because if he does not plan
to present Les noces, I need to make arrangements with Mr. Koussevitzky,
who is obviously interested in performing the premiere. If Mr. Koussevitzky
agrees to conduct Les noces in a concert following Mr. Salzedo's premiere,
I will ask $75 in payment for each performance of the piece.
Please accept, monsieur, these assurances of my best sentiments,

I. Stravinsky
9. Stravinsky to Oeberg1
5 September 1925, Nice2
My dear friend,
I have just received your express letter from 2 September with

Koussevitzky's letter and I am rushing to write you a few words
(since I am in a hurry to leave for Venice).
Please tell Koussevitzky that I have informed Kling of his wish to

perform Les noces in Boston a few days ago. When I signed the contract
with Salzedo, I had completely forgotten about our friend Koussevitzky's
intent to perform the piece this season in Boston. To his credit, he had
mentioned his plans last winter, but only vaguely; that's why I did not take
them into account when I spoke with Salzedo. I will do anything to ensure
that the premiere in Boston can take place, but presently everything
depends on Salzedo's answer to Kling. The latter has asked Salzedo to tell
him immediately whether or not he plans to perform Les noces in concert
and, if he does, when precisely. Along with this, since Salzedo has exclu-
sive rights to the concert performance of Les noces in America this year
according to our contract, Koussevitzky (if he plans to perform the piece
this season) may ask him permission to conduct the premiere in Boston
(independent of Salzedo's own performance in New York). But all this
holds true only if he responds immediately and if his colleagues on the
board3 accept my conditions.
Two months have passed since Salzedo received my conditions, but I
have yet to receive a reply from him. Following are the conditions I sent:
Premiere performance $250

Two following performances $450
Three """""""""""""""""""'"""" $450
Four """""""""""""""""""" $500
Five """ """"""""" """ """""" $550
Each successive """"""""""""""""""" $75
If Koussevitzky agrees with my conditions to Salzedo, they will be

the same for him. If he agrees to parts only, he needs to negotiate with
Salzedo.
If our friend Koussevitzky has already made arrangements with
Salzedo and the performance of Les noces is to take place, then my fees, in
the sums and proportions noted above, will be confirmed by Mr. Harry
Kling, who as an intermediary will add his 10% commission.
Please, dear friend, let my wife know as soon as possible when
Koussevitzky is leaving for America. I will return from Venice, rather from
Italy, on 22-24 September.
Cordially Yours,
Igor Stravinsky.
P.S. Just after having finished this letter, I received your express
letter from 4 September. If you would be so kind, my dear, as to deposit
the sum mentioned in French francs into my bank account No. 160-290
in the Credit Commercial de France (20, Rue Lafayette).
During World War I, with all contacts to Germany cut off, the
Koussevitzkys received almost no information about ERM's situation.
They traveled to Berlin in 1920 and were thoroughly surprised to find the
building that housed the offices intact, but the offices completely empty.
ERM's cash registers were nearly as empty, due to the fall in value of the
German mark. And because important documents had disappeared, ERM
no longer had the right to publish music previously owned by Gutheil.
Struve had to sell the rights to many of Rachmaninov's works to
Scandinavian publishers and received a loan of 108,000 marks from
Rachmaninov himself. Even that, however, did not substantially improve
ERM's financial situation.
Koussevitzky, who at the time had no financial means to invest in
ERM, used nearly all his fees from performances in Europe to rebuild the
company. He was, however, too busy with his duties as conductor, first in
Europe and then in the United States, to take full charge of matters. As
actio in distans [action from a distance] was not the best way to lead, he
wanted to find trustworthy and knowledgeable people to take his place.
At Koussevitzky's request, Struve returned from America in October 1920
to assume his old position as director of ERM. Unfortunately, he would
die the same year in an elevator accident. Hard pressed to find a compara-
ble replacement, Koussevitzky invited Oeberg to become director and
move to Paris from Revel, where he had been living since his emigration
from Russia. "Koussevitzky's publishing business has gotten moving,"
wrote Prokofiev. "In place of Struve, he has hired Oeberg as director, a
Russian Estonian and seemingly a very businesslike person, who dashes
between London, Paris, and Berlin, expanding the business" (letter to
Pierre Souvchinsky, 28 July 1921, Rochileu, Music Department,
Bibliotheque nationale, Paris, Res. Vm. Dos. 91-94; quoted in Elena
Poldiaeva, "Ia chasto s nim ne soglashalsia" [From the correspondence
of Prokofiev and Souvchinsky], in Petr Suvchensky i evo vremya, ed.
A. Bretanitskaia [Moscow: Kompositor, 1999], 62).
Oeberg also discovered the contract regarding Koussevitzky's acqui-
sition of Gutheil among Struve's papers, and in Leipzig he found the
excellently preserved printing plates of several as yet unpublished works
by Grechaninov. He strengthened ERM's contacts with Breitkopf &
Hartel, successfully negotiated a new repayment plan for ERM's debts to
the printing house Roeder, and opened a warehouse in Berlin for Gutheil
and ERM publications. From Chester he recovered the piano scores of
Stravinsky's Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and The Nightingale, and the
handwritten scores of Rachmaninov's opera Aleko and piano scores of his
The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini.
The publication of The Bells, The Island of the Dead (orchestral
scores), and Aleko (piano scores), all works little known in Germany,
strengthened ERM's relationship with Rachmaninov, who was one of its
founders. The publication of Stravinsky's Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and
The Nightingale, as well as of Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, Love for
Three Oranges, and Chout, indicated the priorities to which ERM would
remain faithful for the remainder of its existence. The November 1924
contract between ERM and Diaghilev and Diaghilev's payment of 61,000
francs for the use of Petrushka were substantial victories for Oeberg. He
visited nearly every European capital in his search for reliable partners. In
1922 he handed over the management of the English branch to Goodwin
and Tab, and gave over the Belgium branch to Sand. He canceled an
unprofitable contract between ERM and Hansen and negotiated with
publishers in Italy and in Spain. Oeberg began to look for American
partners, an issue that later became important for Koussevitzky.
Rachmaninov "gave me valuable suggestions as to whom we should
offer our editions in America," Oeberg wrote after meeting with
the composer in Dresden in 1922 (letter to Natalia Koussevitzky,
12 June 1922, Berlin, KA-LC).
Oeberg was not only diligent, but also self-assured and optimistic,
sometimes perhaps excessively so. To Koussevitzky's concerns that ERM
had lost its independence, he responded, "As long as I am in charge of this
business, it will be in my hands" (letter dated 21 Aug. 1921, Bad Kissin-
gen, KA-LC). "The publishing business is flourishing," Oeberg reported to
Natalia Koussevitzky. "You may tell me that I boast, calling your publish-
ing house a gold mine," he wrote in another letter, "but it is the truth.
Nevertheless, I have gained nothing so far. It may be a gold mine, but the
path to the mine is a hard one" (letter dated 12 Nov. 1921, Liepzig,
KA-LC).
Oeberg knew how to get along with composers, and he quickly
established contacts with Grechaninov, Rachmaninov, Medtner,
Prokofiev, and Lourie. But perhaps his most important achievement dur-
ing his short term as director was the strengthening of ties with Stravin-
sky. He had met the composer during his first visit to Paris in 1920 and
had established a friendly relationship with him. They wrote each other
regularly, and in the fall of 1922 Stravinsky saw Oeberg almost daily for
several weeks when Stravinsky was in Berlin awaiting his mother's arrival
from Russia. Oeberg followed Stravinsky's European tours attentively and
informed Koussevitzky of their successes. He was present at the concerts
and the receptions in Stravinsky's honor in Leipzig and Berlin (Dec. 1924),
and attended a concert performance of Mavra in Frankfurt (Dec. 1925).
In December 1924 Oeberg signed Stravinsky to a ten-concert contract in
the United States. Stravinsky "is an extremely valuable composer for our
firm," he wrote. "[H]is works now bring in the highest profits in Paris....
Maybe, by relying on his trust, I can convince him to continue publishing
his works with our firm but under new conditions: no advance payments
or fees, but with payment of royalties instead" (letter to Koussevitzky, 22
Aug. 1922, Brussels, KA-LC). Shortly thereafter, he reported that
Stravinsky had "agreed to bury all previous agreements and contracts and
to sign a new contract for works that had been covered by a fee: hereafter,
he will receive 10% royalties and 25% royalties on works not covered by
fees" (letter to Natalia Koussevitzky, 5 Nov. 1922, Berlin, KA-LC).
In the fall of 1924, Stravinsky tried to sell his new piano sonata not
only to ERM, but also to an American publisher. "I told him," wrote
Oeberg, "that if he sells it to America, we will no longer be interested in
buying it and that he furthermore will destroy my interest in and my
attention to him and his works if he abuses our firm" (letter to Natalia and
Serge Koussevitzky, 29 Sept. 1924, Paris, KA-LC). Though ERM was
unable to pay him more than $1000, Stravinsky consented, and according
to Oeberg, stated that he "[has] never signed any contracts with anyone
but the Russischer Musik Verlag, of which his close friend Oeberg is direc-
tor, and will work exclusively with them in the future" at a reception at
the Berlin offices of the Wolff concert agency, where he was surrounded
by other publishers (letter to Serge Koussevitzky, 10 Dec. 1924, Berlin,
KA-LC). In December 1924, sensing a growing interest in the composer's
music, Oeberg doubled the fees for the use of Stravinsky's works. How-
ever, the disproportion between new music ordered from ERM and the
publishing house's funds increased, and ERM accumulated serious debts.
The situation was compounded by the dismal overall economic situation
in Germany. In addition, Oeberg's health was beginning to fail.

26 December 1925, Nice1
Dear Natalia Konstantinovna and Sergei Aleksandrovich,
It is with a heavy burden on my soul that I pick up the pen to write

you these words.
The tragic loss of my dear friend Ernest Aleksandrovich, whose
three-day agony I witnessed personally,2 obviously leaves open many
different questions, of which I would like to have your opinion. One of

these I would like clarified immediately, if possible.
Since your publishing house holds a large number of my works, and
since I wish to remain with you, I think it appropriate to have a more
direct involvement in the business side of the firm than in the past.3 Besides,
you understand that, having been spoiled by the direct fatherly care of
Ernest Aleksandrovich, I am not indifferent to the question of his replace-
ment. I would be extremely grateful if you'd send me a note to my Nice
address (167, Boulevard Carot, Nice), telling me if you already have some-
one in mind or if you will delay this decision until your return to Paris.
I will not give any details about the agonizing end of poor Ernest
Aleksandrovich, assuming that you already know it from letters by
Teslenko4 and Paitchadze,5 who have informed me that they plan to write
to you about it. Besides, I am still too shaken by what has happened to
describe his quick and agonizing death calmly.
I send my best wishes for the coming New Year and a firm
handshake.
Igor Stravinsky
11. Natalia Koussevitzky to Stravinsky

no date or place noted [after 26 December 1925, Boston]1
Dear Igor Feydorovich,
I am terribly sorry about my late reply to your letter, but we received

this letter late since there was a break in Sergei Aleksandrovich's schedule
and the two of us left Boston.
We understand your concerns-who will become the new head of
the publishing house-well. The death of Ernest Aleksandrovich has been
a great blow to us2 and I am only glad that you yourself were with him in
his difficult last days. He loved you and deeply cherished your friendly
feelings for him. Your care no doubt consoled him greatly.
After Ernest Aleksandrovich's passing the publishing house obvi-
ously found itself in a difficult position and the only solution was to ask
Paitchadze to head the firm. He is the only person who is more or less
abreast of the business situation3.
We are confident that you will approve of our choice. The publishing
house has always sought to accommodate your needs and nothing will
change in the future.4 We are confident that our choice is not a mistake.
Ernest Aleksandrovich himself always held Paitchadze in highest regard
and praised him in every letter, even stating in one that he could imagine
him as his successor should anything happen.5 Lately he seemed to have
premonitions that he was not long for this world, talking and writing
about it often. It all came about after the death of his nephew.
At first we did not want to rush the selection of a successor, intend-
ing to leave the question unresolved until our return to Paris. But it soon
became evident that the business could not remain without an official
director and we had to send an affidavit.6
On 30 May 1927 Koussevitzky attended the Paris premiere of Stravinsky's

Oedipus Rex,1 and the music left a powerful impression on him. While pre-
paring for the American premiere, Koussevitzky, who had not seen the
stage productions in Vienna or Berlin in 1928, became convinced that
"this work sounds even better when performed in concert."2
At the time, Oedipus was being performed throughout Europe: in
Berlin by Otto Klemperer,3 in Vienna by Franz Schalk,4 and in London,
Amsterdam, Rome, and Paris by the composer himself. The American
premiere under Koussevitzky took place on 24 February 1928 in Boston.
"Oedipus was received with great enthusiasm by the public and excites
them deeply," he wrote in a telegram to Maxwell Ricordi and Com.5 A
week later he reported, "Oedipus Rex met with absolutely incredible success
in America, much more so than could have been expected; it overshad-
owed everything else played that season. We are going to perform it in
New York as well, with a chorus and soloists from Boston. All this is cost-
ing our trustees huge sums of money, but they are quite willing to pay as
they are most proud of the Boston Symphony's success."6 Koussevitzky
dreamed of performing Oedipus with the Boston soloists in his first concert
of the 1928 Paris season, under the condition that Diaghilev would not
schedule a performance for the same day. The performance never took place,
however, since the composer himself intended to conduct the work there.
After hearing a performance of Oedipus conducted by Stravinsky,
Roger Sessions wrote:
The contact with Koussevitzky was extraordinary + truly educational.

I was convinced that Koussevitzky took some liberties with the tempos,
but at the same time I understood that he was trying his best to perform
the piece as he imagined Stravinsky would have wanted it. Quite
unexpectedly the work as conducted by Stravinsky sounded much warmer
and richer than it did under Koussevitzky's baton.... Having lost none of
its persuasiveness, the music appeared more luminous, more energized, and
much more dramatic.... Stravinsky's conducting of Oedipus was a revelation.
In the proper tempos... the work appeared at least ten times more alive,
dramatic, emotional than in S[erge] Koussevitzky's interpretation.7
The experience did not prevent Sessions from entrusting Koussevitzky

with the premieres of many of his own works, notably the First Symphony
in 1927 and the Violin Concerto and Second Symphony in 1929.8

6 August 1928, Echarvines, H-te Savoie1
Thank you for your reply, dear S[ergei] A[leksandrovich].2

Unfortunately it is impossible to arrange [a meeting] for the time indi-
cated, and from the 9th on you will be traveling for several days as you
have told me.3 It would be better to meet upon your return.4 Please write
me when you expect to return and send the note with the sons, if possible.
Greetings to Nat[alia] Konst[antinovna] and the Paitchadzes. With
a warm handshake,
Yours,
I. Stravinksy
I thank Paitchadze for his letter.

16 August 1928, Chalet des Echarvines, Tailloires, H-te Savoie1
Dear Sergei Aleksandrovich,
Along with this letter I am returning the Orenburg shawl, it has

served me well. What an inspired idea to lend it to me. Also enclosed in
the package is a sampling of chocolates from Annecy and a sample of the
Sanka coffee I mentioned. I urge you to replace your coffee with this
brand. Its daily use causes no ill effects, [even] in large quantities.
Despite the horrible night I spent suffering from nausea (and which
caused you so much trouble), my sons and I will never forget your
hospitality, which we enjoyed to the utmost.
Please thank Natalia Konstantinovna from the bottom of my heart,
dear friend. And here is a sincere souvenir from your
Igor Stravinsky2
Did I by any chance leave my walking stick at your place?-If I did,

please bring it with you to Paris. You can give it to me when I see you
there in September.3

4 December 1928, Boston1
Dear Igor Feydorovich!
I did not write to you earlier because I was waiting for the
performance of Apollo in New York, which took place on 22 November
and enjoyed the same great success as in Boston. The audience was
delirious, and the musicians very much like to play the piece.
We already have performed Apollo seven times and most likely will
perform it again.2 Everyone here is ecstatic about Stravinsky's music,
which is considered as pleasing to the ears as Handel. As far as the critics
are concerned, there are asses among them everywhere, such as
Vuillermoz in Paris,3 but there are also fresh minds such as Henderson4
or Parker5 in our own Boston.
Our life goes on as usual-concerts and rehearsals. A new
president has been elected, with the election creating great anxiety
in our country. But they have elected a good man who likes music
and Russians...6
I would very much like to know how you and your family are doing.
Is Svetik7 doing well in his piano studies?
Warm greetings from both of us,

S. Koussevitzky
15. Koussevitzky's note on Stravinsky's Petrushka

Date and place are not noted [15 December 1928, Boston]1
"PETRUSHKA" is one of the most outstanding contemporary

works through its inner, rhythmic soldering and logic, through the
emotional truth of the action itself, and its tonal incarnation, through
the novelty of attainings in the sphere of rhythm, timbre, coloring,
through the freshness of the most witty combinations of counterpoint
and harmony.2
Stravinsky's creation includes the most valuable features: the

intuitive expression of a forgotten, suppressed element of popular
creation, "instrumentalo-improvised" element, which together with the
element of song concealed wonderful seams-even if one had to judge by
excerpts. The characteristics of this fresh current are clearly shown in the
style of "PETROUSHKA".
"PETROUSHKA" presents the mixture of the instrumental element
with the element of song.

30 December 1928, Nice1
Dear friends!
I send you a thousand wishes for good health, success, and

satisfaction from your hard work in the coming new year. Thank
you so much, Sergei Aleksandrovich, for your kind words. I rejoiced
at the success of Apollo in America, though the piece was introduced
to the public in such absurd manner a year ago in Washington that
even people who like my music failed to take notice of this work.
And my enemies rubbed their hands, happily contemplating the
consequences of my failure.2 I am grateful to you.
I led the premiere of Fairy3 with great success.4 If I personally
had not taken the baton, Rubinstein,5 who is absolutely incapable
of managing the business, and S (tra)ram6 would have killed it.
Diaghilev is jealous, Vuillermoz is angry, and the young Parisian
mus[icians] are enthralled; in short, all is as it should be.
Your Igor Stravinsky
Koussevitzky's admiration for and desire to conduct Stravinsky's works did

not apply to all pieces equally. In March 1930 Paitchadze sent him the
Four Etudes for Orchestra, which were based on material published earlier
by ERM (Three Pieces for String Quartet) and to which the composer had
added a piece for mechanical piano that he had composed earlier and had
now orchestrated. Koussevitzky did not include it in his programs; he was
much more interested in the Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, even
though the world premiere of the piece had already taken place the
previous year in Paris, with Ansermet as conductor and Stravinsky as
soloist. Koussevitzky was the first to present it to the American public
(19 December 1930) and would include it on several subsequent pro-

grams. The pianist at the American premiere was Jesus-Maria Sanroma, a
brilliant musician who also performed concertos by Maurice Ravel, Arthur
Honegger, Ernst Toch, Edward Burlingame Hill, Ernest Bloch, Konstantin
Lambert, Mario Pilati, Walter Piston, and many others. The Capriccio
was performed again in Boston in 1939 with the same soloist, and ten
years later with Soulima Stravinsky. ERM bought the copyright for the
Capriccio in the fall of 1929. But it was the Symphony of Psalms, a work
commissioned for the celebration of the BSO's fiftieth anniversary, which
acquired a special place in the Koussevitzky repertoire and in Boston
musical life.
17. Stravinsky to Frederick Cabot1

12 December 1929, Paris2
Dear Sir:
I have duly received your kind letter of the 12th of November, 1929,
with cheque for $1,500, together with two copies of a contract, and I
thank you for them.3
Having noted the conditions of the contract, I see that there has been
omitted from it the exact future date on which the Boston Symphony
Orchestra agrees to give the first performance of my symphony.4
It has been understood between Mr. Koussevitzky and myself, how-
ever, that this first performance should take place at the latest on the 15th
of November, 1930, after which date performances of the symphony may
be given outside of the United States. For special reasons I would like to
hold to this arrangement.
On the other hand, this contract includes clauses which are outside
my province, notably, the questions concerning orchestral material,
rentals, and the right of use. This is a matter for my publisher and not
myself. My publisher has charge of the orchestral material and it will be
necessary to take up with him the subject of the price of rentals. His
address is: Edition Russe de Musique, 22 Rue d'Anjou, Paris (VIII).
(The President, G. Paitchadze).
I have had occasion to discuss these questions with my publisher and
I can tell you that he is in agreement as to the date of the delivery of the
material and that this material will be yours for performance in 1930-31
without payment on your part. For the second season-1931-32-he
will take up with you the price of rental or sale of the parts for your
library.
In the matter of the exclusive right of the use of the music for
records, my editor and I have no objection to giving this right to the
Boston Symphony, but he understands from this clause that the house
that uses this music must deal with the publishers for this use for a
payment to be agreed upon, and that this exclusive right is available
only for use in the United States; that is to say, that we shall be free to
make other arrangements elsewhere (in any other place) during the
stated period.
If you are, as I hope, in agreement with the contents of this letter,
which I ask you to consider as auxiliary to the contract, will you be kind
enough to advise me, if possible by cable, in which case I will consider the
agreement concluded.
Nevertheless, in order not to delay our agreement, I send you
copies of the contract as it is, signed by me, but I will not deposit
your cheque of $1,500 until after the confirmation that I await
from you.
It is unnecessary to tell you how happy I am to be able to collaborate
by the composition of this symphony in this important anniversary of your
glorious society.5
With the expression of my utmost esteem, believe me, etc.
(signed) Igor Stravinsky
Enclosures: Contract in duplicate, signed by me. I.S.
18. Stravinsky to ERM

22 August 1930, Paris1
I recommend that Koussevitzky conducts the first and second acts of

The Fairy2 at my festival. Ask him about the letter from Boston.3 I am
leaving; we have stayed here long enough.
Stravinsky
19. Stravinsky to Natalia Koussevitzky

4 September 1930, Echarvines1
Thank you very much, dear Natalia Konstantinovna, for sending

[one word illegible] the excellent photos, which I will keep as a pleasing
reminder of two wonderful days at your place in Plombiers.2 I thank both
you and Sergei Aleksandrovich very much. I kiss your hands, on behalf of
myself and of my sons.
Yours,
Igor Stravinsky3
Throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Koussevitzky regularly performed

Stravinsky's music in the United States and in Europe. The list of the com-
poser's works on the programs of the Boston Symphony speaks for itself:
Season
1924-25: The Rite of Spring, "The Song of the Volga Boatmen," Petrushka
Suite, Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (U.S. pre-
miere, with the composer as soloist), Firebird Suite.
1925-26: Symphonic poem "The Song of the Nightingale" (twice),
Petrushka Suite.
1926-27: Firebird Suite, The Rite of Spring.
1927-28: Petrushka Suite, Oedipus Rex (U.S. premiere), Firebird
Suite.
1928-29: Apollon Musagete.
1929-30: Firebird Suite, Apollon Musagete.
1930-31: Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (twice; U.S. premiere,
soloist: Jesus-Maria Sanroma), Symphony of Psalms (U.S. pre-
miere), Firebird Suite.
1931-32: Petrushka Suite, Violin Concerto (U.S. premiere, soloist:
Samuel Dushkin), Pulcinella Suite, Symphony of Psalms.
1932-33: Petrushka Suite, The Rite of Spring.
1933-34: The Rite of Spring, Apollon Musagete.
1934-35: Divertissement from The Fairy's Kiss (in Cambridge only),
Fireworks, Firebird Suite (new version), Persephone (U.S.
premiere, conducted by the composer).
1935-36: The Rite of Spring, Symphony of Psalms.
1936-37: Divertissement from The Fairy's Kiss.
1938-39: Firebird Suite (first version), The Rite of Spring, Symphony of
Psalms, Jeu de cartes.
1939-40: Ballet music from Jeu de cartes, Capriccio for Piano and
Orchestra (soloist: Jesus-Maria Sanroma), Petrushka Suite,
Symphony of Psalms (in Boston only; conducted by the com-
poser), Apollon Musagete, Oedipus Rex (conducted by the com-
poser).
1940-41: The Fairy's Kiss, Symphony in C Major (conducted by the
composer).
1941-42: Symphony of Psalms.
1942-43: Petrushka Suite.
1943-44: Ode, Symphony in C Major, Four Norwegian Moods, Circus
Polka (world premiere), Pulcinella Suite, Jeu de cartes, "The
Star-Spangled Banner" (Stravinsky's version, conducted by the

composer).
1945-46: Scenes de ballet, Symphony in Three Movements, Petrushka
(scenes 1 and 4), Firebird Suite (3rd version; conducted by the
composer).
1946-47: Symphony in Three Movements (conducted by Burgin), The
Rite of Spring (conducted by Bernstein), Symphony of Psalms.
1947-48: Symphony in Three Movements (conducted by Burgin).
1948-49: Firebird Suite (conducted by Bernstein), "Chant de rossignol"
(conducted by Ansermet); Ode (world premiere), Capriccio
(soloist: Soulima Stravinsky), Concerto for String Orchestra,
Orpheus ballet (world premiere; conducted by the composer).
Each new score signified a completely new period in the composer's

work, and each time the musical world was taken by surprise. The
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, which the composer himself
characterized as "absolute music... dry, cool, and transparent like
extra-dry champagne,"1 was followed by Pulcinella, a work permeated
by the Italian sun and unrestrained playfulness. Then came a tragic fresco,
the opera Oedipus Rex, the neoclassical score of Apollon Musagete, and
the divertissement from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss, which was born of
Stravinsky's admiration for Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
That Stravinsky's music was not always enthusiastically received by
audiences never stopped Koussevitzky. He also was not deterred by bitter
feelings, which he had to confront more than once during his long rela-
tionship with the composer. Stravinsky's betrayal of ERM was a personal
affront to him; in 1930 the composer "inadvertently" confessed to
Koussevitzky that he had given one of his works to the publisher Schott.
"Stravinsky tours Europe with great success," wrote Paitchadze in
November 1930.
He is seriously courted by the publishing house Schott in Mainz. They

want his Violin Concerto and offered him $3,000, 10%, and four guaran-
teed concerts in the next season with $500 honorarium apiece. Stravinsky
told them that despite the absence of a contract with us he does not want
to proceed without our consent because of our friendly ties.... I wrote him
that Schott's publication of the Concerto would indeed be very unpleas-
ant, though of course I cannot argue against it officially and Stravinsky is
free to make any decision he wants. The simplest solution would be a
matching offer to Stravinsky, but as I wrote to him in all honesty, I am
unfortunately in no position to do so.2
Stravinsky signed a contract with Schott immediately after complet-

ing the Violin Concerto in early 1931. Paitchadze sent him a tactful letter,
anticipating a discussion with the composer about the situation. He wrote

to Koussevitzky:
What could be more natural then that in the aftermath of such an impor-
tant and unpleasant decision and after my letter to him, he would find it
necessary to at least talk to me and explain his position. During the few
days that he spent in Paris I had several meetings with him and each time I
expected that he would bring up the matter that bothered me more than
anything else; I am sure he could not help but notice that.
He spoke to me about all kinds of things, about the most trivial subjects,
and he clearly tried to avoid the question, as if it did not exist. I felt some
awkwardness on his part, a desire to hide behind other business and other
topics. It was especially bitter for me, bitter for me personally and bitter for
the man that I wished Stravinsky to have been.3
Stravinsky conducted the Violin Concerto in Paris on 15 December 1931.

Paitchadze reported that the composer "immediately called me on the
phone and said that he was awfully glad to hear my voice and wanted very
much to see me: not to discuss business matters but only to hug and kiss me
after the long separation. He begged me to come to rehearsal just for this
meeting. I went the next day and indeed we embraced. He was very nice
and as kind as if the last year with all its implications had never existed."4
"As if the last year had never existed"-that is precisely how
Koussevitzky handled the publication of the Violin Concerto. In
December 1930 the conductor received a letter from the American
violinist Samuel Dushkin (1891-1976). They had met three years earlier
in Paris, when Dushkin had performed Gabriel Pierne's "Impressions from
the Music-hall" on a program of Koussevitzky's Concerts. Dushkin wrote
that he had just returned from Germany, and that after playing the world
premiere of the Violin Concerto in Berlin5 on 23 October 1931 with the
composer conducting, he was eager to perform its American premiere in
New York with the BSO. However, the programs for the New York
performances were already in print, and Koussevitzky informed the
violinist that he would not be able to program the concerto until December.
The American premiere, with Dushkin and Koussevitzky, finally took
place on 1 January 1932 in Boston.
Koussevitzky's infrequent letters to Stravinsky from this period
contain no hint of bitterness.6 However, in a letter to Paitchadze he did
express some frustration:
Stravinsky's action provoked the deepest disgust in Natalia Konstantinovna

and myself.... He certainly must have realized that in light of his
relationship with our firm, what he did was appalling.... This episode was
perhaps more shocking to you than to us. We do not expect anything good
either from Stravinsky or Prokofiev. We know that they are callous
egotists who think only about themselves and relate to people merely
when it is profitable. Trust me, if another publisher would offer Prokofiev
a more profitable contract tomorrow, he would not hesitate for one
moment to leave us.7
Despite all that, Koussevitzky was not willing to break off relations
with Stravinsky. "You must be polite and tactful with Stravinsky," he
advised Paitchadze in the same letter, "but I think that a certain restraint
will be helpful." Paitchadze agreed that "[r]egardless of what may happen,
it is imperative that we maintain a good relationship with Stravinsky. I am
very happy to hear that you share my opinion. Our publishing house is
very closely linked to his name."8 Almost a year later he added that "we
must maintain face and dignity in our relationship with Stravinsky, and I
will certainly keep this in mind. At the same time I will do everything
possible to mend our relationship with him and not to break it off
entirely. But if my efforts do not succeed, what are we to do? There is
after all only one Stravinsky in the world, but there are many publishing
houses. Other firms, which do not have rights to his works, are faring no
worse than ours."9
Koussevitzky's and Paitchadze's tactics in their contacts with
Stravinsky proved to be right, and on the surface the relationship looked
sound. By performing Stravinsky's works frequently, Koussevitzky
stimulated the interest of other conductors in his music, and in 1933 he
agreed to join a group of sponsors for a New York concert (held on
7 January) with which the American League of Composers wished to
honor Stravinsky.
The composer began his regular appearances with the BSO
with the American premiere of Persephone on 15 March 1935. "If one
could forget all of Stravinsky's misdemeanors and his attitude toward
people and to see him only as the person he was in Boston," wrote
Koussevitzky, "then one could think him a most charismatic and
charming man."10 Meanwhile, Stravinsky's "misdemeanors" continued.
The ballet Jeu de cartes, written shortly thereafter, was given to Schott.
Paitchadze wrote that "Stravinsky did not even find it necessary to tell
me about the publication of the ballet. I only learned recently that it was
to be issued by Schott, when he had already had the first proofs of the
piano reduction in hand. And even that I learned not from him but from
other people."'1
20. Koussevitzky to Frederick Cabot

5 September 1930, Paris1
Dear Mr. Cabot:
I am writing you this letter still under the impression of Stravinsky's

SYMPHONY, which he has just played for me and I may truly say that it
is an exceptional work, written for Orchestra and choruses (and not
difficult, especially for the chorus).2 Any chorus (for instance, the Cecilia
Society) could prepare it. I mention the Cecilia Society and not the
Harvard Glee Club and Radcliff Society, because they are already busy
with the Bach Festival.3
As to Stravinsky's Symphony, one may say, without any exaggera-
tion, that it is the most powerful work Stravinsky has composed up to this
date: it is written on the words of the 150th Psalm and breathes such deep,
inspired, religious feeling that it may be compared to the best pages of
Bach, in whose style it is written.
It seems to me that since the epoch of Bach, it is the first time
that a real link is established between this great master and modernism.
I was truly overwhelmed, when I heard this Symphony. I accepted from
him score and material and am most happy for the Boston organization,
which gave to this great artist the occasion to write such a work, worthy of
a genius-and the Manuscript of which will belong to the Boston
Symphony.4 By the way, I must say that Stravinsky tried to write the score
as nicely as possible and I must say, too, that I did not expect from him he
would write it with such a deep, religious feeling.
It is with the greatest joy that I think of my return to Boston and hope
that you will be the first I shall see. I am particularly glad to begin to work
again and expect this season to be the most interesting in every way.5
All the novelties I bring with me this year will, surely, be viewed with
favor, not only by the lovers of modern art, but also by the conservatives,
as there is now a reaction in music which makes the composers return to
the old masters.
With all my heartiest wishes,
Cordially yours,
S. Koussevitzky6
P.S. I think it would be good (though I greatly dislike the idea

to touch the material side of the question after having expressed my
sincere enthusiasm), to send now to Stravinsky the remainder of what
he ought to receive, i.e.: $1,500. He has worked the whole year and
in spite of the fact that he did not say anything about it, I am almost sure
that he needs this sum of money. So, if it is possible, please do it, especially
that score and material are in my disposition.
21. Fyodor Stravinsky1 to Koussevitzky

18 June 1935, Paris2
I am truly grateful for the check that I received from you through
Gavriil Grigorievich.3 I am so pleased to know that you like the portrait I
painted and that you wish to keep it.4
I do not know whether you have already left Aix-les-Bains, but I am
sending this letter to the publishing house address just in case. Gavriil
Grigorievich will forward it to you.
I still hope to see you this summer. Meanwhile I ask you to give my
deepest regards to Natalia Konstantinovna and to accept my best wishes.
Devotedly yours,
Fyodor Stravinsky
18.VI.35
25 Fbg. St. Honore, Paris, 8

1 June 1937, Paris1
I am writing only a few words, from my bed, to which I am confined

for the next few days because of a slight intestinal ailment.
I thank you sincerely for both your letter to the British agent,2 and
for your touching friendliness. This coming Friday I will see Strecker,3
who plans to visit me on his way to Nice. He will stay only for one day, so
I doubt we will be able to talk business with Paitchadze, who had asked me
to arrange this meeting.
When will you return? And will we be able to meet with you before
your return to the States? All the best to you and Natalia Konstantinovna
from your most devoted,
I. Stravinsky

7 June 1938, Paris1
I am sending you as promised a brief"statement" about my new

concerto which should be listed in the programs as:
Dumbarton Oaks
Concerto in E flat
pour petit orchestre
Tempo guistol
Allegretto21 sans interruption
Con moto31
Bon voyage4, I shake you hand.
Yours,
I. Stravinsky
Regards to Natalia Konstantinovna.
Dumbarton Oaks
Concerto in E-flat
Pour petite orchestre5
This concerto was commissioned by Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss and first
performed under the baton of Nadia Boulanger on 8 May 1938 at Mrs. Bliss's
magnificent estate, Dumbarton Oaks, from which it received its name6.
Its first public performance took place on 8 June 1938 in Paris, with
myself conducting a concert dedicated to my work and organized by the
Serenade Society.7
The work is composed for fifteen instruments: flute, clarinet,
bassoon, two French horns, three violins, three violas, two cellos,
and two contrabasses.
The form of a concert symphony, which I adopted for this work, has
occupied my imagination for some time now and it is not by accident-
after the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Capriccio for Piano
and Orchestra, the Violin Concerto, and the Concerto for Two Pianos
and Orchestra-my fifth work written in the form of a concerto.
What attracts me to this form is the idea of various instruments of
the ensemble becoming "concert" instruments. The word is of Italian
origin: concertare, and means "to contest" or "to take part in a
competition." In the concerto one therefore logically presumes a
competition between so-called concert instruments and their

counterpart ensemble instruments.
Such understanding of a concerto was ignored for rather a long
time in works that bear this name. A concerto became a piece for a solo
instrument with no competitor in sight, and with an orchestra whose
function is reduced to accompaniment.8 I however adhere to the old
formula in my works. In the same way as the rudimentary understanding
of accompaniment implies a harmonic type order, the form of concerto,
which involves competition, requires by nature a counterpoint type order.
I followed this principle in the work at hand-as I had done already in
previous works-because I am particularly disposed toward the principle
of competition in the symphonic concerto form.
Igor Stravinsky

4 December 1938, [Paris]1
Dear friends! Ekaterina Gavrilovna and I thank you from our hearts.
You have moved us sincerely.
Yours,
Igor Stravinsky2
During his stay at Sancellemoz, Stravinsky was visited regularly by close

friends such as the Russian music critic and philosopher Pyotr (Pierre)
Suvchinsky1 and the French composer and music scholar Alexis Roland-
Manuel.2 Paitchadze also visited several times. "[T]he sanatorium
Sancellemoz... resembles a transatlantic ship, though 'the ship' is
surrounded by mountains and forests rather than water," he reported to
Koussevitzky. "Comfortable, cabin-like rooms, excellent and hearty meals,
first-rate service. One somehow does not notice the sick much.... I found
Stravinsky in splendid condition. He visibly has gained weight and it is
almost difficult to recognize him. His face is rounder, and he looks
rested.... As for his illness, he seems to recover quickly and the doctors
only shrug their shoulders and declare that, against their initial predic-
tions, he will be completely cured by the end of the summer" (10 May
1939, Paris, KA-LC).
During this period Stravinsky received an invitation from Harvard
to give the Norton lectures,3 which he eagerly accepted. He prepared the
lectures with help from Souvchinsky and Roland-Manuel. The possibility

of a stay in the United States was very attractive. Europe was at the brink
of World War II, and France threatened to be pulled into the conflict.
Stravinsky, like many Europeans, considered America the sole safe haven,
and many of his commissions had come from the United States: the Sere-
nade for Piano, Apollon Musagete, Jeu de cartes, Symphony of Psalms, the
Violin Concerto, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Symphony in C (begun while
still in Europe; the third part was composed in Boston, and the finale
while on tour in California). An additional factor became significant: dur-
ing his 1937 tour Stravinsky had discovered the beneficial effects the Cal-
ifornia climate had on his health.
One condition of Stravinsky's acceptance of the Harvard invitation
was that he would give only one lecture per month. All in all, he planned
to give seven lectures (subsequently published under the title Musical
Poetics), which suggests that he originally intended to stay in America only
for seven months. He arrived in New York on 30 September 1939 on the
steamship Manhattan. Koussevitzky attended Stravinsky's first lecture, on
18 October. During their meeting at Sancellemoz two months prior to his
trip, Stravinsky had obtained Koussevitzky's approval for rescheduling the
Boston concerts that had been canceled due to the tragic events in his life.
The programs of the concerts, conducted by Stravinsky himself (in Provi-
dence on 30 November, and in Boston on 1 and 2 December), included
music from Jeu de cartes, the Capriccio (with Sanroma as soloist), the
Petrushka Suite, and the Symphony of Psalms (the latter, performed only in
Boston). On 18 December Stravinsky left Boston, where he found the cli-
mate depressing. On 13 January 1940, Stravinsky and Vera attended a
concert of the BSO at Carnegie Hall in New York. The program included
the Capriccio with soloist Sanroma. Stravinsky resumed a lively corre-
spondence with Koussevitzky after settling in Hollywood.
25. George Judd1 to Stravinsky

19 February 1940, Boston2
Dear Mr. Stravinsky:
We have not had from you any recommendation for the contralto
part in Oedipus Rex. Dr. Koussevitzky heard two singers in New York, a
Miss Sten and a Miss Peebles, both of whom he thinks it would be worth
your while to hear; and if you will indicate your free time this week, I shall
be glad to arrange to have them come on to Boston to sing the part of
Jocasta for you. I recommend that this have immediate attention, for you
may wish to give one of these singers some special instructions, or you may
wish to hear still other singers.
As you know, Raul Jobin is engaged to sing the tenor part, and
Mr. Leyssac to be narrator. A local baritone, David Blair McClosky,
would like the opportunity to sing in Oedipus Rex with you3 and is
willing to meet at your convenience for an audition. May I know when
you will hear him?4
The Harvard Glee Club Choir, as well as all the artists, are being
asked to be here for rehearsals the two afternoons* preceding the perfor-
mances scheduled for Thursday evening, Friday afternoon, and Saturday
evening, March 28, 29 and 30.
The next time you are in Symphony Hall it would be a great accom-
modation if you would discuss with the librarian, Mr. Rogers,5 the number
of rehearsals required and the bests hours for them.
Yours very truly,

Manager
* We understand the Glee Club is free to come to Symphony Hall

Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 and Wednesday evening at 7:30.
26. Vera1 and Igor Stravinsky to Natalia and Serge Koussevitsky.

Easter, 1940.2
Christ has risen, dear Natalia Konstantinovna. Happy holidays to

you, Serge Aleksandrovich, and Olga Aleksandrovna.3
Vera Stravinsky
Christ has risen! My best wishes to all three of you.
Yours,
Igor Stravinsky

18 June 1940, Beverly Hills1
Dear Friends,
I would like to know how you are doing and what is happening to
you amidst all this horror2 that one wishes to wake up from, as if from
a terrible dream.3
Here is our new address: 124 S. Small Drive, Beverly Hills,

California. It has not been long since we found this dwelling, which
we are ver[y] happy with.4 There are throngs of people here this year.
Everybody stayed put because of the European events and it was
not easy to find a place to rent.
I would be very grateful to Serge Aleksandrovich if he asked Judd to
get in touch with my manager (Mr. Paul Stoes, 119 West 57th Street, New
York) to fix the dates for my concerts this coming season. As far as I recall,
last time Serge Aleksandrovich spoke about the end of November or the
beginning of December as the most convenient time. Stoes thinks the same;
he has time for me between two concerts (19 November and 16 Dec[ember]).
Have you heard anything from Paitchadze? Could it be they did not
manage to leave Paris ahead of time?5 My niece wrote me a letter without
any mention of her leaving only ten days before the fall [of Paris]. Drop
me a line, I would like so much to hear from you. Vera Arturovna and I
send you our most sincere, most cordial regards.6
Yours, I. Stravinsky

22 July 1940, Lenox.1
Many thanks for letter-forgive delay answering you-Natalia was

gravely ill-now recovering.2 Could you reserve week of January 13 to be
guest conductor in Boston? Judd getting in touch with your manager.
Warmest greetings to you,

K[oussevitzky]
29. Stravinsky to Koussevitsky

11 August 1940, Beverly Hills1
Your telegram was relayed to me in Mexico, where I spent three

weeks (conducting) and from where I [one word not legible: recently?]
returned.2
We are very sad to hear about Natalia Konstantinovna's grave ill-
ness; what was it? Please do let me know! We hope that everything is fine
and we send her our greetings and cordial regards.
My New York agent Paul H. Stoes stopped by yesterday; he is talking

with Judd about the dates of my week with you. I hope they can find times
that are convenient for both of us.
Please help me in the matter of my fee. As I recall, you considered it
fair to be offered $1,500 for one week (in case of a one-week engagement,
which is exactly what we have here), while they are offering only $1,000.
Help! I ask you also to help me with money from Galaxy3 for the last year.
They are certain to know about all my accounts with Paitchadze and they
usually pay at the beginning of the year.
Thank you in advance. Sorry for the scribbling, I am in a big hurry.
As ever sincerely yours,

Igor Stravinsky
How are you feeling? Please, do not be lazy and write to me-it
would delight me to hear from you! I will be here until November. After
that please use the address of my agent Paul H. Stoes, Inc., Concert
Management, 119 West, 57th. Street, New York City.4
30. Vera Stravinsky to Olga Naumova

21 October, no year [1940], no place [Hollywood]1
Dear Olga Aleksandrovna,
Why do we not hear from you? Back in the summer Igor Fyodorovich
received a telegram from Sergei Aleksandrovich about Natalia
Konstantinovna's grave illness. We were worried-Igor Fyodorovich
wrote to Sergei Aleksandrovich and still has not received an answer. The
letter also included questions in business matters that remained unanswered
as well. Maybe Sergei Aleksandrovich is very busy and cannot get around
to letters. Should this be the case, I urge you to drop us a few lines. We
are staying here until 1 November and then are off on a concert tour.
It would be best to send letters to the agent: Paul H. Stoes, Inc., Concert
Management, 119 West, 57th. Street, New York City.
How did you spend the summer? Have you heard any news from
France? We have had regular news from unoccupied France, but still
nothing from Paris where the Svetiks2 are stuck.
We hope everything is fine with you; we are sending our cordial
regards and are waiting to hear from you.
Vera Stravinsky

26 October 1940, no place [Boston]1
Dear Igor Fyodorovich,
Pardon my long silence. I am very, very sorry and my only

justification is Natalia Konstantinovna's illness, which reflected gravely
upon our life. Thank God, the danger has passed now, but Natalia
Konstantinovna is still in the country, under constant medical
observation, and I can go there only when I manage to free up
some Sunday.2 She is doing so much better recently that I hope
to bring her to Boston soon.3
I had no opportunity to talk to Judd concerning your fee before
returning to Boston at the beginning of this month. Our trustees met
last week and, unfortunately, I must say, they do not think that it
will be possible to offer you more than $1,000 for one week. The
dates are still those most convenient for you, i.e. the week [including]
January 13.
As regards the payments from Galaxy, I will have to talk to Kramer4
personally and to direct the matter in New York in such a way that it will
proceed independently from the publishing house in Paris. I did not have a
single free day until now, but I hope that things will become easier upon
Natalia Konstantinovna's arrival in Boston and that I will be able to
summon Kramer to come here.
News from Paris is scant, arriving here on indirect ways. The other
day I received a few lines from Gavriil Grig[orievich], saying that they are
alive, life is hard, they are tired, and dream only of peace to come soon.5
Nothing about business-and what business can there be when
people live from day to day and life itself is like a ghost?
My cordial regards to Vera Arturovna and my best wishes to
you both.
Serge Koussevitzky
32. Igor and Vera Stravinsky to Natalia and Serge Koussevitsky.

No date, no place [end of December 1940]1
Greetings and best wishes for a Joyous Christmas and a New Year of
health and happiness.
Igor and Vera
33. Serge and Natalia Koussevitzky to Vera and Igor Stravinsky

no date, no place [end of December 1940]1
Warm wishes and heartiest greetings for New Year.2
S[ergei] and N[atalia]

22 November 1941, Beverly Hills.1
Telephone me at one o'clock Eastern time today. Crestview 14858.

Regards.
Igor Stravinsky2

23 November 1941, no place [Beverly Hills]1
As promised, I am sending you my reply without delay.

Even though in our time it is frightening to look ahead a whole year, I
still dare to give you my consent. I am prompted in particular by your personal
selflessness and the sacrifice that you, as usual, offer to the common cause.
We will be in contact about details of the conditions, but in order to
avoid misunderstandings I will put down in writing the main points as you
have offered them over the telephone today:
1) Tanglewood Committee invites me to give classes (not lectures
but specifically classes) with beginner composers during a six-week period
(from 5 July to 16 August 1942). These classes include my critique
(judging) of their work and advice to these composers while we go over
their work. Teaching (or, rather, a course in) harmony, counterpoint,
orchestration, or other musical disciplines is not included in my duties.
2) The number and distribution of the above mentioned classes will
be determined in a timely manner.
3) The number of students you suggested is eight.
4) The fee offered me for the six weeks is $1,000.00.
5) Travel expenses of $500.00 will be reimbursed (paid to me
personally or to a person of my choice) a week before my arrival in
Tanglewood.
6) Besides, I will be guaranteed one performance as part of your sym-

phonic concerts (during those six weeks) where I will conduct one half of
one program (made up of my works which we will select together) for a fee
of $1,000.00.
I herewith give my consent to all these six points and I am sending
you, my dear friend, unwavering feelings of my sincere, cordial friendship.
Yours, Igor Stravinsky
Kiss Natalia Konstantinovna's hand for me. May God send her
improvement in her health.
1260 N. Wetherly Dr.
West Hollywood, Calif[omia]

no date [25 November 194111
Many thanks for letter. So happy your acceptance. Letter with

details to follow. Warm greetings to you both.
S.K.

6 December 1941, no place [Boston]1
I cannot put into words how glad I am that you are going to be at our
Music Center for six weeks. From your letter I see that our telephone con-
versation was clear to you and that you emphasize the items accordingly.
As regards all the details of the terms, the Music Center secretary, Mrs.
Margaret Grant,2 will soon write you an official letter.
I have one particular request. Would it be possible for you to give
one lecture to the whole school, on the subject of your choice? As you
may know, we have 400 students and half of them are the "elite" of
America's musical youth; you will find that our student orchestra is no
worse than any orchestra in America (except for two or three established
orchestras such as those in Philadelphia or Boston).3 By the way, the
orchestra will be at your disposal should you wish to conduct your works
with them.
It was so good to receive your letter and to know that you are settled
in California where you can live and work in peace. I informed Galaxy of
exactly the issues you asked me discuss with them and Mr. Kramer prom-
ised to write you a letter. I hope he has done so.
Our lives continue as usual. I conduct my hundred concerts a
season4 as always and try as much as I can to add new works to the pro-
grams. There are talented composers among the American youth. I'd like
to draw your special attention to William Schuman and Samuel Barber-
they are very gifted and technically proficient.5
My poor Natalia Konstantinovna is more or less in the same condi-
tion; some days are worse, some days are better. My only consolation is
work and the joy, strength, and meaning which it gives me.
Serge Koussevitzky

25 December 1941, Hollywood.1
I found your letter from [December] 6 and Mrs. Margaret Grant's

letter of 5 December upon my return from a concert tour.
Unfortunately, her letter did not satisfy me and here is why. Instead
of officially accepting my terms, which I listed in six points in my letter to
you (of 23 November), Mrs. Grant sent me catalogs for 1941 and 1942
with a letter where I read the following: "I am enclosing a copy of last
year's catalog with the hope that you might find it useful in your prepara-
tion of a draft of paragraphs to be used to describe your work in the Com-
poser Department next summer. I shall be glad to have this material as
soon as you can find time to send it to me."
You will understand my difficulties. Really, what kind of information
can I send her concerning my future classes with young composers when
these very classes, as I wrote to you, will consist of "critique and advice
given to these musicians while we are going over their work?" The very
nature of these classes denies me a possibility to give her a satisfactory
answer. I think she did not have time to look at my terms which, in order
to avoid any misunderstanding, I clearly formulated in my letter to you.
I ask you, my dear, to explain it to her, after which I hope to receive
from her a letter with the acceptance of my terms and without the
insistence that I provide a draft of paragraphs to be used to describe
my work etc.?
Now another matter. I have received a letter from Kramer, who

mentions to me his telephone conversation with you in New York
(at the end of November) and admits that "It was not quite clear also
what he (that is to say, you) meant in regard the some money matters" (!?).
Why, then, in this case did he not ask you what was the matter? An odd
interlocutor! I expected money from him, as was the case the same time
last year, since Galaxy receives steady interest from performances of my
works, either ballets such as Petrushka, Le baiser de fee, or Apollo (as
Balanchine says it was performed twenty to twenty-five times this season
during their tour of So[uth] and Central America) or for the symphonic
works. Instead, he sends me my own hundred dollars, the money which I
asked him to collect from the Ballet Theater for the performance of my
orchestration of Tchaikovsky's "Bluebird" (from The Sleeping [Beauty]).2
Why not give me (certainly with the subtraction of his commis-
sion) everything that he collects from my works, as is done by E.Voigt
from the Associated Music Publishers, Schott's representative, on the
assumption that we will settle accounts with Paitchadze later, when every-
thing is back in shape again, one should hope. I would be very grateful to
you if you could help me in this matter. Thank you in advance.
I cannot take up any more of your valuable time and only ask you,
my dear, not to delay your reply because both issues I touch upon in this
letter need to be resolved immediately and it is ver[y] important for me to
get done with them.
My best regards. Warm New Year wishes from us both.
Yours, I. Stravinsky.

2 January 1942, Bostonl
Thank you for your letter of 25 December.

As regards Mrs. Grant, do not be upset. I can easily answer this question.
Since she knew about my letter and telegram to you, Mrs. Grant assumed
that, as they were sent by the Music Center director, they represented an offi-
cial acceptance of your terms. In asking you to formulate your terms in English
she followed the usual protocol. A request for a class description for the
annual catalog, which is sent to all American music institutions and schools,
is sent to every faculty member. I will ask Mrs. Grant to formulate that text
based on your letter to me and then to forward it to you for your approval.
I must add here that in America every enterprise is connected with a series
of external formalities; internally you have significant freedom of action.
The matter with Kramer worries me quite a bit. He replies evasively
to my letters, does not send any reports, promises to do so in every
conversation but then does not do it. All the documents and credentials
are in Paris with Paitchadze and without them I cannot control Galaxy.
What a pity you are so far away and we cannot meet and discuss this
complicated situation.
When do you think you might be in our "Eastern" parts?2
40. Igor and Vera Stravinsky to Koussevitzky

16 January 1942, Beverly Hills, California1
Heartbroken at bad news. We only heard it today. It was a great shock

for us.2 You know how much we loved, admired your dear wife. We feel her
loss is even more than a personal one. Her name will always be connected
with great beautiful things. Deepest sympathy to you, dear friend, and Olga.
41. Igor Stravinsky to Margaret Grant

22 January 1942, Hollywood1
Dear Madam:
I feel sorry I could not answer sooner your letter from 31 December
[19141, as I was on a concert tour. I discussed the questions mentioned
by you in the letter I wrote 23 November [19141 in Russian to
Dr. Koussevitzky so here I shall translate this letter point by point.
1) The Tanglewood Committee has invited me for studies (not
lectures) with young advanced students in composition for a six weeks
term (approximately from 5 July to 16 August [19]42). These studies will
consist in my criticism and advices which I intend to give to these
musicians while examining the compositions showed to me. Teaching or,
rather giving courses in harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation or any
other musical sciences will not be included into my duties.
2) The number and the schedule of the aforesaid studies will be fixed
in due time.
3) The number of students who would work with me is limited to eight.
4) The fee offered to me for this period of six weeks is $1,000.
5) Traveling expenses, $500, will be paid to me or to the person
I shall name not later than a week before my leaving for Tanglewood.
6) Besides I am given the guarantee of one appearance in a

Symphony concert (during the same six weeks period in the Berkshire
Music Center), when I shall conduct half a program of the said
concert for a fee of $ 1,000 (conducting my own compositions).
As you see it is almost impossible for me on account of the special
character of my work to give more particulars about the number of hours
of my studies which must be both individual and in groups. All these
questions will be decided by us in Tanglewood.
In the question of eligibility of the applicants I entirely trust the
decision of your committee.2
I expect you will kindly send me an official contract with the confirma-
tion of all the above mentioned points, as it was suggested by Dr. Koussevitzky.
Very sincerely yours,

Igor Stravinsky
1260 N. Wetherly Dr.
West Hollywood, California
22 January [19142

22 January 1942, Hollywood.1
My poor dear Sergei Aleksandrovich,

Let these lines help alleviate, albeit in the smallest degree, the bur-
den of your great loss. Just recently such grief has also befallen me.2 know
from experience that a word of compassion is necessary at such moments,
as the heart needs to be warmed by a friend's kindness. Accept this kind-
ness from me, a man who empathizes with you from the depths of his soul.
Yours,
Igor Stravinsky
43. Margaret Grant to Stravinsky

28 January 1942, Boston1
I wish to thank you very much for your letter of January 22. In regard
to the business arrangements, I am referring your letter, with your
statement of the terms agreed upon between you and Dr. Koussevitzky, to
Mr. Judd, the manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Since you feel that a number of the questions regarding your work
with the students will remain to be decided at Tanglewood, we shall not
attempt to give in the catalogue a detailed description of your course, but will
leave the statement in general terms, very much as suggested in the descrip-
tion of the Composition Department enclosed in my last letter to you.
I am again enclosing a description which we propose to have
printed.2 If you wish to suggest any changes in regard to your own class,
please send them to me before February 15.

Margaret Grant
Executive Secretary

10 February 1942, Hollywood1
Dear Friend,
Mr. Leonard Feist, the owner of Mercury Music Corporation, writes

me that he has sent you my orchestration of the Star Spangled Banner that
he published recently, the new version (harmonization) that I composed
this summer and have performed myself with great success on my recent
tour.2 The music is orchestrated so that it can be performed without
choir.3
Since Mr. Feist's letter and sending of the anthem coincided
with the tragedy that befell you, he did not receive a reply and he hesitates
to bother you again with the matter. Still, he would like very much for
you to perform this version of mine at your New York concert, a wish
that I share with all my heart. I promised Feist to ask your help in realizing
his wish. I shall be happy to hear from you on this matter. Maybe
Olga Aleksandrovna could drop me a couple of lines without having
to bother you.
If I am meant to see you this year, it won't happen earlier than July,
i.e. when you expect me at Tanglewood.
My best regards, dear friend,
Yours,
Igor Stravinsky

No date [after 10 February 1942], Boston1
I am deeply grateful for your beautiful letter which is [a] great com-
fort in my irreparable loss.2 Just received your note regarding orchestration
[of] National anthem.3 Sorry too late [to] include New York [program]
for this month. Am writing your publisher asking for possible performance
[in] Boston, New York first week April.4
Warmest greetings to you both,

Serge Koussevitzky

28 April 1942, Bostonl
My dear friend:
Please forgive my writing you in English but this, we all agree, is the
business language of the world.
Mr. A. Walter Kramer communicated with me about your telegram.
In order to settle payments due to you by Galaxy Music Corporation, it is
necessary to have from you figures of the royalties and performance fees
which were paid to you by the Edition Russe de Musique. You can well
realize that the sudden interruption of communication between Europe
and this country have put Mr. Kramer in rather a difficult position and
I would greatly appreciate your cooperation in this matter.2

6 May 1942, Hollywood1
My dear friend:
Upon receiving your letter of 28 April, I wish to express immediately

my impressions of the whole thing.
This is the seventh letter I write concerning this matter, since the six
previous ones, not counting telegram that I sent to Mr. Walter Kramer,
have produced no results. The reason that you named is that very same
reason which allowed me to received my previous advance payment from
Galaxy in December 1940 ($1,000): the impossibility at the present time
to have access to Paitchadze's accounts was the same then as it is now.
In your letter from 2 January you wrote about your own confusion
caused by Mr. Kramer's evasive behavior.2 I truly don't know where to
begin when he refers me to you and you recommend that I should bring
my accounts in order with him, while I practically know nothing about the
issues since all my contracts are back in Europe and, as you know, my
every composition (of those you published) has its special rate and compt-
ability [sic!].
Since in reply to my request regarding the next advance payment,
which was prompted by the same reasons as the first request, Mr. Kramer
unfailingly refers me to you, all I can do is assume that your personal atti-
tude toward me has changed.
Since any definite decisions are impossible while all the documents
are in Europe, I see no solution other than an advanced payment-a solu-
tion which you yourself suggested last year. I will be glad to know your
opinion of the matter as soon as possible, since it is dragging on without
any ray of hope since November.3
With my cordial wishes, as ever yours,

Igor Stravinsky
48. Stravinsky to A. Walter Kramer

6 May 1942, Hollywood1
Dear Mr. Kramer:
I received the promised letter from Dr. Koussevitzky telling me that

the difficulty to settle my account comes from the impossibility to commu-
nicate with Mr. Paitchadze.2 This argument was known to all of us and it
is the reason why I never asked [for] am "account settlement" but exclu-
sively an advance payment similarly to the previous one which you kindly
agreed to me the last year in similar conditions as, at the time, the same
impossibility of getting Paitchadze's account already existed. Thus the letter
to Dr. Koussevitzky does not explain to me at all why in the same situa-
tion the same proceeding is not yet used by you on my account. I perfectly
know that legally you always can ignore my person and my request but
I considered that representing a firm which so many years published
my works I more or less belong to the "family" and your past attitude
confirmed me in this belief.
I certainly do not insist to know if there are some other reasons
which you can not tell me, as Dr. Koussevitzky's reasons do not explain
anything, but I frankly must admit that I am extremely embarrassed
and surprised to see such a change of your attitude as the fact of your
constant refering [sic!] me to Dr. Koussevitzky and his referring [sic!]
me to you, always with much delay, did not change anything since four
months and is rather a personal disappointment to me. This attitude
particularly hurts me as the representatives at my other publishers in
a similar conditions [sic!] understanding my situation do their best to
help me.
I leave it to you now to follow or not this matter, as I did my utmost
on this account.
Believe me, always very sincerely yours

Igor Stravinsky3
49. A. Walter Kramer to Stravinsky

13 May 1942, New York1
My dear Mr. Stravinsky:
In answer to your letter of May 6 I must first explain that there is no

change of attitude on my part toward you for I am still your most devoted
admirer. I regret more than I can tell you that it is not within my power at
the present time to issue instructions to make a payment to you similar to
last year or to accept instructions until the status of things with Europe
has been clarified.
I am sure that Dr. Koussevitzky would do everything in his power to
assist you, but we are both hampered by conditions over which we have
no control. I hope you will think better of me than your letter of May 6
indicates.
With kindest wishes,
Your[s] very sincerely,

A. Walter Kramer,
Executive Director

30 May 1942, no place1
Berkshire Festival cancelled but Music Center will continue

under my personal sponsorship and responsibility2-therefore conditions
changed but hope we may still have you with us-detailed letter
to follow.
Greetings,
S.K.
51. Kramer to Stravinsky

8 June 1942, New York1
I have a letter from Mr. Aaron Sapiro, 629 South Hill Street, Los
Angeles, who writes me about you.2 May I hear from you as to whether he
is your attorney or just an admirer like me?
With all good wishes,
Very cordially yours,

A. Walter Kramer,
Executive Director

9 June 1942, no place [Boston]1
Dear friend,
I first of all want you to know how much I regret not having been
able to express my profound gratitude for your kind letter after Natalia
Konstantinovna's death until now. Your words and your sympathy with
my grief supported me in the most difficult days of my life-my warm,
heartfelt thanks for these words.
After Natalia Konstantinovna's passing I had only one thing left-
my art and my musical and educational work which fills my life like never
before. I strive to devote all my energy to it, thus continuing on the road
we have been traveling together for so many years.2
This is why I assumed financial responsibilities for the continuation
of the Center's work when, after so many months of exhausting uncer-
tainty, the President of the Boston Symphony told me that, for lack of
funds, they were unable to continue with the Berkshire Festival and
with the Music Center activities. I allotted some funds from Natalia
Konstantinovna's Memorial Foundation, which I established this winter,

for that purpose.3
To be sure, we will have to cut back but I am glad to say that
I have met with the most cordial response from all of my colleagues.
Along with the activities at school we propose to organize weekly
student concerts and even to bill them as the "Berkshire Music Center
Festival." This makes it possible for me to guarantee you a payment of
$2,000; $1,500 of which are for teaching the class on composition and
$500 for conducting one of your works (of your choice) at one of these
concerts.
I hope, dear Igor Fyodorovich, that you will find it possible to par
cipate in our work. Your visit is much needed. We also can discuss
to work out the matters with Galaxy then.
My warmest regards to dear Vera Arturovna and to you.4
53. Stravinsky to Kramer

10 June 1942, Hollywoodl
Dear Mr. Kramer:
Your inquiry about Mr. Aaron Sapiro just reached me.

Mr. Sapiro is my attorney; and like you, he is also my friend. I trust
to you and to him to help work out problems.

Igor Stravinsky

14 June 1942, Los Angeles1
Extremely sorry impossibility collaboration this season as circum-

stance completely changed also engaged most responsible capital musical
production necessitating constant presence here many months.2 Hope
collaboration future more favorable.
Cordially,
Igor Stravinsky3
55. Kramer to Koussevitzky

My dear Dr. Koussevitzky:
I had hoped to see you when you were in New York recently, as you sug-
gested when I saw you last that we would meet when you came on. I wanted to
talk more with you about the Stravinsky situation, which is becoming acute.
Following your letter to him, he wrote me a letter copy of which
together with my answer I sent you on May 13th.2 After a little while I
received a letter from Mr. Aaron Sapiro which I suspected was a lawyer's
letter written on non-office paper.
I then inquired of Mr. Stravinsky as to whether Mr. Sapiro was a
friend or his attorney.3 I have today received a reply from him, copy of
which I enclose.4
It seems to me that no one can adjust this matter as happily as you
can, for you have engaged Mr. Stravinsky to teach at Tanglewood this
summer for which he will be paid and I assume well paid. This being the
case, I do not believe he has any great financial problem, but apparently
he is anxious to draw some money for performances of his music, and
he has apparently told his attorney that we are in a position to make
a payment.
We do not feel that we can make a payment, due to the fact that
neither you nor we are familiar with the terms of his agreement with
Edition Russe in Paris.
I would appreciate it very much if you would write to Mr. Stravinsky
immediately, and advise him as an old friend that no good can be accom-
plished by his engaging an attorney to press Galaxy Music Corporation for
payment, explaining, too, that the fact that a payment was made last year
did not establish any precedent, as it is our duty to report performances
and payment of moneys to Mr. Paitchadze. I do not know whether
Mr. Stravinsky is aware that although you are the actual proprietor of
Russe, you are not the technical proprietor at the present time and are
therefore not legally enabled to order Russe's American sole agents to
pay him.
I am a little surprised at Mr. Stravinsky employing a lawyer in his
dealings with me, as we have been good friends for a number of years and
last winter, when he was in New York, I saw a great deal of him and
believe I was very helpful to him in a number of situations in which I took
my time to be of service and assistance to him which my post in Galaxy
Music Corporation had nothing to do with. I thought he understood my
very warm feeling for him, but apparently I was mistaken.
I am answering his lawyer's letter today, advising him that I am con-

sulting with you. Please let me know immediately what to do and let me
have a copy of what you write to him.
With all good wishes,
Yours very cordially,

A. Walter Kramer,
Executive Director

My dear Dr. Koussevitzky,
I have your kind letter of the 19th today2 and will let you hear from
me shortly about Stravinsky's Histoire d'un soldat. You may be sure that we
will make a special, advantageous performance fee for you for the non-
professional students this summer.
You have doubtless received the rather important letter which I
wrote you and sent to your Brookline address on June 15th.3 Will you
please let me have your reply to this letter with the least possible delay?
With kindest regards,

A. Walter Kramer,
Executive Director
57. Olga Naumova to Kramer

24 June 1942, Lenox, MA1
Dear Mr. Kramer:
I am writing you to let you know that Dr. Koussevitzky is away until
the first of next week; also, that Mr. Stravinsky is not coming East this
summer and therefore will not teach at Tanglewood.
I know that Dr. Koussevitzky finds it difficult to solve the Stravinsky
situation by writing to him which you will agree does not give the desired
result.
Thank you for your letter of June 23 just received. Dr. Koussevitzky
will certainly appreciate your cooperation in regard to the student's per-
formance of the "Histoire d'un Soldat."
Sincerely yours,
Olga Naumova
58. Kramer to Naumova

My dear Miss Naumoff [sic],
I am very grateful to you for your letter of June 24th. I did not know
until I received your letter that Mr. Stravinsky was not coming east to
teach at Tanglewood.
I realize how difficult it is for Dr. Koussevitzky to make clear the sit-
uation which obtains at the present time in regard to Mr. Stravinsky's
compositions published by Edition Russe but I feel that a letter from
him to Mr. Stravinsky at this time, embodying something along the
lines of my recent letter to him, would obviate long controversies with
Mr. Stravinsky's lawyer, Mr. A. Sapiro, and even legal measures.
I shall write to Koussevitzky in a few days in regard to the fee for
the Histoire.
With kind regards,
Yours cordially,
A. Walter Kramer,
Executive Director
59. Aaron Sapiro to Kramer

28 August 1942, Los Angeles1
Dear Mr. Kramer:
I have waited some time since your letter of June 15th 2 to receive
your promised communication regarding the funds which you must be
holding for Mr. Stravinsky.
Your letter of June 15th, 1942, said: "We are waiting word from
Dr. Koussevitzky, to whom we have written, and feel sure that he will do
everything in his power to oblige Mr. Strawinsky. You will hear from us as
soon as we have heard from Dr. Koussevitzky."
In spite of this statement, we have not heard from either you or
Dr. Koussevitzky.
Your letter further states: "Let us assure you that it is our desire and
intention at all times to protect Mr. Strawinsky's interests, but you, as an
attorney, can well understand that our payments must be made to the
party with whom we have contractual relations, that party being Edition
Russe, Paris; and any departure from such procedure on our part would
jeopardize our present and future relations with one of the most important
European catalogs which we represent for this country."
You will not mind my writing you that it is apparent that you are not
making any payments of money to Edition Russe, Paris or elsewhere at this
time.
If you are actually holding money for Edition Russe, will you advise
Mr. Strawinsky and myself where you are holding such funds and under
what name the funds are being held?
We have reason to believe that you holding all such funds in your
own possession; and that you are withholding and possibly using funds
belonging to Mr. Igor Strawinsky, under the mere pretext or excuse that
you are holding them for Edition Russe.
During the last month, Mr. Strawinsky was advised that there were
more performances of "Apollon" in Central America and that the music
was provided from your office at New York.
He was likewise advised that the "Oedipus Rex" was presented
many times at the Teatre Colon at Buenos Aires and that the music
must have come from you, because you have the only musical score on
this continent.
Mr. Strawinsky has also been advised that "Petrouchka" has been
presented many times on this continent, in Mexico and elsewhere, parti-
cularly by the Ballet Theatre3-and that the score came from you.
Nevertheless, you have not even written to Mr. Strawinsky to make
an accounting of the funds so received by you, whether you receive them
in your own capacity or whether you receive them in the capacity of
"Agent" for Edition Russe or any other person or firm to whom you could
not send funds at this time.
It is evident that you may be depriving Mr. Strawinsky of funds to
which he is entitled to immediate possession.
This letter constitutes a polite but formal demand for a full
accounting from you for all funds or monies now in your possession or
which have come into your possession in the last two years belonging to
Igor Strawinsky or belonging to accounts in which, within your express
knowledge, Mr. Igor Strawinsky has an interest and a right to possession of

such funds.
I request that an answer, full and detailed, be given to either Mr. Igor
Strawinsky directly or to me, as his attorney, prior to September 30, 1942.
If we do not have such an answer in our hands at that time, you will
compel us to turn this matter over to a New York lawyer with instructions
to file an action for such an accounting.
Aaron Sapiro,
Attorney for Igor Strawinsky

cc. Dr. Serge Koussevitzky
60. Sapiro to Koussevitzky

August 28, 1942, Los Angeles1
Dear Dr. Koussevitzky:
Herewith I enclose a copy of a letter which I am this day sending to

Mr. Kramer, managing director of Galaxy Music Corporation.
This letter is written by me as the attorney for Mr. Strawinsky; and
the copy is sent to you at the request of Mr. Strawinsky.
We are both completely dissatisfied with the answers that we have
received from Mr. Kramer; and I do not believe that we are getting the
actual facts of the situation.
We ask for your personal intervention in the matter; and we
expressly request a reply from you covering the entire situation.
With appreciation for your attention and your courtesy to both
Mr. Strawinsky and myself,
Aaron Sapiro,
Mr. Strawinsky's lawyer.

2 September 1941, New York1
My dear Dr. Koussevitzky,
On June 15th, I wrote to you and asked you to do something about

Mr. Stravinsky's request, as I felt that Mr. Aaron Sapiro, who had written
to us, was Mr. Stravinsky's attorney, and if we did not satisfy them we
would hear more.
We have just heard. I say "we" because I see at the bottom of
Mr. Saripo's letter of August 28th that a copy of his letter to Galaxy was
sent to you.
You can understand that the last thing that Galaxy would like
would be a suit, as the time consumed in appearing in court is always
considerable, to say nothing of the possible damages which might be
awarded Mr. Stravinsky. Galaxy has never been sued in its eleven
years, and I do not look forward to being sued as we conduct our
business both honestly and honorably.
I am of the opinion that we can have a lot of trouble with
Mr. Stravinsky unless you do something for him. I would like to talk this
matter over with you if you are going to be in New York in the near future,
but we must do something, as Mr. Sapiro gives us the date of September
30th, after which date he says he will turn the matter over to a lawyer in
New York lawyer which means that he will sue.
With kindest regards,

A. Walter Kramer,
Executive Director
62. Koussevitzky to Sapiro

10 September 1942, no place [Boston]1
Dear Mr. Sapiro:
Your letter has been forwarded to me to Lenox, Mass., therefore the

delay of acknowledging it.2
I hoped that Mr. Strawinsky and myself could have solved the
entire situation regarding Galaxy Music Corporation this summer, when
I expected him to come East. This did not happen, however. And it is
not humanely possible for me to decide any business questions which were
not directly related to my all-consuming work and responsibilities these
summer months.
I realize that the matter of Galaxy Music Corporation must be
solved in the nearest future. In order to do so I shall have to arrange a
personal interview with Mr. Kramer, which I want to have as soon as
possible. If there is no chance of having Mr. Strawinsky come to New
York this fall or winter, I do think it would be wiser on his part not to
force matters, but wait until I have a meeting with Mr. Kramer.
Would you let me know whether Mr. Strawinsky has an agreement
with the Edition Russe, Paris? If he does not possess a written agreement
I shall ask Mr. Strawinsky to wait until I straighten out matters with
Galaxy Music Corporation which I am as anxious to do as he is. The
document would help the situation immensely.3
Sincerely yours,
Serge Koussevitzky

9 July 1943, no place [Hollywood]'
I am sending you the fully completed score of my Ode, composed in

memory of the late Natalia Konstantinovna.2
The Ode is a song, or rather songs, for there are three of them:
First: praise to the departed-Eulogy,3 slow and melodic music in
fugue-like character.
Second: of more lively, scherzo-like character-Eclogue or Concert
champetre,4 t[hat] i[s], music at the heart of nature, the principle which
Natalia Konstantinovna defended with such passion and which you
realized so brilliantly in Tanglewood.
Third: headstone inscription-Epitaph, which will conclude my song in
memory of the departed.
I hope that you will like both the idea and the music.5 I shall be glad
to hear from you.
Where are you going to spend the summer? I was so glad to see you
in New York; it's a pity you could not visit our California-to tell the
truth, we were looking forward to your visit with Olga Aleksandrovna.
Give her our cordial regards, and for yourself, dear friend, keep the
feelings of our friendship and love.6
P.S.: I made a copy of the Ode (for myself, the publisher, and the
copyist of the parts), so that your Foundation, according to its wishes, can
place my manuscript in its archive.7
As a token of my respect to the memory of Natalia Koussevitzky and

her spiritual influence on the art of the famous conductor, her husband,
Dr. Serge Koussevitzky.8

21 July 1943, no place [Lenox, MA]1
Have just received manuscript your Ode cannot tell you how deeply
touched and grateful I am for the completion of your work so beautifully
conceived so wonderfully in memory of Natalie. Affectionate regards to
you both. Letter follows.
Serge Koussevitzky

29 July 1943, Lenox, MA1
Dear Igor Feyodorovich,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I cannot express how

moved I am by your Ode, dedicated to the everlasting memory of Natalia
Konstantinovna. I am deeply touched by the insightful idea and music,
by their spiritual truth and simplicity. Thank you again, dear friend.
My idea of a Composer Foundation is moving along splendidly. I
don't know whether you have read my manifesto.2 Just in case, I am send-
ing you a copy. I hope that there will be some results by November. I will
keep you posted.
Leliushka3 and I greatly regretted not being able to spend the
summer in your parts and with you, but circumstances were stronger
than our wishes.
I hope that the situation will be better next year; then we will settle
near you for the summer,4 but I do not lose hope to see you earlier, that is
in winter, in our parts.
My warmest regards to Vera Arturovna and to you, my dear friend.
Yours, Serge Koussevitzky
P.S.: I enclose a check over $1,000 for the manuscript.
All his life, Koussevitzky was deeply convinced that, without actually
hearing his own music, a composer would lose the ability to grow
creatively. He was able to recognize a young composer's talent and was
not concerned about lack of experience. Koussevitzky's role in the careers
of Schuman and Barber was mentioned earlier (see note 5 to letter no.
37). The same might be said about many of their colleagues. In his first
twenty years in Boston, Koussevitzky conducted sixty-six world premieres
of works by American composers. Yet he never strove to be the first to
conduct a work. If he liked a score he heard performed elsewhere, he
unfailingly included it in the repertoire plans of the BSO, with which he
presented more than 300 works by American composers. In the last five
seasons alone (1944-45 to 1948-49), his programs included sixteen
American works, twelve of which were world premieres. Composers often
were invited to conduct their own works. In a time when audiences were
biased against American composers, Koussevitzky actively contributed to
the emergence of the American school of composition. Even more, he
contributed to the emergence of the very notion of American music.
He shared Copland's conviction that "a true musical culture has
never been and can never be founded exclusively on the import of foreign
performers and foreign music.... America's art of music will in its very
essence remain a museum art until we create a school of composers who
will address the American audience directly in a musical language which
fully expresses the most profound influence American consciousness has
on the American stage" (Copland, "The Composer and His Critic," Mod-
em Music 9 (May-June 1932): 144). Robert Shaw called the BSO under
Koussevitzky "the instrument available to all serious American compos-
ers" (quoted in Joseph A. Musselman, Dear People...: Robert Shaw, a Bio-
graphy [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979], 35). Copland
stated that "those of us who were fortunate to know Koussevitzky and to
work with him will never forget his passionate concern with encouraging
young talent. American composers and performers never had a better
friend" (telegram to Olga Koussevitzky, 23 July 1965, New York, KA-LC).
And Piston confessed, "I think that the Boston Symphony probably exer-
cised the strongest influence on my life as a composer" (Piston and G.
Wallace Woodworth, "Fifty Years of the American Symphony Orchestra:
Personal Vignettes," in The American Symphony Orchestra, ed. Henry
Swoboda [New York: Basic Books, 1967], 11).
Given the breadth of his American repertoire, Koussevitzky had def-
inite priorities and limitations. As a historian of American music rightfully
noted, "loud, aggressive compositions by Varese, Antheil, Ornstein, and
Cowell held little interest for him, neither did the strong individualism of
Charles Ives or Carl Ruggles" (Ronald L. Davis, A History of Music and
American Life, vol. 3: The Modem Era: 1920-Present [Malabar, Fl.: Robert
Krieger, 1981], 3). He was frequently criticized for his narrow aesthetic
views; Stravinsky's opinion was particularly pointed. Giving his due to
Koussevitzky, "a generous man who helped composers financially more than
anybody else," he supposed that Koussevitzky's music policies as the founder
of "the American version of the Rome Academy" were nationalistic in
essence. Though they guaranteed the conductor his popularity in America,
at the same time they "stalled the development of music in America for
at least two decades" (On Conductors and Conducting, in I. Stravinsky
and Craft, Themes and Episodes, 152-53). "He strove-and succeeded-
to establish an American version of Rimsky-Korsakov's academic style"
(excerpt from Dialogues with Robert Craft, in I. F. Stravinskii, Stat'i i materialy
[Articles and materials], 73). Accusing Koussevitzky of nationalism in music
is rather strange. The conductor was keenly interested in everything new in
music and in everyone with talent. National origin was of no importance to
him, neither in modem music nor in American music specifically.
Having established the Natalia Koussevitzky Memorial Foundation
for the support of composers in 1942, he argued in his article "Justice to
Composers" against turning it into an all-American organization with
chapters in every big American city. He also planned to increase the
Foundation's funds through deductions from earnings of professional
musicians, the members of the National Music Club Federation, and other
professional organizations.

8 August 1943, Hollywood1
I am very glad that the idea of my Ode found a response in your soul.
I hope that the music itself, when you hear it, will justify your reaction to
its general design and spirit.2 But when will this happen? Will you perform
it, or will I when I am in Boston?3
Thank you for the money. Also, thank you for the brilliant article.4
I wish that your idea were realized! Many composers would feel greatly
relieved! Please keep me posted about this wonderful initiative.
Praise and glory to you.

Dear friend, my best regards.5

19 September 1943, Hollywoodl
Dear Sergei Alexandrovich,
How fortunate that I am able to arrange to come to Boston to con-

duct a program of my works2 which indead [sic!] is a great joy for me, that
you know.
I have just mailed to Mr. Judd my signed contract and wrote that the
program will be set up by us and here it is. -
Mr. Judd writes that the first part of the program (about 42 minutes)
will be broadcasted. Taking this in consideration I am grouping the pieces
which I am submitting to you as follows:
I part
a) Suite of PULCINELLA ... 25 minutes
b) NORWEGIAN MOODS ... about 10 " " "
c) CIRCUS POLKA ... about 4 ""
II part
a) ODE
b) SYMPHONY OF PSALMS
This symphony seems to me the most fitting to the occasion

of the dedication concert part to the memory of your beloved wife.
I do not doubt that you agree with me and that you will readily under-
take the effort if such, as I believe there will not be much complication
with the Orchestra nor Chorus for its revival. Against my expectation
should it not be possible for some reason we then could perform
PETROUCHKA or FIRE BIRD, both of same length as Symphony
of Psalms.
Unfortunately we must abandon our project of playing the SACRE
as the program includes three new compositions mustly [sic!] chamber
orchestra requiring, as you know, more minute working which will take up
all my four rehearsals.
Please, reply quickly, dear friend, and I shall then send Mr. Judd
details needed for the program.
I embrace you,
Yours, Igor Stravinsky.

27 September 1943, Hollywood.1
Delighted you will create Ode October 8th.2 I just sent the
Associated Music Publishers3 corrected masters or orchestra parts for
reproduction4 with revised orchestra score.5 Hope all material available
next week. Please contact Hugo Winter6 on this matter and advise John
Burke.7 Letter with Ode note following.
Warmest regards,
Igor Stravinsky

27 September 1943, Hollywoodl
Dear Sergei Alexandrovitch,
I have just received your night letter of this 26th from Lenox which
crossed my wire of Sept. 25th.2 First of all I repeat again my delight to
know that you cherish the thought of presenting yourself the ODE and
even give it many times this season.
Needless to say that I too would be happy to perform it for your audi-
ence in commemoration of your beloved wife. However if there are some
reasons against it, I shall not insist.
My night letter concerning the orchestra material of ODE I hope is
quite clear.3 I am sure my Publisher will receive in a couple of days the
"masters," transparents, of the orchestra parts carefully corrected by me
for reproduction on usual sheets of music. I have also revised and cor-
rected some mistakes on the photostatic copy of my manuscript orchestra
score, all of which I have sent at the same time. In this score you will
find in the beginning of the third part ("Epitaph") a minor change:
Piccolo introduced and played by the 3d flutist and a Clarinet replacing
the last one. Notice that all corrections are in red pencil but the changes
(flutes-clarinet) mentioned [sic] above are in ink. And so please have
the original manuscript in your possession corrected accordingly.
Now let us examine your wire suggestion of the program for my
January concerts. You know well how glad I would be to conduct SACRE
with your Orchestra, but I fear that its difficult parts will take up a consid-
erable time of the rehearsals considering that the extras4 as usual are
never on the same level technically with the regular musicians of the
Orchestra.
This leads us now to the question if there remains sufficient time to

rehearse the difficult pieces such as PULCINELLA (for some time not
played by your men),5 JEU DE CARTES (surely not so easily refreshed
after three years),6 and the NORWEGIAN MOODS although only of
7 minutes but quite delicate in working out7 and the CIRCUS POLKA
(3 minutes about) in addition to the NORWEGIAN MOODS balancing
up its shortness and which I cant [sic!] refrain from playing for it is most
effective symphonic piece which I consider quite an attainment. And
where to play it if not with your Orchestra!
Consequently we face two alternatives: give me for the first three
rehearsals half an hour longer each, the last general one as set before, or
let us substitute the Suite of PETROUCHKA with complete first and last
tableaux for SACRE (both of same length, 30 m.) but PETROUCHKA
easier to prepare and at less cost because of no use of special extras. I want
to feel that you agree with me on all points which will solve our problem.
Please do not delay answering my letter.
Fondly,
Igor Stravinsky.
P.S. Kindly let me know exact date and hour of the broadcast of
ODE as you can imagine I am anxious to hear it.

no date, no place [after 27 September 1943]1
Reiterate plea for Sacre on your Boston program you may have five
three-hour rehearsals-our orchestra has all players required for Sacre
please perform it-stop-hope you will listen in broadcast Ode Saturday,
at 8:30pm Eastern time over blue network.2
Affectionate regards to you both.

10 October 1943, Los Angeles1
Just heard Ode in your most penetrating2 performance. Profoundly

touched. My thoughts are with you and your orchestra family. Heartiest
regards from both.

11 October 1943, Hollywood1
Dear friend:
You have naturally received my wire which I telephoned directly

after your moving performance of my ODE.2 I was afraid that the tele-
phone operator would refuse accepting [sic!] my expression of gratitude to
you and your Orchestra. Fortunately it was accepted.
I want to repeat again how deeply I was moved by the performance.
I would like to know when you expect to repeat ODE for the reason that
I want to make again another recording, for I noticed an unfortunate
bluring [sic!] of bars in the last protion of "Epitaph," figures 43 and
44, which can not remain as such. This why [sic!] I am enclosing
adjusted photostatic page 23 which wll [sic!] clarify the mistake,
I am sure.
This mistake, I am positive, was hardly perceived by anyone. Here
how [sic!] the mistake occured: page 23 containing three lines and not
two, apparently enduced [sic!] you to that mistake, as well as the parts
were written with the same error*) which I failed to notice.3 The bluring
[sic!] was not too disturbing for the two lines played together are almost
integrated in the same mode. I do hope that the correction of the parts
will not create too much trouble to your good librarian as he has only to
put in the figure 43 of the string parts-a rest of six mesures [sic!] for
violins, violas and cellos, and seven mesures [sic!] for the basses and
timpanis. Please, for my comfort, let me know at ones [sic!] that it will
all be done.
Let me again, dear friend, thank you and embrace you heartily.
P.S. Thanks for your wire requesting that I conduct the SACRE.
I shall and will do that as you give me the necessary time (5 rehearsals
of 3 hours each) to rehearse this responsible program. To avoid any
misunderstandings I repeat as follows the complete program: Pulcinella,
Norwegian Moods, Circus Polka, Jeu de Cartes, - Intermission -
Sacre.
*) now, as you see, I removed the 44; so the 43 & 44 has seven bars
each.

12 October 1943, Hollywood1
Dear Sergei Aleksandrovich, I am sending you the rest of the mis-

takes in the Ode score which I noticed and which I forgot to point out in
yesterday's letter.2
Errare humanum est, or: it is human to err; this is why I think
you will forgive me. But what I shall not forgive myself is that I
tormented your ear through my ridiculous inattentiveness or, rather,
absent-mindedness in the proofreading. It is very, very unpleasant
for me, my dear.3
My most cordial regards,

I was deeply moved by your telegram which I read to orchestra.2

Have performed Ode Cambridge last Thursday in corrected version with
repeated success and profound impression. Delighted your acceptance to
conduct Sacre.3
Affectionately,
Serge Koussevitzky4

January [13 January] 1944, no place [Saratoga Springs, NY]1
Dear friend, cannot fully express my regret not being in Boston

this week.2 Was happy to hear from you3 Am in thoughts with you
today; shall listen broadcast Saturday. Affectionate thoughts to
you both,
Serge Koussevitzky
SIXTY-THIRD SEASON . NINETEEN HUNDRED FORTY-THREE AND FORTY-FOUR
Twelfth Progr'
FRIDIAY AFTERNOON,JANUARY 14, at 2:3 ock
SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 15, at 8:30 o'clock
IGOR STRAVINSKY Conducting
S RAVIN.SKY........ ................... Symphony in C ajor

I. Moderato alla breve
II. Larghetto concertante
III. Allegretto
IV. Adagio--Tempo giusto
STRAVINSKY. ..............................Four Norwegian Moods

Intrada
Song
Wedding Dance
Cortege
(Fir,t performances)
STRAVINSKY ........................................ Circus Polka

(First cotnceirt performtances)
INT E RM I SSIO.
STRAVINSKY. ................... .Suite from the Ballet "Pulcinella"

for Small Orchestra (after Pergolesi)
Sinfoniai (Ouvertlure) : Allegro inode-ato
Selrenata: Larglietto
Tarantella - Toccata
Gavotte w ith ITwo Variations
Vivo
Mmintetto - Finale
STRAVINSKY. ....."Jeu de Cartes" (Card Game, Ballet in Three Deals)
BALDWIN PIANO
Mr. Stravinsky will conduct his own arrangement of

"The Star-spangled Banner"
This programme will end about 4:20 on Friday Afternoon,

10:20 o'clock on Saturday Evening
Symphony Hall is organized for your protection in case of a blackout.

The auditorium and the corridors will remain lighted.
You are requested to keep your seats. Above all, keep calm.
[ 713
Figure 1. Boston Symphony Orchestra program book, sixty-third seaso

Private collection. Reprinted by permission.
76. Stravinsky to Koussevitzky (c/o Miss Fanshawe)

16 May 1944, Santa Barbara, California1
Deeply regret not attending meeting in Sergei Alexandrovich

honor-you know its meaning to me-am whole heart yours.
Igor Stravinsky2

Was happy to listen your broadcast yesterday afternoon. Admired

your program and especially first hearing of Ballet Scenes.2 Hope you will
be N. Y. Wednesday Febr. 14 and both give me a pleasure to come my box
to concert that evening performing Petrouchka.
Affectionate regards,
Serge Koussevitzky

8 February 1945, New York1
Just a couple of words in a terrible hurry, as usual in New York.

Thank you for the wire2; what a pity that your concert on 14 February
coincides with my broadcast with CBS-I conduct Apollo: I am rehearsing
from 8 to 11, at 11:30 (until midnight) is the broadcast itself.
Will I see you during my visit? Let me know, my dear.3
Cordial regards,
I. Stravinsky

20 June 1945, Hollywood1
Have not heard from you for such a long time! Hope that all is well.
I have just received a letter from my son Sviatoslav from Paris. At

my request he talked to Paitchadze about my Galaxy situation. I mean
their failure to comply with their factual obligation of payments of my
royalties and statements of such. Paitchadze told my son that he had an
exchange of wires with you concerning this matter, resulting in a cable to
Galaxy ordering to forward all statements and accumulated fund for the
last six years to you.2 Paitchadze also suggested that this business be
settled directly between you and I. Don't you think that it is right, that
before we establish the whole amount due to me, I would like in
meantime [sic] to receive on account the sum of $5,000 figuring
moderately $1,000 a year. Galaxy paid me an advance of $1,000 for the
expired 1939 in January 1940, the last and only payment ever received
from them.3 Imagine, I to suffer such an unheard-of treatment from
just a Dr. Kramer.
Another topic! As you know Bruno Zirato4 is arranging my Boston
Cambridge concerts for next February with Mr. Judd [and] asks me to
set the program with you. Here is what I would like to present this time:
1) SYMPHONY 1945 which I am now writing for the N-Y Sym-
phony to be premiered in N. Y., January's appearances as a guest conduc-
tor. Its duration - about 20 minutes.5
2) Following it before intermission my SCENES DE BALLET
duration 16 minutes the broadcast of which you heard me conduct last
season in N.Y. when you wished I would present it to your audiences
in Boston.
3) SCHERZO A LA RUSSE, dur. 4/2 min., after Intermission.
I composed it for the Blue Network Radio programs. It was performed
by Paul Whitman6 last August. I have now orchestrated it for the
regular symphony orchestra which I also will conduct in New York
next season.
4) My new FIREBIRD BALLET SUITE which I have just f

dur. 27-30 min., expanding the former Suite in adding two num
"Pas de Deux" (Adagio) and "Scherzo des Princesses," bridgin
the parts with some pantomime excerpts from the original ball
orchestration is the same as the former Suite, id. - the woodwi
by two.
For the Sunday concert with 45 min. Broadcasting the program will
be as follows:
1 - Symphony, 20 minutes
2 - Scherzo 41/2 "
3 - Firebird 22 " about, stopping with Dance of Kostchei but con-
tinuing with Berceuse & Finale for the Symph. Hall7 audience.
4 - SCENE DE BALLET for last number.8
I embrace you,
Igor Stravinsky
P.S. Please reply as soon as you can.

21 August 1945, no place [Tanglewood]
My dear Igor Fyodorovich!
Excuse me for not replying to you in more detail as to what is going

on between our publishing house and Galaxy. This matter is still not
cleared and it will be possible to resolve it only if Gavriil Grigorievich
[Paitchadze] comes here, which I am working on as hard as I can. Galaxy
pays no attention whatsoever to my rights. In any case, such a situation
cannot last-it is a temporary unpleasantness. If we've waited for all these
years, we can wait for another month or two.2
As regards your program, I can only now, after being freed of the
Bach-Mozart Festival, give you an answer.3 By the way, a big change took
place this summer in the distribution of our broadcast time. It is as follows:
they will broadcast not the first but the second half of the concerts. The
audience in the hall will listen to the first part, from 8:30 until 9:30, and
the program should be 35-40 minutes long. After intermission, from 9:30
to 10:30, the broadcast is on, and the length of the program should be
45-50 minutes.
Please include the works most suitable for a large audience in the
program for the broadcast. I'd be very grateful if you could send me the
program as soon as possible.
I am enjoying the countryside and some rest after the Tanglewood
Festival.4 Work on Bach's and Mozart's scores and the compilation of six
programs took an immense amount of time and energy. I had to go over all
of the symphonic Mozart and non-choral Bach. It was rather complex
work, but highly interesting. It was particularly interesting to study Mozart
in more detail; there are so many discoveries, so many revelations, so
much beauty!
I was glad to see Nadia Boulanger during the last week of the
Festival and, of course, we spoke a lot about you.5 How are you and
Vera Arturovna doing? What do you hear from Europe? Since the
receipt of your letter incredible events and changes have occurred.
What joy that the war is over! Although the world is deeply wounded
and will not heal soon, the thought that the massacre of peoples is over
relieves our life.6

30 August 1945, Hollywood.1
Thank you for your nice letter. In view of the changes in the time
distribution of the broadcast, I suggest the following program:
I part. The first movement of Petrushka 8 minutes

Scherzo a la russe 4.5'
Symphony in Three Movements 22.5'.
II part. The "Ballet Scenes" 16.5'
The new Firebird Suite 28.5'2
Except for Petrushka, all these works will be performed in Boston for
the first time.
How long, do you think, will the situation with Galaxy last? What if
Paitchadze will not be able to come, what to do then?
Drop me a line with your OK and forgive me for my [one word unin-
telligible] scribbling. Today was very difficult, but I did not want to post-
pone my reply to you.
My best regards,

5 September 1945, no place.1
Your program perfect many thanks. Every hope Paitchadze will

arrive soon.2 Affectionate regards you both.
Serge Koussevitkzy

15 October 1945, Hollywood.1
Dearest friend:
I have just received my Boston contract from Zirato which causes me

a panic; the reason is the Cambridge concert on Wednesday and not on
Thursday, breaking my rehearsals as you understand.
When I sent you my program for the entire group of concerts, you
approved it and no question was raised of an altered program for Cambridge,
hence the original program would be simply impossible to prepare ade-
quately in four rehearsals. I see only one way out, to set the five rehearsals for
Monday (two), Tuesday (two), Wednesday (one), leaving Thursday free.
Should it be for any reason impossible to arrange that combination,
then I would have to renounce playing my new Symphony, which alone
requires three rehearsals. This, of course, makes me quite unhappy and
I presume you too. You are the only one to settle that problem satisfactorly
[sic!], as I do not want even think that Boston would be slighted. You
naturally realize that the allotted original time for rehearsals is the very
minimum, without exaggeration, alas, for this completely new program. I am
frightfully concerned about this situation and will deeply appreciate your
best help and letting me know promptly.
Thank you for your wire concerning Galaxy.2 I also heard from my
son in Paris that Paitchadze is taking all possible steps to come to the
U.S.A. but he also said that it is rather difficult to obtain admission.
Interesting to know what your closest news about it are.
I embrace you heartly [sic],

Igor Stravinsky

Find that two rehearsals possible only Monday, February 18-

remaining rehearsals Tuesday Wednesday Thursday mornings.2
Suggest change Cambridge program playing familiar composition
[to the orchestra] instead new Symphony reserving first
performance-Symphony Friday Saturday3 Boston.
Greetings,
Serge Koussevitzky

20 November 1945, Hollywood.1
Dearest Sergei Alexandrovich:

Only now can I acknowledge your wire suggesting Cambridge program
substituting my Symphony with APOLLLO with which your Orchestra men
are sufficiently familiar. Thus the Cambridge program set as follows:
1 - Apollo, 2 - Scherzo a la Russe, 3 - Petrouchka, first part (in my

new orchestration), Intermission. 4 - Scenes de Ballet, 5 - New Firebird
Suite.
And the Boston program will be as follows:
1 - Petrouchka (first part), 2 - Scherzo a la Russe, 3 - Symphony in

three movements. Intermission. 4 - Scenes de Ballet, 5 - New Firebird
Suite;2 those last numbers not exceeding the 45 minutes of the broadcast.
By the way, about that sore subject "GALAXY"-"PAITCHADZE":

have you further news since over a month ago when you wired asking me
to stop action in connection with the Alien Property Custodian? I have
neither any news on that from my son in Paris or from Paitchadze himself.
Several times had I in mind to tell you about that excellent pianist,
Shura Chercassky,3 whom I consider first class and I think it would be
good for him to appear with your Orchestra, I believe that you would not
regret in inviting him.
That's all for now. I will be glad to hear from you soon.
Affectionate thoughts,
Igor Stravinsky

3 December 1945, no place [Boston]1
Just heard from Ralph Hawkes2 who expects to be Ambassador

Hotel Los Angeles on or about December 15 hopes to see you. Please
arrange meeting Hawkes as you will find it interesting and important.3
Affectionate regards to both,
Serge Koussevitzky

26 March 1946, no place [Boston]1
Very happy let you know Paitchadze arrived yesterday. Settling mat-
ters Galaxy.2

28 March 1946, Hollywood1
So happy to know Paitchadze with you. Wish I were there. How long
will he stay in America. Hope his task will be successful.2
Warmest regards to you both from both of us.
Igor Stravinsky

12 March 1948, no place [Boston]1
Your Oedipus Rex profoundly stirred musicians audience and every-

body who took part in performance yesterday of this great masterpiece.2
To me personally this is true artistic joy. We all join in sending you con-
gratulations. Warm and heartiest wishes for further creation. Affectionate
greetings.
Serge Koussevitzky

15 March 1948, Hollywood.1
Thank you, dear Sergei Alexandrovich, for the telegram, which

moved and gladdened me. I have just heard admiring comments about the
brilliant performance of Oedipus from friends in Boston. I sincerely regret
that I was not there to witness it and that I could not thank you in person.
I am doing so here.2
After many hesitations and worries we decided not to go to
Europe this year-cannot take chances, the situation is too troubling,
and besides, who can vouch that we could get out of there in case of
emergency-all the steamboats and planes are sold out until fall.
This week I am conducting here at the Philharmonic,3 then in
Washington and for all of April in New York, where on the 28th I am
conducting the premiere of Orpheus.4 May[be] this only performance

will draw you to NY and we will see each other?
My sincere and cordial regards to you both from us both.
Yours, I. Stravinsky

28 April 1948, no place [Boston]1
Warmest good wishes your performance Orpheus today.

Deeply regret inability to come.2 Ours affectionate greetings
to you both.
Serge Koussevitzky

13 May 1948, no place [Boston]1
As planning performance Oedipus at Berkshire Festival August 5

should like know your preference English text for narrator. Many thanks
in advance. Affectionate greetings to you both.
Serge Koussevitzky

14 May 1948, Los Angeles1
Naturally do use same English narrator text as I did Boston perfor-

mance 19392-see program number 20. Surprised your question wonder
what you used yourself last March. Affectionate greetings,
Stravinsky

No date, no place [after 14 May 1948]1
Used same English narrator text as you have in Boston but heard you
preferred text used last April in New York. Am grateful and happy your
reply. Greetings.
Serge Koussevitzky2

19 May 1948, Los Angeles.1
Delighted having talk with you and to be able to accept your prop-
osition.2 Wonder if my son's participation in these concerts with Capric-
cio possible.3 Would greatly appreciate your help. Affectionately,
Igor Stravinsky

21 May 1948, Lenox, MA1
I cannot tell you how nice it was to talk to you on the phone. I informed
Boston about your general consent and I hope your terms will be accepted.
If so, your two-week tour with the Boston Symphony will begin on
Monday, 7 February, in Boston, and will end on Saturday, 19 February, in
New York. On Tuesdays, this period includes two programs with broad-
casts, which you and I planned as follows:
1. Tuesday, 8 February (Cambridge):

Orpheus
Radio: Capriccio
Firebird (in full)
2. Tuesday, 15 February (White Plains, New York):

Le baiser de la fee
Capriccio
Radio: Orpheus
Firebird (abridged)
For Boston I suggest the following program:
Friday and Saturday, 11-12 February (Boston)

Ode
Orpheus
Capriccio
Firebird (in full)
-if you like it and agree to it.

I hasten to send you the letter since on Sunday I leave for Saratoga
for about three weeks of rest and treatment.
My warmest regards to you and Vera Arturovna.
Yours Serge Koussevitzky2

6 August 1948, no place [Lenox]1
Am happy to let you know great success of your Oedipus Rex at

Berkshire Music Festival last night. All participants and Orchestra join in
sending you warm congratulations. My affectionate greetings to you both.2
Serge Koussevitsky

8 August, no year [1948], Hollywood.1
Many thanks for your kind wire. Very happy to learn Oedipus
success. Please convey to all participants my sincerest thanks. Believe
me, affectionately,
Igor Stravinsky.
99. Stravinsky to Mrs. Arthur M. Reis1

Dear Mrs. Reis:
I am very happy to learn of your project for Dr. Koussevitzky. Please

contribute this.3
Sincerely yours,
Igor Stravinsky

no date, no place [February, 1949, Boston]1
I wish [illegible] to express my deepest appreciation for all you

have done for the music of our time. Believe me, my dear old
friend.
Yours most cordially,

I. Stravinsky

14 February 1949, Boston'
Your incomparable orchestra gave me great pleasure and we

achieved a huge success.2 Unfortunately, the 25 years of your brilliant
influence taught the press nothing. It remained provincial and
hostile.3 It would be delightful to see you. At Ambassador New York
until Feb. 28.
Affectionately,
Igor Stravinsky
102. Erwin Rosenthal1 to Koussevitzky

29 August 1949, Berkeley, California2
Dear Mr. Koussevitzky,
I wish to draw your attention to the fact that I am in the possession

of the full manuscript of Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano which was
dedicated to Mrs. Koussevitzky. It contains the summary sketches,
53 pages, signed and dated: 13 April 1924, Biarritz. It is written in several
inks and pencil, and is amazingly interesting because of its many correc-
tions and insertions. The price is $ 1,250.3 Before I offered it to anybody
else I wanted you to know about this manuscript.
I'm about to leave California, and will stay from September 7-20 at
the Algonquin Hotel, 57 West 44 Street, New York City. Maybe I'll have
an opportunity to show the manuscript to you during my stay in the East.

Erwin Rosenthal
103. Vera and Igor Stravinsky to Olga and Serge Koussevitzky

no date [end of August, 1950], Hollywood1
Dear friends,
We were late for the rehearsal-arrived at the hotel to greet you but
you must have been delayed somewhere. We want to come to the
rehearsal on Saturday.2 I will call.
All the best,

Vera Stravinsky
Love, kisses3
Igor Stravinsky
The musicians met for the last time on 1 September 1950 in Los Angeles.
The Stravinskys attended the rehearsal at the Hollywood Bowl with
Horowitz, who participated in one of the concerts, and then went to have
dinner at Koussevitzky's hotel (see Robert Craft, Chronicle of a Friendship
[Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1994], 40).
As soon as Koussevitzky's decision to retire as BSO music director
became known, he was flooded with invitations to perform elsewhere.
Among his papers is a three-year contract with Columbia Artist Manage-

ment, Inc., signed in 1948. All his subsequent concerts and tours were
arranged through that agency. Koussevitzky had been invited many times
to perform at the Hollywood Bowl, starting in 1926. His concerts in the
summer of 1949 were attended by more than 20,000 people. Concerts in
1950 took place on 29 and 31 August and on 2 and 5 September.
On his first visit to California in 1949, Koussevitzky noted in an
interview that even though many of America's famous cultural figures
lived there, the state did not have a large educational center. In March
1950, Carl Wecker, general director of the Hollywood Bowl Association,
informed him that the idea of establishing such a center had met with
approval from influential residents of Los Angeles and the conductor stated
that he would gladly participate and to work pro bono.
At a meeting of the Association's board of directors it was decided to
establish a University for Fine Arts under the auspices of the Hollywood
Bowl. The university would include departments for writing, music, paint-
ing, sculpture, theater, dance (including ballet), and the humanities. The
project of a Hollywood Music Center was discussed with Koussevitzky in
Nov. 1950. Stravinsky, Heifetz, Piatigorsky, and Rubinstein were to be
invited to teach. The project did not succeed.
The 1 September concert was Koussevitzky's last performance with
Horowitz. The pianist initially had refused to perform on a symphonic con-
cert. Koussevitzky received Wecker's telegram with news of Horowitz's nega-
tive response while on concert tour in Rome. However, he wanted to perform
Rachmaninov's concerto only with Horowitz or Brailovsky. He immediately
sent Horowitz a telegram; without mentioning Horowitz's refusal, Koussev-
itzky wrote: "Dear Volodia, Returning to our conversation in February, I hope
we will have a lot of pleasure performing Rachmaninov's 3rd Concerto on
August 26 at the Hollywood Bowl. Please get in touch with Carl Wecker. Be
happy. Warm regards, Koussevitzky" (26 Apr. 1950, Rome, KA-LC). Horow-
itz agreed. "I assure you," he wrote after the concert, "that I always will cherish
our performance at the Hollywood Bowl as one of the most memorable
events" (letter to Koussevitzky, 3 Sept. 1950, Los Angeles, KA-LC.)
Sometimes death reconciles enemies, but sometimes the death of
one man lays open another man's true attitude toward the departed,
regardless of whether they were friends or enemies. The correspondence
between Stravinsky and Koussevitzky shows that whatever changes took
place in their relationship over the years, there never developed a true
friendship between them. Nevertheless, Stravinsky's reaction to Koussev-
itzky's death was unexpected: "Koussevitzky's death upset Igor Stravinsky
but only as an untimely surprise: he did not express a single word of regret
but when I called him asking to make a statement on the occasion, he did
it with such reluctance, with so little respect and with such condescen-
dence that it could not be used," writes Robert Craft. The following text is
preserved in the Stravinsky Archives (Paul Sacher Stiftung): "The fact that
Koussevitzky was a big celebrity-everyone knows this, but few people
know that many careers were created as a result of his generosity. When
people honor his memory by listing the kind deeds that he did openly,
think about how much kindness he did to people without telling a soul.
That he could be openly rewarded for his secret acts!" (quoted in vol. 4 of
Stravinsky's Correspondence with Russian Addressees). "Sometimes he shows
all too clearly that he tends to base his relationship with people on
whether he needs them or not (Koussevitzky was no longer needed)
rather than on what kind of people they were," concluded Craft.1
Craft's words correspond almost verbatim with Koussevitzky's
description of the composer from 1931, quoted earlier: a "callous egotist
who thinks of himself only and is connected with people only because it is
to his advantage." Arnold Schoenberg died a month after Koussevitzky,
and Craft states that "Igor Stravinsky was far more upset by this death
than by the death of Koussevitzky, a man he knew very well."2
104. Olga Koussevitzky to Stravinsky

3 January 1956, no place [New York]1
Dear Mr. Stravinsky,
In the hope of gaining your interest and approval I am bringing to

your attention the aims and plans of the International Music Fund which
was founded in 1948 by Serge Koussevitzky to further the cause of
contemporary music and to help and encourage living composers.
This Fund promotes on an international basis the commissioning of
composers, the performance, publication, recording and broadcasting of
their works. It also will encourage the exchange of composers from one
country to another as a means of creating in other countries an interest in
them and their works. This exchange will also contribute to the
development of understanding and appreciation among persons of
different nations, languages and cultural backgrounds.
After the International Music Fund was founded money raised
by benefit concerts was disbursed through UNESCO as commissions to
composers and scholarships to music students of various countries. Serge
Koussevitzky had plans for the expansion of the work of the Fund as an
institution through which all those interested in music-performers,
publishers, the music industries and patrons of music-could help the
composers, the creators of the art on which they all in various ways
depend, but after his death the Fund became inactive. It is now being
revived and is in the process of building an international organization to
carry on its activities. It already has the approval of many distinguished
composers, conductors and performers. I have agreed to act as President
of the organization and Sir Steuart [sic] Wilson will be the Vice-
President. The Executive Committee will include, in addition,
outstanding representatives of the world of music.
The International Music Fund would be greatly honored and
its cause would be immensely strengthened if you would consent to
be a member of the Committee of Honour [sic]. Membership in this
Committee would entail no obligation on your part, but your interest
and your moral support would immeasurably encourage those of us who
will be engaged in the active work of the Fund, and your name would be
to the musicians of the world and to the general public a symbol of the
noble purpose to which the organization is dedicated. We, therefore,
appeal to you to give your approval to a cause which is of such vital
importance to the welfare of composers everywhere and to accept
our invitation to become a member of the Committee of Honour [sic!].
We hope to have your consent as early as possible so that we may
announce the formation of this Committee.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Serge Koussevitzky2

14 June 1957, no place [New York]1
Heartfelt congratulations on your 75th birthday. Affectionate wishes

to you both for happiness and many returns of a great day.
Olga Koussevitzky
106. Stravinsky to Olga Koussevitzky

June [after 14 June], 1957, Hollywood1
With gratitude for your congratulations and with warmest regards,
Igor Stravinsky

19 July 1957, no place [New York]1
Dear Maestro:
According to the laws of the State of New York it is required that all
persons whose names appear on the letterhead of non-profit corporations
which solicit funds from the public must give their written permission to
use their names. Therefore, I am enclosing the form presented by the New
York law for that purpose and I shall be grateful if you will return it to me
at your earliest convenience.
It gives me pleasure to let you know that during the past year the
Fund has been instrumental in promoting the performance of contempo-
rary works.
In addition to sponsoring concerts at festivals in Edinburgh, Venice
and Paris, the Fund inaugurated "International Music Fund Week," dur-
ing which period more than forty orchestras in Europe, the United States
and Canada performed works of contemporary composers new to their
repertoire. The recognition given to the Fund by performing organizations
and the press was universally gratifying and encouraging.
The Fund is now engaged in expanding its program to fulfill its
aim of aiding composers by promoting the performance, recording and
broadcasting of their works.
It is heartening to know that we have your continued interest and
moral support and I shall report to you later in the year as our activity
progresses.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Serge Koussevitzky
108. Stravinsky to Olga Koussevitzky

13 November 1962, Hollywood1
Dear Mrs. Koussevitzky:
I am happy to give whatever support and encouragement I am

able to your new project. Composers are pariahs of the present
day musical society; and though performers are easily recognized,
measured and awarded, composers are seldom even discovered in
their lifetimes.
Therefore, the money award to the composer of an outstanding

new work, as well as the recording of that work, seems to me a valuable
commission.
Sincerely yours,
Igor Stravinsky
Conclusion
It seems that life put everything in its place. Outliving Koussevitzky by

twenty years, Stravinsky actively supported the musical organizations
founded by the conductor, in particular the International Music Fund. By
doing so, Stravinsky confirmed his devotion to the "central line" of
Koussevitzky's creative activities-providing comprehensive aid to
contemporary composers.
Appendix I: Works by Stravinsky Published by ERM
Title Year Year

comp
Two Poems1909 by 1912 K.

Ballet Petrushka
1910-11
Score 1912
Orchestral 1912
parts
Ballet The 1910-13 1913
Rite of S
Piano score for 4
Three 1912
Japanese Lyr
Score 1913
Piano score 1913
Three Little Songs (Recollections of my Childhood) 1906-13
Text in Russian 1914
Opera Le rossignol (The Nightingale) 1908-14 1914
Piano score
Ballet The Rite of Spring 1910-13
Score 1921
Pocket score 1921
Symphonic Poem Chant du rossignol (Song of the Nightingale)1917
Score 1921
Orchestral parts 1921
Appendix I: continued
Title Year Year
comp
Ballet Petrushka 1910-11
Piano score for 4 hands (arr. by composer) 1922
Three Excerpts from Petrushka for Piano (arr. by composer)
Suite from Petrushka for Piano (arr. by T. Zanto)
Three Pieces for String Quartet 1914
Score 1922
Parts 1922
Text in French 1922
Text in French and Russian 1922
Le rossignol 1908-14
Score 1923
Ballet Pulcinella 1919-20
Score 1923
Orchestral Suite from Pulcinella 1922
Score 1924
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments 1923-24
Arrangement for 2 pianos (by composer) 1924
Octet for Wind Instruments 1922-23
Score 1924
Opera Mavra 1921-22
Score 1925
Piano score 1925
Sonata (for piano) 1924 1925
Parts 1925
Chant du rossignol 1917
Piano score (arr. by composer) 1925
Mavra 1921-22
Excerpts (voice with piano and orchestra) 1925-26
Mavra 1921-22
Serenade (for piano) 1925 1926
Symphonies for Wind Instruments 1919-20
Piano score (by A. Lourie)
Title Year Year
comp
Suite No. 1. "Serenade" 1925
Score 1926
Piano score (by A. Lourie) 1926
Two excerpts for violin and piano 1926
Opera Oedipus Rex 1926-27
Piano score 1927
Two excerpts for voice and piano betw. 1924
and 1928
Ballet Apollon musagete 1927-28
Score 1928
Piano score 1928
Ballet Le baiser de la fee (The Fairy's Kiss) 1928
Score 1928
Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra 1928-29 1930
Arrangement for 2 pianos (by composer)
Four Etudes for Orchestra 1928-29 1930
Symphony of Psalms 1930
Piano score 1930
Le baiser de la fee 1928
Piano score 1930-31
Symphony of Psalms 1930
Score 1931
Le baiser de la fee 1928
Russian Dance from Petrushka for Violin and Piano 1932
Choral Work "Pater Noster" 1926 1932
Concert Duet for Violin and Piano 1931-32 1933
Choral Work "Credo" 1932 1933
Arrangement for voice and orchestra 1933
Two Pieces for Violin and Piano from Le rossignol 1932 1934
Italian Suite for Violin and Piano from Pulcinella (by composer 1932 1934
and S. Dushkin)
Italian Suite for Cello and Piano from Pulcinella (by composer 1932 1934
and G. Pyatigorsky)
Choral Work "Hail Mary" 1934 1934
Title Year Year
comp
Melodramatic Ballet Persephone 1933-34
Piano score 1934
Two Pieces for Violin and Piano from Chant du rossignol 1932 1934
Score 1936
Divertissem
Russian Song from Mavra for Violin and Piano 1937 1938
Petrushka (ed. 1947) 1947
Score 1947
"Song of the Flea" by L. van Beethoven. Instrumentation No date
given
Source: Translated and reprinted with permission of the Moscow Glinka Museum.
Appendix II: Compositions by Stravinsky Performed

by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (in Boston,
unless otherwise indicated) during Koussevitzky's
Tenure as Music Director
Season
1924-25
Dec. 26-27 Rite of Spring
Jan. 23-24 Song of the Volga Boatman, Suite from Petrushka, Con-
certo for Piano and Winds (first American performance,
soloist: Stravinsky), Firebird Suite
Nov. 4-5 Song of the Volga Boatman
Dec. 26-27 Rite of Spring
Jan. Rite of Spring (New York)
Feb. 9 Firebird Suite
1925-26
Oct. 30-31 Chant du rossignol
Apr. 2-3 Chant du rossignol
Apr. 6 Suite from Petrushka
Apr. 8 Suite from Petrushka (New York)
Apr. 30-May 1 Suite from Petrushka
1926-27
Nov. 2 Suite from Petrushka (Toronto)
Nov. 6 Suite from Petrushka (Pittsburgh)

Dec. 10-11 Firebird Suite
Dec. 31-Jan.1 Rite of Spring
Jan. 6 Rite of Spring (New York)
Jan. 8 Firebird Suite (New York)
Jan. 13 Pulcinella (Cambridge; conductor: Alfredo Casella)
Jan. 18 Firebird Suite (Providence)
Feb. 8 Firebird Suite (fragments)
Mar. 23-24 Firebird Suite
1927-28
Oct. 7-8 Suite from Petrushka
Oct. 13 Suite from Petrushka (Cambridge)
Oct. 19 Suite from Petrushka (Wellesley)
Oct. 31 Suite from Petrushka (Ithaca)
Nov. 1 Suite from Petrushka (Buffalo)
Nov. 2 Suite from Petrushka (Detroit)
Nov. 26 Suite from Petrushka (New York)
Dec. 12 Suite from Petrushka
Jan. 8 Suite from Petrushka (Springfield; conductor: Richard
Burgin)
Feb. 24-25 Oedipus Rex (first American performance), Firebird Suite
Mar. 8 Oedipus Rex
Mar 23-24 Firebird Suite
Apr. 11 Firebird Suite (Northampton)
Apr. 12 Firebird Suite (New York)
Apr. 17 Firebird Suite (Wellesley)
Apr. 19 Firebird Suite (Cambridge)
1928-29
Oct. 11 Apollo (Cambridge)
Oct. 12-13 Apollo
Nov. 2 Apollo (Pittsburgh)
Nov. 12 Apollo
Nov. 21 Apollo (Montclair)
Nov. 22 Apollo (New York)
Nov. 24 Suite from Petrushka (New York)
Dec. 18-19 Suite from Petrushka
1929-30
Oct. 18-19 Firebird Suite
Oct. 28 Suite from Petrushka (Buffalo)
Oct. 29 Suite from Petrushka (Chicago)

Nov. 1 Suite from Petrushka (Pittsburgh)
Nov. 2 Firebird Suite (Pittsburgh)
Nov. 7 Firebird Suite (Cambridge)
Nov. 11 Firebird Suite
Dec. 17 Firebird Suite (Providence)
Jan. 10 Suite from Petrushka (New York)
Apr. 17 Apollo (Cambridge)
Apr. 18-19 Apollo
Apr. 28 Apollo
1930-31
Dec. 19-20 Symphony of Psalms (first American performance),
Capriccio for Orchestra and Piano Solo (first American
performance; Jesus Maria Sanroma)
Dec. 28 Capriccio (Sanroma)
Jan. 8 Capriccio (New York; Sanroma)
Jan. 20 Capriccio (Providence; Sanroma)
Feb. 2 Capriccio (Richmond; Sanroma)
Feb. 5 Capriccio (Brooklyn; Sanroma)
Feb. 7 Capriccio (New York; Sanroma)
Feb. 16 Capriccio (Sanroma)
Feb. 19 Capriccio (Cambridge; Sanroma)
Feb. 20-21 Symphony of Psalms
Mar. 3 Capriccio (Northampton; Sanroma)
Mar. 5, 7 Symphony of Psalms (New York)
Apr. 21 Capriccio (Sanroma)
Apr. 24-25 Firebird Suite
Apr. 30 Firebird Suite (Cambridge)
1931-32
Jan. 1-2 Violin Concerto (first American performance; Dushkin);
Suite from Petrushka
Jan. 9 Suite from Petrushka (New York)
Mar. 10 Pulcinella (Cambridge)
Mar. 11-12 Pulcinella
Apr. 15-16 Symphony of Psalms
1932-33
Jan. 12 Suite from Petrushka (Cambridge; conductor: Burgin)
Jan. 13-14 Suite from Petrushka (conductor: Burgin)
Feb. 24-25 Rite of Spring
Feb. 28 Rite of Spring (Northampton)
Mar. 2 Rite of Spring (New York)

Mar. 13 Rite of Spring
1933-34
Oct. 20-21 Rite of Spring
Oct. 23 Rite of Spring (Chicago)
Oct. 24 Rite of Spring (Ann Arbor)
Jan. 26-27 Apollo
Jan. 30 Apollo (Washington)
Feb. 2 Apollo (New York)
Feb. 8 Apollo (Cambridge)
Feb. 27 Suite from Petrushka (New Haven)
Feb. 28 Suite from Petrushka (Brooklyn)
1934-35
Mar. 14 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento; Suite from Petrushka,
Firebird Suite (Cambridge, conductor: Stravinsky)
Mar. 15-16 Fireworks; Pers6phone (U.S. premiere); Suite from
Petrushka; Firebird Suite (conductor: Stravinsky)
1935-36
Oct. 29 Firebird Suite (Providence)
Nov. 12 Firebird Suite (Springfield)
Nov. 19 Firebird Suite (Hartford)
Nov. 20 Firebird Suite (New Haven)
Dec. 10 Firebird Suite (Ithaca)
Dec. 13 Firebird Suite (Pittsburgh)
Jan. 3-4 Rite of Spring
Jan. 7 Rite of Spring (Hartford)
Jan. 9 Rite of Spring (New York)
1936-37
Oct. 30-31 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento
Nov. 5 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Cambridge)
Nov. 17 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Hartford)
Nov. 20 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Brooklyn)
Dec. 8 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Buffalo)
Dec. 11 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Toledo)
Dec. 12 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Pittsburh)
Aug. 8 Firebird Suite (Tanglewood)
1937-38
Apr. 2 Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (New York)
1938-39
Feb. 24-25 Firebird Suite
Mar. 24-25 Rite of Spring
Apr. 1 Rite of Spring (New York)
Aug. 12 Rite of Spring (Tanglewood)
1939-40
Nov. 28 Suite from Petrushka; Jeu de cartes; Capriccio (Sanroma);
Firebird Suite (Providence; conductor: Stravinsky)
Dec. 1-2 Jeu de cartes; Capriccio (Sanroma), Suite from Petrushka;
Symphony of Psalms (conductor: Stravinsky)
Jan. 1-2 Capriccio (Sanroma)
Jan. 15 Capriccio (Brooklyn; Sanroma)
Mar. 28 Apollo; Oedipus Rex (Cambridge, conductor: Stravinsky)
Mar. 29-30 Apollo; Oedipus Rex (conductor: Stravinsky)
Aug. 4 Capriccio (Tanglewood; Sanroma)
1940-41
Dec. 9 Capriccio (Rochester; Sanroma)
Dec. 13 Capriccio (Cleveland, Sanroma)
Dec. 15 Capriccio (Pittsburgh; Sanroma)
Dec. 19 Capriccio (Cambridge; Sanroma)
Jan. 16 Symphony in C; Le baiser de la fee Divertimento
(Cambridge, conductor: Stravinsky)
Jan. 17-18 Suite; Symphony in C; Le baiser de la fee Divertimento
(conductor: Stravinsky)
Mar. 20 Suite from Petrushka (Cambridge; conductor: Burgin)
Mar. 21-22 Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein), Suite from Petrushka
(conductor: Burgin)
Aug. 4 Capriccio (Tanglewood; Sanroma)
1941-42
1942-43
Oct. 23-24 Suite from Petrushka
Nov. 24 Suite from Petrushka (Providence)
1943-44
Oct. 8-9 Ode (world premiere)
Oct. 14 Ode (Cambridge)
Oct. 19 Ode (Providence)
Nov. 16 Ode (Hartford; conductor: Burgin)
Nov. 18 Ode (New York)

Jan. 13 Pulcinella; Symphony in C; Jeu de cartes; Four Norwegian
Moods (world premiere); Circus Polka (Cambridge: con-
ductor: Stravinsky)
Jan. 14-15 Symphony in C; Pulcinella; Four Norwegian Moods; Cir-
cus Polka; Jeu de cartes (conductor: Stravinsky)
Mar. 23 Firebird Suite (Cambridge)
Mar. 24-25 Firebird Suite
1944-45
Feb. 13 Suite from Petrushka (New London)
Feb. 14 Suite from Petrushka (New York)
Feb. 15 Suite from Petrushka (Newark)
Feb. 20 Suite from Petrushka (Providence)
Feb. 26 Suite from Petrushka
Mar. 15 Suite from Petrushka (Philadelphia)
Mar. 16 Suite from Petrushka (Brooklyn)
1945-46
Jan. 8 Capriccio (New London: Sanroma)
Feb. 20 Fireworks; Firebird Suite (rev. version); Symphony in
Three Movements (Cambridge; conductor: Stravinsky)
Feb. 22-23 Scenes de ballet; Symphony in Three Movements; Suite
from Petrushka (third version); Firebird Suite (rev. ver-
sion) (conductor: Stravinsky)
1946-47
Nov. 22-23 Symphony in Three Movements (conductor: Burgin)
Dec. 17 Symphony in Three Movements (Cambridge; conductor:
Burgin)
Jan. 28 Rite of Spring (Providence; conductor: Bernstein)
Jan. 31-Feb. Rite of Spring (conductor: Bernstein)
Feb. 4 Rite of Spring (conductor: Bernstein)
Feb. 12 Rite of Spring (New York, conductor: Bernstein)
Mar. 7-8 Symphony of Psalms
Mar. 15 Symphony of Psalms (New York)
Jul. 27 Rite of Spring (Tanglewood; conductor: Bernstein)
Aug. 9 Symphony of Psalms (Tanglewood; conductor: Robert Shaw)
1947-48
Jan. 20 Petrushka (Hartford; entire score; conductor: Bernstein)
Jan. 22 Petrushka (Cambridge; entire score; conductor: Bernstein)
Jan. 23-25 Petrushka (entire score; conductor: Bernstein)
Jan. 27 Petrushka (entire score; conductor: Bernstein)

Feb. 3 Petrushka (Providence; entire score; conductor: Berstein)
Feb. 13-14 Symphony in Three Movements (conductor: Burgin)
Feb. 17 Symphony in Three Movements (New Haven;
conductor: Burgin)
Feb. 18 Symphony in Three Movements (New York; conductor:
Burgin)
Mar. 12-13 Oedipus Rex
Aug. 5 Apollo; Oedipus Rex (Tanglewood)
1948-49
Dec. 10-11 Firebird Suite (conductor: Bernstein)
Dec. 21 Firebird Suite (conductor: Bernstein)
Jan. 25, 28-29 Chant du rossignol (conductor: Ernest Ansermet)
Feb. 8 Concerto for String Orchestra; Ode; Capriccio (Sulima
Stravinsky); Le baiser de la fee Divertimento (Cambridge;
conductor: Stravinsky)
Feb. 11-12 Ode; Capriccio (Sulima Stravinsky); Concerto for String
Orchestra; Orpheus (conductor: Stravinsky)
Feb. 16 Concerto for String Orchestra, Concerto for Piano,
Winds, and Doble Basses (Sulima Stravinsky); Ode;
Orpheus (New York; conductor: Stravinsky)
Feb. 17 Capriccio (Sulima Stravinsky); Le baiser de la fee
Divertimento (Newark, conductor: Stravinsky)
Feb. 18 Concerto for String Orchestra; Capriccio (Sulima
Stravinsky); Ode; Orpheus (Brooklyn; conductor:
Stravinsky)
Feb. 19 Concerto for String Orchestra, Capriccio (Sulima
Stravinsky); Ode; Orpheus (New York; conductor:
Stravinsky)
Mar. 29 Firebird Suite (Providence; conductor: Bernstein)
Jul. 31 Rite of Spring; Scenes de ballet (Tanglewood; conductor:
Bernstein)
Notes
Introduction
1. The abbreviation KA-LC is used in further references to the Koussevitzky Archives at
the Library of Congress.
2. The firm was founded in 1909 by Koussevitzky and his wife Natalia to propagate Russian
music. It was first established in Berlin (because Germany offered copyright protection),
with offices in Moscow and Paris. Later, offices were also located in London, New York, and
Leipzig, and the main office relocated to Paris in 1920. In 1914 Koussevitzky bought the
firm of A. Gutheil, which became an autonomous branch of ERM. Its catalog contained
works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, as well as valuable unpublished manuscripts by
Glinka and Dargomiszhky, among others. ERM offered generous advances and profit
sharing, and did much to protect the rights of its composers. For example, because at the
time Russia was not yet a member of the International Copyright Convention, ERM pro-
vided opera and ballet scores to theaters on a contractual basis rather than selling the
scores to the public. But in the dealings between composers and ERM, business relations
ultimately proved much more important than any personal relationships. In 1948 the
ERM catalog was purchased by Boosey & Hawkes.
3. See Nicolas Slonimsky, Perfect Pitch: A Life Story (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988), 75.
4. Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1978), 281.
5. Quoted in I. Stravinskii: publitsist i sobesednik [I. Stravinsky, Publicist and Interlocu-

tor], ed. V. Varunts (Moscow: Sovietsky Compositor, 1978), 85. Originally published in
the Journal de Geneve, 15 Nov. 1928.
6. Robert Craft, ed., Igor Stravinsky: Selected Correspondence, vol. 2 (New York: Knopf,
1984), 49.
7. For material on the London premiere, see Victor Varunts, "I. F. Stravinsky-S. P.
Diaghilev: Perepiska [Correspondence]," Muzykal'naia akademiia 3-4 (1996): 189.
Koussevitzky never returned to the piece. Stravinsky, on the other hand, reworked the
score again and again: "Stravinsky was dissatisfied with his instrumentation and,
accordingly, the orchestral score was engraved by the Russischer Musik Verlag... but
never published. Moreover, the differences in the three versions of the proof score are so
numerous that to determine which changes represent the composer's last revision is
difficult" (Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 226-27). Ansermet
wrote to Stravinsky at the end of 1921, after the second London performance (under the
conductor Eugene Goossens), that "there was simply no tempo... it was worse than
Koussevitzky's. 'Twice faster,' I yelled during one of the episodes" (quoted in Robert
Craft, Stravinsky: Glimpses of a Life [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993], 374). After that
and two more performances by Stokowski (Philadelphia, Nov. 1923, and New York, Feb.
1924), Stravinsky prohibited further performances by anyone but Ansermet. He furthermore
refused to include the work in the program of the Festival of the International Society of
Modern Music in Prague. Ansermet, who had conducted the piece in several European
capitals, meanwhile bombarded Stravinsky with questions regarding mistakes in the score
and the instrumentation. The fate of the Symphonies remains unknown. "The story of
their publication remains a mystery," writes Craft. "[W]hy did Stravinsky, who was
usually eager to see his works published, never finish the proofs and did not resolve
discrepancies between different versions of the proofs, while at the same time allowing
the sale of the piano transcription with many significant errors?" (Craft, Glimpses, 375).
In 1947 Stravinsky returned to the score and published a new version with a "clearer and
more balanced instrumentation" (Craft, Glimpses, 227). Stravinsky wrote laconically into
the first version of the score: "Not to be performed" (Craft, Glimpses, 229). A year later he
refused Ansermet permission to perform the first version.
8. Souvchinsky to Maria Yudina, 14 Apr. 1960, Paris; quoted in Petr Suvchinskii i ego vre-
mia, ed. A. Bretanizkaya (Moscow: Kompositor, 1999), 334.
9. After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Gavriil Paitchadze explained, not
without irony, that "Stravinsky is alarmed... more than anything... that, according to
Schott, he is blacklisted in Germany as a Jew and a Bolshevik" (letter to Natalia and
Serge Koussevitzky, 12 Dec. 1933, Paris, KA-LC). Richard Taruskin, Craft, and others
later called this anti-Semitism "lifelong and undying," though one can argue with such a
statement. Stravinsky did not sign Otto Klemperer's 1933 petition on behalf of Jewish
musicians who had lost their jobs in Nazi Germany, and in 1939 he failed to respond to a
letter from Arnold Schoenberg and Leopold Godovsky asking his assistance in the cre-
ation of a conservatory in Palestine. Nor did he refuse to perform in the Third Reich or in
Mussolini's Italy. On the other hand, he sustained friendships with non-Aryans such as
Arthur Lourie and Samuel Dushkin over many years.
10. It is worthwhile to note that in the 1930s and 1940s, during Koussevitzky's tenure as
the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky performed more often with
the BSO than with any other American orchestra. After the conductor's retirement in
1949, Stravinsky was not invited back.
11. The appendix presents a list of Stravinsky's works from I. F. Stravinskii. Perepiska s
russkimi korrespondentami. Materialy k biografii [Correspondence with Russian addressees.
Biographical materials], vol. 1: 1882-1912, ed. Viktor Varunts (Moscow: Kompositor,
1998), 486-98.
12. Miaskovsky to Serge Prokofiev, 3 June 1913, Schmetske; quoted in S. S. Prokofiev i

N. Ia. Miaskovsky. Perepiska [Correspondence of S. S. Prokofiev and N. I. Miaskovsky],
comp. and ed. M. Kozlova and N. Yatsenko, commentary by A. Kiselyov (Moscow:
Sovietsky Compositor, 1977), 106.
13. Struve to Stravinsky, 2 or 3 Feb. (N. S.) 1913, Berlin; quoted in I. F. Stravinskii.
Perepiska s russkimi korrespondentami. Materialy k biografii [Correspondence with Russian
addressees. Biographical material], vol. 2: 1913-1922, ed. Victor Varunts (Moscow:
Kompositor, 2000), 18.
14. Struve to Stravinsky, 28 Sept.-11. Oct. 1913, Berlin; quoted in Varunts, 2:152.
15. Anonymous, "Kontserty Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's concerts], Vecheree Vremia,

24 Jan. 1913.
16. Aleksandr Koptiaev, "Simfonicheskii kontsert Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's sym-

phonic concert], Birzhevye Vedomosti, evening issue, 24 Jan. 1913.
17. Koptiaev, 24Jan. 1913.

18. Viktor Kolomiitzov, "Kontserty Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's concerts], Den', 25
Jan. 1913.
19. Nikolas Bernstein, "Zal dvorianskogo sobraniia" [The hall of nobility], Sankt-
Peterburgskie vedomosti, 25 Jan. 1913.
20. Andrei Rimsky-Korsakov, "Sed'moi kontsert Kusevitskogo" [The seventh concert of

Koussevitzky], Russkaia Molva, 25 Jan. 1913.
21. Anonymous, "Kontserty v Peterburge" [Concerts in St. Petersburg], Russkaia

Musykalnaia Gazeta 5 (1913), col. 137.
22. Leonid Sabaneev, "Kontserty Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's concert], Golos Moskvy,

1 Feb. 1913.
23. Miaskovsky to Prokofiev, 26 Jan. 1913, St. Petersburg; quoted in S. S. Prokofiev i N.

Ia. Miaskovsky. Perepiska [Correspondence], 104.
24. Viacheslav Karatygin, "Sed'moi konsert Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's Seventh

Concert], Rech', 24 Jan. 1913.
25. Koussevitzky to Stravinsky, 6 [19] Feb. 1914, Moscow; quoted in Varunts, 2:216.
26. Benois to Stravinsky, 14 [27] Feb. 1914, St. Petersburg; quoted in Varunts, 2:231.
27. Nikolai Miaskovsky, "On Rite of Spring by I. Stravinsky," Muzyka 167 (Feb. 1914),
108.
28. Karatygin, "Sed' moi abonementnyi koncert Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's seventh

subscription concert], Rech', 14 Feb. 1914.
29. Cui to Maria Kerzina, 16 Feb. 1914, St. Petersburg; quoted in Cesar Cui, Izbrannye
pis'ma [Selected letters], ed. I. Gussin (Leningrad: Musyka, 1955), 446.
30. Leonid Sabaneev, "Kontserty Kusevitskogo" [Koussevitzky's concerts], Golos

Moskvy, 6 Feb. 1914.
31. Nikolas Bernstein, "Kontsert S. Kusevitskogo" [S. Koussevitzky's concert], Peterburg-

skaia Gazeta, 13 Feb. 1914.
32. Vitol, "Das siebente Koussewitzky Konzert," St. Petersburger Zeitung, 15 Feb. 1914.
33. Gregory Prokofiev, "Opera i kontserty v Moskve" [Opera and concerts in Moscow],
Russkaia Musykalnaia Gazeta 7-8 (1914), col. 209.
34. Viktor Valter, "Kontserty v S.-Peterburge" [Concerts in St. Petersburg], Russkaia

Musykalnaia Gazeta 9 (1914), col. 239.
35. Karatygin, "Vesna sviashchennaia"' [The Rite of Spring], Rech', 16 Feb. 1914.
36. Misanthrope [Miaskovsky], "Peterburgskie Pis'ma. XV (1)," Musyka 171 (1 Mar.

1914), 195.
37. Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936), 80.
38. Struve to Stravinsky, 14/27 Aug. 1915, Moscow; quoted in Varunts, 2:337.
39. Stravinsky to Struve, 6 Apr. 1919; quoted in Varunts, 2:438.
40. Struve to Stravinsky, 8 June 1919, New York; quoted in Varunts, 2:452.
41. Struve to Stravinsky, 18 Oct. 1919, New York; quoted in Varunts, 2:463-64.
42. Arthur Lourie, "Muzyka Stravinskogo" [Stravinsky's music], Vyorsty 1 (1926): 126
and 134. Stravinsky's art, regardless of whether the composer consciously acknowledged
this or not, became the musical analogy of Eurasianism, and in turn was the grounds for
Stravinsky's rapprochement with the prominent proponent of Eurasianism, Pierre
Souvchinsky.
43. Oeberg to Koussevitzky, 22 Aug. 1922, Brussels, KA-LC.
Letter 1
1. Inscription on a photograph of Stravinsky in his handwriting, in Russian.
2. The autographed photo could suggest a reconciliation between the two musicians
in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 1921 London premiere of the Symphonies of Wind
Instruments, but this impression is deceiving. And if he did not follow Serge Diaghilev's
advice to "be aware of the offices of these musical zhids" (letter to Stravinsky, undated
[25 or 26 June], London; quoted in Victor Varunts, I. F. Stravinsky-S. P. Diaghilev:
Perepiska [Correspondence], 189), he was seemingly guided by his unwillingness to break
the valuable contact with Koussevitzky, both as a conductor and as a publisher. More-
over, in early 1923 Stravinsky discussed with Souvchinsky "the possibility of concerts
'outside' of Diaghilev. I implore you to keep this idea from him" (letter to Souvchinsky,
1 Jan. 1923; quoted in Svetlana Savenko, "'Chudo Stravinskogo' dlitsia mnogie
desiatiletiia..." ["Stravinsky's miracle" continues for many decades... ], from the
correspondence between P. P. Souvchinsky and I. F. Stravinsky in Petr Suvchinskii i ego
vremia [Pierre Souvchinsky and his time], 260).
Letter 2
1. Russian inscription on Stravinsky's visiting card.
Letter 3
1. Stravinsky's first wife, Ekaterina Gavrilovna Nosenko (1881-1939), was his cousin
and the mother of his four children: Feydor (1907-1989), Lyudmila (1908-1938),
Sviatoslav [Soulima] (1910-1994), and Milena (b. 1914). "She was a person of heartfelt
magnanimity, capable of complete self-sacrifice," wrote Feydor of his mother (Feydor
Stravinsky, Igor and Ekaterina Stravinskie, moi otets i mat', v centre moikh vospominanii o
detstve [Igor and Ekaterina Stravinsky, my father and mother, central to my childhood
memories], in I. F. Stravinskii, Stat'ii vospominaniia, ed. G. Alfeevskaia and I. Vershinina
[Moscow: Sovietskii Kompositor, 1985], 314).
2. Handwritten rough draft, in Russian.
3. Stravinsky sent the score and parts for the 22 May Paris performance. Also on the
program were the Piano Concerto (premiered here with the composer as soloist), excerpts
from Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring.
4. Vladimir Nikolaievich Zederbaum was a friend of Koussevitzky's and, from 1921-24,

his secretary. A physician by education, he was also an expert in art. From 1913 on, he
was also a music critic for the St. Petersburg newspapers Rech' and Sovremennoe Slovo and
for the magazine Obozrenie Teatrov. He frequently wrote about Shaliapin and responded
enthusiastically to Koussevitzky's concerts. In 1932 Pavel Miliukov, the editor-in-chief of
the leading Russian newspaper in Paris, Poslednie Novosti, and Alexander Konovalov, a
member of the newspaper's editorial board, invited him to edit the paper's music section.
Zederbaum was also the artistic director of "Koussevitzky's Concerts" and planned to
write a book about the conductor. In the fall of 1924 he accompanied Koussevitzky to
America, but shortly thereafter he returned to Paris, where he was manager of the film
studio Albatross (Jacques Feyder, Rene Clair, and Ivan Mozzhukhin all made films there)
until the German occupation. As professor of the cinematography department of the
Paris Universal School (Ecole Universelle), he authored the first French technical guide
for the production of movies. He wrote screenplays, including a script based on Maxim
Gorky's play At the Bottom (film produced by Jean Renoir). A Jew by birth, he was
arrested with his wife in 1941 and deported to Germany, where they both perished.
5. In April 1924 Koussevitzky conducted in Lodz and in Warsaw, where he was warmly
welcomed by Grzegorz Fitelberg, who was the conductor of the philharmonic orchestra, a
composer, and a close collaborator of Szymanowski's. He and Koussevitzky had worked
together at the Bolshoi in Moscow in the years immediately after the Revolution. Dimitri
Filosofov, a famous Russian literary figure and one of the leading critics of the journal Mir
Iskusstva, who lived in Warsaw at that time, reviewed the concert. Though he confessed
that "I know little or nothing of music," he wrote that "Serge Koussevitzky accomplishes
great things with his persuasive and able promotion of Russian music. His name will cer-
tainly become part of the history of Russian music." He added, "Maybe there is something
providential in this diaspora of authentic Russian culture throughout the world." ("Privet
Sergeiu Koussevitskomu," Za Svobodu!, 25 Apr. 1924).
6. J. & W. Chester, Ltd., was founded in London in 1915 by Otto Marius Kling
(1866-1924), the director of the London branch of Breitkopf & Hartel. His son Harry
Kling (?-1936) inherited the firm. Stravinsky was in contact with both father and son.
In the early 1920s Chester acquired, as Jurgenson's English representative, several of
Stravinsky's works from the World War I period and immediately thereafter, including
the Piano Concerto and Les noces. Among the contemporary composers on its roster were
Manuel de Falla, Francesco Malipiero, Alfredo Casella, Arold Bax, and Granville Bantock.
7. Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano with Wind Instruments, Double Basses, and
Timpani. Aware of the composer's penchant for complex creative tasks, Koussevitzky
suggested in the winter of 1923, after the premiere of the Octet, that Stravinsky com-
pose a piano concerto and premiere it as soloist. The suggestion was intended to bring
a prolonged conflict with Stravinsky to a peaceful end, and Stravinsky, who had over-
come his anxieties about his piano-playing abilities, accepted the offer. Koussevitzky's
appointment as principal conductor of the BSO-and with it the prospect of an
American tour-provided additional incentive. Stravinsky worked on the Concerto,
which he had dedicated to "Mme. Natalia Koussevitzky," from mid-1923 to April
1924. It was first performed on 15 May 1924, at the home of the patroness Princess
Edmound de Polignac (1865-1945) in Paris. The public premiere took place at the
Grand Opera on 22 May 1924 on the Koussevitzky's Concerts series with Koussevitzky
conducting. Suffering from extreme stage fright, Stravinsky forgot the beginning
of the Concerto's slow movement, and the conductor had to supply him the first
few notes of the Largo. Stravinsky mentions this "memory slip" in his memoirs
(see Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 179). The Concerto was performed again a
week later at the Grand Opera.
Stravinsky would later tell Craft, "When I played my piano concerto with Wilhelm
Furtwangler in Leipzig and Berlin, he conducted poorly, even worse than Koussevitzky at
the premiere" (Stravinsky, "On Conductors and Conducting," in Igor Stravinsky and
Craft, Themes and Episodes [New York: Knopf, 1966], 149). On 23 January 1925 Stravinsky
performed his Concerto with the BSO, again under Koussevitzky's direction. Koussevitzky
complained more than once that ERM was delaying publication of the Concerto's
orchestral parts. "I hope that Stravinsky's Concerto will not gather dust before we are able
to perform it again. Please send me the materials as soon as they are ready; we intend to
perform it with Sanroma as the soloist," he wrote to Paitchadze, referring to the pianist
Jesus-Maria Sanroma (letter dated 20 Jan. 1930, Boston, KA-LC). Three years earlier,
Paitchadze had asked Stravinsky, apparently at Koussevitzky's request, what he thought
of having other pianists perform the work. "Evidently this must be decided, for the
piece risks being forgotten if it is not played," Stravinsky responded. "Yet the Concerto
also risks being compromised if incompetent or romantic hands begin to 'interpret' it
for undiscriminating audiences. Try, above all, to place it in the hands of honest
pianists such as Borovsky, Orlov, [M-me. V. Y.] Marcelle Meyer" (letter dated
14 Aug. 1927, quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and
Documents, 629).
Letter 4
1. Telegram, in French.
2. Koussevitzky received the orchestral parts shortly before his departure for America,
where he opened his first season as music director of the BSO on 10 Oct. 1924. He con-
ducted The Rite of Spring on 26-27 December 1924. Firebird Suite was included that sea-
son in two programs; the first one, on 23-24 January 1925, consisted entirely of works by
Stravinsky: Petrushka, the Firebird, and the American premiere of the Piano Concerto, with
the composer as soloist. Koussevitzky conducted The Rite of Spring on 26-27 December
1924; Firebird was performed for the second time that season on 9 February 1925.
Letter 5
1. Handwritten, in Russian.
2. Collaboration between Stravinsky and Koussevitzky increased after the latter's move
to the United States. Stravinsky's first American tour took place in 1925, and Koussev-
itzky greeted his performances in New York with a telegram. In an interview with Musical
America, Stravinsky, without naming Koussevitzky, cited the premiere of the Symphonies
of Wind Instruments as an example of an interpretation that distorted the composer's
intent: "I think it was the conductor's fault. He distorted the work with an exaggerated
conducting style incompatible with the music" (Musical America, 10 Jan. 1925, quoted
from I. Stravinskii-publitsist i sobesednik, 56).
3. Stravinsky conducted the New York Philharmonic on 8, 9, and 10 January. The pro-
gram included Scherzo fantastique, Fireworks, the Firebird Suite, "The Volga Boatmen's
Song," Le chant du rossignol, and the Pulcinella Suite. Stravinsky canceled The Rite of
Spring, which had been announced in the program. On 15 January, he also participated as
a pianist in a chamber concert of his works. In February he performed his Piano Concerto
with Willem Mengelberg. These performances (on 5 and 6 February) were not the
composer's first as pianist in the United States (see interview in Musical Courier, 15 Jan.
1925, quoted in I. Stravinskii-publitsist i sobesednik, 59); he had already performed the
Concerto in Boston under Koussevitzky's baton.
4. The orchestral parts of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, which were
still the handwritten parts used at the Paris premiere. In contract negotiations for con-
certs in the United States, mediated by ERM, Stravinsky had insisted that the Piano
Concerto be included in the Boston programs. "I have received the pleasant news that an
[American] premiere of Stravinsky's Concerto took place with you conducting, in Boston
and not in New York," Oeberg wrote to Koussevitzky. "I was told also that Stravinsky was
very pleased with your accompaniment. He used to say earlier that other conductors do it
better. I, on my part, know that this is related not to the conductors but to Stravinsky's
greater familiarity with his Concerto and his improved playing.... He was very pleased
with your reception. I am very happy about it all because Stravinsky is bread and butter
for the publishing house and a friendly relationship with him makes my work much eas-
ier" (letter dated 4 Feb. 1925, Paris, KA-LC).
Letter 6
Letter 7
1. Typewritten copy, in Russian.
2. Koussevitzky was in Paris to conduct his concert series. Stravinsky took part in the
13 June concert at the Grand Opera; the program, entitled "Stravinsky Festival,"
included Petrushka, the Piano Concerto (with the composer as soloist), Ragtime
(premiere; with the composer as conductor), and The Rite of Spring.
3. The world premiere, staged by Bronislava Nijinska (1890[1891]-1972), took place in

Paris on 13 June 1923. Her choreography did not blindly follow the music: "I understood
that choreography has its own 'voice,' appearing almost as an independent score within
the whole of the production" (Bronislava Nijinska, "Creation of Les noces," Dance, Dec.
1974, 61).
4. Harry Kling.
5. Koussevitzky was there to conduct three concerts (11 and 25 May and 9 June).
6. The American harpist, editor, and composer Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961). World-
renowned as a soloist, he was the author of Moder Study of the Harp (1921) and Method
for the Harp (1929, in collaboration with L. Lawrence) and the editor of the Eolian
Review, a magazine devoted to harp playing. Together with Edgar Varese, he founded the
International Composers' Guild in New York (1921) and the Pan-American Association
of Composers (1928); he was also one of the founders of the American branch of the
International Society for Contemporary Music (1923).
7. The line is crossed out.
8. Stravinsky received the letter while in Nice and immediately wrote to Kling and
Oeberg (see letters nos. 8 and 9).
Letter 8
1. Typewritten copy, in French. Addressees are not indicated, but the contents suggest
that the letter was meant for Harry Kling at Chester, London. Stravinsky mentions a let-
ter to Kling in his note to Oeberg (see letter no. 9).
2. See letters nos. 7 and 9.
Letter 9
1. Before the Revolution, Erest Aleksandrovich Oeberg (18??-1925) had owned the
Moscow music store E. Oeberg and Co.
2. Typewritten, in French.
3. In the original French: "... collegues du Technical Board." Apparently refers to the
Board of Trustees of the BSO.
Letter 10
2. Oeberg fell sick during a breakfast with Stravinsky at a Paris restaurant. His condition
quickly worsened, and a doctor called to the scene was not able to help. Two days later,
during surgery, doctors discovered that he had a suppurative inflammation of the appen-
dix. He died the same day from heart failure. "I have just spent ten days in Paris," wrote
Stravinsky to Ansermet, "very unhappy ones due to the death of Oeberg, of whom, as you
know, I was very fond" (20 Dec. 1925, written while traveling from Paris to Nice; quoted
in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 261).
3. In the first decade of ERM's history, "involvement" in its business affairs was under-
stood somewhat differently by its composers. Rachmaninov, Scriabin, and Medtner
perceived it as a vehicle to assist in the search and publication of new works of talented
Russian composers. Stravinsky, on the other hand, limited his participation to the
meticulous control of the publication of his own works.
4. A member of ERM's administrative board in Paris, Nikolai Vasilievich Teslenko

(1870-1943) was a well-known lawyer, orator, member of the Constitutional Democratic
Party, and deputy of the second and third Duma in pre-revolutionary Moscow. As an
emigre, he was a publicist, a social activist, and, from 1933, the president of the Commit-
tee of Assistance to Russian Writers and Scientists in France.
5. Gavriil (Gabriel) Grigorievich Paitchadze (1883-1976), future director of ERM.

Many sources incorrectly cite 1881 as his year of birth. For more about him, see the
commentaries to letter no. 11.
Letter 11
2. The Koussevitzkys corresponded with Oeberg regularly. Their last meetings took place
in July 1925 during the Koussevitzkys' stay in Germany. After several meetings in ERM's
office in Berlin, they visited Breitkopf's printing house in Leipzig, where ERM's scores were
being printed. Oeberg's last letter, addressed to Natalia, was as always filled with detailed
information about the firm's circumstances and news of musical life in Paris. He wrote, in
particular, that "Stravinsky's concerts met with extraordinary success and no disapproval
whatsoever. The performance of the Suite for Piano and Violin and PulcineUa drew a
standing ovation in Frankfurt, just as it did in Berlin. Les noces was very successful with the
audience, while Mavra was cherished by the musicians. He performed the Serenade for
Piano for the first time. The public really loved this piece" (3 Dec. 1925, Paris, KA-LC).
3. A highly educated person with experience in the publishing business and a deep
understanding of and feeling for music, Gavriil Paitchadze joined ERM in the fall of 1925
and took over all correspondence with composers. He kept in close contact with almost
all leading musicians of the twentieth century and was ERM's director for two decades.
He also became Koussevitzky's advisor and representative in Paris, assisting him with his
role as publisher as well as conductor. Endowed with great diplomatic skills, he was able
to smooth over the most difficult situations with personalities such as Rachmaninov,
Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Grechaninov. His letters to the Koussevitzkys not only chron-
icle the most important European musical events from the 1920s through the 1940s, but
also evaluate Stalin's position before World War II, the state of postwar France, and the
tactics of the Soviets on the threshold of the Cold War. "After millions of Russian
soldiers saw the West and witnessed there a way of life they could not have imagined
before, the government in Moscow seemed to grow afraid of the contact and began to
guard against it," he wrote to Koussevitzky (24 Dec. 1945, Paris, KA-LC).
4. Her prediction turned out to be incorrect. Stravinsky and Prokofiev remained ERM's
main focus in the later 1920s and early 1930s. However, by the mid-1930s ERM had lost
both composers: Prokofiev had returned to the USSR for good, and Stravinsky had aban-
doned the publishing house (see discussion below).
5. "A noble and businesslike man, Gavriil Grigorievich is an irreplaceable assistant to

me," wrote Oeberg (letter to Koussevitzky, 10 Oct. 1925, Paris, KA-LC). At the end of
the same month he wrote, "Gavriil Grigorievich is a wonderful assistant and renders the
publishing house great services. I urge you to pay closer attention to this man. He has all
the necessary qualities someday to become my successor" (letter to Koussevitzky, 22 Oct.
1925, Paris, KA-LC).
6. Here the letter is cut off.
Insert
1. The premiere took place in Sarah Bernhardt's theater, under the aegis of Diaghilev
and with Stravinsky conducting. It was a concert performance of Oedipus.
2. Letter to Paitchadze, 10 Apr. 1928, Boston, KA-LC.
3. Otto Klemperer (1885-1973), a protege of Gustav Mahler, was a great supporter of

twentieth-century music. Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and Mavra were part of his massive
repertoire.
4. Franz Schalk (1863-1931), the Austrian conductor and pupil of Anton Bruckner,
was director of the Vienna State Opera at the time.
5. 26 Feb. 1928, Boston, KA-LC.
6. Letter to Paitchadze, 5 Mar. 1928, Boston, KA-LC.
7. Letter to John Duke, 26 May 1928, Paris-Brussels; quoted in The Correspondence of Roger
Sessions, ed. Andrea Olmstead (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), 115-16.
8. See Sessions's letter to Koussevitzky, 18 Oct. 1929, Rome; quoted in Correspondence

of Roger Sessions, 149.
Letter 12
1. Postcard depicting the lake of Annecy; handwritten, in Russian.
2. Neither Stravinsky's letter to Koussevitzky nor Koussevitzky's reply is preserved in the

Archives.
3. Stravinsky apparently is replying to Koussevitzky's invitation to visit him at the Villa

Warens in Combloux, where he spent the summer of 1928. The Prokofievs were also
vacationing in Haute Savoie that summer, and Koussevitzky arranged to go on a several-
day mountain hike with Prokofiev and Paitchadze. On 20 July Prokofiev added a note to a
letter from his wife Lina to Natalia Koussevitzky: "Ptashka's ['Little bird'-Prokofiev's pet
name for his wife] husband kisses your hands and asks the master when we need to be
ready for our icy hike" ( KA-LC). The hike began on August 10.
4. Stravinsky visited them in mid-August 1928 (see letter no. 12). The Archives contain a
much-reproduced photograph of Koussevitzky, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky in Combloux.
Letter 13
1. Typewritten, in French.
2. Several illegible words in French, added in Stravinsky's handwriting, appear after

the signature.
3. Stravinsky wrote the last three phrases in Russian into the margins.
Letter 14
1. Typewritten, in Russian.
2. Apollon Musagete was commissioned by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

"He is now finishing his new ballet Apollon Musagete, or ruler of the muses," reported
Paitchadze in late 1927. "The ballet is quite convenient as publication goes since the
orchestra consists exclusively of string instruments. Printing of the material will be very
easy" (letter to Koussevitzky, 8 Dec.1927, Paris, KA-LC). In February 1928 he
announced, "Stravinsky's new ballet is ready" (letter to Koussevitzky, 21 Feb. 1928,
Leipzig, KA-LC). During his stay in Berlin in February 1928, Stravinsky acquainted Otto
Klemperer and Paitchadze with the score. "[T]he music is as clear as glass and very melo-
dious. Klemperer would not let me leave Berlin until I had promised him the German
rights to both the staged and concert premieres of the ballet" (Paitchadze to Koussevitzky,
1 Mar. 1928, Paris, KA-LC).
In June 1928 ERM published the piano reduction as well as the orchestral score
and parts. Paitchadze also signed a profitable contract with the Russian dancer and
choreographer Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960), covering the staging of the ballet in
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Holland. "I am very pleased with Apollon Oedipovich,"
joked Paitchadze, adding, "If her company still exists next season, she [Rubinstein] will
have to sign a new contract with us for Apollo and The Kiss of the Fairy. God grant
her success in her endeavors and a long life" (letter to Natalia Koussevitzky, 10 Oct. 1928,
Paris, KA-LC).
On 12 June 1928 Koussevitzky attended the stage premiere of Apollo at the Sarah
Bemhardt Theater in Paris. Diaghilev had invited George Ballanchine (1904-1983) to
choreograph the ballet; Stravinsky himself conducted, and Serge Lifar (1905-1986) was
the principal dancer. The Parisians were as surprised by the unusually simple and trans-
parent nature of the music as they had been by some of Stravinsky's boldest innovations.
Koussevitzky would become one of the most ardent admirers of the score; upon his return
to the United States, he conducted the ballet in Cambridge (11 October), Boston
(12 and 13 October), and later in New York.
3. Emil Vuillermoz (1878-1960), the French music critic and pupil of Gabriel Faure,
was co-founder and editor of Societe musicale independante. In the 1920s and 1930s, his
reviews were published in nearly every French newspaper and magazine. "Vuillermoz...
knows how to read scores but he does not understand music and is completely without
any feeling for it; he only sees it. Quite the example of a dry scholastic," wrote Koussev-
itzky (letter to Philip Hale, 9 Oct. 1928, Boston, KA-LC).
4. The American music critic William James Henderson (1855-1937) wrote for the
New York Times (1887-1902), the New York Sun (1902-20, 1924-37), and the New York
Herald Tribune (1920-24).
5. Henry Taylor Parker, pen name H.T.P. (1867-1934), was one of the leading
Boston music critics and wrote for the Boston Transcript. Koussevitzky valued his
opinions highly, emphasizing his "phenomenal aesthetic instincts" (Carol Edwards,
"About Critics: An Interview with Dr. Serge Koussevitzky," Boston Sunday Advertiser,
4 Nov. 1934).
6. In 1928 Herbert C. Hoover (1874-1944) was elected the thirty-first president of the
United States. Near in age to Koussevitzky, Hoover was closely involved with Russian
affairs, and as Secretary of Commerce (1921-28), he had initiated a food-aid program for
Russia (1921-22). When asked by Musical America whom he would like to see as presi-
dent, Koussevitzky answered, "Mr. Hoover... like all Russians, I feel great sympathy for
him and am deeply grateful to him" (letter to Deems Taylor, Musical America, 28 Sept.
1928, Boston, KA-LC). After the election Koussevitzky sent President Hoover a congrat-
ulatory telegram: "As a Russian I am particularly happy because the name Herbert
Hoover will forever live in the hearts of the Russian people as the savior of millions of
lives" (10 Nov. 1928, Boston, KA-LC). Koussevitzky's assessment of Hoover dates to
before Hoover's visit to Germany in 1938 to meet Hitler and other similar moves in inter-
national politics.
7. Sviatoslav (Soulima) performed frequently with his father (e.g., the Capriccio, with
his father conducting), and Stravinsky wrote a concerto for two pianos especially for such
occasions. He premiered the piece with his son on 21 November 1935 in Paris at the Salle
Gaveau.
Letter 15
1. Typewritten, in English. Dated according to the mailing of the note by Koussevitzky's
secretary to RCA Victor Record (Victor Talking Machine, Camden, New Jersey) for
annotation of the BSO recording. Koussevitzky recorded the piece at Symphony Hall on
13 and 14 November 1928. An excerpt from Apollon Musagete ("Apollo and Terpsichore")
was recorded on 14 November as well. Koussevitzky recorded two other Stravinsky works
with the BSO: "The Song of the Volga Boatman," on 3 December 1938, and Capriccio
for Piano with Orchestra, with Jesus-Maria Sanroma as soloist, on 19 March 1940. On
9 October 1943 a recording was made from the BSO concert broadcast of Stravinsky's
Ode. (See Edward D. Young, "Serge Koussevitzky: A Complete Discography, Part I,"
ARSC [Association for Recorded Sound Collections] [spring 1990], 76-77.)
2. Koussevitzky remembered the atmosphere of Russian fairs from his childhood travels
with his father's klezmer ensemble in the northern provinces. Years later a letter from
composer Foma Hartman would remind him of his youth. Bor and raised in the Ukraine,
Hartman vividly remembered the traditions of similar Jewish klezmer ensembles: "The
number of musicians in the orchestra varied depending on the number of carriages-one or
two-on which they came. Besides the driver, a carriage could accommodate five people.
The orchestra of 'one driver' therefore was firmly established: bass-trumpet, viola, violin,
flute, and piccolo. With two drivers, the setup of the orchestra became luxurious: added
were clarinet, trombone, Turkish drum, and more violins, who also brought more brass
instruments. Sheet music was unnecessary; all played from memory with an exceptionally
lively rhythm which later changed toward pitiful, sad motives" (undated, Paris, KA-LC).
Letter 16
1. Typewritten postcard, in Russian.
2. The premiere of Apollon Musagete took place on 27 April 1928 as part of a festival
of chamber music at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The staging of the
ballet in concert form was executed by Russian choreographer Adolph (Emil) Bolm
(1884-1951), with the participation of Russian painter Nicolai Remizov (pen-name
Re-Mi, 1887-1975) and the Philadelphia Symphony under the baton of the American
conductor Hans Kindler (1892-1949). Though Bolm and Remizov had experience
with Stravinsky's music (they both had participated in the 1919 production of
Petrushka at the Metropolitan Opera, and Bolm would stage The Firebird with the
American Ballet Theater in 1945), the composer would repeatedly express his
dissatisfaction with the Washington premiere.
3. The Fairy's Kiss was composed between April and October of 1928 on a commission
from Ida Rubinstein, with Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale "The Snow Queen" as the
literary source. In the spring Paitchadze had written from Paris that "Ida Rubinstein is
working on a big dance project to which she has assigned a large sum of money. She asked
Stravinsky to write a ballet for her and he has agreed. He plans to write a large ballet
suite, about 40 minutes in length; the music will consist of piano and vocal works of
Tchaikovsky, connected by Stravinsky into a suite and orchestrated for a full orchestra."
Always keeping ERM's interests in mind, he added, "The fee will be paid by Rubinstein,
not us. In return we will give her exclusive production rights for one year. The concert
performances will not be bound by contract" (letter to Natalia Koussevitzky, 1 Mar. 1928,
Paris, KA-LC). In the fall of the same year, Paitchadze complained that "Stravinsky's new
ballet, which will be called The Fairy's Kiss, gives me great problems. He works very
slowly for some reason and so far has only submitted the orchestral score for the first act.
He has not even given us a piano score for the piece. The ballet is already included in the
program for the end of November and I am concerned that if he continues writing so
slowly, I will not have time to prepare the material in time. Which of course means that I
will be to blame for everything" (letter to Natalia Koussevitzky, 10 Oct. 1928, Paris,
KA-LC). The premiere nevertheless took place on schedule, and in December ERM
published the piano reduction.
4. The premiere on 27 November 1928 at the Paris Grand Opera, with choreography by
Bronislava Nijzhinskaya and designs by Alexander Benois, was conducted by
Stravinsky.
5. Paitchadze thought differently: "The ballets of I. Rubinstein were the main events of
the season. Her performances were truly first rate and the richness of production and large
corps de ballet reminded me of the grand Russian ballets of old times. It was a great success
with the public; the place was sold out for all four performances. It was perhaps not a per-
sonal success [for Rubinstein] since, between you and me, she dances rather poorly, but
the performances overall were indisputably successful. In musical circles the response to
Fairy was restrained but the public responded well" (letter to Koussevitzky, 20 Dec. 1928,
Paris, KA-LC).
6. The French conductor Walter Straram (1876-1933) frequently performed

contemporary music on his Paris concerts, including works by Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
Stravinsky's use of parentheses in writing the conductor's name reveals his ironic
attitude: S[tra]ram is a Russian play on words; "sram" means "shame."
Letter 17
1. Judge Frederick P. Cabot (1868-1932) was the first president of the BSO board of trust-
ees. Koussevitzky highly valued Cabot, who respected the idea of the conductor's autocracy
as implemented by the founder of the orchestra, Henry Lee Higginson (1834-1919). In his
invitation to the first principal conductor, Georg Henschel (1850-1934), Higginson had
emphasized that the orchestra "will not have any Committee, but a conductor will have full
authority in making all the decisions regarding the programs, the number of rehearsals, in
short, everything" (Georg Henschel, Musings and Memories of a Musician [New York: Da
Capo Press, 1979], 258). Cabot's death was a great loss for Koussevitzky and the orchestra,
and two concerts, on 12 and 13 February 1932, were dedicated to his memory.
2. The original letter was written in French; published from the typed copy of the
English translation in the KA-LC.
3. In 1930 the BSO was approaching its fiftieth anniversary. Though Boston had suf-
fered from the Depression and crisis of 1929 much like the rest of the United States, the
orchestra's trustees succeeded in raising funds for the celebration. Koussevitzky organized
a Bach Festival dedicated to the orchestra's founder, Higginson, and on his initiative, ten
major European and American composers were commissioned to compose works for the
occasion. "Our trustees decided to commission music from Stravinsky and Ravel but gave
less money than expected," wrote Koussevitzky to Paitchadze. "Please talk to Stravinsky
and Ravel: it should be a symphony or a symphonic poem. As regards Stravinsky, I have
already touched base with him last summer as you know" (21 Feb. 1929, Boston, KA-LC).
The Symphony of Psalms, sent to Boston in early January 1931, was the first "anniversary"
score received by the orchestra. Among other works commissioned were Hindemith's
Concert Music for Strings and Brass, Albert Roussel's Third Symphony, Arthur Honegger's
First Symphony, Prokofiev's Fourth Symphony, Florent Schmitt's Symphonie concertante
pour orchestre et piano, Howard Hanson's Second Symphony, and Hill's Ode. Almost all of
these works were premiered under Koussevitzky's direction that season. Aaron Copland's
Symphonic Ode and Ravel's Piano Concerto were performed later. The anniversary sea-
son left no doubt about the results of Koussevitzky's work. His predecessors Andre Rabaut
and Monteux had not succeeded in reversing the orchestra's decline in the first half of the
1920s, which was a result of the demoralizing conditions during World War I and was
viewed with regret in American musical circles. At a time when many people had lost
hope, Koussevitzky performed a kind of miracle, and Deems Taylor would write in 1931
that "Boston has regained its place under the sun as one of the best orchestras in the
world" ("Words and Music," Los Angeles Examiner, 7 Dec. 1931).
4. This unwritten agreement most likely served Stravinsky as a pretext to premiere the
Symphony of Psalms outside of Boston (see commentary to letter no. 20).
5. With Diaghilev's death in 1929, Stravinsky lost one of his closest friends and a patron
who, from 1914 on, had consistently promoted his music. The commission thus came at
exactly the right moment, and as he recalled later, "the idea of writing a symphonic work
of some length had been present in my mind for a long time" (Stravinsky, Autobiography,
253). In Sept. 1929 Stravinsky wrote Paitchadze, "As for a symphony for Boston-I
decided to accept this offer and I ask you to make a contractual agreement with Boston in
such a way that I would be able to sign it as soon as possible. The first half of the payment
should be made at the time of the signing and the second half should be paid upon presen-
tation of the material; the total sum is $6.000" (14 Sept.1929; quoted in Vera Stravinsky
and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 294). Stravinsky signed the official con-
tract on 12 December 1929. As he recalled, "I had a free hand alike as to the form of the
work and as to the means of execution I might think necessary. I was tied only by the date
for the delivery of the score, but that allowed me ample time" (Autobiography, 253).
In early 1930 Paitchadze reported to Koussevitzky, "I have just received a letter from
Stravinsky.... He writes that his work moves along well and that he works on his sym-
phony with great pleasure, especially after all the hassle of his just-completed European
tour which, by the way, was a remarkable success" (20 Mar. 1930, Paris, KA-LC). Two
months later Stravinsky mentioned in an interview that he had "finished the first part of
a choral symphony... a composition of great simplicity inspired by a Biblical text of Saint
Jerome" (quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 294).
The Symphony of Psalms was the first in a long line of works composed and published
thanks to commissions from the Koussevitzky Fund established later by the conductor.
Koussevitzky's example was followed by Charles Munch, his successor as principal
conductor of the BSO, who commissioned works from ten composers for the orchestra's
seventy-fifth anniversary, and by Seiji Ozawa for its hundredth anniversary.
Letter 18
2. Stravinsky here refers to one of his own programs on the Koussevitzky's Concerts
series.
3. Stravinsky was still concerned about details of his contract for a new symphony for
the BSO's fiftieth anniversary (see letter no. 17).
Letter 19
1. Handwritten postcard with a view of Lake Dauphine-Paladeux, in Russian.
2. The Koussevitzkys spent the summer of 1930 at Plombieres, in France. In August

Paitchadze wrote, "I received a letter from Stravinsky in which he writes that he has fin-
ished the orchestration of the second part of the symphony and that he will send me the
score shortly.... All that remains is the first part (a slow prelude). You may be able to
take the material with you" (letter to Koussevitzky, 4 Aug. 1930, Paris, KA-LC). He
added that Stravinsky had inquired as to their summer address and had expressed a wish
to see the conductor to discuss a new symphony. Stravinsky, who lived near Grenoble at
some distance from Plombieres, visited the Koussevitzkys with his sons.
3. Stravinsky mentions the trip and his meetings with Koussevitzky and Arthur Lourie
in a letter to Ansermet. Lourie was working on a book about the conductor (published in
1931 as Sergei Koussevitzky and His Epoch by Knopf, New York): "This was ten days ago.
Lourie was there with his odious book about Koussevitzky, commissioned by its subject in
the belief that his genius would be immortalized through Lourie's pen" (3 Sept. 1930;
quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 297).
Insert
1. "O moikh poslednikh proizvedeniiakh" [On my latest works], quoted in Stravinsky,

publitsist i sobesednik, 44.
2. Paitchadze to Koussevitzky, 27 Nov. 1930, Braila, Romania, KA-LC.
3. 21 Jan. 1931, Paris, KA-LC.
4. To Koussevitzky, 25 Dec. 1931, Paris, KA-LC.
5. Dushkin was also the first to perform Stravinsky's Concert Duet for Violin and Piano
(Berlin, 28 Oct. 1932, with the composer at the piano), and he wrote an Italian Suite
(after Pergolesi) for piano and violin based on Stravinsky's Pulcinella. Stravinsky's close
contact with Dushkin seems to contradict the widespread view that he was an
anti-Semite and rather to testify to his loyalty toward the "infidels." The memoirs of
Alexander Dushkin, Samuel's brother, provide some interesting observations on
the subject:
Samuel introduced me to Stravinsky in the 1930s, when the two worked together.
Stravinsky, upon learning that I had dedicated my life to Jewish religious educa-
tion, wanted very much to meet me. He himself was a deeply religious Orthodox
Christian. He asked me about Palestine, the Holy Land, where the Jews strove to
restore their ancient home. I felt that to Stravinsky I represented a certain manifes-
tation of an 'initiate'.... I had not seen him for many years but when, at the age of
eighty, he conducted his last concert in Jerusalem, I went backstage to see him. He
immediately recognized me as Sam's brother and, during those several minutes free
time that he had, he once again greeted me with friendly and respectful interest;
perhaps with even more visible interest since I was indeed living in Jerusalem.
(Alexander M. Dushkin, Living Bridges: Memoirs of an Educator [erusalem: Keter
Publishing House Ltd., 1975], 110)
6. Stravinsky maintained an active correspondence during the 1930s with Paitchadze,

who was then living in Paris. The composer informed him about his artistic plans and
constantly resorted to Paitchadze for help, considering him "the most skillful diplomat
among those who attempted to manage [his] business affairs." However, the characteriza-
tion of Paitchadze as "next to Walter Nouvel, Stravinsky's closest Russian emigre friend
in the 1930s," seems largely exaggerated (Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures
and Documents, 313).
7. 5 Jan. 1931, Boston, KA-LC.
8. 21 Jan. 1931, Paris, KA-LC.
9. Letter to Natalia Koussevitzky, 18 Nov. 1931, Paris, KA-LC.
10. Letter to Paitchadze, 5 Jan. 1935, Boston, KA-LC.
11. Paitchadze to Natalia and Serge Koussevitzky, 22 Dec. 1936, Paris, KA-LC.
Letter 20
1. Typewritten, in English.
2. Stravinsky completed the Symphony of Psalms at the beginning of September 1930.

He played it for Koussevitzky and Arthur Lourie on a decrepit, out-of-tune piano ("on an
old clay casserole in B-flat," as Stravinsky described it), which they found in a local
casino. "I finished my Symphony of Psalms (as I have named it) and I already possess the
photo-copy of the orchestra score.... Paitchadze has made several copies for our perfor-
mances in Europe" (Stravinsky to Ansermet, 3 Sept. 1930, Echarvines; quoted in Vera
Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 297). The publication of the
piece was a notable success for ERM: "The Symphony attracts great interest. We sold
150 piano scores in the course of one month in Paris alone" (Paitchadze to Natalia
Koussevitzky, 22 Feb. 1931, Paris, KA-LC).
3. Koussevitzky conducted the choir of the Cecilia Society (which in 1925 consisted of
100 singers) in the American premiere and in subsequent performances of the Symphony
of Psalms. In 1930 Koussevitzky performed Debussy's La demoiselle elue and Brahms's
German Requiem with the Radcliffe Choral Society, led since 1925 by G. Wallace
Woodworth. However, of all American choirs, Koussevitzky preferred the Harvard Glee
Club, first led by Dr. Archibald Thompson Davidson and after 1933 by Woodworth.
Davidson, who became the choir's music director in 1912, significantly broadened its
repertoire and raised its professional level. Koussevitzky valued the group for its enthusi-
asm and perfect ensemble singing and frequently invited the members to participate in
BSO concerts. Together they performed, among others, Bach's Mass in B Minor,
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and Brahms's German Requiem. After the Bach Festival
of 1930, Koussevitzky wrote Davidson that "I will always remember that great feeling
of pleasure and satisfaction which I have experienced when I conducted your magnificent
choir" (n.d., Boston, KA-LC). In another letter, he wrote, "If it were in my power I
would elect you to the position of director of all choral societies of the United States"
(Koussevitzky to Davidson, 9 Dec. 1930, Boston, KA-LC).
4. The title page of the manuscript score received by Koussevitzky in January 1931 bore
this inscription: "Cette symphonie composee a la gloire de DIEU est dediee au 'Boston
Symphony Orchestra' a l'occasion du cinquantenaire de son existance. Igor Stravinsky."
However, its premiere took place not in Boston, but at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels,
on 13 and 14 December 1930, with Ansermet conducting-a fact that could not but
offend Koussevitzky. "I must tell you that American musical circles have expressed great
indignation and surprise at the fact that the work commissioned by the Boston Symphony
was not first performed in Boston but that Brussels for some reason had the honor of its
premiere" (Koussevitzky to Paitchadze, 5 Jan. 1931, Boston, KA-LC).
Koussevitzky was not yet aware of how scornfully Stravinsky sometimes talked about
him: "This contrabassist, who has never learned to play a piano, became the American
Star with no more than his conductor's baton. But a genius does not need to study at the
piano, since, for this inferior job, he can always hire someone to play the music for him,
and over and over until he is filled up to his ass with it" (Stravinsky to Ansermet, 3 Sept.
1930; quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 281-82).
When a journalist mistakenly stated that the piece was dedicated to the BSO and to
Koussevitzky, Stravinsky wrote "HET" [No] with large letters into the margin of the inter-
view (see Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 282).
The American premiere of the symphony took place in Boston on 19 December
1930. The program also included Stravinsky's Capriccio, with Sanroma as soloist, and was
conducted by Koussevitzky for the first time in the United States. "Capriccio was an enor-
mous external success," the conductor wrote after the premiere, "but Psalms had a deep
emotional impact. My first impression when I heard it in Plombieres didn't betray me.
This is one of Stravinsky's most remarkable works and I plan to repeat it in Boston as well
as in New York" (Koussevitzky to Paitchadze, 5 Jan. 1931, Boston, KA-LC). New York
audiences first heard the piece on 6 March 1931, under Koussevitzky's baton, with the
next performance not until 18 October 1934, by the New York Symphony with Otto
Klemperer conducting. A critic comparing the two performances wrote that Klemperer's
reading was "more pronounced and therefore had less of the mysticism, deference, and
admiration which were, it seems, characteristic features of the Bostonian interpretation of
the Symphony's third part in 1930. Klemperer emphasized the choir, and hence the
orchestra acquired at times the function of accompanist rather than that of coordinator"
(Francis D. Perkins, "Philharmonic Devotes Period to Stravinsky," New York Herald
Tribune, 19 Oct. 1934). Ironically, Koussevitzky's enthusiastic views of the work were not
shared by Parisian audiences. The Paris premiere was met with rather lukewarm
responses.
5. The BSO's fiftieth anniversary.
6. Koussevitzky had a hidden agenda in writing this letter. BSO trustees considered the
frequent participation of the choir unprofitable, and Koussevitzky, who had not forgotten
that he had been denied the chance to conduct Stravinsky's Les noces (see letter no. 7),
wanted to protect himself against any objections from the board:
I firmly believe that works for choir and orchestra must be presented as part of
symphonic concerts. They are not only important for variety but they generally
broaden the scope of such concerts. Considering the fact that we have available for
concerts with the Boston Symphony such remarkable, one might say unique,
choral groups as the Harvard Glee Club, the Bach Cantata Society and the
Radcliff Society, along with such conductors as Dr. Davidson and Mr. Woodworth,
I come to the conclusion that it would be a sin not to take advantage of that rare
opportunity. (letter to Mrs. Haughton, 20 Feb. 1932, Boston, KA-LC)
Letter 21
1. Stravinsky's eldest son Fyodor was only six years old when they left Russia for
Switzerland in 1913. He lived in Paris from 1920 on and studied music and painting
there, first with Georges Braque, Andre Derain, and Pablo Picasso, then from 1930-32 in
the Academy studio of Andre Lotte (1885-1962); all of his teachers had close ties to
Russian culture. His first exhibition took place in Paris in 1927. During the German
occupation of Paris, Fyodor and his Swiss wife Denise Gerzoni were arrested by French
collaborators and interned in a camp near Toulouse. In October 1942 they managed to
escape and cross into Switzerland, where Fyodor was to spend the rest of his life. In the
1950s and 1960s he worked extensively in theater, creating, for instance, stage designs for
Petrushka, The Firebird, and Mavra. See Oleg Leikind, Kirill Makhrov, and Dmitrii Sever-
iukhin, Khudozhniki russkogo zarubezhia [Russian artists abroad] 1917-1939: Biograficheskii
slovar (St. Petersburg: Notabene, 1999), 548-49. He is also the author of two books about
his father: Le Message d'Igor Stravinsky (Lausanne, 1942; English translation: The Message
of Igor Stravinsky, trans. Robert Craft and Andre Marion [London: Boosey and Hawkes,
1953]) and Catherine and Igor Stravinsky: A Family Album (London: Boosey and Hawkes,
1973).
3. Paitchadze.
4. Fyodor, who worked in various genres of painting and graphics, proved himself an
excellent portrait artist at a very young age. In the mid-1920s, he painted portraits of his
parents, of Picasso, and of Jean Cocteau.
Letter 22
1. Handwritten, in Russian, in pencil.
2. Stravinsky was scheduled to perform in England in the fall of 1937. The Archives do
not have a copy of the letter mentioned.
3. Willy Strecker, director and co-owner of Schott Publishing, Mainz, was among
Stravinsky's closest friends.
Letter 23
1. Handwritten, in Russian. The "statement" for Dumbarton Oaks is typewritten in

French.
2. Stravinsky called the second part of his Concerto an Intermezzo (see his letter to
Willy Strecker, 3 Jan. 1938, quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures
and Documents, 340).
3. Stravinsky composed Dumbarton Oaks between spring 1937 and spring 1938, during
which period he also arranged this score for two pianos. "While working on the Concerto
I systematically studied and played Bach," he recalled. "I was particularly attracted by the
Brandenburg Concertos, especially by the Third, which I myself conducted" (excerpt

from "Dialogues of Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft," books 5 and 6, quoted in Stravinskii:
Stat'i i materialy, 53). Stravinsky believed that his intense work on Dumbarton Oaks and
the Symphony in C contributed to his recovery from tuberculosis. "Stravinsky has
recently completed his new work, which he named a 'Concerto,"' Paitchadze wrote. "It is
a relatively small work for a chamber group of instruments .. Schott is printing it" (letter
to Koussevitzky, 8 Apr. 1938, Paris, KA-LC).
4. Koussevitzky left Europe unusually early that summer because on 22 June he was to
receive an honorary degree from Yale University. Yale was the fifth American university
to celebrate his achievements, after Brown, Harvard, Rochester, and Rutgers. At the same
ceremony Charles Seymour, president of Yale, presented honorary degrees to Thomas
Mann and Walt Disney.
5. Stravinsky's explanation differs from his notes in the "Program Notes on Columbia
Records" (1964) and in the London Magazine in February 1966. The Russian translation is
published in Stravinskii: Stat'i i materialy, 52-53. An excerpt is quoted above in note 3.
6. The estate is located in an aristocratic neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where

Georgetown University is now located. Dumbarton Oaks opens its doors every season for
a series of chamber music concerts. Mildred Woods Bliss, who later also commissioned
the Symphony in C, was described by one of Stravinsky's contemporaries as the "queen
of Georgetown" (quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and
Documents, 640).
7. The Washington premiere was more successful than the Paris performance a month
later. As before with the Symphony of Psalms, Paris ignored Stravinsky's latest work. The
composer mentioned this with some bitterness in an interview (Le Journal de Paris, 13
Oct. 1938). In 1923, when plans for a U.S. tour had not materialized, Natalia Koussev-
itzky commented that "he naively dreamed that he will make about half a million francs,
completely forgetting that in America he is not as popular as in France" (letter to Serge
Koussevitzky, n.d. [Nov. 1923], Paris, KA-LC). Fifteen years later, the situation was
reversed.
8. His assertion is incorrect. See, for example, Brahms's concertos, not to mention con-
certos by Stravinsky's contemporaries.
Letter 24
2. Paitchadze sent this letter to Koussevitzky. He wrote:
You probably already know from the newspapers that Stravinsky's oldest daughter,
Mika, who was ill for such a long time, has passed away. He suffers terribly from
this blow. At the time of her death he was in Italy where he was about to begin a
rather significant and important concert tour throughout Europe. He left every-
thing and immediately returned to Paris for the funeral. We met him at the train
station. I rarely have seen an expression of such enormous grief. He was as if turned
to stone and during the entire three days he did not say a word to anyone, includ-
ing his family. He prayed all the time. It seems that he is recovering now but I have
not yet seen him. On your behalf I have sent flowers for Mika's funeral and words
of condolences to her parents. Enclosed is a letter from him, which was brought to
me yesterday with a request to forward it to you. He most likely wants to thank you
for your compassion for his sorrow. It seems that Ekaterina Gavrilovna is coping
well with her daughter's death, but she herself is seriously ill and I am afraid that
poor Igor Fyodorovich may soon face another fateful blow. (8 Dec. 1938, Paris,
KA-LC)
Three months after the death of his daughter, Stravinsky buried his wife. The cause of
their deaths was tuberculosis, which also affected his own health. At his doctor's request,
he spent five months in the sanatorium Sancellemoz in Haute Savoie. During this time
he also lost his mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinsky, nee Kholodovsky (1854-1939).
Insert
1. Pyotr Petrovich Suvchinskii [Pierre Souvchinsky] (1892-1985) settled in Paris after

leaving Russia in 1919. He was at the center of the cultural, philosophical, and social life of
the Russian emigre community for several decades. The above-mentioned book, Pyotr
Petrovich Suvchinskii i ego vremia (A. Bretanitskaya [Moscow: Kompozitor, 1999]), con-
vincingly testifies to the importance of his activity.
2. Roland-Manuel [Roland-Alexis-Manuel Levy] (1891-1966) was introduced to

Stravinsky by Maurice Ravel in 1911.
3. One of the driving forces behind the invitation was the architect Walter Gropius
(1883-1969): "as a member of the faculty of Harvard University I succeeded in persuad-
ing my dean to propose Stravinsky for the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship, which at
the time was endowed with $1,200. The proposal was accepted and in 1940 Stravinsky
came to Harvard for several months to lecture and to conduct his works" (Walter
Gropius, "Igor Stravinsky," typescript, Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS
Ger 208 [313], 1).
Letter 25
1. George E. Judd (1887-1977) was secretary to BSO manager Charles Ellis
(in 1915-1918), and later assistant to William Brennan (in 1918-1935), whom he
succeeded as manager of the orchestra.
3. Oedipus Rex was performed in Cambridge on 28 March 1940 and in Boston on 29 and
30 March. Apollo was performed on the same program.
4. Performers were Roul Jobin (Oedipus and Shepherd), Susanne Sten (Jocasta), Marc
Harrell (Creon, Tiresias, and Messenger), Paul Leyssac (Narrator), and the Harvard Glee
Club, prepared by G. Wallace Woodworth.
5. Leslie Judson Rogers (1893-1956) worked for the BSO for forty-four years. He
became assistant librarian in 1912 and principal librarian in 1916.
Letter 26
1. Vera Arturovna Stravinsky, nee de Bosset (1888-1982), Stravinsky's second wife.

(The year 1892, which is given in many sources as her year of birth, is incorrect.) The
only child of a wealthy St. Petersburg family of Swedish extraction, she studied music and
ballet, and later acted in the Moscow Chamber Theater. She was cast in the film War and
Peace, directed by Yakov Protazanov (1881-1945). In 1917 Vera married the artist Serge
Sudeikin (1882-1946). Sudeikin moved to Paris in 1920 and to America in 1922; he

painted sets and designed costumes for Stravinsky's Petrushka (New York, 1925,
Metropolitan Opera with Anna Pavlova's troupe) and Les noces (1929), and created a
panel inspired by The Rite of Spring. In Paris Vera Sudeikina immediately found herself
at the center of artistic life. She organized a theater atelier used by Diaghilev's troupe, and
it was Diaghilev who introduced Vera to Stravinsky on 21 February 1921. Few were
unaware of their affair, as Vera accompanied the composer on his multiple concert tours
of Europe.
In August 1939, meeting Koussevitzky in France, Stravinsky asked for advice as to
what could be done to bring Vera to the United States. In November he wrote from
America to Robert D. Murphy, the American ambassador to France, and asked for help
in obtaining a visa for Vera, "my best friend, a friend for a very long time" (27 Nov. 1939,
Cambridge, Mass., quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and
Documents. 353). Vera arrived in the United States in January 1940; they married on
9 March in Bedford, Massachusetts. "Vera Arturovna is well liked and welcomed here,"
Koussevitzky wrote (letter to Paitchadze, 2 May 1940, Boston, KA-LC). He omitted the
fact that, being acquaintances of Vera's since 1922, the Koussevitzkys contributed a lot to
her welcome in Boston. Even before her arrival, Stravinsky wrote to her about "their
moving empathy for our future union" (21 Nov. 1939, Cambridge, Mass., quoted in
Dearest Bubushkin: The Correspondence of Vera and Igor Stravinsky, 1921-1954, with
excerpts from Vera Stravinsky's diaries, 1922-1971, ed. Robert Craft [New York: Thames
and Hudson, 1985], 103). "A short while ago we received a very long and good letter from
the Stravinskys, with the description of their wedding and about how cordial and kind
you are to them," reported Paitchadze's wife to the Koussevitzkys (Vera Paitchadze to
Natalia Koussevitzky, 24 May 1940, Paris, KA-LC).
3. Olga Aleksandrovna Naumova (1901-1978) was the daughter of Natalia's sister

Anna. She became Koussevitzky's secretary and, in 1947, his wife. Her father, Aleksandr
Naumov (1868-1950), was Lenin's classmate in the Simbirsk Lyceum and later became
the last czarist minister of agriculture. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Naumov
and his family emigrated, first to Constantinople and then to Nice, France, where they
lived for thirty years. For many emigrants, Naumov was the embodiment of old Russia.
Olga arrived in the United States in 1939 on Natalia's invitation to work for
Koussevitzky. Their later marriage was a revival of sorts of their romance of the early
1930s. At the time the romantic feelings had been suppressed: Serge's because of his
convictions and his faithfulness to Natalia, Olga's because of her religious beliefs and
her gratitude toward her aunt who had given her shelter.
Olga had a talent for drawing; the over one hundred caricatures she left form a one-of-
a-kind portrait gallery of the great musicians of the twentieth century: among them Stravin-
sky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Hindemith, Copland, Pablo Casals, Joseph Hoffmann, Artur
Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Herbert von Karajan,
Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh, and Mstislav Rostropovich.
After Koussevitzky's death Olga successfully continued some of his enterprises. She
was elected president of the Koussevitzky Foundation and of the American chapter of the
International Music Foundation, which Koussevitzky had founded in 1948 under the
auspices of UNESCO. She was also elected co-chair (with Leonard Bernstein) of the
Music for Israel committee. Later she became a member of UNESCO's American
Committee.
Letter 27
2. Stravinsky erased the word "nightmare" and wrote the word "horror" instead.
3. World War II.
4. The Stravinskys did not stay in that house for long. In April 1941 they moved to the
house in Hollywood, on 1260 North Wetherly Drive, where the composer lived until his
death.
5. Paitchadze and his wife Vera Vassilievna remained in Paris during the German occu-
pation. Correspondence between Paitchadze and the Koussevitzkys was interrupted in
October 1940; any attempts to rescue them proved futile. Koussevitzky only learned of
Paitchadze's fate during the war on 15 October 1944.
6. The last two sentences are added in the margins.
Letter 28
1. Draft of a telegram, handwritten in English.
2. On 4 July 1940 Natalia Koussevitzky suffered a stroke that left the left side of her
body paralyzed.
Letter 29
2. Stravinsky gave four performances in Mexico City with the Orquestra Sinf6nica. On
the first program (26 and 28 July 1940) he conducted his Divertimento, excerpts from
Petrushka, the overture to Cherubini's Anacreon, and Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony.
The second program (2 and 4 Aug. 1940) included Apollo, Divertimento, Jeu de cartes,
and the Firebird Suite. He returned to the United States on 8 August 1940.
3. The music corporation Galaxy collected fees owed to composers for performances of
their works in the United States and sent the money to the publishers holding the copy-
rights. ERM had been looking for a reliable partner for its American division since the
early 1920s. In 1922 Oeberg had written to Koussevitzky that "on Rachmaninov's recom-
mendation [I] received a serious offer to open a warehouse in the United States" (22 Aug.
1922, Brussels, KA-LC). Paitchadze was concerned with the same problem, since ERM's
financial situation depended on renting its musical materials, and in 1927 he signed a
two-year contract with Maxwell. In the summer of 1931, after Maxwell's death, Galaxy
(also founded by Maxwell) offered to remain as ERM's American representative, and
even though the initial two-year contract was never officially extended, Galaxy contin-
ued to represent ERM's interests.
4. The last paragraph is written in the margins.
Letter 30
2. It was not Sviatoslav (Soulima) Stravinsky but his older brother Fyodor and his
wife who would get stuck in occupied Paris. Soulima had moved to America in 1939,
soon after his father. Vera apparently applies the name "Svetiks" to both of
Stravinsky's sons.
Letter 31
2. Koussevitzky refers to an estate they had bought shortly before in Tanglewood, near
the Berkshire Music Center, which became the summer residence of the BSO. With this,
Koussevitzky fulfilled an old dream. He had envisioned the founding of such a center as
early as 1913. The Center's opening on 8 July 1940 was overshadowed by the events of
World War II. But "[n]othing can preserve humanitarian ideals better than the manifesta-
tions of art," wrote Koussevitzky to Massachusetts Governor Saltonstall (25 June 1940,
Boston, KA-LC). The Center's first season brought Koussevitzky enormous artistic satis-
faction. One of the central events of the Tanglewood Festival that summer was the debut
of Leonard Berstein.
3. Natalia's health was improving very slowly; only in the fall was she able to leave her
bedroom. In November she wrote to her brother Mikhail (Mika) Ushkov that she was
recovering gradually, that she could go outside now, and that she enjoyed Tanglewood's
countryside (see letter dated 8 Nov. 1940, Boston, KA-LC). However, Natalia's left hand
remained paralyzed.
4. A. Walter Kramer became Galaxy's director in 1936. Claiming that all ERM
documents and accounts were in occupied Paris, he refused to pay royalties for U.S.
performances. Subsequent letters will show that Koussevitzky had to mediate the complex
relationship between Stravinsky and Galaxy for many years. Only with much effort
was it possible to prevent the composer from filing a lawsuit against the music
corporation.
5. Paitchadze's letter of 8 Oct. 1940, his last from occupied Paris.
Letter 32
1. Telegram, in English.
Letter 33
1. Draft of a telegram in response to no. 32 and jotted down in English in Koussevitzky's
handwriting on the telegram from Stravinsky.
2. Early 1941 brought new performances by Stravinsky and the BSO: he conducted the
orchestra on 16 January in Cambridge and on 17 and 18 January in Boston.
Letter 34
1. Telegram, in English. The note is in reply to Koussevitzky's invitation to teach a
composition class at the Berkshire Music Center in the summer of 1942. Stravinsky
wanted to get specific details. The application material, which the Center regularly sent
to music schools in America, emphasized that the composition classes were designed for a
limited number of outstanding graduate students, professionally prepared by preceding
studies, to work on large-scale compositions. The schedule intended for each student to
work individually with the professor for an hour and a half every week, and also included
two hours of group work with the professor, as well as informal meetings and discussions
of works by other students. During the Center's ten "Koussevitzky" years, composers
received a powerful boost. From the very first season on, and for the next twenty-five
years, Copland was the head of the department. In 1965 he was replaced by Gunther
Schuller. Among the professors teaching composition classes were Paul Hindemith,
Olivier Messiaen, Darius Milhaud, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Witold Lutoslawski.
2. The Koussevitzky Archives contain the following draft of his undated cable to
Stravinsky: "Telegram received too late. Please telephone me collect tomorrow, Sunday,
8 a.m. your time N[ew] Y[ork] Volunteer 52 600. [Koussevitzky]"
Letter 35
Letter 36
1. A draft of this telegram is jotted down in English, in Koussevitzky's handwriting, on
the envelope from Stravinsky's letter of 23 Nov. 1941.
Letter 37
2. Margaret Grant (1895-1967) was an economist by training and a leading personnel

member of different international organizations, including the U.N. She had a Ph.D. in
philosophy as well as a musical education, played piano and the violin, worked as deputy
director of the American National Symphony Orchestra (1938-39), and was executive
director for the Berkshire Music Center (1939-43). She was later a secretary of the
Koussevitzky Foundation and deputy director of the Eastman School of Music. Her letter
to Stravinsky was sent one day before Koussevitzky's.
3. By the early 1930s Koussevitzky had strengthened the BSO, largely by replacing
musicians with players from Europe. However, even then he frequently expounded on the
necessity and significance of preparing America's own musicians as orchestra players. In
1934-35 he nurtured the idea of an Academy of Orchestral Art for young musicians
under the auspices of the BSO. The trustees found it impossible to implement such an
academy due to financial considerations.
Musicians for the student orchestra were selected by BSO members in a competition
among students from the best music schools in America. Many young musicians received
Berkshire Music Center scholarships (later the Koussevitzky Foundation scholarships).
Performers were twenty years of age, on average, and more than a third of the orchestra
was made up of women, which was rather unusual for the time.
Koussevitzky attended nearly all the rehearsals of the student orchestra, especially
those conducted by his own students, and frequently conducted the orchestra himself. His
rehearsals were a wonderful school for young instrumentalists, many of whom claimed
that he made them better performers than they really were. It has been calculated that in
the 1950s more than 20 percent of performers from the best American orchestras passed
through the "purgatory" of the Berkshire Music Center.
4. According to the terms of his contract with the BSO, Koussevitzky was not permitted
to perform with other orchestras during regular winter seasons.
5. William Schuman (1910-1992) and Samuel Barber (1910-1981) may be said to have
come of age under Koussevitzky's tutelage. And not without his active help; one of
Schuman's letters to Koussevitzky reads: "Today I have completed your [my emphasis]
symphony" (4 Jan. 1940, New York, KA-LC). Schuman was twenty-eight when
Koussevitzky recommended him for the American Academy in Rome award, and
twenty-nine when the conductor performed his Second Symphony (17 Feb. 1939)
and premiered his American Festival Overture (6 Oct. 1939). Of Schuman's Third
Symphony, which he conducted on 17 October 1941, he said, "This is truly an
outstanding composition, which could have been written only by an American

composer and only in our time" (letter to Carl Engel, 2 Dec. 1941, Boston, KA-LC).
Two years later he premiered Schuman's Symphony for Strings. Koussevitzky's plan to
stage the ballet Judith at Tanglewood was not realized, however.
Barber was twenty-eight when he asked Koussevitzky to perform his First Symphony.
"I will gladly present your new and expanded score in Boston and, possibly, in New York
in the 1939-40 season," the conductor replied (letter to Barber, 19 Dec. 1938, Boston,
KA-LC). However, Barber's first composition to be performed by Koussevitzky (15 Nov.
1940) was the School of Scandal Overture. Barber completed his Second Symphony only
in 1944: he was in the army and could write only occasionally. "I was glad to leave the
symphony in your hands," he wrote upon giving the score to the conductor, "and now
I am waiting for the miracle you will work with it in the next week" (23 Feb. 1944,
KA-LC). The premiere took place on 3 March 1944, and three days later Koussevitzky
petitioned the U.S. Air Force to give Barber the best possible conditions for his creative
work: "Not only is it work which will long since preserve its significance, but it [the
Second Symphony] also demonstrates the admirable growth of the possibilities of the
young American generation. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Samuel
Barber is the most outstanding composer in this country" (letter to Gen. N. Arnold,
Headquarters Army Air Forces, 6 Mar. 1944, Boston, KA-LC).
Koussevitzky had already had to address the army headquarters with similar petitions.
One of them concerned Leonard Berstein when he was under threat of being drafted to
the front. "I realize," Koussevitzky wrote, "that everybody has to defend his country,
but I also believe that it is equally important for America's welfare to preserve such a tal-
ent for the future musical culture" (letter to U.S. Army medical examiner, 27 Aug.1943,
Serenak, KA-LC).
As soon as the war was over, Koussevitzky petitioned to have Barber discharged.
"Your letters were of invaluable help," Barber wrote to thank him after his discharge in
September 1945 (28 Sept. 1945, quoted in Barbara B. Heyman, Samuel Barber: The
Composer and His Music [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992], 251). Koussevitzky
would also conduct the premieres of Barber's Cello Concerto (5 Apr. 1946, soloist: Raia
Garbuzova) and Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (9 Apr. 1948, soloist: Eleanor Steber).
Koussevitzky's collaboration with Schuman and Barber extended into pedagogical
areas. In 1945 Schuman became head of the Juilliard Music School, whose students
attended the Berkshire Music Center every summer. On 9 May 1948, on Schuman's
invitation, Koussevitzky conducted the Juilliard student orchestra in Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony at Carnegie Hall. The public success of the concert did not distract from the
problems encountered during rehearsals, which Koussevitzky related to Schuman in a letter.
Barber taught a composition class at Tanglewood in 1946, replacing Honegger, who
had suddenly fallen ill. Barber considered the arrangements at the Center to be the ideal
model of music education and later declined teaching invitations from leading American
music schools, including Schuman's, to Juilliard, and Quincy Porter's, to Yale.
Stravinsky, on the other hand, considered neither Barber nor Schuman to be primary
figures of American musical life. He remembered Schuman mostly as a Metropolitan
Opera copyist from the time of preparations for the premiere of his ballet Jeu de cartes
(1937). "Great composers are rare in the Great Society," Stravinsky said about the choice
of Barber's opera Anthony and Cleopatra for the 1966 opening of the new Metropolitan
Opera House. "Only Barber fits all the requirements: he grew up in New York, he is well
known, experienced, reliable, not too original in his music" (Igor Stravinsky, Dialogi.
Vospominaniia. Razmyshleniia. Kommentarii [Dialogues, memoirs, ruminations,
commentaries], 297). The only American composer he valued highly was Charles Ives,
who he thought was underestimated as a mere "historical phenomenon" and "great
forerunner" (Stravinsky, Dialogi, 121, 120). The other composer he held in esteem was
Edgar Varese, whose Arcana he said "looks as if touched by the shadow of The Rite of
Spring" and whose name "serves as a synonym for the new tension and new concatenation"
(Stravinsky, Dialogi, 116).
Letter 38
1. Handwritten, in Russian; quotations from Grant's and Kramer's letters in English.
2. Apart from the ballet Le baiser de la fee, Stravinsky's admiration for Tchaikovsky's
work is attested to by his involvement with Sleeping Beauty on two occasions: In 1921,
Dhiagilev delegated the editing of Tchaikovsky's score for the London production to
Stravinsky, who provided new orchestrations for several numbers absent from the score of the
Hamburg publisher, D.-F. Rater (the composer had cut some passages during rehearsals
for the ballet's Petersburg premiere in 1890), and composed music to link several
numbers. The latter was necessary due to new cuts, made this time by Dhiagilev. Two
decades later, for a production of Sleeping Beauty by the Philadelphia Ballet Theater
(choreographer: A. Dolin), Stravinsky reorchestrated the "Pas de deux" of the Blue Bird
and Princess Florina (no. 24 in Tchaikovsky's score) for small orchestra. The premiere
took place on 24 June 1941.
Letter 39
2. Here the copy of the letter breaks off. The Stravinsky archive (Paul Zacher
Stiftung, Basel, Switzerland), does not include this letter.
Letter 40
2. Natalia Koussevitzky died on 11 January 1942. Her death was a great loss for
Koussevitzky. They had been married for thirty-six years. Stravinsky respected Natalia
Koussevitzky, writing that she was "a very deserving woman who, unfortunately (although
quite naturally) looked angry, like a brood-hen, even when she was in a good mood."
He immediately added that "Koussevitzky's career was bought with her money" (Igor
Stravinsky, O dirizherakh i dirizhirovanii [On conductors and conducting], quoted in
I. Stravinskii - publitsist i sobesednik [I. Stravinsky as a journalist and an interlocutor], 189).
Among the many condolence letters and telegrams Koussevitzky received were notes
from the Rachmaninovs, Grechaninov, Lourie, Milhaud, Britten, Krenek, Walter,
Klemperer, Nikolai Malko, Grigory Piatigorsky, Vladimir Bakaleinikov, Raia Garbuzova,
and many other musicians. "Many times during these last few days I mused gratefully on
the fact that nothing can take away our consolation in music," Copland wrote. "There is
no doubt that this thought must support you now.... We are lucky people because the
feeling of a personal loss for us can be alleviated through renewed dedication to our art.
I am convinced that this is what she would have wished. It is what I wish you"
(undated [after 11 Jan. 1942], New York, KA-LC).
An entry in Koussevitzky's notebook breaks off and is later finished in Olga Nau-
mova's handwriting: "When she was alive she wanted me to serve only art and withdrew
into the background.... I must find strength to realize myself as she wanted and to which
she dedicated her entire life. I must devote the rest of my life exclusively to art, rejecting
entirely the external personal fuss and so realize her ideals now that she is gone" (22 Jan.
1942, KA-LC).
Letter 41
1. Copy of a typewritten letter, in English.
2. He refers to students who will take part in his classes.
Letter 42
2. The deaths of his daughter, his first wife, and his mother in 1938 and 1939.
Letter 43
2. The draft of the Berkshire Music Center booklet from 1942 stated, among other
things: "III. Department of Composition. The Class of Igor Stravinsky. This class for
advanced students of composition will be limited to eight members. Mr. Stravinsky will
meet the students both individually and in groups to criticize their work and to give
instruction and advice." The text in the printed booklet was: "Two separate classes under
Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky. This department offers advanced work for a limited
number of students."
Letter 44
2. Original has the French word "tournme."
3. During his 1939 visit to Boston, Stravinsky remarked somewhat ironically that there
were "only two seasons: winter and the Fourth of July." The irony was aimed at what he
considered the Americans' exaggerated patriotism, particularly their attitude toward
Independence Day (I. Stravinsky's Dialogues with R. Craft, quoted in F. I. Stravinskii, Stat'i
i materialy [Articles and materials], 54-55). Ironically, it was on Independence Day 1941
that Stravinsky arranged the U.S. national anthem for orchestra and choir. It was first
performed in Los Angeles, with James Sample conducting. The performance of the "Star-
Spangled Banner," just as a subsequent performance on 19 December 1941 in St. Louis
organized by Stravinsky himself, took place without incident.
Letter 45
1. Telegram, in English. Date based on Stravinsky's letter of 10 Feb. 1942.
2. Stravinsky's letter of 22 Jan. 1942 (see letter no. 42).
3. See Stravinsky's letter of 10 Feb. 1942 (no. 44).
4. A little more than two years after the St. Louis performance, Stravinsky included an
adaptation of the U.S. national anthem in two of his concerts in Boston. The composer
was convinced that his version "emphasizes the melodic line and harmony better and is of
course a cut above any other" (Stravinsky, Dialogi, 88), but American audiences did not
accept this version. The anthem was heard only at the first of two concerts, on 14 January
1944. Stravinsky himself recalled, "the next day, before the beginning of the second concert
[in Boston], a ranking police official came to my dressing room and informed me that
Massachusetts law prohibits any 'tampering' with national property" (Stravinsky, Dialogi,
88). According to Musical America, Boston Police Commissioner Thomas F. Sullivan and
Police Captain Thomas F. Harvey "appeared at the Stravinsky concert, 15 January 1944
... prepared to sign a complaint charging Mr. Stravinsky with violation of chapter 264,
Section 9, of the Massachusetts laws, which forbids rearrangement of the national
anthem and provides a penalty of $100. But the performance of the new version was can-
celled, the police refrained from taking action, and quiet was restored to the banks of the
Charles" (Musical America [an. 1944], quoted in Slonimsky, Music since 1900, 779).
Among Stravinsky's letters in the Koussevitzky Archives is an excerpt from the appropri-
ate law of 1917: "Whoever plays, sings or renders the 'Star Spangled Banner' in any public
place, theater, motion picture hall, restaurant or cafe, or at any public entertainment
other than as a whole and separate composition or number, without embellishment or
addition in the way of national or other melodies, or whoever plays, sings or renders the
'S.S.B,' or any part thereof, as dance music, as an exit march or as a part of a medley of
any kind, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars (1917, 311,
$1, 2)" (KA-LC).
Letter 46
2. Letter breaks off here.
Letter 47
2. See letter no. 39.
Letter 48
2. Koussevitzky's letter of 28 Apr. 1942 (see no. 46).
3. Kramer sent a copy of this letter to Koussevitzky.
Letter 49
Letter 50
1. Telegram, in English [draft?]. A telegram to Stravinsky with similar content but dated
12 June 1942 is in the Koussevitzky Archives.
2. For its first two seasons (the summers of 1940 and 1941), the Berkshire Music
Center was sponsored by the BSO, but the hardships of the war caused the BSO trustees
to refuse sponsorship in the third year. Koussevitzky spared no effort to preserve his cre-
ation. "The two last years have shown how much the Center means to talented young
American students," he said in addressing the trustees, "how profoundly and sincerely
grateful were those who participated in its work and what outstanding results were
achieved by the Center in such a short period of time" (Minutes of the Meeting of the
Board of Trustees of the BSO, 4 June 1942, typescript, KA-LC). At the meeting
Koussevitzky also quoted a young sailor: "We die defending America, our people, and our
civilization and we hope that those who remain behind the front lines will defend the
cultural values of our nation. We are ready to die fighting for peace, for the future. Yet
what can future and peace mean if our culture remains undefended?" (Trustee Minutes)
Sharing this view entirely, Koussevitzky felt as if he, too, were a soldier who had to do
everything in his power to defend and strengthen American culture, or rather, the world,
for he was convinced that it fell to America to rescue civilization. An article in the
Berkshire Evening Eagle (28 Apr. 1942) doubted the necessity of a musical festival. In his
response to the editor, Koussevitzky emphasized music's particular importance in a time of
war to uplift the nation's spirit, and that to preserve the festival was the patriotic duty of
its directors: "Music is one of the necessities of life in our time and not merely some moral
category. If we must save petrol, rubber, and money as 'the source of our existence,' then
we must save music and the arts as the country's real cultural treasure" (5 May 1942, draft,
KA-LC).
In the summer of 1942, only the Music Center was functioning, while the festival was
canceled. However, concerts-chamber and symphonic- took place. One of the cham-
ber programs (5 July 1942) included Shostakovich's Piano Quintet, performed by the
BSO soloists Richard Burgin and Alfred Krips (violins), Jean Lefranc (viola), Jean Bedetti
(cello), and Jesus-Maria Sanroma (piano). Orchestral programs were performed by the
student orchestra, which was expanded to 105 members. Its professional level was high,
and Koussevitzky's performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony was a great success.
The orchestra performed the U.S. concert premiere of Shostakovich's Seventh, the "Len-
ingrad" Symphony, on 14 Aug. 1942, an event noticed in the media all over the world.
Leonard Bernstein was Koussevitzky's assistant that summer. Arthur Nikisch's apprentice,
Koussevitzky, became Bernstein's mentor.
Letter 51
2. Sapiro was Stravinsky's lawyer from 1942-59. Kramer replied to him on 15 June
1942; the Koussevitzky Archives do not own a copy of the response. See excerpts quoted
in Sapiro's letter to Kramer from 28 Aug. 1942 (letter no. 59).
Letter 52
2. "The miracle of your last two concerts is the talk of the town," the pianist Alexander
Borovsky wrote to Koussevitzky after a BSO concert in New York in February 1942. "We
are happy that you are conducting again-it is the best way to honor the memory of
Natalia Konstantinovna, who loved and valued your great art so much" (16 Feb. 1942,
New York, KA-LC).
3. Throughout his life Koussevitzky emphasized the role of the composer as the true
creator of music. The mission-the "central line," as he himself called it-of his work as
conductor, publisher, and promoter of music was for him the all-out support of composers,
the preservation of the great heritage of classical music, and bringing the best works of
modem composers to a wide audience.
The guiding principles for the Natalia Koussevitzky Memorial Foundation were the
same ones that had guided Koussevitzky when he established ERM and the Koussevitzky's
Concerts series years earlier. Nevertheless, many considered the foundation unusual.
"This Foundation is unusual because it does not belong to millionaires," he himself said in
an interview. "For music circles it is immensely profitable to have only musicians as direc-
tors" (Koussevitzky's interviews and notes, typescript, KA-LC).
Among the trustees were, besides Koussevitzky himself, Copland, Hanson, Grigory
Piatigorsky, the BSO concertmaster Richard Burgin, Olga Koussevitzky, Schuman,
Bernstein, Peter Mennin, Lukas Foss, and Gunther Schuller. Some trustees suggested that
Koussevitzky alone chose works deserving of grants, but he rejected that suggestion. The
Foundation's board of directors was, in essence, a collegiate body, just as the ERM board
had been.
During Koussevitzky's lifetime, i.e., in less than ten years of its existence, the founda-
tion commissioned more than fifty large-scale works from composers such as Barber,
Bernstein, Copland, Walter Piston, Randall Thompson, Roy Harris, Hanson, and
Schuman. As in its early years, it also continues to give grants to non-American composers:
among early recipients were Bela Bart6k, Benjamin Britten, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Luigi
Dallapiccola, Jacques Ibert, Francesco Malipiero, Bohuslav Martinu, Olivier Messiaen,
Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Stravinsky, William Walton, and Arnold Schoenberg.
In 1947, at Koussevitzky's initiative, the Foundation offered a grant to Sergei Prokofiev, but
the composer had to refuse due to the Cold War. Valentin Silvestrov was the first Soviet
composer to become a Foundation laureate.
Long before the creation of the International Music Council and of the International
Music Foundation under the auspices of UNESCO in 1949, the Foundation was truly
international in outlook. The best American orchestras and conductors regularly performed
works recommended by the Foundation, and it also offered to pay for commissions for
soloists. It supported concert organizations committed to the performance of contemporary
music, such as the British Committee for the Promotion of Contemporary Music in 1948.
The Committee's chair, Ralph Vaughan Williams, called Koussevitzky "a great musician
and a great benefactor of musicians" (letter to Olga Koussevitzky, 7 July 1951, London,
KA-LC). The Berkshire Music Center received support in the form of scholarship funds for
young musicians who wished to study there.
4. The letter breaks off here.
Letter 53
Letter 54
2. Stravinsky was working on several compositions at once in the second half of 1942.
Some were the result of music initially meant for films, such as the middle part of the
Symphony in Three Movements (for the film The Song of Bernadette, based on Franz
Werfel's screenplay), the middle movement of the Ode (for Orson Welles's Jane Eyre), as
well as "Four Norwegian Moods" and Scherzo a la russe. By "capital musical production"
Stravinsky apparently means the Symphony in Three Movements, whose first movement
was completed in 1942. "At that time I envisioned this composition as a Concerto for
Orchestra," the composer later recalled (Stravinsky, Dialogi, 128). The work was com-
posed under the impressions of wartime events, although it remained without a program.
For Stravinsky, however, its significance lay elsewhere: "it is in this dialectic form, shaped
through the equilibrium of contrast and similarities, without reference to traditional
sectional or developmental precepts that the composer sees the significance of his new
work, much more than in the harmonic or rhythmic features which have remained of
his early victories" (Ingolf Dahl, "Stravinsky in 1946," Modern Music 23, no. 3
[summer 1946]: 159-60. This study developed out of an interview with Stravinsky
in late June).
3. By that time his name was included in the Center's 1942 booklet, which was circu-
lated throughout the United States, and a concert was scheduled for the third week of the
festival. For Koussevitzky, Stravinsky's sudden last-minute refusal fell in with the com-
poser's other "misdemeanors." Stravinsky's cancellation was certainly not based on the
fact that he was not a professional teacher. For example, he taught Ernest Anderson, his
only private student, in over 200 composition lessons in 1941-43. Far more significant,
though equally unique, was a different episode from Stravinsky's life. During the 1935-36
academic year, Stravinsky accepted an invitation from Nadia Boulanger to teach with her
a course on composition at the Ecole normale de musique. He replaced Paul Dukas, who
had died that year. According to the memoirs of Maurice Perrin, one of the students there
that year, Stravinsky taught one class each month. His lessons were extremely interesting
and helped them to understand the aesthetics of his works better (Perrin, "Stravinsky's
Composition Class," Score [une 1957], 44-46). Stravinsky's classes at the Ecole normale,
which required analysis and critical assessments of students' compositions and the study of
works by the great masters, essentially had the same character as composition classes at
the Berkshire Music Center.
After receiving Stravinsky's letter, Koussevitzky immediately sent a wire to invite
the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959), then in Vermont, to teach at the
Center. Martinu agreed, not without concerns that his limited English might be a hin-
drance in communicating with students. Coming from Paris, Martinu had arrived in the
United States in 1941, but Koussevitzky had long been familiar with his music and was
the first to introduce it to American audiences. With the BSO he premiered La Bagarre
(18 Nov. 1927), La Symphonie (14 Dec. 1928), and Concerto Grosso for Chamber
Orchestra (14 Nov. 1941). The Concerto Grosso was performed at a Berkshire Music
Center concert on 9 Aug. 1942. At the Center, Martinu successfully combined teaching
with working on his Piano Quartet and the First Symphony (commissioned by the
Koussevitzky Foundation). Both scores were completed in Tanglewood. Koussevitzky
also conducted the world premieres of the First Symphony (12 Nov. 1942), the
Violin Concerto (6 Jan. 1944; soloist: Mischa Elman), and the Third Symphony
(12 Oct. 1945).
Letter 55
Letter 56
2. There is no copy of that letter in the Archives. Koussevitzky had asked for a discount
on the rental material for a performance of Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale" (Histoire
d'un Soldat) at the Tanglewood summer festival.
Letter 57
Letter 58
Letter 59
2. There is no copy of this letter in the Archives.
3. Staging of Petrushka in 1942 by the Ballet Theater (now the American Ballet
Theater); the main roles were performed by Iuri Lazovsky and Irina Baronova.
Letter 60
Letter 61
1. Typewritten, in English
Letter 62
2. The letter, written at Kramer's insistence, is in reply to Sapiro's letters of 28 Aug.

1942 (nos. 59 and 60).
3. Subsequent developments will show that Koussevitzky was not able to resolve the
conflict between ERM and Galaxy quickly.
Letter 63
1. Handwritten, in Russian. The Stravinsky archive at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel
contains not only a typed copy of this letter but also the draft on which the composer
wrote: "The approximate contents of my letter to S. A. Koussevitzky."
2. As in 1929, while composing the Symphony of Psalms, Stravinsky readily agreed

to the suggestion that he create a new work for the BSO. The piece was commissioned
by the Koussevitzky Foundation in memory of Natalia Koussevitzky, to whom
Stravinsky had previously dedicated his Concerto for Piano, Winds, Double Basses,
and Timpani. The composer consented in a telegram (9 Apr. 1943). Though absent
from the Koussevitzky Archives, it is mentioned by Craft (see Vera Stravinsky and
Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 645) and may be in the Stravinsky Archive
in Basel. Stravinsky originally planned to call the new score Triads (see Dearest
Bubushkin, 128).
3. In the tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church, the eulogy is a liturgic requiem.
4. Village concert (Fr.)

5. Stravinsky would use the same ideas two months later for a brief note on the Ode in
the BSO programs. As Varunts correctly noted, Stravinsky uses a device similar to
poetic alliteration in naming this work and parts thereof: the full title is Oda Elegical
Song, and the names of parts are Eulogy, Ecloge, and Epitaph. (See comments to vol. 4
of Stravinsky's Correspondence with Russian Addressees.)
6. In the above-mentioned draft of this letter, the closing phrase is somewhat different: "I
would like to think that you find both the idea and the music appealing, and that I will receive
a letter in response. I am sending all this to you to Brussels. I do not know where you are now;
I only know that you have not fulfilled your intention to be in our neck of the woods in
California, which I find regretful. I do not know when we will be able to meet again. Good
bye, I kiss you firmly; take your rest and gather summer strength for the forthcoming season."
7. Though still in the early stages, the Foundation was determined to keep
manuscripts of all commissions. They are now held by the Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C.
8. The last phrase is written by hand on a separate sheet of paper enclosed with the letter.
Letter 64
Letter 65
2. His article "Justice to Composers," published on 16 May 1943 in the New York Times,
drew much public attention.
3. His nickname for Olga Naumova.
4. Koussevitzky's first visit to California took place in the fall of 1949, when he gave two
concerts in Los Angeles at the Summer Music Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. The
program included Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Seventh Symphony, and Sibelius's
Second Symphony. The local festival orchestra was unaccustomed to the rehearsal
schedule the conductor insisted on-six rehearsals in four days: "Two or three months
under Koussevitzky's baton and the Los Angeles orchestra will be equal to any orchestra
in the world," the newspapers wrote (Albert Goldberg, "Koussevitzky's Art Wins Acclaim
at Bowl," Los Angeles Times, 3 Sept. 1949). Koussevitzky visited Stravinsky on 30 August
1949.
Letter 66
2. Stravinsky did not believe that Koussevitzky was capable of 'hearing' a score before it
was performed. It is curious that in the draft of the letter, which is in the Stravinsky
Archive (Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel, Switzerland), the composer crossed out the second
phrase. It nevertheless found its way into the text of the letter that Koussevitzky received.
(See comments in vol. 4 of Stravinsky's Correspondence with Russian Addressees.)
3. The draft of the letter contains a continuation of the phrase, which is crossed out: "...
in Boston, as you wanted it to be." Stravinsky initially intended to conduct the premiere
himself: "I will conduct the Ode at Boston Symphony the 13, 14 and 15 of January 1944
(Stravinsky to Hugo Winter, 5 Sept. 1943, quoted in Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence,
vol. 3, ed. Robert Craft [New York: Knopf, 1985], 287). He included it in the proposed
program for his Boston concerts (see letter no. 67).
4. In the draft of the letter, there is a continuation of the phrase, which is not crossed
out but which nevertheless is not in the final version: ". .. for the brilliant article, of
which I've heard but which I have not read." "Justice to Composers" (see letter no. 65).
5. The draft of this letter contains the crossed-out continuation: "... I kiss you firmly;
don't forget me."
Letter 67
2. Stravinsky's concert in Boston in January 1944.
Letter 68
2. Stravinsky learned on 23 September via a telegram from the BSO that the premiere
was slated for 8 October and that Koussevitzky would conduct. As he wrote the same day,
"The telegram I just received came as a complete surprise to me" (letter to Hugo Winter,
23 Sept. 1943; quoted in Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence, 3:287). Five days later Vera
Stravinsky recorded in her diary: "Igor is still in a bad mood because of yesterday's wire
from Koussevitzky saying that he will conduct the premiere of Ode." (Dearest Bubushkin,
130; there is no copy of the telegram in the conductor's Archives). In any other case
Stravinsky would have rebelled against such a decision by a conductor, but because the
work was dedicated to Natalia Koussevitzky, he did not object. Given the fact that the
composer usually treated conductors who interpreted his works with intolerance, the
words "delighted you will create the Ode" (emphasis added) acquire a pointedly ironic
character.
3. Associated Music Publishers was founded in 1927 by Paul Heinecke. Initially an

agency that represented leading European publishing houses in the United States, the
firm soon became active as a publisher, issuing works by Elliott Carter, Cowell, Ives,
Piston, and Harris, among others.
4. Complete set of parts for wind instruments and for the first stands of the string quintet.
5. For corrections he made to the score, see letter no. 69.
6. Hugo Winter (1891-1971) was the representative of Associated Music Publishers in

New York.
7. John Naglee Burke (1891-1967), a musicologist, wrote books about Clara Schu-
mann, Beethoven, and Mozart, as well as about the BSO (together with Mark deWolfe).
In 1934 he succeeded Philip Hall as the staff writer of BSO program notes. Without
waiting for Koussevitzky to get in touch with Burke, Stravinsky sent Burke a letter with a
detailed analysis of his new score the same day.
Letter 69
2. The telegrams are not in the Koussevitzky Archives.

4. Musicians for the augmented orchestra that the score requires.
5. The BSO had last performed Pulcinella in 1932.
6. The BSO performed Jeu de cartes in 1939, five years earlier, not three. As if foreseeing
an incorrect interpretation of the title of his "Four Norwegian Moods," Stravinsky wrote
that the score had little to do with "Stimmung [mood] or some mode of thought; rather,
an image is intended: that is, a form, a method, or a style. Every part includes various
chants, taken from Norwegian folklore ... genuine (from the viewpoint of melodic
aesthetics as used [in my work], of course, differently than by Grieg, Sinding, Svensen &
Co). Your comment regarding my proximity to Haydn's interpretation of folklore is com-
pletely justified" (Letter to Nicolas Nabokov, 5 Oct. 1943, Hollywood; quoted from vol. 4
of Stravinsky's Correspondence with Russian Addressees).
Two years later, before a performance of his composition in Paris, Stravinsky touched
on this problem once again. "By Mood," he wrote, "I mean the Latin modus, as, for exam-
ple, in In modo antico" (letter to Manuel Rosenthal, 18 Aug. 1945, Hollywood; quoted
from vol. 4 of Stravinsky's Correspondence with Russian Addressees). In writing this, the
composer indicates that one possible-and perhaps the best-title may be "Four Pieces in
the Norwegian Style."
Letter 70
1. Handwritten draft of a telegram, in English, jotted down on the reverse side of
Stravinsky's letter of 27 Sept. (no. 69).
2. 8 Oct.; the Ode was performed again the next day. At about the same time Stravinsky
wrote, "I think that the Ode will be included in the first half of the concert, and that
Koussevitzky will be precise with regard to the tempos that I have marked in the score"
(Letter to Nicolas Nabokov, 5 Oct. 1943, Hollywood; quoted from vol. 4 of Stravinsky's
Correspondence with Russian Addressees).
Letter 71
1. Telegram, in English; sometimes incorrectly dated 8 Oct. (see Vera Stravinsky
and Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 645). Vera Stravinsky recorded in
her diary on 9 October that "Igor is sad because the Ode was badly played" (Dearest
Bubushkin, 130).
2. Stravinsky must have chosen this word deliberately, since "penetrating" can connote
both "insightful" and "screeching." According to Vera Stravinsky, the composer's
comment after the radio broadcast from Boston was "Very bad" (Vera Stravinsky and
Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, 645). In mentioning the present telegram and
the subsequent letter (dated 11 Oct.) from Stravinsky to Koussevitzky, Vera Stravinsky
and Robert Craft do not comment on Stravinsky's mistakes in the proofs of the orchestral
scores, which, as Stravinsky himself insisted, he had carefully corrected. Also, nothing is
said about Stravinsky's letters to Koussevitzky (11 and 12 Oct.), in which the composer
offers the conductor his apologies for mistakes in the proofs (see letters nos. 72 and 73).
Letter 72
3. Stravinsky drew two horizontal lines in red pencil in the score; they separate three
lines of music.
Letter 73
2. Enclosed was one page of corrections, in English:
ERRATAS: ODE by I. Stravinsky
Orchestra score and parts
Violins lst: 2d bar after 5 - the 2d note is a B ~ (naturale [sic!])
Trumpet: in 39 must be changed in C and not remain in B l (flat)
Figure 43 (the music of Oboes, Clarinet and Horns) contains seven mesures [sic];
then comes figure 44 (the music of syncopated Strings with Timpani), which like-
wise contains seven mesures [sic!].
3. Apparently having forgotten his earlier apologies, Stravinsky later wrote that the BSO
trumpeter had mixed up the key and played his part a major second higher than it should
have been: "Not only did such an unexpected change in the style of the harmony not make
Koussevitzky suspicious, but a few years later he confessed to me that he liked the 'original
version' much more" (On Conductors and Conducting, in: Stat'i i materialy [Articles and
materials], 72.) It was recorded in June 1962 at the request of the London Observer.
Letter 74
3. The January 1944 programs would not include the piece. Stravinsky conducted Jeu de
cartes, Symphony in C, the Circus Polka (its first concert performance), "Four Norwegian
Moods," and the Pulcinella Suite.
4. By the time this telegram was sent, Koussevitzky must have already received not only
Stravinsky's telegram from 10 October, but also his letters (see nos. 72 and 73). "A tele-
gram from Koussevitzky about Ode seems to satisfy Igor," Vera Stravinsky recorded
(Dearest Bubushkin, 130).
Letter 75
1. Draft of telegram, in English; date based on the first of a series of Stravinsky concerts:
13 January 1944, in Cambridge.
2. The week of Stravinsky's rehearsals and concerts in Cambridge (13 Jan.) and Boston
(14 and 15 Jan.). Koussevitzky usually spent a short winter "vacation" in Saratoga
Springs, where he rented a small house. "Igor's matinee concert in Boston. A good audi-
ence reception. The Circus Polka is played twice. Many people in the greenroom after the
concert," Vera Stravinsky recorded in her diary on 14 Jan. (Dearest Bubushkin, 130).
3. There are no letters from Stravinsky for the period 12 October 1943 to 16 May 1944
in the Koussevitzky Archives.
Letter 76
2. The gathering was a dinner given by American musicians in honor of Koussevitzky's

seventieth birthday and his twentieth anniversary with the BSO. The dinner took place
that day at the Lotos Club in New York; about 400 people were invited. Among those
who sent their congratulations were Arthur Bliss, Britten, Nadia Boulanger, Villa-Lobos,
Vaughan Williams, John Alden Carpenter, Darius Milhaud, Prokofiev, Sessions, Alexander
Tansman, William Walton, Carlos Chavez, Harris, and Shostakovich; conductors such as
Walter, Munch, Reiner, Szell; the cellist Grigory Piatigorsky; the violinists Joseph Szigeti
and Lea Luboschitz; Chaim Weizmann from Palestine; and the Soviet Ambassador
Andrei Gromyko. Stravinsky also sent greetings (though there is no telegram in the
Archives). "I join all those innumerable sincere greetings which you have received these
days on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of you work with the Boston Symphony
and of your seventieth birthday. We drank to it-in advance!-at Ernst Toch's with
Thomas Mann and Stravinsky," Joseph Szigeti wrote (letter to Koussevitzky, 10 June
1944, Palos Verdes, Calif., KA-LC).
Three years later, on 12 January 1947, Stravinsky would attend the League of Com-
posers' celebration in Koussevitzky's honor at the Museum of Moder Art in New York.
Letter 77
2. Stravinsky's concert in New York on 4 Feb. 1945. The "Ballet Scenes" were written
in the summer of 1944 on commission from a New York Broadway theater and were
inspired by Adam's Giselle. It was important to Stravinsky to conduct the work himself.
The score had been performed in the theater over a span of twenty-five weeks with a large
number of cuts, and he now wanted to present his original score. After its first perfor-
mance in Paris, Honegger called the work "a wonderful catalogue of orchestral effects"
and stated that "Stravinsky is still in full bloom" (Vera Stravinsky and Craft, Stravinsky in
Pictures and Documents, 376).
Letter 78
2. "Wire" is written in English; Koussevitzky's telegram from 5 Feb. 1945 (no. 77).
3. Even though Stravinsky conducted the BSO several times during the 1940s, his
meetings with Koussevitzky were few. Koussevitzky would often be out of town during
such times. Living in Hollywood, the composer rarely went to the East Coast, and his
visits to New York did not often coincide with BSO concerts there. Nevertheless,
Koussevitzky seized every opportunity to see Stravinsky. For instance, while in Chicago
with the BSO he visited him on 4 April 1943; Stravinsky conducted several performances
of Petrushka staged there by George Balanchine. A month later, on 10 May, they met in
New York, where Stravinsky conducted his Apollo. They would meet again in New York
on 19 February 1945 and on 23 February 1949.
Letter 79
2. The following telegrams are in the Koussevitzky Archives: "Since 1940 Galaxy
refuses to submit statements pertaining to the publishing house business. Please contact
Galaxy and state that all statements should go to me as the owner of the publishing
house" (Koussevitzky to Paitchadze, 2 June 1945, Boston, KA-LC). "I am surprised by
Galaxy's behavior. Cabled them to provide all statements starting 1940 and to pay all the
accumulated money" (Paitchadze to Koussevitzky, 7 June 1945, Paris, KA-LC).
Paitchadze then sent Kramer a detailed letter, a copy of which went to Koussevitzky. It
said, among other things: "I hope that you will comply with Dr. Koussevitzky right away"
(Paitchadze to Kramer, 9 June 1945, Paris, KA-LC).
3. A suggestion regarding the advance Stravinsky most likely received from Paitchadze.
Three days after this letter, Paitchadze wrote to Koussevitzky (original in English),
"Stravinsky is very anxious to receive his part as soon as possible. I know it from the
letters his son has shown to me here. No doubt he will ask you to pay him this part. As,
on the one hand, we cannot let him wait indefinitely and, on the other hand, you do
not know exactly our conditions with him, which are rather complicated and
different for each work, I would suggest you pay him an advance representing one
quarter or perhaps one third of all net proceeds from his works" (23 June 1945,
Boston, KA-LC).
4. Bruno Zirato (1884-1972) was manager of the New York Philharmonic. Stravinsky
gave the authoritarian, often cruel manager the nickname "Sparafucile." Zirato paid him
back in kind. Referring, and not without reason, to Stravinsky's love of money, he said
that Stravinsky's initials should be written in the reverse order: SI. Showing what the
monogram would look like, Zirato would cross the first letter with the second and would
come up with a symbol similar to the dollar sign (see Philip Hart, Fritz Reiner: A Biography
[Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1994], 83).
5. Symphony in Three Movements; Stravinsky was working on it from 1942 to 1945.

Only on 15 February 1945 did the New York Philharmonic, represented by its manager,
officially commission it as the Victory Symphony. The composer dedicated the work to the
New York Philharmonic Society and premiered it on 24 January 1946 with that orchestra.
6. Paul Whiteman (1890-1967; Stravinsky spells the name incorrectly as "Whitman")

was an American jazz conductor who led orchestras in New York and whose popularity in
the late 1920s can be compared to Frank Sinatra's or the Beatles' in their heyday. (See
James Lincoln Collier, The Making of Jazz: A Comprehensive History [Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1978].) Whiteman commissioned Rhapsody in Blue from Gershwin (1924) and
premiered it with his orchestra with the composer as the soloist. He also maintained close
professional ties with Victor Herbert, Duke Ellington, and many other American musi-
cians. Whiteman arranged more than 3,000 works and made over 600 recordings with his
orchestra. The premiere of Scherzo a la russe took place on 5 September 1944 on Blue
Network Radio with the composer conducting.
7. Symphony Hall in Boston.
8. The following three lines are handwritten into the margins.
Letter 80
1. Typewritten, in Russian. The original of Koussevitzky's letter is not in the Stravinsky
archive (Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel), even though the composer received and also
replied to it (see letter no. 81).
2. This is the last discussion of the Galaxy situation between Stravinsky and
Koussevitzky, at least as documented by the papers in the Koussevitzky Archives
in the Library of Congress. The conflict between ERM and Galaxy, however,
ended only in 1949, shortly before ERM was sold to Boosey & Hawkes.
3. As mentioned earlier, the wartime situation had forced Koussevitzky to give up

Tanglewood concerts with the full BSO. He had to be content with the student orchestra
and with the BSO reduced to chamber size. The Tanglewood Mozart Festival in the
summer of 1944 consisted of four programs, which included seven symphonies, Eine kleine
Nachtmusik (K525), the Serenade for Eight Winds (K388), overtures to the operas
Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito, the Violin Concerto in D (no. 4, K218), the Piano
Concerto in D (no. 26, K537), and the Concerto in E-flat for Two Pianos (K365).
Among the performers were the singer Dorothy Maynor, the pianist Robert Casadesus,
the piano duo Pierre (Pyotr) Luboshutz and Genia Nemenova, and the violinist Ruth
Posselt. Mozart's music was not performed frequently at the time. Koussevitzky, however,
considered Mozart to be a life-affirming force necessary for humankind during a time of
worldwide disasters. Mozart's style was for him a combination of the refined grace of the
French rococo, aristocratic but almost extinct, with the "fresh blood" of the German, or
more precisely, "Mannheim" style. Koussevitzky's view came close to that of the well-
known German music historian Hugo Leichtentritt (two of his articles on Mozart, in the
form of letters to Koussevitzky, were published in the festival programs and in the
Berkshire Evening Eagle). The Mozart Festival had a special meaning for Koussevitzky, who
saw Tanglewood as a successor to Salzburg and wanted to see Mozart's music included in
future seasons. The natural beauty of Tanglewood, its idyllic quiet, made it for him an
ideal place for Mozart.
The Bach-Mozart Festival of 1945 included six programs, attracting about 3,600
music lovers. Koussevitzky again strove to combine well-known works with less-famous
ones. Among the soloists were the pianists Aleksandr Brailovsky, Aleksandr Borovsky,
and Casadesus. "Nobody organizes Bach or Mozart festivals in America," Arthur Lourie
wrote. "It is Koussevitzky's personal merit to have done so, and I think he is right when he
says that he needed twenty years of diligent work with the Boston Symphony to finally
have a chance to perform this music with a chamber ensemble" ("Koussevitzky's Summer
Concerts," Novoe Russkoe Slovo, 19 Aug. 1945).
4. The Koussevitzkys called their house Serenak, after the first letters of the words
"Sergei," "Natalia," "Koussevitzky."
5. Koussevitzky knew Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) from the 1920s. It was in her
studio that he met the young Copland, and in February 1925, on Koussevitzky's invita-
tion, she performed with the BSO as soloist in Copland's Symphony for Organ and
Orchestra. She appeared with the orchestra a second time in February 1938 as soloist
as well as conductor.
6. Here the copy of the letter breaks off.
Letter 81
1. Handwritten, in Russian; the proposed program is typed, in French.
2. The program of his Boston performances on 22 and 23 February 1946 was later
changed (see note 2 to letter no. 85). The new, third suite from The Firebird (1945; the
first two date to 1911 and 1919) consists of the following ballet numbers: Introduction,
Prelude and Firebird Dance, Firebird Variations, Pantomime I (Firebird Pas de deux and
Ivan Tsarevich), Pantomime II (Scherzo-Dance of the Tsarevnas), Pantomime III
(Khorovod), Firebird Lullaby, and the Final Hymn.
Letter 82
2. Koussevitzky made every effort to arrange for Paitchadze's trip to the United States.
Not only was it difficult to obtain tickets for a steamboat, it was even more difficult to
obtain an American visa during the first postwar years. Paitchadze would arrive in the
United States on 25 March 1946.
Letter 83
2. See letter 82.
Letter 84
2. Additional Tuesday rehearsals were impossible because the BSO performed in Provi-
dence that day in a concert conducted by the concertmaster and assistant conductor
Richard Burgin (1893-1981).
3. Koussevitzky's recommendation was based on suggestions from BSO manager Judd.

"It might be rather nice," he wrote, "to introduce this new work at the Friday-Saturday
concerts in Boston, assuming Mr. Stravinsky can suggest some familiar composition,
either by himself or by another composer" (letter to Koussevitzky, 22 Oct. 1945, Boston,
KA-LC). Aside from purely practical considerations, Koussevitzky may also have been
guided by his impression of the symphony. "The whole day with Koussevitzky," Arthur
Lourie wrote a few months later. "Spoke about Stravinsky and his new symphony. Gen-
eral impression that of an empty place" (diary entry, 15 Feb. 1946, Laloy Family Archive,
Paris, quoted by permission of L. Korabelnikova).
Letter 85
2. On 22-23 February 1946 Stravinsky conducted the following program: "Ballet

scenes," Symphony in Three Movements. Intermission. Petrushka (scenes 1 and 4),
Firebird Suite (third version).
3. Shura Cherkassky (1911-1995) moved to the United States with his family from
Odessa as a child (1922). He studied music at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with
Josef Hofmann. He became close with Stravinsky in the early 1940s, and in 1944 the
composer approved of his performance of three excerpts from Petrushka. Cherkassky first
appeared with the BSO in 1946.
Letter 86
2. Ralph Hawkes, co-owner of Boosey & Hawkes. Hawkes's firm merged with Boosey
(founded in 1816 by Thomas Boosey) in 1930. In 1920 Ernest Oeberg initiated negotia-
tions with Hawkes & Son to serve as representatives of ERM. "It is a very wealthy firm,"
Oeberg wrote, that "wishes very much to work with us" (letter to Koussevitzky, 4 Feb.
1925, Paris, KA-LC), By that time, Hawkes & Son already represented Beliaev's Publish-
ers. Oeberg insisted that they buy the entire ERM London inventory; Hawkes agreed, and
the deal was finalized by Paitchadze in 1926, after Oeberg's death.
In 1940 Paitchadze signed an agreement that allowed Boosey & Hawkes to reprint
ERM publications. In the fall of 1945 the firm replaced Galaxy as ERM's American repre-
sentative. The idea of selling the publishing house to its well-established partner emerged
soon after (see note 2 to letter no. 88). This may have been the reason for Koussevitzky's
wish that Stravinsky meet one of the owners.
3. Stravinsky met with Hawkes on 28 December 1945, the day he and Vera became
American citizens.
Letter 87
2. The main purpose of Paitchadze's visit was to discuss long-term plans for ERM and
Gutheil. Another was to resolve the conflict with Galaxy. He remained in the United
States from 25 March to 28 June.
Letter 88
2. In the very first letter Paitchadze managed to send Koussevitzky after Paris was liber-
ated, he wrote:
Our publishing houses suffered great losses. At the end of December 1943 [the
building of - V.Y.] Breitkopf was destroyed and burned to ashes. That's how
Gutheil Publishing lost its warehouse and all the copper plates. Except for a
relatively small reserve we have in Paris, we will have to start from scratch.
The Edition Russe is in slightly better condition. They lost both the Breitkopf
and the Berlin warehouse and the office with its archive, but the copper plates
from the Roeder printing house remained intact until July 1944. Of course, I don't
know what happened afterwards, but there is a slim chance that fate has spared
them. Fortunately, everything we produced in the last 20 years was printed in
Paris and that part of the firm did not suffer." (8 Feb. 1945, Paris, KA-LC)
Paitchadze initially hoped that he would manage to rebuild both publishing houses;
conditions seemed to support this. The demand for Russian music in the last years of the
war and immediately afterward was great, and competition with other Russian music
publishing houses-Beliaev, Bessel, Jurgenson-was on equal footing, since all had suf-
fered great losses.
It was later confirmed that ERM's copper plates, stored in Leipzig at Roeder's, were
indeed entirely intact. Paitchadze won the prolonged battle with Galaxy and forced them
to settle its ERM accounts for the war years. Nevertheless, Koussevitzky and Paitchadze
decided to sell the firm. Negotiations with Boosey & Hawkes and the legal confirmation
of the deal took several years; the final agreement was signed in 1947. However, in 1951,
after Ralph Hawkes's death (in the fall of 1950), Paitchadze wrote to Koussevitzky that
"We could not yet hand over ERM shares to Boosey and Hawkes. Officially you are still
the owner of the business" (15 Jan. 1951, Paris, KA-LC).
Payment for the purchase of ERM took place in installments spread over several
years. ERM's payments to Stravinsky were stretched accordingly. A letter from Paitchadze
to Koussevitzky dated 22 October 1948 lists the total debt as $1,575.60. In another letter
(29 Dec. 1949), he writes that the payments to Stravinsky would be settled with the
money ($1,380) that ERM had received from the BSO for the use of orchestral scores in
1941-46 (both letters are in KA-LC). The shares were finally handed over a week before
Koussevitzky's death. Paitchadze informed him of the transfer in a letter dated 31 May
1951 (KA-LC).
Letter 89
2. Oedipus Rex was performed in Boston on 12 and 13 March 1948, with Koussevitzky
conducting.
Letter 90
2. Stravinsky did not change his attitude toward Koussevitzky at all and, in the Russian
saying, 'kept his fist hidden in his pocket.' Responding to a letter from Nabokov in which
rehearsals of his elegy Pushkin's Return (premiered on 2 January 1948 in Boston) with
Koussevitzky and Marina Koshits and piano accompaniment by Nina Koshits were described
with malicious irony, Stravinsky wrote: "What awful g...she, all these Ks [!] Because
neither he, nor the mother with the large behind, can be written in Russian other than with
a K" (Stravinsky to Nabokov, 2 Jan. 1948 [Hollywood]; quoted in vol. 4 of Stravinsky's
Correspondence with Russian Addressees). [Translator's note: "g... she" is "govnishe," or
"horrific shit." "K" is pronounced "ka" in Russian; hence "kaka," meaning "shit."].
3. Los Angeles Philharmonic.
4. The premiere of the ballet, which was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein, president of
New York Ballet Society and co-founder of the American Ballet School, was choreo-
graphed by George Balanchine, who previously had staged Apollo in New York and
Buenos Aires. The idea for the ballet came from him. In Hollywood in the summer
of 1946, Stravinsky and Balanchine agreed on the script and the length of each episode.
The New York premiere, a great success with both the public and the media, was
conducted by the composer.
Letter 91
2. On 17 April Stravinsky attended a BSO matinee concert at Carnegie Hall. Vera

recorded in her diary: "We go to Koussevitzky's matinee concert: an atmosphere of flat-
tery; Igor says that the boxes are filled with old people who have taken trips with
Koussevitzky down the Volga" (Dearest Bubushkin, 144). Koussevitzky had never been
good at flattery, and as for the guests in Koussevitzky's box that day, the only person who
had participated in the conductor's Volga tours (1914) was the critic Arthur Abell, whose
acquaintance the conductor had made in Berlin in 1898. Abell was a correspondent for
the Musical Courier.
Letter 92
Letter 93
2. Oedipus was performed in Boston on 29 and 30 March 1940.
Letter 94
2. Stravinsky's reply is not in the Koussevitzky Archives.
Letter 95
2. They had discussed over the telephone the possibility of Stravinsky's participation in
a BSO concert in the 1948-49 season.
3. Koussevitzky replied affirmatively to this inquiry the next day in a telephone conver-
sation. Sviatoslav (Soulima) Stravinsky performed many of his father's works; he taught
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and made piano arrangements of
several of Stravinsky's scores.
Letter 96
1. Typewritten, in Russian. The Koussevitzky Archives contain both a copy and the
signed original. It is unclear whether the letter was subsequently retyped or if it remained
unsent.
2. The last two phrases are handwritten.
Letter 97
2. The 1948 Berkshire Music Festival concerts included symphonies by Beethoven,

Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams, and
Piston, all conducted by Koussevitzky; Bernstein conducted Mahler's Second Symphony
and the full score of Stravinsky's Petrushka. Isaac Stem performed Prokofiev's First Violin
Concerto, and Piatigorsky was the soloist in Richard Strauss's Don Quixote. The Robert
Shaw Choir performed Bach's St. John's Passions; and the Juilliard String Quartet the full
cycle of Bartok quartets. However, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex was a focus of attention for pub-
lic and critics alike. Performers included Carol Brice (Jocasta), David Lloyd (Oedipus),
James Pease (Creon), and Wesley Addy (narrator). "Top-notch performance," wrote New
York Times critic Olin Downes ("6.300 Brave Rain at Tanglewood," 6 Aug. 1948). The con-
certs were broadcast domestically and abroad in twenty-eight countries on Voice of America.
Letter 98
Letter 99
1. Chairperson of the International Committee of the American League of Composers.
2. Typewritten, in English, on letterhead of the New York Hotel Ambassador.
3. Stravinsky learned of the preparations for a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of

Koussevitzky's time with the BSO while in Boston for concerts. The artistic committee
for the celebration was headed by Vladimir Horowitz and included Bernstein, Borovsky,
Vladimir Golschmann, Dorothy Maynor, Nathan Milstein, Piatigorsky, Ruth Posselt, and
Sanroma. A dinner was held in Koussevitzky's honor on 2 May at Symphony Hall with
more than 1,000 guests attending, among them all the BSO musicians. Koussevitzky was
presented with a citation by the Friends of the Orchestra Society.
On 10 May the League of American Composers hosted a banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel in New York. William Schuman lauded Koussevitzky for making "a composer not
only the subject of his particular care in both artistic and economic sense, but also [for mak-
ing] this care the center of his life" ("Tribute to Koussevitzky: Speech at the Koussevitzky
Anniversary Dinner," typescript, KA-LC). Then he presented the honoree with a large
album of autographs by American composers, most of whom were present at the event.
According to a poll conducted by American newspapers, Koussevitzky's name was on
the list of ten outstanding people of the year, along with Albert Schweitzer, Secretary of
State Dean Acheson, playwright Arthur Miller, and director Stanley Kramer.
Letter 100
1. Draft of a telegram in Stravinsky's handwriting, written in English on the copy of a
typed letter to Mrs. Rice (see letter no. 99).
Letter 101
2. The program Stravinsky conducted on 11 February in Boston included Ode, the

Capriccio (with his son Soulima as soloist), the Concerto in D for String Orchestra (the
"Basel" Concerto) and Orpheus (first concert performance). On the 8 February concert in
Cambridge, Orpheus was replaced by the divertimento from Le baiser de fee. Koussevitzky
was in Scottsdale, Arizona, taking a vacation after the American Music Festival (Jan.
1949), which he had organized in New York (he conducted two programs with the BSO
at Carnegie Hall, with works by Schuman, Foss, Barber, Cowell, and Piston).
On 16 and 19 February, the BSO performed at Carnegie Hall under Stravinsky's
baton. The first program included Ode, the Concerto for Piano, Winds, and Contrabasses
(with Soulima as soloist), the Concerto in D, and Orpheus; the Capriccio (with Soulima)
replaced the Concerto on the second program.
3. Stravinsky's attitude toward critics was generally negative: "If there is something
Stravinsky dislikes more than conductors who 'edit' his music, it is critics." The composer
set high professional standards for his critics, insisting that "those who critique my work
should be at least as professional as I am" (Time Magazine, 26 July 1948; quoted in I.
Stravinskii-publitsist i sobesednik [I. Stravinsky as a journalist and an interlocutor], 153
and 181). Stravinsky's remark refers to an article by Cyrus Durgin, who wrote: "To my
taste, the early Stravinsky, of 35 to 40 years ago, with his richness and his vigor, his
revolutionary achievements in rhythm and expressivity, is the great Stravinsky, but in
recent years he has become progressively more arid and cerebral" ("Two Stravinskys, Igor
and Soulima, Appear at the Symphony Concerts," Boston Globe, 12 Feb. 1949).
Letter 102
1. Erwin Rosenthal was the owner of the Rare Books and Manuscripts shop in Berkeley.
3. The quoted price seems rather low, not only when compared with the prices for which
Stravinsky's manuscripts are sold today, but also with prices of the time. For instance, the
manuscript of his Octet, written immediately before the Piano Concerto, was sold in
Switzerland in 1950 for 6,000 Swiss francs, of which Stravinsky was informed by his son,
Fyodor (16 Feb.). The manuscript was acquired by a well-known industrialist, Werner
Reinhart, an acquaintance of Stravinsky's since the 1920s. In his commentaries to
Vera Stravinsky's diary, Craft writes: "The composer gave the money to his son but
was very annoyed with Reinhart for having refused to pay 7000 francs" (Dearest
Bubushkin, 147).
Letter 103
1. The note is written in Russian in Vera Stravinsky's handwriting, with an addition by
Igor Stravinsky; date based on Koussevitzky's concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1950.
2. This note is the last letter from the Stravinskys.
3. These words are in English.
Insert
1. Chronicle of a Friendship, 51.
2. Chronicle of a Friendship, 53.
Letter 104
2. There is no reply from Stravinsky in the Archives. However, the following letters
indicate a positive response.
Letter 105
Letter 106
1. Handwritten postcard, in Russian.
Letter 107
1. Typewritten, in English. Identical letters were sent to Howard Hanson and Walter
Piston.
Letter 108

Chronicle of A Non-Friendship - Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky

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Chronicle of a Non-Friendship: Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky

Author(s): Victor Yuzefovich and Marina Kostalevsky

Chronicle of a Non-Friendship: Letters

Edited, Introduced, and Annotated by Victor Yuzefovich

The Musical Quarterly 86(4), Winter 2002, pp. 750-885; doi:10.1093/musqtl/gdg026

the beginning of Stravinsky's career in Russia was. He harbored deep

organization that were then still alien. Following the example of

and interesting works not only in Russian but European contemporary

A Note on the Correspondence

1. Stravinsky to Natalya and Serge Koussevitzky

For Natalya Konstantinovna and Sergei Alexandrovich Koussevitzky,

2. Stravinsky to Natalia Koussevitzky

Paris, Holy Pascha 1924. Christ has Risen!

Having reestablished communication with Stravinsky in 1919, Struve

was able to bring the composer back to ERM, publishing Stravinsky's

carried with it great responsibility. Critical voices were divided. Ernest

3. Ekaterina Stravinsky1 to Koussevitzky

Most-respected Sergei Aleksandrovich,

I[gor] F [eydorovich] is sending the Chester score and parts of The

Best regards to you and Natalia Konstantinovna,

5. Stravinsky to Natalia and Serge Koussevitzky

Dear Natalia Konstantinovna and Sergei Aleksandrovich,

I was very touched by your kind telegram which I received just

We had tremendous success with all three performances,3 though

P.S. Please let me know if you have the Concerto materials4

I will be at the Hotel Hemenway in the morning.

Dear Igor Feydorovich,

Something very curious: though I met with you numerous times

Mr. Koussevitzky seems determined to perform Les noces in the United

Please accept, monsieur, these assurances of my best sentiments,

I have just received your express letter from 2 September with

Please tell Koussevitzky that I have informed Kling of his wish to

Premiere performance $250

If Koussevitzky agrees with my conditions to Salzedo, they will be

10. Stravinsky to Natalia and Serge Koussevitzky

Dear Natalia Konstantinovna and Sergei Aleksandrovich,

It is with a heavy burden on my soul that I pick up the pen to write

different questions, of which I would like to have your opinion. One of

11. Natalia Koussevitzky to Stravinsky

Dear Igor Feydorovich,

I am terribly sorry about my late reply to your letter, but we received

On 30 May 1927 Koussevitzky attended the Paris premiere of Stravinsky's

The contact with Koussevitzky was extraordinary + truly educational.

The experience did not prevent Sessions from entrusting Koussevitzky

12. Stravinsky to Koussevitzky

Thank you for your reply, dear S[ergei] A[leksandrovich].2

I thank Paitchadze for his letter.

13. Stravinsky to Koussevitzky

Dear Sergei Aleksandrovich,

Along with this letter I am returning the Orenburg shawl, it has

Did I by any chance leave my walking stick at your place?-If I did,

14. Koussevitzky to Stravinsky

Dear Igor Feydorovich!

Warm greetings from both of us,

15. Koussevitzky's note on Stravinsky's Petrushka

"PETRUSHKA" is one of the most outstanding contemporary

Stravinsky's creation includes the most valuable features: the

16. Stravinsky to Natalia and Serge Koussevitzky

I send you a thousand wishes for good health, success, and

Your Igor Stravinsky

Koussevitzky's admiration for and desire to conduct Stravinsky's works did

(19 December 1930) and would include it on several subsequent pro-

17. Stravinsky to Frederick Cabot1