I am back plus some Stravinsky
I haven’t posted here in a long time, and there are many reasons for that—I do sometimes feel that it’s almost frivolous to post about music and aesthetics and my career updates when the world is in the state that it is, but the truth is, the real reason of my silence is mainly my continuous battle with ADHD. Now, as far as ADHD sufferers go, I am a fairly high-functioning one, and I’ve developed enough coping tactics that certainly would allow for me to post here monthly, which is the pace my career coach recommends. The thing is, my coping techniques are only a partial solution, and my energy and attention span is limited enough that I’ve been feeling I should apply them elsewhere; basically my lack of posting here was a result of the reasonable order of my priorities.
So what changed? First, I have some extra time due to Thanksgiving break. And second, I decided that I will deal with my ADHD head on, including using medication if it comes to that, since I feel that, as high-functioning as I may be, I am not anywhere close to realizing my full potential. I just decided this a couple of days ago, and I am yet to call my doctor and get the process started, but, as they say that in order to manifest a desire, one needs to start acting like said desire, namely, a great increase in my focus and productivity, has already been granted, so here I am posting on my blog after a long break. Now, the text below is not new; I posted it on my Facebook page a few years ago, but I figured I need to start somewhere; I also edited and expanded it a little bit. More posts, presumably, are on the way. Enjoy!
“I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music.”
--Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress.”
This quote figures prominently on the list of 22 best composer insults. However, I’d like to think that the reason this quote attracted my attention goes beyond Schadenfreude (“Look like Stravinsky got burned.”) I must disclose here that I am not a big fan of the Neo-Classical period of Stravinsky and specifically of “Rake’s Progress” even as my enthusiasm for his works of the earlier Russian period continues to grow over the years. To me, Stravinsky is not one, but three composers—the first, the author of Firebird, Rite of Spring, and Petrushka is a genius of the first order; then the second, the author of Rake’s Progress, The Symphony of Psalms, Violin Concerto and other neo-Classical (really, neo-Baroque) works is an important enough composer, just not my cup of tea; and the third, the composer of 12-tonal works, is no more than a footnote in the history of music.
Yet, coming back to this quote, once one gets over Britten’s clearly intended insult, it does arouse the question: does the composer contribute anything to an opera besides the music, and if yes, what is this contribution? In this, as in many other cases, it was Stravinsky, the composer, who decided on the story—it was he who came up with the idea that the series of paintings by William Hogarth can work as a foundation for an opera; he was the one who chose W.H. Auden as the librettist among many possible candidates, and he must’ve communicated his vision of the opera with its return to Classical model of alternating of straight-up secco recitatives and highly structured arias to his librettist, determining to a large degree what the libretto would be like before Auden had written a single word.
So Stravinsky was indeed responsible for a lot more than just the music—he was responsible for the story, for the style of the libretto (by virtue of selecting his collaborator) and for the structure. Speaking of Britten, he refused to even consider libretti that were presented to him in finished form as he felt it was essential for him to be involved in the initial conception of an opera from the very beginning. Of course, having one’s pick of world’s foremost poets or having librettists clamor for one to set their work to music is a privilege both of them had to earn first (and they did so in spades); a composer in earlier stages of their career may gladly jump at the opportunity to set the proverbial address book as an opera if someone were to promise that it be produced. Bottom line, while Britten clearly was trying to “burn” Stravinsky in the quote above, objectively, this quote still does contain an element of praise for him.