Word: libman
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...Irving Libman, Sylvia Stone; Everett H. H. Stahl, Ruth Davis; Paul A. Levi, Vera Frankel...
...seemingly unending series of magazine articles, not to mention six semiautobiographical books, Stravinsky had appeared as the most wickedly witty, sprightly, feisty and avid of old men. In fact, suggests Libman, Stravinsky was something both more and less than that in the twelve years during which, as his personal manager and sometime member of the Stravinsky menage, she knew the composer. For one thing, he was more sparing with words, less waspish as a polemicist. For another, the lady maintains, many of the words were not the composer's at all; they were Craft's. As she sees...
Part of the problem was fiscal. After 1967, though he labored at his desk every day, Stravinsky neither conducted nor produced any finished compositions. It became necessary to maintain the pretense of a productive Stravinsky, or as Libman puts it, "to create a 'living' man from a dying genius." That enhanced his public image, encouraged his publishers, consoled the Stravinsky household (which did not seem willing to accept the reality) and, apparently, was convincing on his tax returns. (Stravinsky, for example, kept a daily notebook of the minutest home and business expenses, with a view, says Libman, toward...
...something of an ogre in Libman's eye, so is Columbia Records. Not only did Columbia credit two recordings to Stravinsky (Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, 1968; Danses Concertantes, 1971) when in fact Craft had conducted them in the composer's absence, but it began taping more and more of the rehearsal sessions in which Craft would drill the orchestra before his older colleague took over. Libman raises the possibility that some of these Craft efforts found their way into the final "Stravinsky" recordings when the tapes were later edited...
...correct portrait of the later Stravinsky, in terms of documentary proof it is still by and large Libman's word against Craft's. Yet this is a book that has a convincing ring to it. If that ring is to be challenged, it is now up to Craft-and Columbia Records-to do just that...