CHAPTER 4 CONNECTIONS AND CONFLICT WITH STRAVINSKY Connections and Collaborations A close friendship between Arthur Lourié and Igor Stravinsky began once both had left their native Russian homeland and settled on French soil. Stravinsky left before the Russian Revolution occurred and was on friendly terms with his countrymen when he departed; from the premiere of the Firebird (1910) in Paris onward he was the favored representative of Russia abroad. "The force of his example bequeathed a russkiv slog (Russian manner of expression or writing) to the whole world of twentieth-century concert music."1 Lourié on the other hand defected in 1922 after the Bolshevik Revolution and, because he had abandoned his position as the first commissar of music, he was thereafter regarded as a traitor. Fortunately this disrepute did not follow him to Paris, where Stravinsky, as did others, appreciated his musical and literary talents. The first contact between the two composers was apparently a correspondence from Stravinsky to Lourié September 9, 1920 in regard to the emigration of Stravinsky's mother. The letter from Stravinsky thanks Lourié for previous help and requests further assistance in selling items from Stravinsky's 1 Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the 61 62 apartment in order to raise money for his mother's voyage to France.2 She finally left in 1922, which was the year in which Lourié himself defected while on government business in Berlin. The two may have met for the first time in 1923 when Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat was performed at the Bauhaus exhibit in Weimar, Germany. At the time, Lourié lived nearby in Berlin. Gojowy mentions 1923 as the year of their meeting, but in Paris not Germany.3 The first substantial evidence of a personal introduction is a comment in Vera Sudeikina's diary entry from January 14th, 1924. Lourié, already very much an admirer of Stravinsky, accompanied him to Brussels in January 1924,4 where Stravinsky was conducting his own works and Sudeikina wrote about this occasion that "Lourié is so pleased to be present and to be talking to Stravinsky that he blushes."5 The two composers' professional collaboration was strengthened through shared interests and a common peer group of Russian emigrants. Two photos show Lourié and Stravinsky on a picnic in the Vallée de Chevreuse accompanied by fellow Russian émigrés Vera Sudeikina, Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, and Tamara Works through Mavra, vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California, 1996), 1675. 2Vera Stavinsky and Robert Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 632. 3 Gojowy, "Zeittafel," 40. According to Gojowy this was on a visit Lourié made to Paris." 4Vera Stravinsky, Pictures, 632. On January 1, 1924 Stravinsky and Vera Sudeikina had supposedly sent a letter to Poulenc regarding this trip, yet the Correspondence has no record of a letter on this date. Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft Dearest Bubushkin trans. Lucia Davidova (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1985), 20. 5Vera Stravinsky,Pictures, 290. Also see Dearest Bubushkin, 20. 63 Lourié, the composer's wife from 1924 to 1930.6 Though difficult to understand and explain, the relationships between these people are fascinating. Vera Sudeikina had become Stravinsky's mistress in 1921, yet Lourié, in approximately 1916, had lived in St. Petersburg with her, her husband Serge Sudeikin, and Olga Sudeikina. Olga Sudeikina had separated in March of 1916 from Serge and was likely Lourié's lover during the time the four shared this apartment.7 Gojowy indicates that Lourié had lived with Serge and Olga, before Vera arrived, and Lourié's relationship with Olga had made Serge jealous.8 On a trip to Moscow Serge met Vera, at this time Vera Arturovna, who left her husband and came with him to St. Petersburg. Even though Serge Sudeikin divorced Olga to marry Vera, the two women remained close friends. Although Lourié eventually broke off his relationship with Olga for the poetess Anna Akhmatova, he and Olga apparently remained friends. Lourié, Anna, and Olga had shared an apartment in the early 1920s. Furthermore, Stravinsky assisted Olga in her immigration to Paris9 and Vera was the one to formally introduce Lourié to Stravinsky once Lourié left Germany to settle in France. From 1924 to 1932, Stravinsky's home was in Nice, France; however, his frequent concertizing and conducting engagements, as well as his affair with Vera Sudeikina, prompted frequent sojourns to his Paris studio. During this time 6Vera Stravinsky, Pictures, 220. 7Ibid., 288. 8Gojowy, Arthur Lourié und der russische Futurismus, 67. 9 Once in Paris, Lourié also assisted Koussevitsky and Glazounov in their 64 Stravinsky made Lourié his musical and literary assistant. Lourié transcribed three of Stravinsky's pieces, the Concertino (1925), the Octet (1926), and the Symphony of Wind Instruments (1926), and proofed manuscripts. In addition he was privileged to hear the first informal read-throughs of Stravinsky's latest creations. Pierre Souvchinsky states that Lourié was the first person to be shown Stravinsky’s new works up until the time of Perséphone.10 In gratitude for Lourié's correction of the proofs for Les Noces, Stravinsky gave him the original full score of L' Histoire du Soldat, which later elicited a reprimand from J. & W. Chester, his publisher.11 Another piece he proofed was the Octet, in which, according to Stravinsky, Lourié failed to correct a major error.12 During this time, Lourié had wide access to Stravinsky's music; in response to Ernst Ansermet's request for some of Stravinsky's manuscripts, Stravinsky sent him Lourié's address, stating that perhaps Lourié could send what was requested.13 Stravinsky valued and utilized Lourié's musical expertise as well as his literary abilities. At various times Stravinsky recommended Lourié as an expert on his music and asked him to write articles promoting his music. These articles emigration. 10Stravinsky, Retrospectives, 195. 11Vera Stravinsky, Pictures, 633. 12Ibid., 632-633. This is according to a letter dated October 28, 1926 from Stravinsky to Pachadze. In the 1930s Paichadze, a publisher at Edition Russe de Musique, was Stravinsky's business negotiator and his second closest Russian- émigré friend after Walter Nouvel, who translated Stravinsky's autobiography into French. By this time Lourié and Stravinsky had become more distant for various reasons discussed later. 13Craft, Correspondence, 1:198. Letter is dated Friday, July 16, 1929, and 65 were part of Stravinsky's promotional strategy. As early as Mavra and the Octet, such articles in newspapers or magazines, or even interviews, radio talks, or public lectures would serve to introduce Stravinsky's newest creations.14 In 1929 Stravinsky proposed to Columbia Records in London that Lourié give a series of lectures in conjunction with a tour Stravinsky would be making through Germany.15 In effect, Lourié was Stravinsky's official spokesperson during the 1920s. In the article "Neogothic and Neoclassic" of April 1928, Lourié solidified the view that Schoenberg and Stravinsky were leaders of the two opposing camps in the contemporary musical world.16 Schoenberg was the thesis and Stravinsky the antithesis. This article substantiated Stravinsky's association with Neoclassicism as well. Boris de Schloezer had first linked the term Neoclassical to Stravinsky in an article from February 1923 that contrasted Stravinsky's "system of sounds" to Schoenberg's "psychological and expressionistic aesthetic."17 unfortunately the specific manuscript requested is not explicitly stated. 14Ibid., 219. 15Ibid., 290. Also see the letter dated August 30, 1929, from Stravinsky to Universal Edition in Appendix B. 16Arthur Lourié, "Neogothic and Neoclassic," 3. 17Scott Messing, Neoclassicism in Music: From the Genesis of the Concept through the Schoenberg/Stravinsky Polemic (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1982), 130. According to Messing "neoclassicism was easiest to identify when it was expressed in cultural values" (129), and "Schloezer, in fact, defined Neoclassicism as "a rigor, simplicity, and purity that was foreign to the nineteenth-century German Tradition"(131). 66 Lourié and Stravinsky's many collaborations required frequent meetings and correspondences. In perusing entries in Vera Sudeikina's diary Dearest Bubushkin one notices many lunches and evenings shared between the composers, especially from 1926 to 1929.18 Pierre Souvchinsky, who was perhaps the second closest friend to Stravinsky during the 1920’s after Lourié, nicknamed Lourié--Stravinsky's "valet de chambre."19 According to an interview that Craft had with Souvchinsky in 1956, "Arthur Lourié . was closer to Stravinsky in the Twenties and Thirties than anyone else. In fact, Lourié's ascendancy between 1920 and 1926 was nearly complete and nearly disastrous."20 When he states the influence was "nearly disastrous" the implication is that Lourié almost succeeded in bridling Stravinsky's creative genius by imposing his own conservative aesthetic beliefs.21 However, Souvchinsky, who never understood why Stravinsky became so attached to Lourié, likely didn't understand the deeper camaraderie between the composers. Regardless of whether one accepts Souvchinsky's negative assessment of Lourié's role, Lourié was nonetheless a close confidant to Stravinsky in these years. 18 Gojowy, Arthur Lourié, und der russische Futurismus, 174. Some of the lunches shared between the composers did include Vera and on one occasion