High Fidelity Magazine June 1957

Report on STRAVINSKY at seventy-five Korsakov arias did not help. Then, too, phonographs pro- Stravinsky's own first recordings do not properly come liferated star performers. One notes that Rimsky -Korsakov's under my title at all. I refer to the pianola rolls that he ill- tolerance of the interpreting species is a disposition that made between 1917 and 1927, for Pleyel in Paris and later has stuck co his own scar pupil. Stravinsky did not accord for Duo Art in London. I do not know all of Stravinsky's the phonograph serious attention until years later. reasons for devoting so much labor over a period of so Recordings as communicating influences did not, in fact, many years to a limited and defunctive solution. The enter Stravinsky's life until 1914. In that year, in Paris, he pianola was the descendant of eighteenth -century musical became a collector of records of American popular music. toys, and must have been recognized as such at the time. He did nor possess his own machine, however, until the One can understand Stravinsky's interest in preserving his following year, by which time he had taken up residence in piano music in perforated roll form: for one thing, pianola Switzerland, at Morges. In that same 1915, during a stay rolls played longer than discs; for another, they guaranteed in Madrid while touring Spain with the Russian Baller, he perfect tonal fidelity. One also understands his interest in purchased a collection of corrida and gitana records; they composing especially for pianola ( the étude Madrid of were co afford him much pleasure and perhaps encouraged 1917). But publishers' emoluments must have been very the Fspatiola, the Madrid, and the Pasodoble from L'His- grand to have made him transcribe some dozen works, the toire du soldat, all composed in the next three years. In- bulk then of his music, for the odd, ghostly instrument (readers who have not watched a pianola play cannot im- agine the spectral effect produced by the movement of the playerless keys). One must see the manuscripts of the pianola transcriptions of The Rite of Spring, Pétrouchka, Le Rossignol, the Concertino to realize the immensity of the under- taking. Stravinsky also had to devote months of practice to the project; he performed all of the music, the four -hand parts by synchronization against himself. The transcriptions of Les Noces, of the complete Pulcinella, of the Four Russian Peasant Songs, and the Three Songs for Children are of curiosity interest as pure piano versions of vocal music; the piano realization of the choral part in Les Noces must have involved a new conception of the music. The Library of Congress possesses copies of all of these rolls. They are of value as interpretative documents of certain COLUMBIA RECORDS pieces at the time they were composed; they antedate any Preparatory to recording the Octet anew, i954. Stravinsky disc. Stravinsky's first performance for the phonograph was as cidentally, the acquisition of these records is closely associ- pianist. In New York in 1925 he played his Les Cinq ated in Stravinsky's mind with another event. During this doigts to a microphone -it was one of the earliest elec- same stay in Spain, and in company with Diaghilev, he tric recordings -in the studio of Brunswick Records. saw his first Chaplin film; the two Russians were speechless Alas, the recording never appeared. At about the same with delight and admiration. time (early 1925) he composed his Sérénade on la for Back in Switzerland, a fresh supply of ragtime records piano solo, perhaps the first piece of serious music written brought from the U.S.A. in 1916 by Ernest Ansermet be- advertently no record length; its four movements are con- came an actual source for L'Histoire du soldai, for the tained on four twelve -inch sides at the 78 -rpm speed, Ragtime for Eleven Instruments and the Piano Rag- Music. each movement complete on a side. The Sérénade was Though Ansermet also brought back printed music, his not actually commissioned by a recording company, but records -by coming before written music - created a Stravinsky testifies that he wrote it "with recording in precedent in the communication of a new musical style. view." Then, and during all the years of 78 speed, record Even today Stravinsky expresses delight in recollection of length was a cramping thought to composers -just as the his first encounter with those new ragtime records. film code for adulteries and Continued on page 99 JUNE 1957 35 www.americanradiohistory.com.

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