And Music At The Close: Stravinsky

Out Of Print... First Edition; A Personal Memoir by Libman, who shows us at close range how the great composer pursued his beloved work while fulfilling the many obligations of both his public and private lives--the story of his eighties, his final decade, his travels, concerts, recordings, and battles against advancing age and illness. Even during the final decade of his life Igor Stravinsky remained a central figure in the musical world. In his eighties the creator of the Rite of Sprihg and The Rake's Progress continued to compose major works that aroused wide attention and controversy, and travelled the world conducting concerts of his music. Apart from his beloved wife Vera and his constant companion Robert Craft, few people were closer to Stravinsky during this period than Lillian Libman, the author of this inestimably valuable book. From 1959 until Stravinskys death on April 6, 1971 she worked closely with this extraordinary man, first as personal manager and press representative, later as "sometimes his secretary, occasionally his cook, his valet, his seamstress, frequently his chauffeur and before his final illness his nurse". Equipped with fine insight, a deep admiration for the composer and an uncanny gift for depicting the realities of old age, Miss Libman has given us a heartfelt and moving account of Stravinsky and his surroundings in the years before his death. It was she who witnessed his will and was entrusted with arranging his funeral in Venice. Partisan squabbles become entirely irrelevant as she shows that the relationship between Robert Craft and the Stravinskys involved mutual dependence though uneasy moments are inevitable when the same person is partly colleague and partly 'adopted son. In handling his business affairs. Stravinsky mixed Slavic caution with a desire to care for those who loved him, and who became increasingly important to him as loneliness encroached. Virtually every facet of the later years of his life is described in this totally absorbing book. His physical deterioration was all the more tragic for being unaccompanied by any decline until the end in his intellectual powers. Miss Libman tells of life in Hollywood and New York, of travelling, of friends, of stormy recording sessions, of rehearsals and of events backstage and in the context of his family relationships. In this perceptive and moving memoir, the author has drawn upon thousands of letters and documents to chronicle with love and candour the personal and public life of a man who was venerated in his lifetime and who, in Miss Libmans words, belongs to the world.