 | This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical music, which aims to improve, expand, copy edit, and maintain all articles related to classical music, that are not covered by other classical music related projects. Please read the guidelines for writing and maintaining articles. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.Classical musicWikipedia:WikiProject Classical musicTemplate:WikiProject Classical musicClassical music articles | |
|
This rather famous dismissal of the piece ("Am I the only listener who finds Pli selon pli both pretty monotonous and monotonously pretty?"), supposedly by Stravinsky, was published in July 1971, three months after Stravinsky's death, in a piece in the New York Review of Books, called 'Stravinsky - the Last Interview'. It doesn't identify the 'interviewer' but purports to assemble remarks made by Stravinsky on various dates between March 1st and April 2nd 1971. Stravinsky died on 6th April 1971. Stephen Walsh, in vol. 2 of his Stravinsky biography at p.559, writes that Robert Craft later admitted to having written the interview himself. Even if he hadn't, it ought to have been pretty obvious. Some of it is just bizarre. The opening question to this great man, in extremely poor health and obviously approaching the end of his life, is: 'What are your thoughts about the new euthanasia movement, Mr. Stravinsky?'. The readers of the NYRB were asked to believe that Stravinsky, with his legendary dry wit, replied with three chipper paragraphs of (pure Craft) wittering. For example: 'For the fifty-year increase in life expectancy by the end of the century, thanks to anti-oxidents such as BHT, and hormone rejuvenators such as prednisolone, is surely the grisliest of all the fates in store for the future beneficiaries of our current medical miracles. In short, gerontological retrogression is as important as euthanasia, if ounces of prevention are worth their proverbial weight in cure.' A discredited source, if ever there was one... Dmass (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
