Memories and Commentaries - Tapa dura

The conversations between Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft are unique in musical history. The contents of this celebrated series of Conversations, dating from the last fifteen years of Stravinsky's life, were taken down by Robert Craft in informal talks with the composer. Craft lived for twenty-one years with the Stravinskys in their Hollywood home, or nearby, and for two more years in a next-door hotel room in New York. In the early 1950s he accompanied the composer on his concert tours, and from the mid-1950s to the end of Stravinsky's life co-conducted his concerts.

This newly edited and re-structured one-volume version brings Stravinsky's reflections on his childhood, his family life, professional associates and personal friendships into sharper focus and places the major compositions in their cultural milieux. The Conversations books are the only published writings attributed to Stravinsky that are actually 'by him', in the sense of fidelity to the substance of his thoughts, making this volume required reading for all students and lovers of Stravinsky's music.