The 6th of April 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's death. The BBC planned a ‘Stravinsky Day’ on Radio 3 to mark the occasion, with over five hours of programming and features on the Saturday after the anniversary. In the event, the programming was delayed for two weeks as the news came in of the death of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. All BBC schedules were turned over to playing solemn music and identical news reports, a move which attracted the largest number of complaints the BBC has ever received. There is some faint poetry to discern in the parallels between the death and funerals of the Duke of Edinburgh and the death of Stravinsky back in 1971. Both occasions elicited very public outpourings of grief and various commentators marking the ‘end of an era’; on Stravinsky's death, musicians, composers, and even politicians made press releases to express their sympathies, including the White House. Both deaths invited reflections on the direction and very existence of their respective spheres: contemporary composition and the monarchy.

With the Stravinsky quinquagenary falling this year, it is perhaps inevitable that we would see several new publications released to coincide. One of these, Stravinsky in Context, edited by Graham Griffiths, is a remarkable taking of the pulse of Stravinsky Studies over the last few years. There has been no shortage of books on Stravinsky, of course: there is perhaps no other twentieth-century composer who has received more scholarly attention. Edited essay volumes have been plentiful in recent years, including Stravinsky and His World; the 2013 anniversary of The Rite of Spring brought about at least two essay collections dedicated to that infamous piece alone.Footnote ¹

Unlike most other edited collections, however, Stravinsky in Context contains many essays: thirty-five, to be exact. Such a quantity might instantly make one think of large tomes along the lines of Routledge Companions, but that is not the case here; indeed, Stravinsky in Context barely tips over 300 pages. Instead, each contribution is a micro-essay, barely numbering 10 pages or so. For some authors, this clearly provides remarkable freedom while for others it evidently means limitations.

Griffiths's credentials in Stravinsky Studies require no introduction, having particularly researched aspects of performance in relation to the composer's works for piano. The thirty-five chapters are loosely organised around six sections, with titles such as ‘Russia and Identity’, ‘Partnerships and Authorship’, and ‘Reception and Legacy’. Several chapters are so general, however, as to barely mention Stravinsky. This does not make them any less valuable in the present volume; instead, they are arguably a bonus. As a source for quotable lines or simply citing an article that states things that many assume to be unsayable without evidence, this is an invaluable book. Consider the viewpoint of how relevant this text might be for, say, a university student writing a dissertation, and we begin to marvel at the design: an amalgamation of as many ‘Contexts’ as possible. Indeed, I would suggest the title of the ongoing series could be amended to reflect the plural version. With so much scholarly work done on Stravinsky, the chapters varyingly present either summaries of recent scholarship or, in some cases, glimpses into innovative work on the edge of Stravinsky research.

The strengths of this book should be apparent: short bursts of essays on multiple aspects of Stravinsky's biography and music. This makes it highly suited to the kinds of university courses taught with composer focuses, for whom Stravinsky is a perennial favourite. The choice to have an ‘author's recommendation’ of their favourite piece is an interesting addition, often providing additional context and turning the attention on rather more neglected works, such as the Sonata for Piano (1924). Familiar warhorses of the repertoire are present, of course, though not in specifically well-defined chapters (there is not a Rite chapter, for instance). This arguably is another strength of the present volume: a reader searching for a specific work-focus might be frustrated but encouraged to consult multiple chapters instead. The thematic organization puts the emphasis solely on the multiple contexts around each work by Stravinsky: a dozen of the chapters reference Les Noces, for instance. The different international focuses for this truly ‘cosmopolitan’ composer are numerous, and include Russia, France, Spain, Italy, United States, Greece, Japan, and more. These targeted bursts of scholarly writing are immensely valuable. It is worthwhile going through the book section by section.

Part I, ‘Russia and Identity’, quickly picks up a thread that runs throughout all Stravinsky biography: how frequently the composer was wont to ‘embellish’ the facts, or recollect aspects of his past in a casual or even inaccurate way. Catriona Kelly's chapter on the composer's childhood centres exactly on this, but Kelly emphasises just how traumatic the death of his brother Roman was, for the entire family. Natalia Braginskaya writes on life and death in St Petersburg, including the deaths of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov (and Stravinsky's recently rediscovered work in memoriam of his teacher, Funeral Song). Graham Griffiths writes on Stravinsky's early piano tuition under Leokadiya Kashperova, a central piece of background to Stravinsky's later move to a career as a ‘piano virtuoso’ in the 1920s, despite never having shown any aptitude before that point (24). Lidia Ader writes on Stravinsky's relationship with Rimsky-Korsakov, primarily consulting with the latter's diaries and letters. In particular, Ader highlights just how vital Rimsky-Korsakov was for supporting the younger composer's sense of confidence (40). Ivan Moody then writes on Stravinsky's spiritual journey, especially the role of the Orthodox Church, and its function as an explicitly Russian institution. Moody highlights Stravinsky's explicit return to spirituality in works such as the Symphony of Psalms and in his use of Latin language when setting texts (46–7). Rowan Williams closes this section with his chapter on the Russian soul – a particularly useful chapter for anyone interested in an introduction to this complex subject (and, in many ways, a summary of Williams's work on Dostoevsky), but with comparatively little to offer on Stravinsky in particular (perhaps best read in conjunction with the Moody chapter).

In a vital contribution to a long-standing area of enquiry, Part II is on ‘Stravinsky and Europe’. John E. Bowlt writes on Diaghilev and Stravinsky, from their initial collaborations in the Mir Isskustva circles (61), through to their close resting places in Venice (69). Intriguingly, Bowlt spends considerable time writing about Nikolai Roerich and Stravinsky – perhaps suggesting further avenues for research. Davinia Caddy's chapter on ‘Paris and the Belle Époque’ gives an approachable overview of Paris, including the all-pervasive atmosphere of xenophobia that other authors have cited as a contributing factor to the reception of works such as The Firebird and especially The Rite of Spring (see Tamara Levitz). Jonathan Cross's chapter, ‘Paris, Art Deco, and the Spirit of Apollo’ provides a revealing further discussion, as he concludes that ‘Stravinsky both participated in and defined a new Parisian musical style’ (86). Graham Griffiths contributes another chapter, this time on Stravinsky and Spain; while a good study in exploring the Spanish influence in other Russian music, this chapter could perhaps have done with more thorough referencing, in order to help the reader find more sources on this intriguing topic. Mauricio Dottori concludes Part II with his chapter on Venice, including the relatively little-known relationship that the composer had with the city across decades, such as writing his Threni to be premiered in the city (104). Such information sheds further light on the decisions that underpin the location of the composer's final resting place.

Part III, ‘Partnerships and Authorship’, examines Stravinsky's collaborations, beginning with Inessa Bazayev's chapter on Stravinsky's influences in Paris and beyond, particularly focusing on Lourie, Prokofiev, and Koussevitsky. Bazayev shows how the four Russian expatriates managed to strongly influence each other and the wider Parisian and European music scene. Maureen Carr writes on Stravinsky's literary collaborators, suggesting that his use of text was ‘anti-Wagnerian’ (118–19). By alluding to works such as Oedipus Rex and Abraham & Isaac, Carr shows how Stravinsky would map syllables onto text as a kind of raw musical material: an innovation that was years ahead of its time. Valérie Dufour provides a vital study on the ghost-writers of Stravinsky's various memoirs, including Roland Manuel, Souvtchinsky, and Robert Craft. Dufour demonstrates how Stravinsky found most music critics to be ‘ignorant’ and wrote to either ‘restore the truth’ or simply to confound them (130–1). Kimberly Francis's chapter focuses on Stravinsky and Nadia Boulanger, particularly in how she eased Stravinsky's transition to his new life in America. Francis shows how Stravinsky made contact with Boulanger in the first few months after relocating, and eventually proves that his US residency was not a ‘reluctant exile’, but really a new way of renewing his sense of purpose (135). Anna Schmidtmann concludes this section with a revealing overview of the materials in the Paul Sacher archive that pertain to Stravinsky's conversation books with Robert Craft – and the important lacunae that exist between them and the eventual published texts.

Part IV takes in ‘Performance and Performers’: Massimiliano Locanto's chapter on ‘Stravinsky's Modernist Theatre’ compares Stravinsky's conception of theatre to that of Bertholt Brecht (153), but also deconstructs several key concepts of musical dramaturgy (as such, it rewards rereading). Stephanie Jordan introduces Stravinsky's ballet as a kind of Modernism in itself, particularly focusing on his ballets after Diaghilev and his collaboration with Balanchine. Chris Dromey writes on ‘Stravinsky's Ear for Instruments’, one of the most oft-remarked aspects of listening to his music; interestingly, Dromey tends to focus on Stravinsky's chamber music, rather than his larger works that are often held as models of orchestration. Dromey concludes that ‘listeners who persist with such music can quickly become attuned to new thresholds of consonance and dissonance’ (170). Hannah Baxter gives a fresh insight, writing on Stravinsky from the perspective of a conductor: Stravinsky had a long history of rewriting his works to ease conducting, partly for his own performances (182). Baxter gives a refreshing summary of the rigour and techniques required for some of Stravinsky's key works (183). Daniel Barolsky writes on another under-explored aspect – that of Stravinsky as pianist in the recording studio: his recording of Mozart's K. 426 duet with his son Soulima is notoriously machine-like. Barolsky relates this to Stravinsky's wider interpretations of neoclassicism (190). Per Dahl closes this section with a survey of Stravinsky's own recordings, itself an impressively comprehensive CD review packed into just eight pages.

Part V, ‘Aesthetics and Politics’, includes some of the most critical chapters in the whole collection. Emily Frey, in ‘Stravinsky versus Literature’, provides a neat overview of nineteenth-century attitudes to literature, as well as early twentieth-century Russian symbolism: Frey writes how Stravinsky frequently ‘defined music in anti-literary terms’ (205). Katerina Levidou's chapter on Stravinsky and Greek Antiquity raises an interesting question: can we compare Stravinsky's neoclassicism to classical Greece? He did, after all, write multiple works on Greek themes, including Oedipus Rex, Persephone, Orpheus, and Agon. Levidou concludes that his interest was provoked by a simultaneous move away from his Russian heritage, and also a renewal of his Orthodox faith. Mai Ikehara writes on a severely under-explored topic, Stravinsky's response to Japonisme. In particular, his Three Japanese Lyrics are the main focus here, but Ikehara raises issues of orientalism (224) and problems of translation and text (227). More interestingly, Ikehara also concentrates on Stravinsky's calligraphy in his manuscript and his attempts to recreate Japonisme in the score itself. Ross Cole writes on ‘Modernism and Mass Culture’: referring to his piano work Ragtime, Cole surveys Stravinsky's interest in popular music, concluding that ‘for other writers, Stravinsky had in fact been a jazz composer in disguise all along’ (236). Alan Street surveys the long-standing rivalry between Schoenberg and Stravinsky (a comparison often attributed to Adorno, but with much wider origins). Street provides an impressive overview of just about every scholar or critic to ever compare the two (239), but then provides a sound grounding for Adorno's changing stance on Stravinsky. This section then concludes with Erik Levi's chapter on Stravinsky's flirtation with fascism during the 1920s and 1930s – and what that might mean for modern audiences and our attitudes to the composer today.

The sixth and final part is on ‘Reception and Legacy’ and begins with Elmer Schönberger writing on ‘the Apollonian Clockwork Rewound’, a significant essay on Stravinsky's influence and place within both the academic canon and the classical repertory. Schönberger writes ‘in the long term all art is doomed to become only a matter of taste’ (261), concluding that the role of criticism after a composer's death all too often retreats from a discussion of artistic success or value into a discussion of individual taste. Following this, Philip Ewell and Olga Manulkina provide invaluable chapters on the Soviet and Russian reception of Stravinsky. Ewell focuses on the Soviet reception, including early attempts to lure the composer back to his homeland in the 1920s, but he also presents vital summaries of key authors on Stravinsky's works, including Boleslav Yavorsky and Boris Asafiev. Olga Manulkina presents a fascinating snapshot of this Soviet reception in her focus on the Craft–Stravinsky conversation books, led by Mikhail Druskin. Manulkina shows how the rarity of any text on Stravinsky during the latter years of the USSR helped to make Druskin's translation a symbol of ‘Stravinsky's cult following in Soviet Russia’ (287). Nigel Simeone unpicks the complicated story of Stravinsky's relationship with different music publishers. In the process of doing so, he tells the wider story of twentieth-century copyright law, and how this fared under global pressures and the collapse and rise of different nation states. This proves to be vital biographical information, as so many of the composer's efforts in the 1940s were motivated by lost royalties (293). Further on the subject of copyright, Heidy Zimmerman writes on ‘Copyright, the Stravinsky Estate and the Paul Sacher Foundation’, asserting that ‘no other twentieth-century composer can match Igor Stravinsky in the sheer complexity of the legal and material sides of his oeuvre and posthumous estate’ (296). Zimmerman details the complex story of how Paul Sacher was able to acquire the Stravinsky estate in 1983, and the ensuing copyright battles that had interrupted various other sales and materials. It is exactly this kind of biblio-biographical survey that is often absent from composer studies. Lynne Rogers writes on Stravinsky's lasting influence, with analytical precision in highlighting the specific aspects that have gone on to exert strong effects on younger composers. Daniel K. L. Chua then concludes Stravinsky in Context with a chapter that begins with Stravinsky's oft-cited claim that ‘Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all’, and situates that claim within recent musicological trends, suggesting that ‘Stravinsky wanted to make the object speak [but] currently, the object in musicology is spoken for’ (320). Clearly, Stravinsky's shocking statements still speak to us in the twenty-first century.

There are a handful of editing/formatting errors throughout; for instance, whenever Cyrillic is given in references, it inexplicably appears in a different font. In addition, there are several chapters where referencing is particularly poor. Overall, what this collection could have benefitted from would have been a detailed introductory essay that sets out important biography, a research survey (as seen in recent books such as The Cambridge Companion to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen): without this, many chapters open with an ‘overview’ history of either Stravinsky's biography, or the relevant literature, before moving to more specific contributions. A ‘shared’ introduction would have eliminated much of this overlap and repetition. With the absence of such an established biography and chronology, it falls to each author in turn to spell out the key events of Stravinsky's life. This results in a large amount of repetition across chapters, even sometimes on material as cursory as Stravinsky's place of birth, his various national affiliations, and so on. Presumably, the intended reader is not someone who would read the book cover to cover. Instead, it is more a kind of reference work, with short chapters that would be relevant to a wide scholarly audience. In that function, Stravinsky in Context excels and it will undoubtedly prove essential reading for the wide audience interested in this maverick composer.