Robert Craft

I mentioned Robert Craft in the last post, but of course his name may not mean much to many people. Robert Craft was a musician of no particular fame who somehow inveigled himself into the American household of Igor Stravinsky, and made himself so dispensable that he remained with the Stravinskys until not only Igor had died, but Mrs Igor as well. There is a great deal of concern as to the influence Craft actually had over the Stravinskys; but not only that, there’s a great deal of concern as to how much of what Craft puts into Stravinsky’s mouth, in his books, is actually Craft rather than Stravinsky.

There’s a very good review of Craft’s books, Memories and Commentaries, and An Improbable Life: Memoirs, by Joseph Epstein, entitled Music's Greatest Ventriloquist: Robert Craft and his Stravinsky. Fortunately someone preserved the online version of it (click here) because the original Weekly Standard version has long gone.