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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
What is most conspicuous about this book is what it isn't.
It isn't a biography. Even the question as to when the main character was born isn't answered. It certainly isn't a survey of ‘life and works’. There are enough of those books.
It isn't even a surveyable book, even though it is about a composer whose music is easily ‘surveyed’. Survey and summary are simplification, which in themselves aren't bad so long as it's apparent that that is the case. But because there have been so many surveys of Stravinsky already written, it appears as if something like a survey is possible. And that is just not true. The facts alone are too numerous for one to be able to write, with a good conscience, a surveyable book. A thorough investigation of the historic and musical relationship between Stravinsky and Schoenberg would supply enough material for a heavy volume.
page 4 note * Igor Stravinsky ‘Chanson russe’. Vera Beths (violin), Reinbert de Leeuw (piano)—BVHaast 039.
page 5 note 1 Or, as some readers will still prefer to call it, Les Noces. (eds.)
page 5 note 2 Hoketus is an ensemble formed by Louis Andriessen, performing music based on the principle of hocket and consequently being associated more with jazz and folk music than with so-called serious music, (trans. note)
page 5 note 3 Bint— The Dutch word bint literally means heavy beam, as a railroad tie. The word itself has a rather hard sound. (trans. note)
page 14 note 1 Op den straatweg van Sas naar Sluis
een soldat op weg naar huis.
The English translation by Rosa Newmarch carries the same implications as Nijhoff's, ‘lode’ being defined as a vein or fissure in a rock where metallic ore is found—a ‘rockhill’ you might say. In the Dutch version stand the words Sas and Sluis, a sluis being a lock or a sluice, and sas an old Dutch form for lock. (trans. note)