Kleiber had a reputation as a tyrant and a terror of Intendants. It may be that by the time he first came to Co vent Garden, which was in the 1950–51 season, he had mellowed, for the impression remaining with me was of a very impish kind of humour. I remember well sitting with him in an hotel in Switzerland. We had been negotiating for his coming to London. “There is just one other thing I would like to mention,” I said, “you have a great reputation for rows. By all means let's have a row at Covent Garden if it's really necessary, but otherwise don't let's have them. I hate rows.” He paused for a moment, then a great smile came over his face: “I don't think I make rows, but maybe it is true to say that where I am rows seem to be!” And although on another occasion he said “If there is not a row I make one” we never had a quarrel with him at Covent Garden.

Of all the forms of Russian music it is perhaps in the Art-Song that we find the most comprehensive picture of this diverse and colourful people. The fact that Russia is not a country, but a continent, comprising many different races, tongues, customs and traditions accounts as much as any other single factor for the rich variety of their folklore. But in all this diversity there was one unifying factor: the vast illiterate masses were bound together by centuries of oppression; suffering and poverty were their common lot, their normal, accepted condition. Forced by the monotony of their miserable existence to find an outlet for their emotions, they found expression for their rich phantasy and alleviation of their frustration in Song and Dance. This produced a wealth of folklore, varied in rhythm and colour, which came to life a little more than a hundred years ago when Glinka discovered the treasures of this folklore and made use of them in his operas A Life for the Tsar and Russian and Ludmilla.

War time, June 1915. On the 8th a telegram reached me in the Tzarskoie Selo, the residence of the Emperor, where I was stationed as a reserve officer: it informed me of the death of my great friend Sergeii Ivanovitch Taneieff—a tremendous blow to me. I had met him first in 1896; later we had become friends, and remained so up to that moment.

After the failure of The Love of the Three Oranges in America at the end of 1921, and in spite of the lack of interest in the production of The Gambler and the early Maddalena, Prokofieff firmly decided on a new operatic composition. Accordingly, he settled himself in Ettal, near Oberammergau, for the sole reason, as it appears, of finding a suitable environment for his Flaming Angel. Although sketches of the thematic material go back to 1919, work on the scenario seems only to have been started in the United States and the musical themes put on paper earlier were probably intended for a symphony (subsequently No. 3) and, according to Nestieff, for a quartet “on the white keys.”