Music: Master Mechanic

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One of the century's great composers makes his home in Hollywood—surrounded by the film colony, but no part of it. His presence sometimes makes film makers a little uneasy; maybe they're missing something. Every so often the word goes out to Igor Stravinsky—an austere, fastidious and independent little man—that a movie mogul wishes to see him.

One day Producer Sam Goldwyn, who buys only the best labels, summoned Stravinsky, and asked him to write the music for a picture on Russia. The conversation went something like this:

Goldwyn: How can you write the music for this picture; you're not a Communist?

Stravinsky: How can you produce it; you're not a Communist?

Goldwyn: I understand it's twenty-five thousand you want?

Stravinsky: Whatever my agent says.

Goldwyn: Well, you have to have an arranger.

Stravinsky: What's an arranger?

Goldwyn: An arranger! Why, that's a man who has to arrange your music, who has to fit it to the instruments.

Stravinsky: Oh.

Goldwyn: Sure, that'll cost you $6,000. And it'll have to come off your $20,000.

Stravinsky: I thought it was $25,000.

Goldwyn: Well, whatever it was.

At this point Igor Stravinsky stood up, stuffed his black cigarette holder in his pocket, jammed his shapeless little hat on his head, and stalked from the office. That ended the negotiations.

Another time a Hollywood studio offered Stravinsky $100,000 for three musical scores a year. Replied Stravinsky: "To turn out one worthwhile piece of music in a year is enough. To guarantee three is to make a deceit of art."

Stravinsky likes to see movies, particularly Westerns ("Just the shooting of the guns and the simple plot") and the "picture comique." But he refuses to write music for them.* In a voice like a bass trombone with the slide all the way out, he says grandly: "I cannot submit myself to their rules and laws. Practical restrictions I have always welcomed; psychological restrictions, no! They say to me, 'Create atmosphere.' Comment? Create atmosphere! How can one? I am ashamed. I blush. I am absolutely incompetent to create atmosphere. I say to them, 'You must create the atmosphere from what I write.' I cannot artificate."

A Polka for Jumbo. Yet all his life Igor Stravinsky has written music, sometimes great music, to order—for people who would hire him on his terms. The Firebird, Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky's best ballet scores, were commissioned. He has composed a polka for elephants for the Ringling Brothers, a Scherzo á la Russe for Paul Whiteman, Ballet Scenes for Billy Rose, an Ebony Concerto for Woody Herman and his jazzband. Scherzo á la Russe was written to fit one side of a Whiteman record (says Stravinsky: "He played it very badly. He has a very famous name but he is a very bad musician").