X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Robert Craft


Alexander Glazunov

In 1962, when Stravinsky returned to the Soviet Union to celebrate his 80th birthday, he visited the Leningrad conservatory and, according to his associate Robert Craft, moaned and said "Glazunov!" when he saw a photograph of the composer on display.

Les noces

Robert Craft recorded the early versions of Les noces in the early 1970s on a Columbia LP, but with pianos instead of pianolas.

Paul Steinitz

Commissions and First Performances were established in the 1950s and 1960s and included works by Stravinsky (Canticum Sacrum, guest conducted by Robert Craft, in 1956), Bruno Maderna, Luigi Dallapiccola, Peter Maxwell Davies, John Tavener, Anthony Milner, Stanley Glasser (sung in Zulu), Christopher Brown, Geoffrey Burgon and his own pupil Nicholas Maw.

Robert Craft

Craft also led the world premieres of Stravinsky's later masterpieces; Vom Himmel hoch, Agon, The Flood, Abraham and Isaac, Variations, Introitus, and Requiem Canticles.

He became particularly interested in early music and the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz, and in contemporary music by the composers of the Second Viennese School and others.


Le roi des étoiles

The recordings conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas on Deutsche Grammophon (Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New England Conservatory Chorus, 1972), Riccardo Chailly on Decca/London (Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, 1984), Robert Craft on Music Masters Classics (Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Gregg Smith Singers, 1995), and Pierre Boulez on Deutsche Grammophon (Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, 1996) all include them.


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