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Igor Markevitch: A Chronology Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 133/134 (Sep., 1980), pp. 10-13Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/945446Accessed: 10-03-2015 16:51 UTC

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IGOR MARKEVITCH:

A Chronology

191 2 Born 27 July in Kiev, the son of Zoia Pokitonow and the pianist Boris Markevitch (pupil of Pugno and d'Albert, and author of a piano treatise which Alfred Cortot acknowledged as a major influence).

1914 The family moves to Paris.

I916 The family settles in La Tour-de-Peilz (Vevey), Switzerland, which is to remain Markevitch's main home for the next i o years.

1921-2 5 Piano studies with his father (who dies in 1923): subsequently with Paul Loyonnet. Classical studies at Vevey College.

192 Alfred Cortot hears him play his piano suite Noces. Cortot recommends the suite to his publishers, Senart, and invites Markevitch to join his piano class in Paris.

1926 Enters the Ecole Normale de Musique, Paris, to study piano with Cortot, and

harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Nadia Boulanger.

1927 Publication of Noces.

1928 Leaves Ecole Normale with diploma; November, begins Sinfonietta in F (completed February 1929).

1929 Is introduced to Diaghileff, who, after hearing him play his Sinfonietta, commissions him first to write a piano concerto for performance in April, and then to collaborate with Boris Kochno on a ballet, L' Habit dt roi. In a letter to the London Times of

13 July, Diaghileff reviews what he calls 'a scandalous period of music . . . which

began with the cult of Gounod, Tchaikovsky, and Donizetti and ended with pastiches of Godard and Lecocq'. Denouncing the fashion of 'cynical-sentimental simplicity', he

goes on to introduce his 'young country-man Igor Markevitcllh' in wl iose nmusic he senses 'the very birth of that generation which can protest against the Paris orgies'. i 5 July, Markevitch plays the solo part in the premiere of his Piano Concerto at Covent Garden, with the Covent Garden Orchestra conducted by Roger Desormiere. 28 July, accompanies Diaghileff on a visit to Baden-Baden for the world premiere of the Hindemith-Brecht Lehrstiick, and then to Munich for The Magic Flute (conducted by Strauss) and Tristan.

July-August, works on L'Habit du roi, which is, however, abandoned after the death of Diaghileff on 19 August. Some of the material sketched for the ballet is incorporated in the Cantata which he begins towards the end of the year, and for which Cocteau provides the text.

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MARKEVITCH: A CHRONOLOGY II

1930 4 June: Desormiere conducts the world premiere of the Cantata. 'This Cantata' writes the composer Henri Sauguet, 'achieved an immense success . . . It bears witness to a very rare mastery, and to a marvellous balance of intelligence and esprit'. August-September: Markevitch writes to Willy Strecker, the eminent music publisher and director of Schott (Mainz), offering the Sinfonietta, the Piano Concerto, and the Cantata for publication. Strecker enthusiastically accepts all three works. With his courageous support, Schott are to remain Markevitch's exclusive publishers until political events supervene in 1938. 8 December: Paris premiere of Concerto Grosso is received with great enthusiasm: 'a door suddenly opens on the future . . . Markevitch has formidable technique and a truly unique invention' (Darius Milhaud, L'Europe, 13 December).

1931 24 April, Hans Rosbaud conducts the orchestra of Frankfurt Radio in the German premieres of the Concerto Grosso and the Piano Concerto (with the composer as soloist).

1932 Is December, the Paris premiere of Rebus (in a programme beginning with Schoen- berg-Bach and Satie's Parade, and ending with The Rite of Spring) is a major triumph for the composer. 'Today, when, according to the phrase of Paul Dukas, "we no longer find our new talent in the list of the deceased but in the list of the births" we have had many disappointments . . . So I am in no particular hurry to proclaim the genius of even the most gifted musicians. But in the case of Markevitch, after the new work he has just given us, doubt is no longer permissible . . . His music is not young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when he was i o, played like a master and not like a child prodigy. His accomplishments are amazing . . . When anyone con- gratulates the admirable Nadia Boulanger on having made such a splendid pupil, she laughs and says that he knew the secrets of counterpoint before he was born. I should add that Markevitch on every occasion pays homage to his teacher.' (Henry Prunieres, New York Times, I o January 32).

1933 March: debut as conductor, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, in the Dutch premiere of Rebus; the remainder of the concert is conducted by Pierre Monteux. 7 April, Koussevitzky conducts the American premiere of Rebus with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. 26 June, Desormiere conducts the world premiere in Paris of L'Envol d'Icare; it makes a very powerful inpression on audience and critics. 'This work . . . will probably mark a date in the evolution of music' (Darius Milhaud, Le Rempart, 28 June 33). 'It is impossible to hear these foot-scratchings, these bird-stampings, these wing- strokes, this pigeon-house of impatient slaps, without thinking of Nietzsche's phrase: "The ideas that change the face of the world make their entrance on doves' feet".' (Jean Cocteau, Revue musicale belge 5 April 3 5). 19 July, Constant Lambert conducts Hymnes at a contemporary music concert in London. The press is unfavourable: 'For frigid and calculated dissonances these orchestral writings go beyond anything in the present writer's experience. One cannot find terms to express the badness of these works' (The Glasgow Herald, 20 July 33).

1934-36 Periodic conducting studies in Switzerland with Hermann Scherchen, who becomes one of the leading advocates of his music.

1934 4 April: at the ISCM Festival in Florence, Markevitch conducts the Italian premiere of his Psaume, 'creating a sensation, and shocking the audience into loud shouts of protest' (Slonimsky, Music since 900).

1935 20 December: substituting for Scherchen, Markevitch conducts the world premiere of his oratorio Le Paradis perdu at a BBC invitation concert at the Queen's Hall, London. The press is unfavourable: 'This brave new world, in which anything can be put down on paper as though it were of portentous significance, although anything else would be

equally unpleasant and insignificant, seems to be fit only for suicides' (Eric Blom).

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12 TEMPO

1936 April, marries Kyra, the daughter of Vaslav Nijinsky, and acquires a new home in Corsier (Switzerland). 8 May, continental premiere of Le Paradis perdu in Brussels: 'Le Paradis perdu achieved an immense success in Brussels; however, I am not under any illusion about the sig- nificance of this success; the battle has only begun, because the stakes are large: in my view, Paradis marks a turning point in music!'. (Boris de Schloezer, Vendredi, 22

May 36.) 'A great work. A very great work, continuing the path which is lined with such monuments of the lyric stage as Boris, Pelleas, The Rite, and Les Noces'. (Andre Coeuroy, Beaux-Arts, 15 May 36.)

1937 May: at a composers' congress mounted by the Florence Maggio Musicale, Markevitch causes a stir by declaring that composers themselves are at least partly responsible for the isolation of which they complain. June: working in London on the score of the sinfonia concertante Le Nouvel age, commissioned by Edward James. September, at the Venice Biennale, conducts L'Envol d'lcare ('I rejoice to hear it again but I am nervous to conduct it for the first time . . . It is so terribly difficult !'- I.M. to Alex de Graeff, i August); the occasion marks a rapprochement with

Stravinsky, who is in the audience and expresses admiration for the score.

1938 i January: Piatigorsky commissions a cello concerto. 21 January: the world premiere in Warsaw of Le Nouvel age marks a new triumph for the composer: colleagues see it as a 'landmark' in the history of 'Polish' music. On his way back from Poland, Markevitch visits Nijinsky for the first time, in Kreuzlingen. In a letter to Alex de Graeff, Kyra describes the meeting as 'a marvel'.

April: Le Nouvel age is acclaimed by an audience of two thousand at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. 'It is often said that a gulf exists between contemporary composers and the masses who are avid for music. For Markevitch this gulf does not exist. He has established contact with the broad public, with the crowds; in that lies true genius'. (Leon Kochnitzky, La Revue musicale, May 1938). 17 June: Scherchen conducts Le Nouvel age at an ISCM Festival concert in London.

September: begins collaboration with C.F. Ramuz on La Taille de l'Homme. i December, Markevitch writes to Alex de Graeff: 'Scherchen has returned to Paris enchanted with his first concert . . . He tells me that Le Nouvel age aroused much individual enthusiasm, but that the music also provoked a hostility which is only beginning. He has shown me press reviews which, according to him, are only equalled in their violence by those of Tannhduser.'

1938-39 In increasingly straitened circumstances owing to conditions in Europe, Markevitch undertakes lectures, broadcasts, and two-piano recitals in Switzerland and abroad. Between the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and Christmas of that year, he completes Part I of La Taille de l'Homme. Further work is interrupted by a commission from a Swiss patron.

1940 Spring: on an extended visit to Florence, composes the sinfonia concertante Lorenzo il

magnifico. 10 June, Italy declares war on the Allies. Technically stateless owing to non-fulfilment of the two-year residence condition for Swiss citizenship, Markevitch returns to Swit- zerland only for short visits, and ceases to do so as soon as there is a risk of being cut off from Italy, where Kyra has obtained a teaching post.

1941 Bernard Berenson lends Markevitch a peasant cottage on his Settignano estate near Florence; this is to be his home for the next six years. His circle of friends now includes Luigi Dallapiccola (who writes the introductory notes for the premiere of Lorenzo il magnifico on 12 January) and the conductor Vittorio Gui. In October he completes what was to be his last original composition, the Variations, Fugue, and Envoi on a Theme of Handel.

I942 At the end of a 'a hard, a very hard, winter' (as he describes it in a letter to Alex de Graeff of 7 April 42) he falls seriously ill. While recuperating in a clinic in Fiesole

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MARKEVITCH: A CHRONOLOGY

he senses himself to be 'dead between two lives'. A new life of conducting is already in its formative stages, and during the coming year he is to give a number of concerts in Florence.

1943 Recomposes Icare. October: Germany invades Italy. Markevitch renounces his conducting commitments, joins cause with the Italian Resistance, and becomes a member of the Committee of Liberation (CLN).

1944 Further serious illness. While in hospital he composes a jeu d'esprit on themes of Johann Strauss, Le Bleu Danube; Dallapiccola visits him regularly and reads him Dante. After the liberation of Florence, Markevitch is commissioned by the British Army authorities to reorganize the orchestra and the Maggio Fiorentino.

1946 On a return visit to Switzerland he writes a political study, Made in Italy (published in France, in Italy, and in England by the Harvill Press).

I947 Acquires Italian citizenship, and following the dissolution of his first marriage, marries Topazia Caetani. His international conducting career now begins; during the next

30 years he is to hold permanent conducting posts in many cities, including Stock- holm, Paris (Lamoureux Orchestra), Montreal, Madrid, Monte Carlo, and Rome; also conducting courses in Salzburg, Mexico, Moscow, Madrid, Monte Carlo, and Weimar.

1948 Reviewing in the Journal de Geneve a concert conducted by Markevitch, the eminent Swiss critic R. Aloys Mooser writes: 'In the course of an already long life, I have encountered only two composers of whom one could justifiably say that they possessed equal aptitudes in the arts of composing and conducting: Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. To these two exceptional names must henceforth be added that of Igor Markevitch.'

1949 Completes his realization of Bach's Musical Offering.

I954 Moves to Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. subsequently acquires a summer house in the village of St. Cezaire, near Nice, which has latterly become his permantent home.

I 956 Birth of his son, Oleg.

1958 In a book of interviews with Claude Rostand, confirms his already-stated view that the time is not ripe for performing his music again.

I969 During another serious illness, plans a course of lectures on Beethoven 9th Symphony for his conducting pupils. Totalling some 6o hours, the course provides the initiative for an encyclopedic edition of all the Beethoven symphonies which occupies much of his time and energies during the 1970's, and is now (summer I98o) being prepared for publication by Peters-Leipzig.

1978 January: after more than three decades, Markevitch 'returns' to his music, conducting a concert in Brussels which includes Icare and Le Paradis perdu. 'These works have lost nothing of their strength and interest, and we see better than before what gives them their unity and their originality'. (Le Soir, g February 78)

1978-80 Performances in France, Spain, Germany, and Israel mark the beginnings of a Markevitch renaissance; plans are laid for recordings and for a complete 'retrospective' in a major European centre; completion of the first volume of Memoirs (to be pub- lished by Gallimard, October i980).

3

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