Slonimsky: Perfect Pitch, an Autobiography

Rating:
Summary: Musician. Lexicographer. Raconteur. Polymath. Zappatista.
Review: I might well have called this "While I Slept" (with apologies to Art Buchwald). For, despite the facts that [a] Nicolas Slonimsky lived for more than 101 years (from 27 April 1894 to 25 December 1995), [b] because of this longevity, my life overlapped his by some 55 years, and [c] Slonimsky played a major role in a good part of the music I love (that of Charles Ives), he is a quite "new" discovery for me.

Born a Jew in St. Petersburg but baptized in the Orthodox church, Slonimsky was just one of many overachievers in his family. (As one example, his maternal aunt, Isabelle Vengerova, who - like him - was to emigrate to the United States, taught piano not only to Slonimsky but to Dmitri Tiomkin, the famous Hollywood composer, while both were still in Russia, and then to the likes of Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss and Gary Graffman, when she lived in New York and served for many years on the faculty of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.)

The 1917 Revolution led to Slonimsky's 1918 emigration from the Soviet Union, but not before he became known to a number of St. Petersburg composers and musicians of fame, not the least of whom was Alexander Glazunov, the director of the music conservatory there. His migratoy path while wending his way eventually to the U.S. is a story all in itself, with "pit stops" in Kiev, Karkhov, Yalta, Constantinople, Sofia, and, eventually, Paris, where he met Koussevitsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev, assisting all three of them in various (and humorous) ways.

Arriving first in the U.S. at Rochester (NY), where he had been invited to coach the newly-instituted American Opera Company at the Eastman School of Music, Slonimsky had his initial conducting experiences (not a total success, but one which nonetheless demonstrated that he had a unique ability to "decouple" his two arms, permitting him to conduct in two different meters at the same time [something that would stand him in good stead when he later conducted the music of Ives]). From there, he went to Boston, as Koussevitsky's assistant (also not without its humor). It was in Boston that he met his wife-to-be, Dorothy Adlow (another Russian Jewish immigrant who became famous in her own right as the only Jewish editor on the staff of the Christian Science Monitor), and formed his own small chamber orchestra - made up largely of musicians from the Boston Symphony - for the performance of "new, modern" music. It was here, in 1928, that he first met Henry Cowell, which was to factor importantly in his early championing of Charles Ives and his music.

Skipping (temporarily) the Ives - Slonimsky connection, in 1933 Slonimsky was invited to be the conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, an assignment that ended in disaster when he programmed too much modern music for the tastes of the audience, not the least of which was Edgar Varèse's "Ionisation."

Later in life - in fact, largely for the balance of what was to turn out to be an exceedingly long and rich life - Slonimsky turned his attention and activities toward writing on musical matters, mostly as a musical biographer and lexicographer for various music encyclopedias such as Theodore Baker's "Biographical Dictionary of Musicians." His bulldog determination for "accuracy at whatever cost" knew no bounds, even going so far as to check historical newspaper accounts of the weather on the date of Mozart's funeral, to put the lie to claims that friends did not attend Mozart's funeral because of snow: the snow, not the funeral, was in fact canceled.

Among Slonimsky's other writings were treatises on music theory, including some rather abstruse writings on the theory of harmony that represented true inventions on his part. In one of the strangest juxtapositions - and truly one of the most hilarious chapters of the book - Slonimsky crossed paths, in 1981, with none other than Frank Zappa, who took a personal interest in Slonimsky's theories and actually applied portions of them to his compositions.

But it was the Ives connection which brought my attention to Slonimsky in the first place, on account of the anecdotes that Jan Swafford, in his "Charles Ives: A Life With Music," related regarding Slonimsky's early championing of Ives's music, decades before others (incuding Bernstein) did. In what for me is the "gravitational center" of the book, a chapter entitled "Three Places in New England," Slonimsky, with the greatest of warmth and a wealth of detail, describes his initial meeting of Ives (through the auspices of Cowell) and his concertizing in both the U.S. and Europe, including Ives works on the programs. Certainly a highlight largely lost to history was Slonimsky conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, on 5 March 1932, in a program of works by Ives, Ruggles and Varèse, to both critical and popular acclaim, as well as enthusiastic acceptance by the Berlin orchestra musicians for whom this music would have been impossibly difficult had it not been for Slonimsky's conducting expertise. Ives and Slonimsky were to remain lifelong friends, and Ives, despite his infirmaties later in life, and often with the greatest of physical difficulties, would correspond with Slonimsky. One can only wish that some recording or another of a Slonimsky performance of an Ives work would have survived, but apparently - and regrettably - this is an idle wish.

There is a sequel - of sorts - to this autobiography, called (with Slonimksy's tongue placed firmly in his cheek) "The First Hundred Years." Not an update that adds another five years to "Perfect Pitch," this one is a compendium of excerpts of some of his best writings (including excerpts from "Perfect Pitch"). There is no better way to gauge the length, breadth and depth of Slonimsky's interests and expertise on matters musical than this "sequel." But do read "Perfect Pitch" first. If you can stop laughing long enough to complete it.

Rating:
Summary: Renaissance Man
Review: Intelligent and witty. The compelling life story of a wonderfully creative and open-minded pianist/conductor, mathematician and linguist. A great read even for people who are neither mathematicians nor into 20th century composers (like me).

Rating:
Summary: Renaissance Man
Review: Intelligent and witty. The compelling life story of a wonderfully creative and open-minded pianist/conductor, mathematician and linguist. A great read even for people who are neither mathematicians nor into 20th century composers (like me).