REGARDED as one of the 20th century’s great composers, Stravinsky is pivotal to modernism and the bloke your dad guesses for all music questions on University Challenge.
What’s less well-known, however, is that the overwhelming obsession of his life was his tempestuous beef with loathed rival Arnold Schoenberg.
Stravinsky’s recently discovered diaries reveal the Russian to have been consumed with perceived sneak disses from his Austrian rival, and plans for how he might clap back to reclaim his street cred and boost sheet music sales.
An extract reads: “Heavy is the crown that participates in a musical movement that embraces Russian folklore and rejects Teutonic heritage.
“Albert Schoenberg has a target on my back. First he walks out of my Piano Sonata, then calls me ‘Little Modernsky’ in his Three Satires, op. 28? This motherf**ker.
“Yekaterina tells me to stay in my lane and keep on my neoclassical game. These Sonata Form compositions are my legacy, not a petty battle. Yet how am I to keep silent when my fans see this disrespect out in the open?
“Shots have been fired. My interview in Picture Post alludes to his work on the twelve-tone method as that of more a musical chemist than an artist. He will be shook.
“But I’m not just retaliating. I’m winning. He knows what I’m capable of, he’s heard my leitmotifs in The Firebird. My next drop will unload a full clip of shots in his lily ass.”
Unfortunately, though Stravinsky seemed to think that the pas de deux released as part of his neoclassical ballet Apollon Musagète was a blistering attack on Schoenberg that would leave audiences gasping, nobody noticed or gave a shit.
Schoenberg remained unrattled and unaware that his rival had, using a chamber orchestra of 34 string instruments, called him a paedo. And nobody still cares today.
Next week: to 1989, when thousands of Germans took part in a spontaneous DIY project by knocking through to give themselves more space.
