RETROSPECTIVES AND CONCLUSIONS

This is the sixth volume of the contrapuntal collaboration which consists in the first half of taped interviews of Stravinsky (New York Review of Books; Harper's), occasional letters, reviews and prefaces -- and in the second, Robert Craft's own diaries covering here a span of twenty years up to 1968. The diaries afford glimpses of Stravinsky all over the world and with his friends -- Isherwood, Auden, the Sitwells, the Eliots, etc. as well as during periods of severe illness (""They are giving me phenobarbital now, probably to keep me polite.""). At all times Stravinsky's basso profundo is civilized, cosmopolitan, and justifiably opinionated as he talks about music - his or others', society and the artist, racism, television, what have you. Often he's highly entertaining (""Dying in Los Angeles is only remotely connected with death"") and always the presence makes itself felt. It's a considerable one.