SERGEI KOUSSEVITZKY AND HIS EPOCH E R K I K O T S S K V I T Z K V -
1 926 SERGEI KOUSSEVITZKY AND HIS EPOCH A BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONICLE BY
ARTHUR LOURIE TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY S. W, PRING 19 31
ALFRED-A-KNOPF-NEW YORK TO NATALYA KONSTANTINOVNA KOUSSEVITZKY BY
WAY OF A PREFACE By Way of a Preface W HAT is a great thought Well,
to turn stones into bread thats a great thought. The greatest No,
as a matter of fact youve indicated the whole path tell me, is it
the greatest Its very great, my friend, very great, but not the
greatest great, but of second-rate importance and great only at a
given moment. A man eats his fill and doesnt remember on the
contrary, he immediately says Well, Ive had a good feed, and now
whats to be done The question remains eternally open. BY WAY OF A
PREFACE, ai o o a i . ii o fl it f t f i-1 If these words of
Dostoevskys are true of life and how true they are still the more
certainly they are true of art. What is the life of an artist, and
what is it called upon to serve Particularly, is an artist
constrained by his vocation to be an intermediate link between men
and art If we take this to be his allotted destiny, his supreme
task, his glorious exploit, his ideal service, with all the ensuing
consequences, what more can we add to Dostoevskys assertion Every
thing is contained in it, as in a simple and elementary formula.
Always, in all times, it has been so. Of course there are occasions
when this material satis faction of the spiritual hunger a
satisfaction which appears to be a normal and fundamental need of
men in their relation to art is eclipsed and replaced by something
else, by certain artificial demands, com plex and abstract. Such
eclipses occur fromtime to time, when one great period in art gives
way to an other. They usually happen at the very moment when the
change takes place, when one era has departed into the past and its
successor has not yet matured, has not expressed itself clearly,
precisely, and con vincingly. The eclipse of the simple,
substantial truths viii BY WAY OF A PREFACE does not usually last
long, and vanishes like the mist as soon as the sun of the new
epoch rises high enough to illuminate the freshly ploughed and sown
fields. Under the vivifying rays the weeds of sophistry, aesthetic
heresy, and perversion wither of themselves and disappear for a
long while. Favourable condi tions for the outbreak of a new
artistic heresy and pseudo-creative devices do not present
themselves until such time as the contemporary period passes into
history, and just when the change usually a pain ful one occurs and
the old is being superseded by the new. And so it is always one
cycle is completed and another begins. These three stages the
heritage of the past, the rupture and the seekings originated at
the time of the change, and the conquests born of the newly-created
culture make up the whole life and activity of the artist. Of one
such life in the conditions of our time I want to tell you. IX
TABLE OF CONTENTS BY WAY OF A PREFACE vii PART I 1. A PORTRAIT 3 2.
CHILDHOOD 13 3. STUDENT YEARS 25 4. A SERENADE ON THE DOUBLE BASS
40 5. FROM DOUBLE-BASS TO CONDUC TORS DESK 49 6. BERLIN AT THE
BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 61 PART II 7. A GLANCE AT
HISTORY 71 8. THE PUBLISHING VENTURE 81 xi -- TABLE OF CONTENTS 9.
CONCERTS ST. PETERSBURG, MOSCOW, AND THE VOLGA TOUR 92 10. THE
MODERNISTS 108 11. FROM TCHAIKOVSKY TO SCRIABIN 12212. THE WAR 140
13. THE REVOLUTION 148 PART III 14. INTERMEZZO SCALES 171 15.
EUROPEONCEMORE 182 16. A SUMMING-UP 193 17. AMERICA 207 18.
TECHNIQUE AND INTERPRETA TION 226 19. REFLECTIONS 237 BY WAY OF
CONCLUSION 250 INDEX follows page 253 Xll
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