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où l'on retrouve les ailes d'Icare: Notes on the rediscovery of the composer Igor Markevitch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

David Drew
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Extract

It was only in the last five years of his life that Markevitch-the-conductor acknowledged and made some amends to his once-celebrated but long forgotten predecessor Markevitch-the composer. Having ignored if not actively suppressed his compositions for some 30 years, he began in 1978 to review them with the mingled delight and anxiety of a prodigal father returning to his offspring after a protracted and neglectful absence. In the intervening years, his cherished friend and onetime teacher Nadia Boulanger had been almost alone among prominent musicians to deplore the disappearance of a major composer, and his supercession by a (mere?) conductor, however brilliant and successful.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 190 , September 1994 , pp. 6 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Since December 1988, the Bibliothèeque Universitaire et Cantonale in Lausanne has maintained an archive devoted exclusively to Markevitch's life and work as a composer. Associated with the Fonds Igor Markevitch – as the archive is officially called – is a sound-archive administered by the radio of the Suisse Romande.

Both archives are open to scholars and students; and both are actively concerned with acquiring new material whenever the opportunity arises and the means are available. Provisional inventories of the manuscript, documentary, and audio contents of the Fonds Igor Markevitch were published in the special Markevitch issue of the Revue Musicale de Suisse Remande, Vol 41, No.2, 03 1989 Google Scholar.

Some 18 months prior to the opening of the Fonds Igor Markevitch, a group of admirers of his music (including Alex de Graeff) founded ‘Les Amis du Compositeur Igor Markevitch’, an informal organization based in Lausanne and London. With the formation in January 1991 of an Honorary Committee headed by Professor Rolf Liebermann, the organisation acquired official status. The members of the Honorary Committee were Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Hugues Cuenod, John Drummond, Henri Dutilleux, Prince Alexis Guédroitz, Sir William Glock, The Earl of Harewood, Reinbert de Leeuw, [the late] Nilcita Magaloff, Wolfgang Rihm, Gennadi Rozhdestvenski, Peter Rujicka, Gunther Schuller, Rodion Schedrin, Hervé Thys, Kazuyuki Toyama, Roman Vlad, and Narciso Yepes.

2 Morrison, Richard, reviewing a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert in The Times (London), 26 07 1989 Google Scholar.

3 Genoux, Jean-Claude, ‘Igor Markevitch compositeur: characterisation de son oeuvre et reception par ces contemporains’, Revue musicale de Suisse Romanic, 42/1, 03 1989, pp. 11–31 Google Scholar, op.cit. German translations of many of the documents cited by ProfessorGenoux, are included in Igor Markevitch (ed. Heinrelmann, Josef, Bonn, 1982), a 120 Google Scholar-page (paperback) collection of documents and studies.

4 Markevitch, Igor, Entretiens avec Claude Rostand (Paris, 1959)Google Scholar.