Ask any musician in 1966 who the greatest living composer was and the only rational response would have been Igor Stravinsky, of course.  That was why there was so much unbridled excitement at the Eastman School of Music the week of March 7 to 12, 1966.  At the age of 83 Stravinsky would spend a week with Eastman students, culminating in a gala concert with Stravinsky himself conducting the Eastman Philharmonia orchestra.  He was accompanied during his visit by his wife Vera and his artistic associate, Robert Craft.

I had seen Stravinsky in person once before when I was in high school, but at a distance as a listener in the audience during a Friday afternoon Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Academy of Music.  The Orchestra played a concert version of “Oedipus Rex” and beginning about 5-minutes into the performance, the gray-haired patrons in the audience gave up trying to comprehend the music, and one-by-one they got up from their seats and slowly progressed to the nearest exits, even as the performance continued.  I had already in prior concerts heard the The Philadelphia Orchestra perform “The Firebird” and “The Rite of Spring,” so I was eager to give “Oedipus Rex” the benefit of any doubt.

During Stravinsky’s week at Eastman he participated in seminars, audited rehearsals and critiqued concerts.  He presented himself with a bit of the prima donna persona, and he obviously enjoyed the adulation of the students.

When he walked onto the Eastman Theatre stage for his first rehearsal of “The Firebird” with the Philharmonia the students were all astounded that this larger-than-life giant of music was only a little over 4-feet tall.   Ruth and I were fortunate indeed to be in the orchestra’s percussion section for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Bill Platt, who became the Principal Percussionist of the Cincinnati Symphony, was the orchestra’s timpanist.  It’s hard to imagine any program of music that would have been more of a timpanist’s heaven.

The program was a difficult one, highlighting Stravinsky’s evolution from a late Romantic style (”Symphony No. 1″ - reminiscent of Tschaikovsky), to the Neoclassical (”Four Etudes”), to serial (”The Flood”).

In rehearsing “The Firebird” Stravinsky was decidedly austere in his gestures.  His comments were simple and spoken in Russian to Robert Craft, who was seated near the podium and who translated into English for the orchestra.  Stravinsky’s main point throughout was . . . “don’t interpret” . . “just play what’s on the page; that’s all that’s needed.”

According to the Rochester Times-Union the 3000 listeners in the Eastman Theatre audience on March 11 for the concert gave the composer three separate ovations after the performance.

In the May 11, 1966 issue of the New York Review of Books, Stravinsky was quoted as saying “Only a few weeks ago I heard the Eastman School orchestra play to perfection, on a minimum of rehearsal, some of my most difficult later music, including parts of “The Flood,” which at least one renowned professional orchestra could not manage after a week of rehearsals and a dozen performances.  The flexibility of the young versus the rigidity of the routiniers is an old theme, of course, but you can hardly imagine the pleasure this student orchestra gave me.”