Giroud, Vincent Nicolas Nabokov: A Life in Freedom and Music (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 167 illuminates some of the tactics that the avant-garde employed in anticipating and accommodating official demands, and it provides valuable insights into the way that these artists, especially prominent figures like Malevich, managed to survive during this very unsettled period in Russian history. University of Kent Christina Lodder Giroud, Vincent. Nicolas Nabokov: A Life in Freedom and Music. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015. xvii + 562 pp. Illustrations. Checklist of works and writings. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £25.99. Few composers of Nabokov’s talent can have been so neglected in both words and performances. Vincent Giroud’s magisterial biography is the first comprehensive account of his extraordinary subject’s life and work, and is thus especially welcome. It is hardly likely to be bettered. Nicolas Nabokov, who lived from 1903 to 1978, was a cousin of the far better known writer Vladimir Nabokov, and a friend, indeed often an assistant, to many of the leading cultural and political figures of his day; the book’s Index alone will give an impression of the immense circle of people whose lives were touched by an outstanding person who was also a considerable, though unfashionably traditional, composer. His own imaginative autobiographies and musical writings, notably Old Friends and New Music (1951) and, especially, Bagazh (1975) provide a lively though sometimes unreliable basis which Giroud has had to balance against other sources of facts or information; he rises to this challenge admirably, particularly in the early chapters dealing with Nabokov’s life in Russia and his emigration. Later periods, in France, America and elsewhere, are less factually debatable. Throughout his very full life Nabokov played many roles. He worked as a teacher at, successively, Wells College, St John’s College Annapolis and the Peabody Conservatory, and these posts undoubtedly helped rather than hindered his creative work. In 1951, however, he became secretary-general of the newly founded Congress for Cultural Freedom which played a considerable role for the American side in the Cold War until it foundered in the mid 1960s following increasingly strident accusations of CIA funding. During this period and later Nabokov tried to balance his writing of music with numerous demanding though stimulating administrative commitments. Later he became an organizer of prestigious music and other festivals in Europe, America, India and Japan. It is impossible to name all the positions he held, or to begin to list all the people he knew, including, to name but a few of the closest and most celebrated: Stravinskii, Virgil Thomson, Elliot Carter, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaiah Berlin, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Diaghilev and Balanchine. With these, and many others, Nabokov maintained extensive correspondence and lasting friendships; one of the few people with whom his relationship was less than SEER, 94, 1, JANUARY 2016 168 cordial was fellow-émigré composer Arthur Lourié (see SEER, 93, 2015, 3, pp. 550–52). Part of Old Friends and New Music became a short and very personal book about Stravinskii in 1964. The epigraph to the present volume was largely written by one of his closest friends, Elliot Carter. Originally taught by Vladimir Rebikov, Nabokov wrote music that was essentially lyrical in nature, eclectic and distinctively Russian, with occasional hints at dodecaphony. His works included ballets, operas, oratorios and symphonic, chamber and instrumental pieces. As is the case with many minor composers, several works were praised at the time (even by Stravinskii), but few enjoyed more than one performance and some remained on the page. His main works include the ballet-oratorio, Ode: Evening Reflections on the Greatness of God Inspired by the Northern Lights (1928), a ballet, Union Pacific (mid 1930s), the three-act opera, Rasputin’s End (second half of the 1950s) and a piece for baritone and orchestra, Symboli chrestiani (1955). Most, but far from all, of Nabokov’s works were published at or soon after the time of writing; few of them, however, were put onto discs, although his friend Rostropovich recorded a few pieces, and a modern recording of Ode is still available. Thus, it is possible that some of his work may still reach a wider audience. Important as music was to Nabokov, and anxious as he naturally was to have his...