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Remembering Leo Smit (1921-1999) |
At the age of 15 Leo Smit was hired in 1936 as rehearsal pianist to prepare the opera ballets for the productions of the Metropolitan Opera House. The ballet performed under the direction of choreographer George Balanchine, director of the American Balle t Company. The job brought Smit his first opportunity to meet and work with Igor Stravinsky when Stravinsky's ballet Jeu de Cartes was scheduled for performance in April 1937.
| Leo Smit (left) with Igor Stravinsky, 1937 |
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Smit wrote the following description of Stravinsky's playing for an article that appeared in a Stravinsky commemorative issue of Perspectives of New Music in 1971.
In some unaccountable way, without technique (he sometimes glissandoed what should have been fingered scales), without beauty of tone (he poked the keys with his large, bony fingers, muting the dynamics with the left pedal while tapping rhythmically on the right pedal), and keeping time by vigorous gasping counting, he succeeded in conveying the meaning of his musical thought with extraordinary clarity. By following the printed notes and carefully listening to the sounds issuing from the piano and fro m his mouth -- indeed his whole body was tense with music -- I was able to grasp in an entirely new way the composer's intentions as expressed in the subtle relationship between the fixed symbols of notation and the fluxed pitches of physical sound. .... By the time he finished playing, I felt I had been initiated into the most secret of Mysteries.
| Leo Smit (center) with Igor Stravinsky, 1937 |
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| April 2000
Music Library Staff musique@acsu.buffalo.edu http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/music/exhibits/smit/stravinsky.html |
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