Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Stravinsky and J.F.K.
On today’s date in 1962, President John F. Kennedy received two memos regarding a dinner party at the White House scheduled the following evening honoring composer Igor Stravinsky and his wife Vera. The Kennedys were famous for inviting the finest artists and performers to the White House for special presentations. Mrs. Kennedy was a true arts maven, but JFK was not, and needed background information on figures like Stravinsky, which the first memo provided. The Kennedy’s Social Secretary even worked out secret signals and cues for the President when he attended White House recitals so he wouldn’t applaud at the wrong time. The second memo informed JFK that after a photo shoot with the Stravinskys, they would join the others invited that evening for cocktails in the Blue Room. After dinner, the 80 year-old Stravinsky expressed his gratitude and told the press that the Kennedys were “nice kids.” Four months after President Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, Stravinsky asked poet W.H. Auden for “a very quiet little lyric” that he might set to music in tribute to Kennedy’s memory. The resulting work, “Elegy for J.F.K.” for medium voice and three clarinets, that premiered in 1964.