The effect of audience reception on Stravinsky’s compositional process

Stravinksy on the public not particularly liking his music:

Their attitude certainly cannot make me deviate from my path. I shall assuredly not sacrifice my predilections and my aspirations to the demands of those who, in their blindness, do not realize that they are simply asking me to go backwards … I could not follow them without doing violence to myself. But on the other hand, it would be a great mistake to regard me as an adherent of “Zukunftsmusik” – the music of the future … I can neither live in the past or in the future. I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can only know what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.

– Igor Stravinsky. Cited in: Nettl, Paul (1969) The Book of Musical Documents. New York: Greenwood Press, p.326.

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