From a recent interview with composer Elliott Carter, 103, who had a world premiere last weekend. Carter, who says he is reading Balzac in French on his Kindle, airs thoughts (or recollections) about Hitler, Romnney, Stravinsky, and Frank Sinatra, as, for example, here:
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Tarmy: What was your favorite restaurant?
Carter: La Cote Basque, now sadly closed. I took Igor Stravinsky and his wife there. We got a table in the middle of the room, speaking French, and a man came in, and said in rather good French, “will the maestro please give me an autograph?” Stravinsky said “Certainly not.”
His wife did a great deal of talking in Russian and finally he agreed, but took forever to write out his name. The man waited and waited and by this point the whole room was watching.
Finally Stravinsky was done and the man thanked him and walked away. We asked Stravinsky if he knew who he was and he said, “Certainly, I see him on television all the time.” The man was Frank Sinatra.
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See James Tarmy's article in full as posted on Bloomberg. With sincere thanks to Rick Whitaker who forwarded the link to me. -- DL
Dear DL: That's a wonderful little story. Puts things in perspective. In any case, it may have given Frank a little perspective.
Posted by: Terence Winch | June 12, 2012 at 04:07 PM
I love the anecdote, though I don't believe it. Everything rings true -- Sinatra was very capable of approaching Stravinsky at the Cote Basque and humbly beseeching the maestro for an autograph -- except is speaking "rather good French." But who knows, maybe the French-speaking maitre prepped our boy. Nice story anyway. And if you're Elliott Carter and 103 you can tell any story you like, and neither Sinatra nor Stravinsky can do anything about it.
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | June 12, 2012 at 10:52 PM