Ballet Russe

Photo of Gertrude Stein seated in “Godiva,” Tchelitchew and Allen Tanner by Alice B. Toklas (Belley, France about 1927)

Self-Portrait by Pavel Tchelitchew (1925). Oil on canvas.

Excerpt, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), Zephyr et Flore, “Variation 2: Quasi toccata”

At about the same time as Diaghilev was about to commission a mythological ballet (Zephyr et Flore) from Vladimir Dukelsky, Gertrude Stein was about to ignite the equivalent of automatic writing in the painter, Pavel Tchelitchew. In Gertrude Stein Remembered, Linda Simon published a transcript of the Martin A. Ryerson Lecture at Yale University given by Tchelitchew in 1951.

Here he alludes to Stein as being a kind of Robert Gravian Mother goddess to him. Her great interest, as a student of William James, was in the functioning of the human brain, its reactions. He began a process of automatic drawing which led to thousands and thousands of drawings. He says that she knew her poetry originated in a magic of the bygone days and that the prolificness in his drawing was due to her. He gives the etymology of the word “Orpheus”–-aur (light), and rophoe (cheering health)—a healer by means of light.

“She wanted to know through the automatic writing the language of our psyche, ” he says. “Art is revealed life or psyche, through sounds, words, or forms…the sensory nerves, are for a quick, automatic, immediate reaction in our brain, in the hieratical reaction.”

He heard about Gertude Stein and about Alice Toklas from Jane Heap [then partner of Margaret Anderson of the Little Review], and met them at the Salon d’Automne. “That is the annual exhibition where you have to do it at least once in your lifetime. It is sort of an official appearance, like a debut, so I have to make that debut, too…

So I sent the picture and it was accepted, and there was among those pictures The Strawberry Basket, which you probably saw reproduced. And on the way back with Jane Heap from the vernissage on the Pont Royale just going to the Tuilleries, I saw Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. They were coming in their little car, that was, I couldn’t find out really what it was because I think it was a Model T Ford.

When she bought that car, after the war or during the war, that car was just stripped to the essences, it was naked, that’s why the car was called, ‘Lady Godiva,’ because she was naked.”

Portrait of Alice B. Toklas by Pavel Tchelitchew (Paris, about 1927)

Gouache on paper, circa 1926–1928
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Excerpt, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), Zephyr et Flore, “Theme”

Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky) was not the only one of his circle who would go on to work with Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe.  So would another aristocratic Russian, the painter, Pavel Tchelitchew.  They originally met in the same YMCA in Constantinople as ex-patriots where Vernon Duke first discovered Gershwin’s “Swanee.”   Oddly, too, Duke had known pianist Allen Tanner from New York as part of Gershwin’s and Eva Gauthier’s circle.

Allen Tanner was your narrator’s cousin and used to speak at length about Pavel Tchelitchew when I was a young teenager.  He also opened up the photo section of his copy of Parker Tyler’s The Divine Comedy of Pavel Tchelitchew, revealing the cover of the theater program that Tcheltichew designed for the premiere of Diaghilev’s Ode and for which he did the set designs.

Vernon Duke went home to No. 150 Blvd. Montparnasse and told Allen and Pavlik the news about auditioning his Piano Concerto for Diaghilev. Tyler gives us a view of this scene from both Tchelitchew’s and Dukelsky’s eyes (pg. 303):

“It is in the midst of expanding evenings at  No. 150 that Vladimir Dukelsky, the pianist from The Lighthouse in Constantinople, renews his acquaintance with Tchelitchew and meets Tanner. In the “big, untidy” flat, where Pavlik paints in the living room and Allen plays on an upright (or, while the other is at work, on his piano muet), Dukelsky thinks that Tchelitchew, “all golden hair and plump rosy cheeks,” and the “pale, willowy” Tanner are an “odd pair.” They certainly are a pair of busy hosts, even if sometimes for customers who come to look at pictures and leave without buying…

Dukelsky finds at Tchelitchew’s the “small, silent” Pougni, the “pugnosed, peasantish” Tereshokovitch, County Lanskoy and Boris Shatzman. Nicholas Nabokov, with his tossed mane and visionary eyes, is already a friend of the house. One day Dukelsky (or rather Duke as he come to call himself) is introduced to “Valitchka” (Walter) Nouvel, Dighilev’s manager. Another day he plays his concerto to the “odd pair” and catches Pavlik, amid his compliments, giving Tanner a large wink.”

In 1923, Tchelitchew began to paint portraits of all  the Paris avant-garde and gay elite.  Gertrude Stein noticed his works in the 1925 Salon D’Automne, Basket of Strawberries (1925) and bought the entire contents of his studio.  Tyler says on page 305 of The Divine Comedy of Pavel Tchelitchew, “To Duke, a casual observer, Tchelitchew is still manipulating a Bakst-Soudeikine manner, but this impression must be owing to pictures, possibly old stage designs, left lying around the studio…”  It was in this ambiance that Vernon Duke would come to write Flore et Zephyr for Sergei Diaghilev.

Excerpt, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), Zephyr et Flore, “Theme”

Portraits of Vladimir Dukelsky (Pavel Chenmuyer) and Sergei Diaghilev (Leon Bakst)

Excerpt, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), Zephyr et Flore, Variation 1: Giacoso

The music which followed so soon after Vernon Duke’s collaboration with Eva Gauthier and George Gershwin testifies in the fullest manner to the great opportunity which had come to him to express both sides of his musical vision as Russian classical composer and Tin Pan Alley-Jazz improviser. In itself, the music provides us with a plentiful feast. Yet at the threshold of his compositional career, one may find in some of the circumstances of his life influences that turned his mind to the past, to the Russian country-side, to the beauty and simplicity of childhood memories and away from his new life as a New Yorker. We understand how it was that his first serious work was the Piano Concerto in C and not the orchestral ballet, Zephyr et Flore. Though Arthur Rubenstein had provided his passport to Paris, it was Sergei Diaghilev who brought him into the Ballet Russe after hearing a performance of a two-piano version of the Concerto (with Les Six composer Georges Auric on second piano).

His alliance with these compatriots had given him a sense of “home,” but in view of the circumstances and conventions it had also isolated him. We forget that by the time Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky) arrived in Paris that Stravinsky had already triumphed with his own premieres of Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913) with the Ballet Russe. And that Vernon Duke was just twenty-two years old.

He wrote in his autobiography, Passport to Paris, about his first encounters with Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe. “… Diaghilev desired me to play my concerto for him; and would I come to the Baron de Meyer’s house that afternoon, as the baron had an especially good piano and it was in tune? So the big moment had come, though, in the anticipation of it, my new self-assurance vanished. It was all working out too well; to a young man already used to the bitterness of bad breaks, such persistent good fortune appeared suspicious.

“What does he want with my concerto?” I thought sadly. “Nouvel doesn’t really like it and I myself think it reminiscent in spots.” I made up my mind to at least play it well and, pushing the indignant Allen off the piano stool, went on a four-hour practice jag.

The de Meyers lived in un hotel, which, in this instance, meant a private dwelling (hotel particulier), not an inn. The house and its owners were typical of the all-powerful tout Paris set Louis XV and Marie Laurencin with Vogue trimmings. There was a faint tinge of violet in the beautiful white hair of both de Meyers a decorative pair, aggressively agreeable, as people of their class are, when receiving; the class that labels everything that comes their way as either divin ord’un ennui mortel be it music, a new novel, a new restaurant or a new concubine. I was brought by Diaghilev, the magician and explorer, therefore there was a good chance of my being divine. I don’t think they knew that the frail youth with jet-black hair was in their home “on approval” and that his fate hung perilously in the balance.

I was the first to enter the de Meyer drawing room a regrettable mistake, as no one divine is ever punctual. My embarrassment was somewhat relieved by the cordiality of my hosts and the perfection of the dry Martini I was offered, a drink still misunderstood by Parisians, who call it un dry pronounced “dree” and make it almost entirely of vermouth, using gin as sparingly as if it were Fernet Branca. Some small talk followed, very small indeed on my part, and then Sergei Pavlovitch entered with Boris in tow, both splendidly shaven and eau-de-cologned.

I was much too nervous to listen to the gossip that made up the general conversation. I drank two more Martinis and, just as I emptied the second, was asked by Diaghilev to show him the concerto I had brought with me. After carefully wiping and then adjusting one of his monocles, he began perusing the manuscript, humming to him self in a strange catlike voice and conducting with a pudgy index finger. I watched the performance with awe and astonishment. Diaghilev, who never missed anything, smiled indulgently and put down my music. “Few people know it, but I’m a compositeur manque,” he remarked. “I was always behind in my harmony lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov, but once managed to write a piano piece, which I showed him. It was very bad and he said so.” Sergei Pavlovitch then rose brusquely and led me to the piano. “Let me hear your concerto: I’ll turn the pages for you.” With the determination of despair and, encouraged by the excellence of the instrument, I gave a creditable account of my “Passport to Paris.”

I remember vividly thinking as I played on: “I don’t care, here it is. It’s the best I can do, take it or leave it.” When I hit the last crashing C-major chord, there was a moment of dreadful, complete silence I didn’t turn around but knew that the two de Meyers and Boris were looking at Diaghilev, awaiting his verdict. To my astonishment, the great man began clapping his hands thunderously and with such determination that the others soon joined in the applause. “Bravo, jeune homme, and congratulations. Best new music I’ve heard in years. Now what shall we call your ballet?” he inquired suddenly. I was completely taken aback.

“What ballet, Sergei Pavlovitch?” I queried. “The one you will write for me, of course. You will write one, won’t you?” Kochno now intervened. He got up, embraced me and, smiling knowingly, declared that he already had an idea for “my” ballet and that the idea was certain to please Sergei Pavlovitch. I dimly remember that I was then made much of by the de Meyers and that a bottle of champagne appeared mysteriously and toasts to the new Diaghilev composer were drunk by all, including the tastee.

I was taken home to No. 150 by Diaghilev himself Kochno stayed on to dinner at the de Meyers’ in a large chauffered limousine. My discoverer had his arm around me and talked softly and earnestly about my talent, the future before me, the task he was entrusting me with and his hope that I would fulfill his expectations; I was so dazed and drunk with the Martinis, the champagne and my crashing, complete success, that I only understood half of what Sergei Pavlovitch said, but loved every word of it. He deposited me in Boulevard Montparnasse, kissed me heartily on both cheeks Russian fashion, and departed.

Both Allen and Pavlik were out; I dined alone extravagantly on a corner terrace, paying eleven francs for a copious meal, and, exhausted by the events of the day, went off to bed. That night I cried my first, and probably last, tears of happiness and realized that Victorian novelists had something there, for never did tears taste so sweet to me.

What ensued was equally dreamlike. The next morning, my recital to Tchelitchev and Tanner, to which they listened with eyes popping and mouths ajar, was interrupted by Valitchka, who dashed in with out bothering to telephone this time. He declared himself delighted with my success, there was more embracing all around, and then I was let in on the newest developments; apparently Diaghilev, Boris and Valitchka had supper late the night before and Boris talked a great deal about the proposed ballet. All I could learn about it was that two leading male dancers’ roles were envisaged one for Dolin, the other for Serge Lifar, the remarkable new Russian boy for whom Diaghilev entertained the highest hopes; that a girl called Alice Nikitina with the “most beautiful legs in the world” was a hot candidate for the female lead, and that I had better drop everything and concentrate on my job as if my life depended on it. This was easy, be cause there was nothing for me to drop and I had no other life than the one that was so miraculously opening before me.

The news of a new Diaghilev protege emerging from out of no where Russia via the United States was an unheard-of beginning spread rapidly through the Paris salons.”

Excerpt, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), Zephyr et Flore, Variation 1: Giacoso

Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), Piano Concerto in C (Scott Dunn, piano)

Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke) became a kind of omni-present shadow to Sergei Prokokiev in the circle of creative geniuses who composed Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, one more refugee in a group of Russian patronage system trained artists in exile. Prokokiev, his childhood friend from their composition class with Reinhold Gliere at the Kiev Conservatory, reviewed the Piano Concerto in C, saying that it was “full of superior melodies, very well designed, harmonically beautiful and not too ‘modernist’.” Igor Stravinsky, had him perform as one of the four pianists, along with Francis Poulenc, George Auric and Vittorio Rieti in the Ballet Russe’s London premiere of his Les Noces. All except Rieti would go on to compose scores for upcoming ballet seasons. His Piano Concerto became his passport into a sub-group known as Les Nouveaux Jeunes, forerunners to Les Six (Georges Auric, Louis Aurey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre). Conductor Sergei Koussevitsky introduced his First Symphony on the same program as Prokokiev’s Fiery Angel as if they were companion compositions, reflecting their shared ongoing musical dialogue.

An ocean away, George Gershwin had been enchanted by the second theme of the Piano Concerto in private rehearsals by Dukelsky. Some of the few remaining first hand accounts from someone who knew Gershwin well is preserved here in an article Vernon Duke wrote called, “Gershwin, Schillinger and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences”:

“I first encountered George Gershwin’s name in 1921 in Constantinople I was then seventeen, just out of a Russia torn by the Civil War that followed the October Revolution of 1917. In the club run for the Russian refugees by the YMCA, I found some American popular songs—mostly Turkish reprints. Except for Irving Berlin’s All By Myself, with its fine ragtime gait, I was not impressed with the banal syncopations of this music.

Then one day a Turkish edition of a piece bewilderingly entitled Swanee by composer bewilderingly named Gershwin fell into my hands. The dash and drive, the rhythmic vigor, and, above all, the unmistakable musicality of the number made me sit up instantly.

I reached the United States in 1922 and met George in the same year through Eva Gauthier, the fine artist who did so much for new music. Miss Gauthier sang some pretentious and excessively dissonant songs of mine at a concert of the International Composers’ Guild. I don’t remember Gershwin’s reaction to them, but I do remember mine to George’s playing of his tunes. To anyone who has not heard Gershwin play, his piano magic hard to describe.

Gershwin impressed me as a superbly equipped and highly-skilled composer—not just a concocter of commercial jingles. His extraordinary left hand performed miracles in counter-rhythms, shrewd canonic devices, and unexpected harmonic shifts.”

George Gershwin, Swanee from Artis Wodehouses’s Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls)

Although, Gershwin left behind him (at the age of 37), more than one thousand popular songs and more explorative musical obras such as Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and the opera, Porgy and Bess, much of his music was disdained by classical music critics. On the other hand, Hollywood film producers criticized the opera composer as being “too highbrow.” So runs a dialogue about the two Gershwins—Gershwin the jazz and Gershwin the classical; Gershwin the lowbrow and Gershwin the highbrow. And too, brother-lyricist Ira Gershwin was symbiotically tied to the jazz/classical dichotomy. The Gershwin team wrote “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” for their first joint effort, Lady Be Good, in 1924 which also introduced the young brother and sister dancing team, Fred and Adele Astaire.

In that same year, Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky), would go to Paris and write music for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, even though it had been George Gershwin who had told him first, “Don’t be afraid to go lowbrow.”