Declassed

Igor Stravinsky was trying to explain to a Los Angeles judge just how it felt to be a popular composer.

In the first place, he complained in his deposition, Leeds Music Corp.'s spoony adaptation (Summer Moon--TIME, Nov. 3, 1947) of the rondo from his Firebird Suite was "devoid of musical merit" and had "declassed" him. It had also damaged him "morally" to the tune of $250,000.

What did "declassed" mean? Answered Stravinsky: "To put somebody in a lower hierarchy." Said he: "When somebody feels himself a serious composer of classical music and suddenly is publicized as a jukebox composer--you know that hurt me." Furthermore, his use of the term "morally low" had nothing to do with personal morality; it just described how he felt when he found his music on the same shelf as that of the Cole Porters and Irving Berlins, fine fellows though they might be.

Last week Judge Joseph W. Vickers threw out Russian Exile Stravinsky's damage suit (headlined the New York Daily News: IGOR MORTIS), but added sympathetically that a suit against Leeds for breach of contract might be more in order: "The court feels that a composer has the right to prevent his name from being attached to a composition which he did not write."

Four stay-at-home Russian composers --Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian and Nicolas Miaskovsky--also had a bad day in court last week. They had demanded an injunction against 20th Century-Fox for using snatches of their music in The Iron Curtain (exposing the Soviet spy ring in Canada). Said the four: using their music that way might give somebody the idea they were disloyal to their country. A lower court had already refused the injunction. Last week, the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division turned it down too.

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