How did Robert Craft influence Igor Stravinsky’s late career?

Robert Craft, a young American conductor and scholar who became an intimate associate of Igor Stravinsky starting in 1948, played a pivotal role in the composer's late career. Following World War II, Stravinsky faced a creative crisis as a new avant-garde movement in Europe rejected his Neoclassical style in favor of serialism, or 12-tone compositional techniques.

According to Craft, the perception that he had become a spent force led Stravinsky into a major creative depression. With Craft’s assistance, Stravinsky emerged from this period by adopting serial techniques into his own intensely personal musical language. This transition resulted in a remarkable body of late compositions, ranging from experimental works like the Cantata and Septet to hybrid masterpieces such as Agon and Canticum Sacrum, and eventually to strictly serial works like Threni. Additionally, Craft collaborated with Stravinsky on six books, though these, like Stravinsky's earlier autobiography, are noted for being factually unreliable.1