Composing a “tonal row” and accompanying words of dedication for the Berlins’ guestbook, I[gor] S[travinsky] asks for an English equivalent to the Rusian “kanitel”. Literally, the word means a silver or golden skein, Isaiah says, but, commonly, a long, entangled argument—whereupon someone quotes “or ever the silver cord be loosed.” Graves lobs his back—he’s faster with words than anyone I have ever encountered—with “The Yddish is ‘magillah’, and the Greek and Latin are…”.

Robert Craft, Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship, Nashville, 1994, p. 254