American conductor, scholar and writer Robert Craft has died at his home in Gulf Stream, Florida at the age of 92. Craft was one of Igor Stravinsky’s closest collaborators and confidants, acting as the composer’s amanuensis, rehearsal director, adviser and traveling companion for almost 25 years. After Stravinsky’s death in 1971 Craft became one of the world’s foremost authorities on the composer’s output, both artistically and intellectually as a celebrated conductor and a lecturer.

Born in 1923 in the New York State district of Kingston, Craft’s early aptitude for music, as a trumpeter and composer, led him to the prestigious Julliard School of Music. However his studies were interrupted by the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbour, which dragged America into World War II. Drafted into the Army Medical Corps, the brutality and gruelling horror of Army life was unbearable for Craft. In his memoirs, An Improbable Life published in 2002, he revealed that after an attempt at suicide followed by a brief period as AWOL, he was deemed unfit for service and honorably discharged from the army.  

Returning to Julliard after the war, Craft would eventually graduate with a bachelor’s...