Musician Vladimir Spivakov has turned the bow and the conductor’s wand into a weapon against a soulless reality. Today he is celebrating his victory and his jubilee.

Vladimir Theodorovich Spivakov, People’s Artist of the USSR, winner of state awards, violinist, conductor, artistic director and founder of two orchestras, sits naked in front of me.

I want to believe that when I turn 75, I too will sit shirtless on the terrace above the bay of Saint-Tropez and complain that I had to give up my ten-kilogram dumbbells in favour of the four-kilogram dumbbells: «It’s not eighteen years after all!» Well, not eighteen, but the shoulders, biceps, the landing of the head, tanning – on envy.

«Muscular memory! The body remembers», says Spivakov with pleasure and pulls another cigarette.

Memory is memory. I remember what it looks like – Mashkov’s «Self-Portrait and Portrait of P. Konchalovsky», where two beautiful artists sit in the posture of circus strongmen with violin and weights that are not heavy for them. Spivakov’s personality has the same freedom and fun. As his boxing coach once told him, boxing is not about beating your face, but about being able to preserve yourself.

«More than once in my life it came in handy», nods Spivakov. He has already told us in an interview about how, risking his ribs, he had to fight off robbers in Paris who tried to take money. But I understand that it was more difficult to fight off the bandits who – from the moment his violin sounded – tried to take away the freedom of spirit and faith in themselves. You can’t get rid of such «two».

Vladimir Spivakov was born during the war and went to the Stalin school and conservatory in Khrushchev. For many who live or even were born under Putin, this path is not imaginable. None of those who were born under Putin could have even seen what would happen in Russia in the cinema. You were brought up on Earth, and then suddenly you were on Mars.

Parents lived in Leningrad. There was such a city on the Neva. My father was an engineer and a doctor, my mother was a musician. They lived normally, not rich like everyone else. My father bought the first violin in my life: my friends helped me – they gave me as much as they could. Violinist Boris Gutnikov also lent it. «We, the musicians, are not bad people», Spivakov smiles. And he remembers this, since his foundation is busy, among other things, giving instruments to young musicians. He does not like to talk about it: «I do not expect any thanks!»

For the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, too, by the way, one has to buy. On its own money or on the money of friends. And they also say that you don’t have to buy them abroad, if you have to. Where will we get the instruments then – on saucepans or something?

That’s when I start to think that Mars is Mars, but we didn’t fly that far. In one of Spivakov’s films, there is a moment when the maestro comes to see the communal flat where he was growing up and where the rooms were so tiny that Daddy, sitting at the table, was rocking his sister’s cradle with his foot. What struck me was not that the family lived in a communal flat, not a separate one, but that this communal flat did not go anywhere – maybe it became scarier than it was. «Yes», says Spivakov, «the same one at 31 Mokhovaya».

He moved to the Moscow boarding school of the Central Music School from the «corner» in the Leningrad commune. In one of the rooms on Kirovskaya, the artist Alexander Vasilyevich Butorov, who infected the young Leningrad resident with his love for painting, took him to sketches, was registered. From there, from those times, there was a passion for art, and probably collections, purchases and gifts, of which Spivakov is rightly proud now. But then he had to choose: either painting or music.

The Central School of Music is not just a school. It is a class, then a class, and then a class after class. I don’t understand how Spivakov still had time to box. He says, «self-discipline»! He started in Leningrad when he once again came with a broken nose after a fight in Matveevsky Lane. Not because he was weak, but because he was too shy to hit back.

Boxers are a special people. Ask them if they know Spivakov. Who does not know Spivakov? Dear Master, Vasily Vasilyevich, Honoured Coach of the RSFSR from «Olympic Hopes». Violin is not a trump card there, but you will learn how to give back – both the Gopniks and the bosses.

We had a principal at school who fought against homosexuality. And one day, after training, we shower with our buddies, and he looks into the hole and watches our behaviour. I wet a sponge in hot water and lubricated his curiosity.

Like all those born in the USSR, Spivakov has specific experience of communicating with the authorities. Not everyone now has it, but a useful experience. History, taught by scientists, goes in a circle. In the 1970s, he was first able to conduct a large orchestra – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra – at the Ravenna Festival. He was intimidated and discouraged, but in the end his success was such that he was made Artistic Director of the festival. But the USSR provided international assistance to the brotherly Afghan people, and cultural ties collapsed for ten years. This is roughly what happened after the Crimea. Well, if Ravenna isn’t there, we’ll manage on our own, we’ll hold the stroke – Spivakov has created his own orchestra.

«When Valentin Alexandrovich Berlinsky, the heart of the Borodin Quartet, called me, I thanked and refused», recalls Spivakov. As you can see, he did not want to be even one of four: «I had a different idea about what I would do».

«Moscow Virtuosi» gathered without permission and performed without any official status, every time as the last one. Until the pre-Olympic year, a concert for IOC President Lord Killanin was held in the Italian courtyard of the Pushkin Museum, under the monumental body of Michelangelo’s work.

Soon the article «There is such an orchestra» appeared in «Truth». A hidden quote, which was then read in a transparent way, and now, fortunately, will say little to the reader. But if there is such an orchestra and such a part, then the part has a leader. I like Spivakov’s manner of being responsible for people who believed him. When his musicians began to receive grocery cards and the USSR was on the verge of famine, the orchestra founder obtained an invitation for the «Virtuosos» from the Spanish Royal Court. He did not leave himself, but took everyone away – with wives, children and pets. And he did not leave for Spain forever: as soon as the opportunity arose, the musicians returned to Moscow.

Then the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia was organized, and then the House of Music was built, where Spivakov became president and took care of his brainchild like no other president. You can read about all this in Solomon Volkov’s «Dialogues with Vladimir Spivakov», and we will not put all the songs of ice and flame, the full history of our country – and a musician with a stick in front of this community.

«This is the kind of the Fatherland, an engraving», as Vladimir Spivakov himself would say, who has his favourite poems for various occasions. «A box opens in my head and everything is decomposed there», he explains. I can imagine this marvelous file cabinet, but it’s no harder to memorise lines than to remember music. And not just memorize, but try to understand («Do you know how important it is to read composers’ letters? There are no letters now and there won’t be any, just Esemes»). The whole piano in the house is swamped with notes with notes.

Performer – psychic, inspirer of spirit. Through it, people who lived hundreds of years ago communicate with us. Is it great joy when you are interpreted by nerds? For compatriots who were intimidated by classical music, Spivakov invented the «encores» for which the Moscow Virtuosi were famous among the public: «I wanted people not to be afraid to come to the concert. We give them this gift, we say: music is good, it’s not boring». Critics were very happy about it. They were angry at him. But did Bach write chorals? Bach was a cheerful fat man!

Look at the chronicle from 40 years ago – and you’ll see on stage Spivakov, not today’s grey-haired, monumental, but a cheerful guy with a sly smile, almost in a cowboy with uptight sleeves, who could be starring in positive roles for Gaidai. I remember the concert when he played music for «Big City Lights», illustrating instead of Chaplin’s topper on the screen, and I say that I really appreciate his ability to interpret an important joke. «What is there to be sad about? – Spivakov smiles. – Don’t you know that people need different music: the one that makes them cry and the one that makes them laugh? Whatever it is, and art will survive». – «Art yes, but not artists». «Not artists», agrees Spivakov. – But who said that? «Where music plays, there can’t be anything wrong with it?»

I do not remember. I promise to check at home. I find it. Whose words are these? Don Quixote.

Alexei Tarkhanov («Ъ»)