Vladimir Spivakov first took part in the Tchaikovsky Festival in Udmurtia 41 years ago and has performed here many times since then. And yet each of his concerts became an extraordinary event – moreover, his presence turns out to be a chamberton, by which one can check not only the professional level of the cultural environment, but also the scale of the human personality. This was the double opening of the Festival of Arts «In Tchaikovsky’s Motherland», which took place at the beginning of the week in Votkinsk and Izhevsk with the participation of Vladimir Spivakov and his orchestra «Moscow Virtuosi».

Memories for all life

Both in Votkinsk and Izhevsk, thirty children from music schools in Udmurtia and Kirov – the winners of the spring music marathon in Izhevsk – sat on stage right behind the orchestra. After the concerts, they, drowning in excitement, said that it was the most important day of their lives, could not yet formulate what had happened to them, and their eyes were only shining. Spivakov himself was responsible for them.

– Vladimir Teodorovich, do you think those thirty children who sat on stage and watched your work and that of your orchestra received?

– We have been putting people on stage for the rest of their lives as long as our orchestra exists – and this is almost forty years. Can you imagine how long we have been playing? I myself am sometimes amazed at the numbers that are associated with our activities. So, we have always put people on stage – people who couldn’t buy tickets (unfortunately, we have people like that in our country), disabled people and children. Children, especially those who start making music, are interested in seeing the orchestra’s work from the inside. However, they usually see the conductor from the back and never see him from the face (bows do not count, the conductor is just a person there). And the guys on the stage had the opportunity to be inside the music birth process.

– In order to come to the idea of putting spectator seats on stage, did you have to go through this experience yourself? Did you watch big musicians play at close range?

– I’ve never sat on stage, I must say. But I was lucky, I lived in St. Petersburg all my youth and attended concerts by Evgeny Mravinsky and even his rehearsals. This is a memory for life. And it is impossible to forget the sound of his orchestra. When we come to the festival with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, you will hear that as a child I did not listen to this great conductor for nothing – I learned something.

– We came up with a topic that often arises in connection with Udmurtia as Tchaikovsky’s homeland. As a composer, he didn’t live here, he lived in Votkinsk only as a child, but we really want to believe that the musical impressions he received here influenced his musical taste, sense of beauty and developed his musicality.

– There is no doubt about that. Children’s experience responds throughout life.

– And what was your first musical experience?

– My mother used to say that at eleven months she would put me on the piano lid and play different kinds of music, and surprisingly, I reacted in different ways: I would swing to the waltz, jump to the polka, and so on. We lived on the top floor, under the very roof in a small – six-metre – room on Nekrasov Street… I had a difficult life, I’ll tell you the truth. But the music, obviously, has always been in it.

– Do you remember your first conscious enthusiasm for music?

– It was when I heard Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin at the age of twelve for the first time in my life – in the opera studio of the Leningrad Conservatory. It was a shock. And this music stayed with me for life, and I literally just recorded this entire opera – the disc will be released very soon. Before I started recording, I studied Tchaikovsky’s autographs and found many discrepancies between the author’s version and later interpretations. For example, the modern scores of «Eugene Onegin» at the beginning write andante con moto – with movement. And in Tchaikovsky’s autograph it is written andante sostenuto – restrained. (Spivakov immediately chanting both variants on «tari-ra-ra-ra-ra». – Author’s note) Hear that? A completely different story opens up behind the music.

Become part of the music

– So in your «Eugene Onegin» recording you are restoring the author’s editorial team?

– In general, yes. I want to hear and record Tchaikovsky’s music as he intended it to be. Of course, we do not know exactly how his music sounded during his life. If someone says they know for sure, they have to be afraid of people like that. All great musicians do not know: knowledge gives rise to doubt. The more you do music, the deeper you study the composer, the more opportunities you have for his music, because you understand how complicated, different, unpredictable he was. It’s only in Russian fairy tales that everything is defined – you go right, you lose your horse, you go left, you fold your raging head. In reality, it doesn’t work out so unambiguously. But when you love something with an extraordinary power, it penetrates into you so much that it feels as if it is starting to live through you. Evgeny Svetlanov once told me: «You know what, Volodya, I feel like the spirit of Rachmaninoff lives in me». It was at three o’clock in the morning, after a concert in Sweden, and I, sinfully, thought for a second that he was overworked or maybe a little drunk. And then I realised that that was the case. You love music so much and you get into it that you become a part of it. And then you are no longer afraid to interpret it somehow incorrectly – it sounds through you. And there are really many layers in classical music, and that’s not just about Tchaikovsky. In Rachmaninoff’s symphonies there are now incredible layering. The performers see that the chorale begins in the score and immediately the slowdown is played – but he does not have it in his notes. He did not take a pause before the musical «jump». He had great courage and nobility in general.

A true artist

– And two more words about young musicians. How objective do you think the competitions are, is it possible to evaluate musicians «on the Hamburg account»?

– Although any assessment of performance is subjective, there are things that are objective and unconditional. A professional immediately hears and sees in another musician the mastery of style, the individual view of music and, in general, the scale of personality (what is called «personality» in the profession), the fullness and meaning of every moment on stage (so-called «personality»). That is, there are no doubt criteria that allow you to say that you have a real artist in front of you. And yet I refuse to sit on the jury of competitions because I don’t like intrigue and dishonest play. Instead of judging each young or very young musician with an open mind, the beginning is «it’s a pupil of that, you have to support him». I don’t want to get involved in this. And I can say that in those competitions where I agree to sit on the jury, it is always fair.

Piano with orchestra and single violin

The Izhevsk concert was opened by the young pianist Alexandra Stychkina, a laureate of international competitions and a scholarship holder of the Spivakov International Charity Fund. She performed her ninth Piano Concerto with the Mozart Orchestra in a superb manner, with some natural virtuosity and striking inner lightness. And the second section included Haydn and Spivakov. In the famous «Farewell Symphony» by Haydn, when in the finale the musicians leave the stage one after another, until the powerful polyphonic music turns into the voice of a lonely violin, Spivakov himself took the instrument in his hands.

Around the Farewell Symphony there are many stories, almost musical anecdotes – for example, that Haydn wrote this work to piss off the patron, Prince Esterhazy, who did not want to increase the fees for the musicians and saved even on candles. Leaving the stage one by one, the orchestra members put out the candles at the lecterns, and by the end of the symphony the Maecenas remained in complete darkness and silence. According to another version, with this symphony Haydn mistook Esterhazy for the fact that he did not like to let the artists go on family holidays – the musicians leaving the stage right during the performance as if they were reminding the prince that it was time for them to go home. Spivakov, on the other hand, played the symphony as a musical paraphrase of Pushkin’s poem Goodbye, full of pain about the fact that running years take more and more priceless people away from a person. The cry of the violin by 73-year-old Spivakov, who plays the final tact all alone on the dark stage, sounded like an unusually powerful confession.

You can also play

To relieve the dramatic tension hanging in the hall, Spivakov played a short and light play by Haydn, and concluded the concert with an orchestral interpretation of the tango by Astor Piazzolla.

– Vladimir Teodorovich, how did you create programmes for concerts at the festival «In Tchaikovsky’s Motherland»?

– I always focus on what the soloist wants to play. Sasha Stychkina wanted to play Mozart’s concerto, and his concert became the core of the entire Izhevsk programme. And since we had a newly rehearsed Haydn and it seemed to me that it sounded fresh, I wanted to show this music here too.

– When you came out on stage, you jumped onto the conductor’s podium with a dashing, some kind of boyish jump. And then your movements – outbursts, light dancing, quick hands – were like Mohammed Ali during the battle…

– I loved him, I am a fan. And I have been boxing for many years. Now, of course, I can’t do it anymore.

– Do you maintain physical fitness in any other way?

– And you try to conduct an orchestra for five hours, especially a large one, standing on your feet and not sitting for a minute, «reaching out» to the musicians in the last row – and then I ask you if you need any more training.

– As far as I know, you rarely play the violin now. Am I wrong, or did Udmurtia really manage to hear an exclusive performance?

– Frankly speaking, it was an exclusive one. Most recently, on 7 April, I played a solo violin concerto at Aix-en-Provence, the largest festival in France. Before that, I had not played the violin on stage for quite a long time, and then suddenly I decided to do it, and I thought it turned out quite well.

– And you realised you weren’t playing?

– Yes, I felt like I could still play. When I can’t play the way I want, then I’ll put the violin away forever. In the meantime, the game continues.

Anna VARDUGINA