On February 22-23, the National Music Academy of Ukraine hosted the festival “Ivan Karabyts Among Friends” commemorating the noted Ukrainian composer’s 65th anniversary. The Day asked Rodion Shchedrin to share his memories about Karabyts, considering that they had been friends for many years. Shchedrin, who currently lives in Munich, enthusiastically responded by giving the following interview over the telephone.
“Ivan Karabyts and I were very close friends and colleagues. We shared our simple human and professional preferences. I also held him in profound esteem as an extremely cultured individual. He was a born aristocrat who combined refined manners with a remarkable modesty. Vanity and self-conceit were alien to him. He was always very natural. You know, composers tend to act extravagantly, like sporting long hair, weird hats, just to add importance to themselves, even if they don’t deserve it. Ivan was absolutely different. He didn’t need any of that. When we met during concerts I noticed the respectfully attentive way he listened to his colleagues’ music. His dedication to music was boundless. I’d say he loved music more than he did himself, something you seldom come across in our brash times.
“I think that Karabyts followed his own road in music, and this was also something that strongly attracted me to him. He took no sudden turns [as a composer], like when everybody became suddenly fond of dodecaphony (or twelve-tone technique) or serialism. He wrote music being guided by his talent which was bestowed on him by the Lord, relying on culture and the classical and folk heritage. He did so when he was a student and continued doing so later. He relied on tradition, and yet he was new. His novelty was in his concepts, ideas, and the way he treated musical material — and he was by no means an outsider, a stranger to standing practice. This is especially important for me; in him I found culture, knowledge, and [music] school, along with talent and dedication.
“A number of his compositions are close to me, like his Second Concerto for Orchestra. I heard it on several occasions. I remember his Pisni Yavdokhy (Yavdokha’s Songs), a very beautiful original composition based on Ukrainian folk tunes. Karabyts has a great many beautiful compositions. Take, for example, his recent disk with Instrumental Concertino No. 9, the Cello Sonata, and Lyrical Scenes. These are good things to show and for musicians to perform. I’m happy to know that you’re focusing on his music. This should become another good tradition. This would be only fair. This and other anniversaries of his birth should be celebrated on a regular basis, not now and then.
“His music wasn’t fully appreciated in the 20th century. I think that even your country isn’t fully aware of the scope of Ivan Karabyts’ musical and, no less importantly, social talent. He was the one who founded the Horowitz Piano Competition (it has since become a prestigious international event) and Kyiv Music Fest. He did it at a difficult time, when everything seemed to be falling apart. I believe that The Day will come soon when Ukraine acclaims its brilliant composer Ivan Karabyts.”
There is a recently recorded disk with your music performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted [on that particular occasion] by a young man by the name of Kyrylo Karabyts. Would you please tell our readers about your creative collaboration?
“Ivan Karabyts was a great conductor and he passed on his talent to his son. It won’t be an overstatement when I say that Ivan was the link that kept me and Kyrylo together in that project. Of course, I was mostly the listener while Kyrylo was on the conductor’s stand, waving his wand, doing a great job. I was very impressed. I think that Kyrylo is a remarkably gifted young man, one of the best younger generation conductors. He is a born conductor — that’s not like when you make up your mind to become an orchestra conductor, even if you have a good ear for music, when you know music well enough. This doesn’t suffice, for the orchestra conductor’s profession is a rarity. To become one you have to have something like a sign from the Lord, His blessing.
“I watched the way the orchestra treated Kyrylo Karabyts. It was with affection and confidence, with every musician listening carefully to what he had to say. And his hands were moving so gracefully, singing a song of their own. In fact, he isn’t on the loquacious side with the orchestra, but the musicians listen to what little he has to say, and he subjects them to his musical will. As it was, we recorded the Fourth and Fifth Concertos for Orchestra, and a separate piece entitled ‘Crystal Psaltery.’”
Sounds like a fairy tale!
“Right. This composition is on the fairy-tale side, with a crystal psaltery that’s crushed and then miraculously made whole again so it can keep playing.”
So this is a fairy tale?
“As much as all our life. Our life is a fairy tale, the way we emerge on this planet, the way we marvel at the sight of dawn, sunset, snow, winds, and clouds — I wrote this composition in conjunction with the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu’s birth anniversary. We used to be good friends. He was a very interesting personality who created music using his own special voice. I took part in his international project held in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall as a representative of Russia, along with those of Great Britain, Germany, and France. Every composer had to submit his concert program that consisted of a brand-new orchestral piece and two other numbers (one written by a younger composer you considered to be promising and the other one that you found most impressive).”
What did you submit?
“Alfred Schnittke’s orchestral piece (he was two years younger) and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.”
A number of your ballets, operas, and vocal pieces have to do with literary classics like Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Leskov, and Chekhov. Whose literary works are inspiring you now?
“I belong to that part of humankind that’s tagged as book lovers. There isn’t a single day out of 365 days a year when I haven’t read a book before going to sleep or after waking up in the morning. When I travel somewhere, I always have a book. I think that there are countless sources in Russian literature that remain to be used by composers and that can help make their cherished creative dreams come true. I’ve been offered commissions to write music for German- and English-speaking performers. None of this has inspired me, although I have written this kind of music, but not for operatic or drama performances.”
What books are you reading now?
“Today I read Solomon Volkov’s Shostakovich and Stalin. Yesterday I read Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter and was once again amazed to re-read the passage we’d studied in school: ‘The wind blew with such ferocity that it was difficult not to think it was an animated being.’ We had to write dictations [using this text]. When you re-read such classics, so many years after, you still marvel at them. Literature is something you can’t live without, just as you can’t live without music.”
What kind of music are you listening to?
“All kinds, even what we hear in public places, something I’d be happy never to hear again. When I’m in the mood, I play Brahms or Tchaikovsky. A German journalist asked me once, ‘What composition would you like to hear now?’ I said Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Of course, there are a great many other beautiful compositions I’d like to keep hearing.”
Your devotees in Ukraine are eager to learn about your new compositions and concert plans.
“I’m working hard. There are quite a few business offers, some of them weird and totally unexpected. Several days ago — while traveling — I finished writing a composition commissioned by Nuremberg. This city has a unique church with three organs. Earlier this year I was invited to a festival in Nuremberg and was commissioned to write a composition for three organs. I added three pipes and entitled the composition Dies Irae. This is the latest composition I made and sent to my publisher… I have some proof pages right here on my desk. After we’re through with this interview, I’ll proofread them, take them to the post office and mail them to the publisher. This is my Oboe Concerto for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam conducted by the gorgeous Maris Jansens. The oboe solo will be played by Oleksii Ohrenchuk.
“It happened so that I’m now closely collaborating with the Mariinsky Theater and [its artistic and general director] Valery Gergiev who is a spectacular, vastly talented musician. The MT has issued the season ticket ‘Shchedrin at Mariinsky Theater.’ The program is made up of six performances, including the opera The Enchanted Wanderer, based on Leskov’s title story; Aleksei Ratmansky’s new ballet version of Andrei Yershov’s The Little Hunchback Horse (Ratmansky used to be the Bolshoi’s chief choreographer; currently and very successfully with New York City Ballet); a concert version of [Nikolai Gogol’s] Dead Souls, conducted by Gergiev; the premieres of Anna Karenina, scheduled for April and again staged by Ratmansky; Carmen Suite, and a symphony concert. We regularly travel to St. Petersburg for rehearsals and concerts.”
Mr. Shchedrin, your name is inseparable from that of Maya Plisetskaya who is assuredly your Muse. Your recent book Avtobiograficheskiie zapisi (Autobiographical Notes) reads: “A confession of love, a gift to my wife.” What is the secret of your creative and family union of such long standing?
“I believe that God our Lord brought the two of us together. We have been officially married for 51 years. Quite some time. We celebrated our golden wedding, and our ship keeps sailing. The secret of our union is that we have never felt bored in each other’s company. I believe that I caught the firebird, like Ivan, the hero of my ballet. I’m happy that our life took this course. We’re living a very friendly life.”
Some of the readers of your book are bound to note your keen sense of humor. Does it help you keep strong and optimistic?
“I don’t think that anyone can keep being good-humored round the clock. If we could find one, this human being ought to be put on museum display. Yet when you have a lifelong companion, someone you need round the clock, keeping optimistic is easy. Of course, there is an end to everything. Pushkin wrote that joy is always followed by sorrow, just as present sorrow is a guarantee of future joy. I think these words address the current, future, and past generations. Wouldn’t you feel bored by not having nights or winters, by having the seasons readjusted so they could sell bigger? What I mean is that changes in your mood are inevitable, so the main thing is not to give way to depression. Nikolai Gogol’s Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends contains a chapter in which the author claims that diseases are good for man and that if you overcome a disease, you will be even more keenly aware of the wonderful world in which you exist.”
The Day’s FACTFILE
Rodion Shchedrin was born in Moscow. In 1955, he graduated from Moscow Conservatory where he studied composition (taught by Yuri Shaporin) and piano (taught by Ya. Fliyer). Over the years he has written compositions in various genres: opera (Not Only Love, Dead Souls), ballet (The Hunchbacked Horse, Carmen Suite, and Anna Karenina), symphonies, Concerto for Orchestra No. 1, Naughty Limericks, Concerto for Orchestra No. 2, The Chimes, piano pieces, including Polyphonic Notebook, 25 preludes, etc.
His compositions innately combine Russian folklore and contemporary music. Shchedrin was a member of the jury of numerous international composers and pianists’ competitions. In 1973, he was elected chairman of the RSFSR Union of Composers.
He is the recipient of numerous government awards and prizes and an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Arts. Shchedrin currently resides in Munich.
