LVIV – The concert entitled “The Unique Piano Recital” took place in the philharmonic society. It featured the works by Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, and Claude Debussy. The tickets were bought out a week before the performance. Not only is Vladimir Viardo a famous pianist, he is also a pedagogue. He currently lives in America and is actively touring across the world. He was lucky to meet the most outstanding musicians of the 20th century. The pianist arrived in Lviv from Yasnaya Polyana (Russia), where he performed at the invitation of Leo Tolstoy’s descendants.
“Unfortunately, I have not spoken Ukrainian for long and have somewhat lost the command of the language, but I promise to catch up quickly. This is not my first visit to Lviv. I was here several years ago, when I performed Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 5, conducted by Roman Filipchuk.”
Does your repertoire include works by Ukrainian composers?
“No, but my students do perform Ukrainian music, specifically Myroslav Skoryk’s works. Ukrainian music is not so widely promoted in the world as, for example, the Russian one. This school is scarcely known abroad, to much regret, because the works by Ukrainian composers are romantic. One can always feel there natural warmth and folklore origins.”
Are there any Ukrainians among your students?
“I have taught to Kostiantyn Travinsky and Natalia Sukhina. I maintain very close relations with the Kyiv Conservatoire, I give master classes there on a regular basis. I also perform at the Kyiv Philharmonic Society. I took Kostia and Natalia from Kyiv with great hardships, as they were not allowed to study in the US, because the Americans feared they would stay there. I even had to look for contacts via diplomatic channels.”
You are called an intellectual performer. What does it mean?
“I don’t divide love and sex. If I don’t feel the composition, I don’t perform it at all. This way is quite visible during classes. I squeeze some intellectual things into a clot, so as to give the students a possibility to understand the structure which further should be forgotten. It should become ingrained.”
Apparently, you are frequently asked about your relationship with Turgenev’s muse Polina Viardot.
“We are related via our cousins. Polina’s family does not recognize me as their relative, maybe because out of some material concerns, fearing that I will ask for a share of the inheritance, especially that is left in Odesa. Formally, they don’t recognize me because my surname is spelled differently than Viardot. Long ago in Russia a poorly educated employee of a passport office did not write the silent letter ‘t’ in my grandfather’s passport. Thus my surname was transliterated as Viardo in Russian, but this does not bother me.”
Tell please me about your family.
“I was born in Krasnodar Krai to a family of musicians. But I have spent my best childhood years in Ukraine. The thing is that in 1950, when I turned one, my grandmother was persecuted and I was sent to Zaporizhia to live with her sister. There I went to school until the age of 14. Incidentally, in the certificate I have ‘excellent’ for Ukrainian and only ‘good’ for Russian. Zaporizhia was my first favorite city. It was later that I studied in the Moscow Conservatoire (Lev Naumov’s class). I was lucky to be taught by this wonderful pedagogue, a follower of the Heinrich Neuhaus’ methods (he taught such piano masters as Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels). I understand the excitement of those who take part in competitions, because I, too, have passed through the crucible of competitions, and the feeling of happiness when I won my first international award, the third prize and Prix de Prince at the Concours International Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud. I was the first of the former-Soviet pianists to win in the Fourth Quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (the US), which was followed by many tours. There was a period when I was not permitted to leave the USSR, in spite of the invitations I received. I think that a musician should not be bound by borders.”
What are your favorite works?
“I like different music depending on the period. But the profession of a pianist requests the skill to return love to one or another work. I cannot play without love. There is an element of a game in our profession: I should convince myself that I absolutely love what I am doing, even if I have to play the same work many times in succession.”
Where there any cases when you disagreed with the concept of the conductor?
“In my practice I have met conductors who managed to play 100 programs a year. This seems quite suspicious to me, because I prepare one program for years sometimes, maybe even decades. I belong to old-school performers, and my creative creed is that it is not me who serves the orchestra, but the orchestra serves me. For example, I have given joint performances with conductor Kirill Kondrashin. After the concert he would always ask, ‘Have I served the client well?’ This is specific to the profession of accompanist. Many modern conductors do not like this: they have their own concepts of the composition and they agree to such a tandem with difficulties.”
Do you have any idols among the performers?
“Quite a strange thing has happened to me. Twenty years ago I had many idols. Once I was driving a car and switched on the radio, which was broadcasting Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Even now I can remember my impression: the performance was pretentious and woman-like, in the worst meaning of the word. As it later appeared, that was Richter. And I understood that something went wrong with me. Since then many pianists, frequently without wide renown, have become my favorites, for example, Japanese Izumi. I was a member of jury when she won the first prize in Porto. She was playing Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonata No. 1, this was eight years ago, but I still remember.”
The rumor has it that Volodymyr Horowitz was your personal acquaintance.
“If Richter can be called a philosopher of music, Horowitz was a poet. I met Horowitz when I was 23. I won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. I remember him as a funny and unusual man. He was very self-focused, liked to listen to opinions on his playing. Horowitz was a genius musician and big child. After a 12-year break in performance, he once again took the pedestal of the world’s number-one pianist. When I asked him, why he had returned, Horowitz admitted that he missed the audience greatly and felt that he could not stay within four walls anymore. He had a lucky constitution. He always played brilliantly even without training every day. I remember my impressions after Horowitz’s performance in Moscow. He started from Mozart. We exchanged glances in surprise: how could he play in such a way? We were shocked in the first minutes of his performance, then his energy won over us and he convinced us with his interpretation.”
With whom would you like to play in duo?
“I have played much with Lev Naumov: he was always afraid of the stage and told me that when we were together, he was less afraid. Our joint performances were always unexpected and beautiful. Recently I have played in duo with my current student, before that — with my former student, Anna Malekhova, who resides near Munich at present. I have worked a lot with the wonderful violinist Oleh Krysa, a former resident of Lviv. On the whole, all of my projects are for pleasure and emotions, I never do anything out of career considerations.”
Do you maintain relations with the musicians who left the territory of the former USSR at approximately the same time as you?
“Sure. But there are certain national peculiarities. Ukrainians are able to stick to each other, Russians – not. There is a Ukrainian Home in New York, which hosts concerts on regular basis. In particular, some great work was done there by the late Alik Slobodianyk, who was, by the way, a great friend of mine. Russians are not united even by the church; they are always falling out with each other.”
Do you have any peculiar plans?
“I started to work as a conductor some nine years ago. For this I took a vacation, came to Moscow and studied like a student. In Kyiv I conducted Shostakovich’s Sonata No. 2. I have also conducted in Nizhny Novgorod. Now I am going to conduct Johannes Brahms’ Sonata No. 3.”
What interests do you have, other than music?
“I have no time to do what I want to do as long as I want to. I like very much to build houses, to work with the wood: I have all the necessary tools for this. I also like fishing, because it is communication with nature. Unfortunately, I have too little time. Our education in the former USSR was family-like, and I cannot walk away from it. If I take students, I treat them as if they were my own children. They tell me things I don’t want to listen to sometimes. I know everything about them because they trust me. I understand that children are cut off from their families and seek warmth. I have a studio with two grand pianos and a sofa. Some may sleep on the sofa, others — under the piano. Some of my students cook meals, some start cutting my hair without asking my permission. They are sure that I belong to them. It is not only music that I teach to them, but also literature and painting, in order to give impetus to their creative personalities. I teach them not just to perform, I mold people out of them.”
The Day’S FACT FILE
Vladimir Viardo was born in 1949. Since his first steps in music the pianist made himself known as a bright creative personality, possessing a special depth, inspired performing, and emotionality. He studied at the Moscow Conservatoire in Lev Naumov’s class. As a third-year student he won the Grand Prix in the Concours International Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud in Paris. In 1973 he won the first prize and two special prizes in the Fourth Quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Being a student of the conservatoire he was a soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, and after obtaining a doctorate he became Prof. Naumov’s assistant. In 1988 he immigrated to the US. He frequently appears on the world’s best stages, gives master classes in the biggest cities of North and South America, Europe, as well as Asia, and South Africa. He is a professor at North Texas University. Viardo’s students include over 50 winners of first and second prizes of international competitions.
Viardo is also the head of the Russian Music Competition in California and Viardo Competition in New York. He has been a member of the jury at the International Competition in Memory of Volodymyr Horowitz (Kyiv). In 2006 he organized the Viardo International Competition of Young Pianists in Zaporizhia. The musician’s oeuvre includes many recordings, specifically of his performances of the works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Krzysztof Penderecki, Claude Debussy, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
