Heirs of the Last Romantic of The Twentieth Century
The soiree commemorating Vladimir Horowitz’s birth centennial at the National Opera starred the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by Volodymyr Sirenko, the celebrated Russian pianist Mikhail Pletniov, and young Horowitz laureates Oleksiy Hryniuk (Ukraine), Cheng Wai Ching Rachel (China), and Timur Shcherbakov (Belarus). The audience starred clusters of politicians, businesspeople, diplomats, cultural figures, scholars, and scientists — all united by their love of classical music.
Oleksiy Hryniuk made a virtuoso rendition of Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto and later admitted that “As a pianist Horowitz has had an extremely strong impact on me. I have put together a full collection of his recordings. I’ve listened to each very carefully, studying it in every possible detail, always marveling at the musician’s incredible energy. Earlier I even tried the Horowitz performing style, but shortly realized that I had to embark on my own creative path.”
Timur Shcherbakov worships Mikhail Pletniov. He and Chung Van Ching Rachel played Mozart’s C-dur concerto for two pianos. The audience obviously enjoyed the international duet, although both musicians apparently have to work hard to become real stars. Rachel demonstrated good technique and remained her charming and ingenious self even when going through the most complex movements. Her older partner felt more at ease at the grand piano, perhaps owing to the difference in age and experience. Although not all of his passages were admired by the audience, he surely has talent and inspiration, determined not to be bound by rule and tradition, displaying his own creative concept, although at times getting carried away. It cost Conductor Volodymyr Sirenko a host of wracked nerves during rehearsals to orchestrate the duet and make it sound not only harmonious but also expressively convincing during the concert.
After the concert I asked the Horowitz laureates how their life had changed after winning their titles.
Oleksiy Hryniuk (winner of the Third Horowitz Contest in the senior standing) said, “There are more contracts. I appear in concerts more often. That victory gave a powerful impetus to my pianist career. Now, in addition to the Ukrainian piano school, I am mastering the British school. I am finishing a course of training in London, under Hemish Milne at the Royal Academy of Music. I combine classes with concert tours in a number of countries, in Europe and America. For example, after the concert in Kyiv I am flying to Paris to play Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto at the National Philharmonic Society of France. This concerto if one of my favorite works and Vladimir Horowitz played it throughout his career.”
Timur Shcherbakov, winning the silver medal in the senior standing of the Fifth Horowitz Contest for Young Pianists, admitted, “I realized that I couldn’t play [well enough]. Honestly, I’m not trying to be modest. Listening to maestros such as Pletniov, I can see that everything they do is on a high professional level, while I can’t always play in keeping with the score. Every failure makes me suffer. I continue to study at the Belarusian Academy of Music. After that contest I became even more demanding of myself. That time I received a special prize from Roman Kofman, head of the jury. It was a contract with the Bonn Symphony Orchestra (currently conducted by Roman Kofman — Author). This will happen two years from now, so I’ll have to work hard to get ready. And there will also be a concert in Rotterdam.”
12 year-old Chung Van Ching Rachel, winner of the Fifth Horowitz Contest in the junior standing, flew to Kyiv with her father who kept his video camera running, recording the entire event, along with the rehearsals of his daughters, Shcherbakov, and the celebrated Pletniov. She and Timur carefully analyzed their duet renditions and the master class taught them by Mikhail Pletniov. After the concert, the girl, still overwhelmed by emotion, admitted, “After returning to China from Ukraine I became something akin to the national hero. I was greeted by a number of people, total strangers, asking for autographs. I was happy to learn that the organizing committee wanted me to visit Mr. Horowitz’s homeland and play again. After Kyiv I will perform in Hong Kong with the local philharmonic. I am still studying at he Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and hope to become a good pianist.”
Maestro Mikhail Pletniov ended the program, playing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. His performance once again struck the audience with the musician’s virtuosity. His interpretation was convincing, leaving no one in the audience indifferent. Indeed, the famous Russian pianist made an excellent present for the Horowitz centennial in Kyiv.
Often, in discussing contemporaries, we are not too generous in using modifiers such as “great” and “brilliant,” thinking it best to omit them or use them when talking about those no longer among the living. Pletniov, who demonstrated a rich timbre palette and a faultless taste inherent in a true master, deserves the highest of praise.
Journalists describe Mikhail Pletniov as Mr. X, for his keeping his privacy. He practically never agrees to interviews, but he made an exception for The Day. I asked why he did not seem to like the press and television people and Mr. Pletniov ruefully admitted that he was not fortunate enough to have encountered clever and professional journalists. That they would often pose indecorous and plainly stupid questions, ones that not only irritated him but often left him speechless. He was also amazed to encounter rude television cameramen and newspaper photographers; they would think nothing of climbing to the stage during a concert, at the peak of an emotional and technically sophisticated rendition, and shooting their cameras and flashbulbs. Therefore, he had decided to reduce his contact with media people to a minimum, believing that music is far more eloquent than words.
Mr. Pletniov, whose was the idea of organizing a concert tour commemorating Vladimir Horowitz?
PLETNIOV: The tour starting in Kyiv was initiated by the directorate of the International Horowitz Foundation (e.g., Yury Zilberman and Iryna Polstiankina). They contacted the National Concert Agency, proposing a concert in Vladimir Horowitz’s home country. As the project was negotiated, it was further proposed to expand the project scope and hold concerts not only in Kyiv, but also in Kharkiv, Moscow, St. Petersburg, in other words, the cities where the maestro had performed. I added Kazan to the itinerary, as I had lived there since I was three. I wanted it as a homage to my first teachers. The tour was sponsored by the Music Olympus Foundation (under the presidency of Irina Nikitina, a known devotee of Pletniov — Author). In Kyiv, I played Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto Horowitz’s favorite number. He performed it when he graduated from the conservatory. In 1928, after settling in America, he played it at his first concert there. In fact, Rachmaninoff played a major role in Horowitz’s career, and the pianist was the first to perform a number of the composer’s new works in public.
I included in the tour program Bach’s Partita No. 6 and Chacona, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. I will also hold a master class for 11-years at the Conservatory of St. Petersburg.
You met Vladimir Horowitz. How do you feel about him as a musician and individual?
PLETNIOV: Horowitz was certainly a great pianist. His performing style has lost nothing with the passage of time. I was at his concert in Moscow and it left me very impressed emotionally. We met in Klin. Horowitz had wanted to visit the Tchaikovsky Memorial Museum and I had been invited as a Tchaikovsky contest laureate, so I could show Horowitz how the composer’s concert piano sounded. At first I thought that Horowitz looked very tired, but he cheered up later and proved an interested and charming individual with a keen sense of humor. Honestly, I was very nervous and tried to play not too loud, lest I damage the old instrument. The room was packed with people, museum personnel and Mr. Horowitz’s entourage. I had played Tchaikovsky’s little-known compositions and then the Maestro sat at the piano and played Rachmaninoff. After our improvised concert he admitted that he didn’t expect to come across a worthy young pianist. It was a great compliment coming from the celebrated musician.
We know that Vladimir Horowitz did not indulge in daily exhausting practicing. How do you prepare yourself for concert appearances?
PLETNIOV: I don’t have a set practicing pattern, I may sometimes rehearse for ten minutes or three hours, other times I may spend the whole day at the piano. It all depends on the composition and how I feel about it.
You played in Kyiv after a twenty-year interval. Why all those years?
PLETNIOV: I am a musician and have nothing to do with concert arrangements. I must admit that I enjoyed visiting Kyiv and performing here. I was also pleasantly surprised to find so many admirers in Ukraine.
Do you plan to bring your Russian National Orchestra to perform in Kyiv?
PLETNIOV: We will certainly come if we are duly proposed to do so. I’m all for it, but arranging for concert tours involving large performing groups is quite complicated today. It requires sponsorship.
What is the current status of the Russian National Orchestra? You seem to have largely rejuvenated the membership.
PLETNIOV: The orchestra is in good shape. Recently we returned form a very successful concert tour of Spain.
What about your latest recordings? Do you plan new ones?
PLETNIOV: I’ve recorded Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto and I plan to record Prokofiev’s Third Concerto with Mstrislav Rostropovich and the Deutsche Gramofon Recording Company.
I asked Oleh Polchevsky, Director General of the National Concert Agency managing Mikhail Pletniov’s [concert tour in Ukraine], how it felt working with a genius, for such people often prove very capricious.
POLCHEVSKY: It’s just great. I’ve long worked with Mikhail Pletniov, ever since perestroika, starting as his first manager. In that period we had no culture or anything remotely resembling civilized agent-manager-performer relationships after the Soviet Union collapsed. I organized Pletniov’s first commercial concert in Moscow, and he was paid an adequate fee, close to Western standards. Later, when Mikhail Pletniov had set up his Russian National Orchestra, he invited me to work for them. I spent five years as deputy director, and the final year as RNO director.
Mikhail Pletniov isn’t capricious, so I don’t know where any allegations to the contrary come from. But he is a tough taskmaster of both himself and the other performers. He believes that everybody must carry out his obligations professionally.
How did you meet Mikhail Pletniov?
POLCHEVSKY: In a simple, trivial way. We lived in the same neighborhood, practically next door, we played soccer and met at a stadium, then we started a business cooperation. Mikhail Pletniov is both a splendid musician and very much into sports, almost a candidate master of sport in the badminton. And badminton is a hallmark with the Moscow Conservatory. They have a great team and have produced the largest number of champions in the Russian capital’s higher school standing. Pletniov is also a very good soccer, ping-pong, and billiards player; and he’s also rather good at tennis.
How would you explain the current situation with the National Russian Orchestra, considering that the former RNO Chief Conductor Vladimir Spivakov left, taking with him one-third of the musicians, and organized the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia? He even staged the first NPO concert.
POLCHEVSKY: It’s true that 32 musicians quit the RNO and joined the NPO. Pletniov and Spivakov operate in different fields of endeavor, so that where Pletniov is particularly strong Spivakov proves at a disadvantage, and vice versa. I think that Spivakov is very good in the Russian PR domain. He’s actually the tops. He can keep the media under control, he loves interviews, presents TEFI [prestigious local television awards]; in other words, this man enjoys being in the limelight. Pletniov set up his Russian National Orchestra and shouldered the artistic director and chief conductor’s burden for a decade. Then he just got tired. He decided to concentrate on creative [rather than administrative] work, he wanted to perform as a pianist and orchestra conductor. He is also very active as a composer. His works are performed by a number of musicians. I can give you several examples: a symphony orchestra triptych , a classical symphony, a violin concerto called Fantasy on Cossack Themes, a piano concerto capriccio, piano transcriptions of suites from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker ballets, scenes from Shchedrin’s Anna Karenina, to mention only a few.
Pletniov remained the honorary chief conductor and continued to perform as a pianist with the RNO, but he asked to be replaced in his administrative capacity. It was then that Vladimir Spivakov stepped in, even though he lacked sufficient experience in running a symphony orchestra. He had previously worked with chamber groups, and there is a big difference in terms of specifics, repertoire, scope, and so on. I was then on the RNO directorate. The orchestra was an independent non- profit and self-recoupment [self-accounting] entity, so it needed financial aid. Spivakov was expected to contribute something new, money included, knowing his big society connections. However, nothing much came of it. The orchestra did not begin to perform any better; it remained a self-governing entity, meaning that whoever stood at the helm could hire whomever they chose. The contract with Spivakov expired four hours later and the orchestra’s management decided to set up a board of conductors, inviting the Japanese American Kent Nagano (he conducts the German, Los Angeles, and Berkley symphony orchestras), and even the famous musician Paul Berganut. Spivakov did not want to work in their company. He was chagrined to realize that he was no longer at the top of the list, but only one of several conductors on the board. In four years, Vladimir Spivakov had learned some orchestra aerobics, meaning that a professional orchestra could perform, with every musicians keeping his eyes shut, with whoever was at the conductor’s stand. I am a trained orchestra conductor, I’ve also performed with the RNO, so I know what I’m talking about. Spivakov wanted to be at the head of a big orchestra. I don’t know how he did it, but he came to terms with the [Russian] Ministry of Culture and was given a grant to establish a new orchestra. Vladimir Spivakov needed professional musicians, so they could lend a hand in case of need. He offered them very good salaries (three times what they had been paid at the RNO). We are all human, each with his problems, family and children to take care of, and so 32 RNO musicians did quit. I don’t want to comment on the NPO performance; time will tell. Pletniov’s stand is as follows: He is grateful to Spivakov for helping him rid his performing group of the deadweight of musicians who had called it quits, for they could see only dollars. The RNO has now been joined by younger performers, people willing to work. I must admit that our first concert turned out anything but perfect, and the absence of [veteran] musicians was apparent, so that the rendition proved not entirely balanced, with some finishing touches left to be applied. But then the orchestra’s concert tour with Mstislav Rostropovich ended recently, proving an overwhelming success. Mikhail Pletniov noted that there was fresh talent added to the orchestra. In a word, there are two orchestras in Moscow: the RNO and NPO, each to follow its own path.
