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By Olga Fyodorova
Mexico, the year 1960… A music festival organized by the world-famous cellist
Pablo Casals. A group of local music buffs are exchanging opinion just
before the curtain goes up on yet another festival concert…
“Hats off to Casals for making this wonderful thing happen! Great concerts,
great performers!..”
“Small wonder, Casals is such a wonderful player and I guess for a luminary
like him organizing such a star-studded happening was like a snap, really.
That’s why I try not to miss a thing because you just can’t afford missing
things like this…”
“I come here every night, I have even bought a ticket for all concerts
but I didn’t plan on coming here tonight, really… I’ve never heard the
name of this cellist before. I just can’t pronounce his name right: Knu-shevich,
no, - vitsky… Knushevitsky…”
“My God, never saw so many consonants in a single word before! Is he a
Pole or what?”
“The program here says he is from Soviet Russia, from Moscow…”
“Are there any good musicians still left there? Rakhmaninoff, Chaliapin,
Tchaikovsky - they are all dead now…”
“There is a whole bunch of new musicians now coming along there, like the
pianists and violinists I once saw making a real splash in America… They
also have a great young cellist there whose name is equally tongue twisting.
Just a minute… Yes, I got it… Rostropovich!”
“And what about the fellow who is going to play tonight? Is he a youngster
too?”
“I don’t know… Well, it’s time to move inside though… He is kicking off
with a Max Roeger sonata… It’s one of my favorites and would hate to miss
the opening…”
Svyatoslav Knushevitsky got everyone’s attention with the very first notes
he struck stunning the listeners with his clean and deep sound, so noble
and expressive…
On the following day the newspapers were awash with glowing reviews comparing
the Russian cellist to the great Niccolo Paganini and Fyodor Chaliapin
who always gave his own version of the tried-and-true classics and made
the audience believe his one was the best. Knushevitsky was touted as one
of the best cellists alive, second, or even equal, to the great Pablo Casals
himself…
Music critics wondered why Knushevitsky, then already 50, was so little
known outside his country…
On the other side of the Atlantic, few people realized that Knushevitsly
had spent his younger days living behind the Iron Curtain that separated
Russia from the rest of the world. Only a handful of performers managed
to get past that terrible wall and make themselves a name in the West…
Svyatoslav Knushevitsky didn’t and that’s why his performance was such
a big surprise…
Svyatoslav was only three when people around him started appreciating his
larger than life talent. The toddler easily copied just about every
tune he heard, and quickly played it on the family’s old piano, much to
the enjoyment of his loved ones. The Knushevitskys then lived in a small
town on the Volga but even there they managed to find a good teacher to
give the boy piano lessons. Realizing the boy’s strong penchant for the
cello, the teacher then handed him over to another one…
At 15, Svyatoslav headed for Saratov, the nearest city where they had a
conservatory. There Knushevitsky auditioned for the Moscow Professor Semyon
Kozolupov who advised him to keep him company on his way back to Moscow
and enter the country’s best conservatory. It was a mind-boggling offer,
really, and who was Svyatoslav to say no?
In Moscow Knushevitsky quickly established himself as the Conservatory’s
top player and after a stirring performance during the graduation exams,
he was awarded the Big Gold Medal and had his name written in gold letters
on a marble plaque gracing the Conservatory hallway…
Admitted without an audition as a lead cellist with the venerable Bolshoi
orchestra, Svyatoslav Knushevitsky quickly became the pride and glory of
the orchestra’s opera and ballet performances…
In 1933 Knushevitsky took part in the First National Competition of Young
Performers - a major musical event closely watched by thousands of music
lovers and journalists from around the country. The competition was
held in several categories with the very young Emil Gilels winning in the
piano department and Knushevitsky emerging as a hands down leader right
from the start… From then on, it was clear to all that he was a sure fire
winner…
After the competition they made a short documentary about Knushevitsky,
which they rolled in movie theaters all across the nation. Before long
the young laureate was a household name everywhere…
And all that time he kept playing at the Bolshoi Theater though unable
to launch a full solo career simply because the cello was not the most
popular instrument around and one could hardly feed a family playing it
in solo concerts.
Knushevitsky played in gala concerts, chamber ensembles often partnering
on stage with the outstanding pianist Lev Oborin, the winner of the Chopin
International Competition in Warsaw, Poland.
Meanwhile, making their stage debut in the early-1940, the stellar trio
of Lev Oborin, piano, Svyatoslav Knushevitsky, cello, and David Oistrakh,
violin, were playing to capacity audiences packing Moscow’s most prestigious
concert venues…
By the mid-1940s, Svyatoslav Knushevitsky was already an established authority
teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, playing stage and radio concerts and
cutting several records.
During the 1950s they started occasionally letting him out of the country,
mostly to the socialist countries of Eastern Europe with the West still
being out of bounds, just like it was to so many others… Which means that
participation in the Pablo Casals festival in Mexico was actually his first
in the free world… Knushevitsky was already 52…
Invited to play again there the following year, Knushevitsky was equally
stunning prompting fresh new comparisons with Casals and catching the eye
of the world’s leading impresarios. It looked like international stardom
seemed just a breath away now… Knushevitsly was in seventh heaven…
A chronic heart condition dashed all these plans though, and on February
19, 1963, Svyatoslav Knushevitsky died, shortly after celebrating his 55th
birthday…
The cello has since come a long way establishing itself firmly as a lead
instrument and spawning a constellation of excellent players, Russians
included. And still, listening to the recordings Svyatoslav Knushevitskly
made years ago we can see that his excellent performing skills remain a
very challenging example for new generation players to emulate…
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