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By Olga Fyodorova
Moscow, the year 1933. The Conservatory Big Hall. Waiting for the final
round of the First National Competition of Young Musicians, people in the
foyer are busily exchanging opinion about the finalists’ chances.
“What’s your guess, who is going to win in the piano department?”
“Who? Give me a break! Of course this redheaded guy from Odessa, that’s
who!”
“You mean Emil Gilels?”
“That’s right. He’s the absolutely the best! Just look at his flash, seems
like he’s played everything that has ever been written for piano. Nice
and easy, and going through all these finger-twisting runs and crazy chords
as if they were just a piece of cake! I have to admit that I’ve never seen
anything like this before. And he’s doing all this with such amazing calm
as if nothing special were happening…”
“Sounds interesting. I haven’t seen him play yet but he’s already the talk
of the town. That’s really why I’m here tonight by the way… How old is
he?”
“16 I guess, looks like a kid, really… Hush, here goes…”
There was a huge talent being born right before our very eyes. Emil
Gilels’s name will soon be pronounced with breathless reverence everywhere,
went a glowing newspaper review, which came out a day after the young prodigy’s
triumph at the competition.
Emil Gilels was born on October 19, 1916 in the Black Sea port city of
Odessa and, three years later his phenomenal pianistic talent was already
there for everyone to see. “This boy was born to play the piano!”
his teacher gasped, “ his hands fit the keyboard just perfectly! And his
musical ear and memory are absolutely out of this world!”
Gilels played his first solo concert at the still tender age of 13. Berta
Reingbald, a seasoned piano teacher happened to be there and, impressed
by the boy’s talent, took him under her wing and helped bring out the boy’s
enormous potential, stir up his imagination and get him used to hard everyday
work. And then she sent him to Moscow to study with the famed
Conservatory Professor Genrikh Neuhaus.
Emil Gilels became world famous when he was still at the conservatory.
In 1936 he became a winner of an international competition in Vienna and
two years later he emerged victorious from the Eugene Izai competition
in Brussels. This was the beginning of a long series of tours that took
him to virtually every corner of the world…
Gilels was more than just a virtuoso, he was a great artist whose no-nonsense
playing was always forceful, serious and emotionally supercharged…
“There is some hot-rodded intensity in him that makes him so different”,
the critics said. “His interpretations are bristling with healthy energy,
his playing big time, energetic and colorful…”
During World War II Gilels kept a busy playing schedule performing mostly
in Moscow, which the Nazis tried so desperately to take in the fall of
1941.
He was going out to the battlefront and, his piano perched on a military
truck, he entertained the soldiers who, only a couple of hours later, would
engage the advancing enemy...
He also played in the besieged Leningrad, his concerts always packed by
freezing and emaciated listeners who cherished each note he played as maybe
the only reminder of the good old days when there was no fighting, no starving,
no death…
There were a series of radio concerts too where this great musician inspired
in his war-fatigued countrymen undying confidence that, in the end, they
would win…
During the late-Forties, Emil Gilels was regularly performing abroad being
one of the chosen few allowed to ignore the Iron Curtain Josef Stalin had
so painstakingly erected…
In some countries Gilels was the first Soviet performer people had ever
seen there. Representing the art of a whole nation was a very special responsibility
and here too, Emil Gilels never let his country down…
He was never ever criticized abroad, really. It’s amazing, but his playing
manner was equally admired by people everywhere, whatever their nationality
or musical tastes might be…
Partnering on stage with the best conductors and symphony orchestras around,
playing in the most prestigious venues the world could offer, recording
with the top companies and sitting on the juries of major international
competitions, Emil Gilels quickly established himself as one of the world’s
best loved and respected musicians…
An honorary member of the Royal Music Academy in London and the Santa Cecilia
Academy in Rome, an honorary Professor of the Budapest Conservatory and
the proud winner of the Gold Medal of the City of Paris and the Order of
Leopold the First, King of All Belgians…
In Russia too he held every imaginable award and artistic distinction one
could ever dream of…
Once and again he tried to teach and for several years he worked as a Professor
at the Moscow Conservatory, only to find that teaching was definitely not
his cup of tea. Moreover it seemed like a drag for someone who was always
on the road and would rather relax in the privacy of his home than spend
hours on end honing his students’ skills. Indeed, he was a taciturn man
not a good mixer either…
Sometimes he managed to leave his blues behind him though and would entertain
his near and dear with an avalanche of jokes and funny stories, but these
fascinating moments were few and far between in a life brimming over with
hard everyday work…
Never a fan of grand celebrations, Gilels dreaded his upcoming 70th birthday
with all the interviews and TV appearances it would entail. The very thought
about all the running about, hours spent uselessly answering all those
phone calls and the lengthy wish-you-well harangues sent his blood pressure
sky high…
“How lucky that this whole thing is still a year away and we are only celebrating
his 69th birthday now,” his family thought, but Emil Gilels did not live
to celebrate even that…
During the funeral, huge crowds and long speeches - everything the deceased
hated so much - were all there, but he was now oblivious of it all…
His daughter Yelena is a fine pianist and his grandson, Kirill, also inspires
hope, but none of them comes anywhere close to their great predecessor…
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