By Olga Fyodorova
…The summer of 1943… There is a bloody battle raging near the old Russian
city of Kursk. A young nurse watches new arrivals being brought into the
field hospital…
“My God, so many maimed and bloodied people here! Well, I’m almost done,
there’s only one left lying there… So young and handsome too! There is
no blood on him but he’s blacked out. Contused, I guess… Oh, his eyes are
opening! Can you speak?”
“Yeah, where am I?”
“In hospital. Are you wounded? Where?”
“My head… I just can’t think. The only thing I remember is that my tank
was hit. There was a deafening explosion and that’s all I remember…”
“What’s your name? How old are you? Where did you come from?”
“Ivan Mozgovenko, 19. From the Ural Mountains, with the Volunteer Tank
Corps… It was my first battle and here I am lying like a log!”
“You volunteered to the battlefront, didn’t you?”
“Yeah… The first time I asked them to send me to the front was two years
ago, shortly after the Germans attacked. They wouldn’t let me though saying
I was too young and would be better off going back to school…”
“Studying what?”
“Clarinet, at the local music college. Thought I would be a musician, but
then the war broke out and there was just no time for that…”
“You know, I realized it a long time ago that people need music even when
they are fighting. When you get well you will play and this will make our
soldiers feel much better, believe me… It’s very important, really… And
I’ll be dropping by and listen in… All right?”
Feeling better, Ivan started getting back to the instrument and, with the
help of fellow musicians, he even set up an ensemble. They played in between
battles, reconnaissance missions, taking the wounded away from under enemy
fire, and even performing simple operations. A real Jack-of-all-Trades,
Ivan firmly believed in his lucky stars and happily lived to Victory Day
fighting his way to Berlin and, like other members of his regiment, leaving
his autograph on the walls of the smoking Reichstag…
Discharged from the army in 1946, he enrolled in the Gnessins Music Institute
in Moscow and quickly established himself as one of the very best students.
Five years and a gold graduation medal after, Ivan stayed on to teach at
his alma mater, married a violin-playing beauty and won an international
competition held, of all places, in Berlin, adding a gold medal to
the one he already had for the taking of the Nazi capital…
During the early-Fifties international competitions were still too few
and far between which made the winners, Ivan Mozgovenko included, immediate
celebrities. Small wonder that such top-flight performers as pianists Svyatoslav
Richter and Maria Grinberg, violinist David Oistrakh, cellist Mstislav
Rostropovich and members of the Borodin quarter saw him as a welcome stage
partner whose impeccable mastery, exquisite musicality and profound sense
of style were absolutely enthralling…
Composers were now getting increasingly interested in the promising young
player and readily entrusted to him the first performance of their new
work. Some of them were even writing music expressly for him…
Critics admired Ivan’s playing manner, always so warm and so beautiful
that no one could ever suspect that the clarinet he played was a pretty
substandard, off the wall instrument. Because buying a quality clarinet
and accessories was an impossible mission back in those days. Somehow,
Ivan managed fixing the stick with a shoelace or a bandage soaked in black
ink.
And still, his clarinet stunned listeners packing the best concert venues
in Moscow and then many other cities around the world. It was a real triumph!
He was an excellent teacher too. He, like no one else, was quick to appreciate
the strong and weak points of his students, being extremely polite with
some and very no-nonsense with others and always with excellent results…
His students invariably excel at international competitions, classy players
all and each with an individuality all his own. And still, each bears a
barely visible stamp left by their formidable teacher…
In almost every leading Russian orchestra, the clarinet groups consist
almost entirely of Mozgovenko’s own students…
Professor Ivan Mozgovenko invariably sits on and sometimes even presides
over the juries of major international competitions. An unquestionable
authority in his field, he is also a very wise and fair man who never abuses
his stellar status, always tactful and sensitive to other people’s feelings.
And still he always grabs everyone’s attention the very moment he enters
the room…
Even though his each day is jam packed with concerts, tours, lessons and
master classes, Ivan Mozgovenko always finds time for sports.
He is a fine swimmer, tennis and volleyball player and a devout mountain
climber who has scaled some of Europe’s highest peaks, always taking his
clarinet with him. “It’s my best friend and trusty companion,” he says.
Reaching the mountaintop, he would always take out his instrument and fill
the place with happily buoyant sounds…
Meanwhile, his daughters grew up and, before long, Ivan was already a proud
grandfather. The kids developed a quick liking for music and, before he
knew it, there was a whole family ensemble for him to lead. One of his
sons in law, a physicist, was the only one left out, but Ivan Mozgovenko
quickly found him a job and the man is a family photographer now even though
recently he has also been using a video camera putting on tape the history
of what is now a very large family…
His best students also feel at home here and, like their teacher, they
mark their birthdays with concerts liking workdays more than they do weekends.
A handsome gray-haired man with burning eyes, Ivan Mozgovenko is still
upright and bubbling with energy, plans and new ideas. And he’s still playing,
much to the surprise of many people who simply can’t imagine someone
just under eighty playing the clarinet…
Well, no one else does, really, but Ivan Mozgovenko is not just anyone,
is he?
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