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By Olga Fyodorova
...The year 1977. The Moscow apartment of the Dievs, prominent musicians.
The head of the family, a conductor and composer, is on a tour and his
wife, a seasoned piano teacher Rimma Dieva is an equally rare guest here.
This time, however, she is home spending the evening in the kitchen preparing
dinner and keeping an attentive ear on the sounds coming from the adjacent
room where her 19-year-old son Andrei is practicing for his first ever
piano competition.
“Watch your fingers!”
“OK, mom…”
“Easy on the bass notes! Don’t let them dampen out the melody!”
“Why don’t you just keep making your salad, mom, and let me concentrate
on what I’m doing?”
“Are you telling me I’m getting in the way? Since when, I wonder? After
all I’ve done to make you a musician! You wouldn’t play a note without
my help, you know that? Thank God I’m not selling vegetables at some
rundown store but am the best piano teacher at my music college!
Don’t you forget that I studied under the great Genrikh Neuhaus and just
listen to what I’m saying!”
“Don’t go over the top, mom, will you? Better take a break, sit down and
listen…”
Andrei Diev had never ever bothered himself thinking about what he was
going to do in life. His parents say he started showing interest in music
before he learned to walk and talk. He was a real whiz kid from the very
start and, just like it always happens, his first teacher was his mother.
Rimma Dieva was touted as one of the best piano teachers in Moscow.
Intelligent and patient, she knew her students inside out and knew how
to underscore their strong points to examiners and concertgoers alike.
Teaching your own kid is usually harder than training anyone else’s because
parents tend to get mad each time their offspring fails to obey or understand
something. What in other circumstances might give rise to a benevolent
smile, caused a whole explosion of heartfelt emotions here…
Andrei’s parents decided to send him to the country’s best music school
that was once set up under the Moscow Conservatory. Small wonder
that the boy was taken up by the best teachers they had there. And
they never regretted their choice because Andrei was more than just a musically
endowed boy, he was a great fantasizer too, always fun to deal with…
Andrei always felt comfortable on stage. This does not mean he never had
that hollow feeling in his stomach before walking out on stage, but the
moment he sat down to the instrument, the fear was gone and he just burned,
free and easy… Each passage he played was filled with elegance, beauty
and air…
Finishing school with honors in 1976, Andrei entered the Moscow Conservatory
joining the class of Professor Lev Naumov who immediately appreciated his
talent and started getting him ready for competitions. “These days
you just can’t make it big in music without winning competitions,” the
Professor said.
Still in his first year at the Conservatory, Andrei Diev became a winner
of a national piano competition. A year later he became a laureate
of the prestigious piano contest in Santander, Spain and the following
year repeated his success in Montreal, Canada.
Already a seasoned, 28-year-old player, Andrei finally won the much-desired
first prize and gold medal of a prestigious international competition in
Tokyo. From there on, his career has been going from strength to strength…
Britain, Italy, France, Greece, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Turkey and
Austria… The list of wins was growing and Andrei was already playing the
world premier venues, such as Megaro in Athens, The Royal Festival Hall
in London, Santory Hall in Tokyo, the Verdi Hall in Milan and the Conservatory
Big Hall in Moscow.
Andrei Diev was playing with leading symphony and chamber orchestras and
taking part in major festivals, always wanted and admired by all…
In London, critics raved about Andrei’s performances with one glowing review
saying that “One can only admire his interpretations of Rakhmaninoff… Diev
is definitely one of the best pianists alive!”
Bulgarians were equally stunned by his excellent performance of contemporary
music, the all-embracing, almost organ-like sound of his instrument…
The French were immediately conquered by what they said was “an absolutely
unique technique all aimed at maximally opening up music’s underlying character.”
“His imagination knows no bounds at all!” raved the local newspapers.
In Japan, Andrei struck a loud chord with the local concertgoers with his
stirring rendition of small pieces by European romantics winning kudos
for his “color abundance, Russian passion and purity of the Russian
soul.”
Andrei Diev’s repertoire spans three centuries of European music, that
includes such outstanding classics as Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven along with popular romantic miniatures and, of course, Russian
music. He performs rarely played Old Masters or Spanish music too, always
a talented performer easily latching onto the musical style he has at hand…
Andrei Diev, 44, is now at the very height of his career. Each performance
of his is a celebration opening up new facets of his immense talent. Andrei
likes playing in ensemble with other pianists, violinists and singers.
And he is always different each time he plays a piece.
Always looking for new trails, Andrei Diev is constantly on the lookout
for ever new forms of expressing himself. He is teaching at the Moscow
Conservatory, giving master classes in summer and sitting on the jury of
several major international competitions… and spending his spare moments,
which are very few and far in between, with his little son. Rimma
Dieva says that some day the boy will make it big in music. Just like his
father did...
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