|
By Olga Fyodorova
...The year 1977. Walking out on the brightly lit stage of Leningrad Philharmonic
Hall is a handsome, gray haired man. His step is heavy, his back weighed
down by years of hard work, eyes looking indifferently at the packed audience
below... The moment the people burst out with thunderous applause, however,
the man’s eyes light up, straightens out and, visibly rejuvenated, walks
up to the grand piano his gait now resembling one of a young man. Visibly
playing off his audience he hits he ivories working miracles on his
instrument, each number energizing the audience and captivating the hearts
and souls of the hundreds of people packing the vaulted hall with the giant
cut glass chandeliers hanging overhead...
Pavel Serebryakov was born in Tsaritsin and lived 71 one years to
see his hometown changing its name first to Stalingrad and later
to Volgograd...
Pavel arrived in Leningrad as a 19-year-old young man to try his luck with
the star studded examination jury of Russia’s oldest conservatory. The
jury chairman, celebrated composer, pianist and conductor, Alexander Glazunov,
could not even imagine that one day this young man from the Russian outback
would take over his seat as conservatory director. Glazunov appreciated
Pavel’s big talent and advised him to join the class of their best piano
teacher, professor Leonid Nikolayev.
Nikolayev was quick to appreciate his new student’s musicality and started
giving him concert appointments early on. By graduation time Pavel
Serebryakov was already a real pro paying the city’s premier venues...
The local critics were quick to applaud the young pianist’s passionate
playing and wide outlook promising him a big future.
Taking part in the 1st National Competition held in Moscow in 1933, Pavel
Serebryakov finished a very impressive second competing against an absolutely
stellar lineup of contestants. The names of the fist winners were widely
publicized signaling the start of very busy tour work which, for obvious
reasons, was still restricted to one-sixth of the world’s landmass – exactly
the chunk of land the Soviet Union occupied back in those days. Pavel
Serebryakov’s first foreign tour came only after the Iron Curtain went
up in the mid 1950s...
Brilliant and driven, Pavel Serebryakov also proved an excellent teacher
and in 1938 he was appointed to direct the very conservatory he once studied
at...
He led the Leningrad Conservatory for a whole 30 years. During Stalin’s
bloody purges of the late Thirties, Serebryakov saved the lives of many
of his fellow Professors and students...
In 1941 when the Hitler armies had come almost flush against the city’s
suburbs, Pavel Serebryakov organized the conservatory’s evacuation and,
braving the odds, managed to get the tuition process going again in another
place.
Facing the daunting task of re-accommodating the faculty and students and
provide them with food rations let alone sheet music and instruments, Serebryakov
somehow managed to do the unthinkable... And, most amazingly, he still
managed to maintain his pianistic form proving his credentials over and
over again in concert.
In 1951 Pavel Serebryakov took a ten-year break from his administrative
chores devoting himself wholly to mastering a new program, especially music
by modern composers who lined up to get their compositions played by the
celebrated pianist. Serebryakov was equally happy playing music by
little-known foreign composers only to get back into the enchanting atmosphere
of his much-loved Russian classics, above all Sergei Rakhmaninoff...
Meanwhile, Serebryakov’s departure left the conservatory affairs in disarray.
Great musicians rarely prove to be good managers, but Serebryakov was a
happy exception. In 1961 they managed to talk him into getting back. He
returned to his office whose walls were lined with portraits of the greats,
among them the 19th century composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who spent
40 years teaching at the conservatory that now bore his name. High
ceilings, a huge chandelier and bulky furniture inherited from the times
when Alexander Glazunov was director here... It felt like home here and
Pavel Serebryakov steered the conservatory until his very death in 1977...
Never a manager only, Pavel Serebryakov became a great teacher spawning
a constellation of excellent players. Like a seasoned doctor, he always
knew why something just didn’t work out and how to play it right. Well-versed,
he always found the right words to stir up a student’s imagination...
Small wonder that students, pianists and non-pianists alike, kept flocking
in to his classes always learning something very important and useful...
Pavel Serebryakov also learned from young talents enjoying their fresh
interpretations and their open mind...
That’s probably why his final concerts were so awash with youthful freshness,
burning passions always opening up new musical horizons...
|