KONSTANTIN IGUMNOV AND THREE GENERATIONS
OF HIS DISCIPLES
(125 years since the outstanding pianist
was born)
by Olga Bobrova who is from the third generation of Igumnov`s pupils
The old professors of Moscow Conservatory, such as Neigauz, Gedike,
Yankelevich, Kozolupov, were viewed as legends of Russian music, as the
highest judges of talent, dignity and professionalism. One of the most
revered among them was Professor Konstantin Igumnov. Olga Bobrova devotes
her report to his 125th birth anniversary marked on May 1.
Konstantin Igumnov gave his last concert in the Grand Hall of Moscow
Conservatory on December 3, 1947. The audience never suspected that the
pianist was seriously ill, and that it was his swan-song. Igumnov played
his favourite composers - Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven; he played five
encores. Three months later, on March 24, 1948 Professor Igumnov died.
Maria Gambarian remembers the last concert of Konstantin Igumnov. At
that time she was one of his students. Today she is a professor at Russia's
Academy of Music.
It was an unusually inspired performance, said Maria Gambarian. I had
the impression that he was playing for me alone, because his music was
so soulful, so inmost. I cannot remember any other performer possessing
this quality - special intimacy. By the way, his manner of teaching was
the same. His lessons were truly intimate. Strangers and fans never turned
up in his class, though Professor Igumnov's prestige was very high: he
simply did not like it.
He was a real intellectual. All who knew Igumnov thought so. In spirit
he was a Muscovite, though he was born in a small provincial town, Lebedyan,
in the south of Russia. His town had neither theaters nor libraries, not
even a high school. Instead it was full of such heavenly quietness, such
untouched nature, that one could get lost even in a garden. One of his
childish recollections was connected with such an incident. Igumnov came
to Moscow at the age of 14. He joined a high school and the class of the
famous pianist Zverev. Several years later he joined Moscow University
and Moscow Conservatory. "I was a dilettante," he joked later.
When he was serious, he said: "I would not say that I was interested
solely in music. What moved me was nature, arts and moral and religious
sentiments."
Igumnov graduated from Moscow Conservatory with a gold medal. At the
finals the Principal, Vassily Safonov, used to give a gold five-copeck
coin to the students he considered the best. Igumnov received a ten-copeck
coin for his performance of Beethoven.
One of his favourite students was Leo Oborin, whose temperament resembled
that of his teacher.
In 1899 Konstantin Igumnov was invited to teach at Moscow Conservatory.
He was only 26 years old at that time. Not long before that he received
an honorary diploma at the International Anton Rubinstein Contest in Berlin.
Professor Igumnov taught at the Conservatory for almost half a century.
His students included more than 500 pianists, whom he viewed as his musical
grandsons and great-grandsons. He formed a whole performing school, the
school of Professor Igumnov. His students were not like him, but they had
one thing in common: a romantic attitude to music, which made the piano
sound like human voice. Their professor told them: "I want music to
sound as human language, in which poems, stories and verses are written.
The task of performers is to recite these poems and verses." Igumnov's
students accomplished that task, each in his own fashion.
Igumnov as a teacher was a legendary phenomenon that was duly appreciated.
His life continued in his students. As for Igumnov as a pianist, little
is known about that now. There are only a few dozen reviews even in the
conservatory's library, though he gave concerts for more than half a century.
His performances were not too frequent. He gave concerts mostly in
Moscow, in big Russian cities and in the Caucasus. Sometimes he played
abroad - in Germany and Italy. He was a unique pianist. Such pianists were
rare even at the turn of the century. Later they disappeared altogether.
His former student Maria Gambarian recollects: He was a romantic pianist,
of course. And his repertoire was romantic: Schubert, Schuman, Chopin,
Liszt. He played intuitively, from the botton of his heart. His performances
were extremely sincere. He was particularly wonderful when playing Tchaikovsky.
For instance, no one before him took notice of Tchaikovsky's The Seasons.
He played them, and today everybody knows those pieces, simply everyone.
Igumnov was a romantic pianist, though he never admitted it. He was
surprisingly modest and shy. "I spent my life meditating, trying,
searching, and I found myself only recently." Igumnov made that statement
only two years before his death. According to him, the first part of his
life was academic: he continued to accumulate his professional and cultural
baggage till about 1908. At that time his friends were Rakhmaninov, Skriabin
and other musicians. He adored Maria Yermolova - the tragic prima donna
of Moscow's Drama Theater. He was on friendly terms with the great novelist
Leo Tolstoy. He liked to read Charles Dickens. He described the next phase
of his life, till 1917, as the time of searchings stimulated by his friendship
with Russian painters from the World of Art association: Somov, Benua,
Bakst. At that time Igumnov was very keen on Valery Briusov's poetry. He
was immersed in the stream of new trends in Russian art of the early 20th
century - symbolism, modernism. But this proved to be alien to Igumnov
the musician. The new period of his creative life lasted till 1930. It
was the time of reassessing all his values. "The revolution in Russia
made an enormous psychological shift," he wrote. "It emboldened
people. Old traditions no longer seem so unshakable." Strange as it
was considering his reserved disposition, Igumnov accepted the new life.
He even led the Conservatory in the 1920s. Under his leadership the Conservatory
became more democratic. In the 1930s Igumnov entered the last, mature phase
of his life. The critics refer to the late period of his creative style
as "the charm of restfulness". As the years went by, Igumnov
became more laconic, more severe. But he did not lose what he valued most
of all - his romanticism. In his music, as in his day-to-day life, Konstantin
Igumnov continued to be meditative, sad, nostalgic and very lonely.
Very few records of his performances have been preserved. He did not
like to make them. One of his last performances was probably a historical
one: it was recorded on June 21, 1941 - the day before the Nazi troops
invaded the USSR.
The Garland of Natalie
A new edition marking the 185th birth anniversary
of Pushkin's wife, Natalia Goncharova.
By Natalia Viktorova
The name of Natalia Goncharova, wife of the great Russian poet Alexander
Pushkin and the recognized Russian beauty, has long been shrouded in unflattering
legends. It's not only that beauty easily provokes envy, gossip and intrigues.
Unintentionally, Natalie was the cause of Pushkin's tragic death. There
were many people who accused her of this both among her contemporaries
and descendents, including some outstanding Russian personalities. For
example, poets Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova looked upon Natalia
as a light-minded and empty-hearted coquette who attracted the poet by
her charming looks. Shared by many, this opinion persisted for more than
one hundred years. The fact of the duel provided good reason for this.
Indeed, that duel was fought over the beautiful wife whose reputation had
to be protected by the poet. A few people were ever interested in Natalia
as a personality. Little was known about her. Even her letters to her husband
do not exist today.
Recently there have appeared publications that provide a documented
basis for a different approach.
"The Garland of Natalie" is the title of a book released
by the Moscow-based publishing house "Raritet" to mark Natalia's
185th birth anniversary in 1997. The book is the result of cooperation
of a student of the Pushkin family, Larisa Cherkashina, and the head of
the "Raritet" publishers, writer Vyacheslav Osipov.
"Every Russian," Vyacheslav Osipov says, "has his own
attitude to Pushkin and his environment. Every publisher, every journalist
dreams of a discovery that would make a landmark in journalism and the
history of art and publishing. Today, I believe, my time has come. I am
a long-time publisher of Pushkin. For one, I contributed to the publication
of a three-volume collection of 33 million copies. Then suddenly Larisa
Cherkashina found something exciting in the archives: school notebooks
of Pushkin's future wife."
The archives kept much unknown information about the young years of
Pushkin's wife: her notes on Russian history and extensive essay on mythology.
The grounding of a ten-year-old girl in geography is striking: in her detailed
description of China she mentions every province and describes the country's
state structure. Her notebooks contain old proverbs, statements by 18th
century philosophers and her own remarks and observations. Most of these
are written in French. Small wonder, members of the Russian gentry of that
time knew French better than their native tongue. A whole notebook, this
one written in Russian, is devoted to a study of poetry writing with quotations
from Russian poets of the time. The girl's knowledge and understanding
of poetry are also striking. The notebooks cover the period when the girl
was between 8 and 15 years old. Vyacheslav Osipov describes the value of
the archive find: "The myth is being destroyed, a myth that has existed
in the West too, that she was nothing more than a beautiful doll. No, her
mother and father gave the girl an excellent education. Today's students
could admire the range of her knowledge. Russia's number one poet met Russia's
number one beauty and the two people could feel the waves of mutual understanding
between them. I am positive she could not help telling him about her love
of poetry and did this in a very sophisticated way."
The book "The Garland of Natalie" carries a facsimile of
Natalia's school notebooks and the same texts in modern print. It also
includes her only surviving poem written in French with a word for word
and poetic translations by Vladimir Kostrov.
Also in the book is the autograph of Pushkin's famous poem "Madonna"
dedicated to his wife: the publishers took a picture of the original kept
at a museum. The archives keep a letter to Natalia, written by Pushkin
shortly before the wedding. The book contains the letter and commentaries
on all the materials written by Director of the Institute of Russian Literature,
dubbed "The Pushkin House", Nikolai Skatov and an essay "The
Russian Madonna" also by Skatov. Also in the book is information material,
a series of Natalia's portraits, sketches by Pushkin himself, portraits
by unknown authors, works by the famous artist Carl Brulov and her only
photo. The foreword is written by one of the poet's great grandsons, Grigory
Pushkin.
"We," says Vyacheslav Osipov, "would like to give a
considerable part of the edition to Moscow school students and school libraries,
and also to several schools in St. Petersburg and some other places connected
with the names of Pushkin and Natalia - Mikhailovskoye, Boldino and Polotnyany
Zavod. This is a charity action. One must not make profits on Pushkin.
His is a sacred name."
On the face of it, there is nothing out of the ordinary in school notebooks.
But these belonging to Natalia Goncharova change radically many of the
ideas established in studies of literature and Pushkin. According to Academician
Nikolai Skatov, "if Marina Tsvetaeva, Vikenty Veresaev and Anna Akhnmatova,
these outstanding personalities of Russian literature, could have known
at least a part of what we have learned about Pushkin's wife today, they
would have never produced such disparaging lines about this exceptional
woman!"
MANUFACTURER OF DREAMS - film producer
Alexander Khanzhonkov
By Vera Zherdeva
It's common knowledge that the art of cinema was born in France 100
years ago. The new entertainment captured public attention: the moving
trains and limousines, fatal passions and intrigues on the screen seemed
real; they created an illusion of reality. A year after the first film
show in Paris moving pictures began to be shown also in Russia. Subsequently
Russia's own film making emerged. Those who founded it included Alexander
Khanzhonkov, who built Russia's first film factory and engaged in shooting
Russian films.
Retired Cossack Army officer, Alexander Khanzhonkov always wanted to
be the first. His passion for cinema began with a visit to a small movie
house in Novocherkassk, a city in Russia's south, where he saw his first
film made abroad and decided to devote his life to the new art. Having
settled down in Moscow, Khanzhonkov opened Russia's first office for film
distribution. This happened in 1903. Later he built the first Russian movie
house to spite his foreign competitors who kept movie houses in Russian
cities. As a matter of fact, his competitors included the famous brothers
Lumiere, whose moving pictures had opened the era of cinematography. Their
company owned the biggest network of movie houses in Russia at the beginning
of the 20th century.
Khanzhonkov built on a large scale: his Triumfalny movie house was
intended to have 15 hundred seats; it was to become the biggest movie house
in Europe. However, because of differences with the land owner, Khanzhonkov
managed to erect only one half of the building with an odd, disproportionately
long auditorium. However, even in that shape, Khanzhonkov's movie house
was the biggest in Russia. It functions to this day. It harbors a video
center of ethnic cinematographies. Here's what the manager of the House
of Khanzhonkov Rasim Darghiah-zade has to say:
Khanzhonkov was a creative man, a man with an inquisitive and flexible
mind, a very gifted personality. He was our first "university of cinematography",
if you like. Marking the 120th birth anniversary of Alexander Khanzhonkov,
we celebrate at the same time another jubilee - 90 years since he founded
Russia's first film studio, said Darghiah-zade.
As a film distributor, Khanzhonkov realized that the public needed
more and more pictures. To import them was costly and troublesome, and
therefore in 1907 he set up the firm "Khanzhonkov and Co." to
engage in making the first Russian moving pictures. At first these were
documentaries: military reviews and royal appearances. Later he began to
shoot feature films - moving illustrations to well-known literary works.
Khanzhonkov invited prominent writers to cooperate with him. Leo Tolstoy
himself wrote scripts for him. Such stars as Ivan Mozzhukhin, Vera Kholodnaya,
Mikhail Chekhov, Alexander Vertinsky and even the celebrated opera bass
Fyodor Shalyapin played in his pictures. The public received his productions:
"Nobleman Orsha", "Vanka the House-Keeper", "Mazepa"
with delight. It's Khanzhonkov's studio which shot in 1911 the first Russian
hit "The Defence of Sevastopol", which described developments
of the 1853-1856 Crimean War. The film caused a real sensation: acting
interspersed with photographs of military actions, and actors appeared
on the screen together with surviving war veterans. It was the first full-length
film shot in Russia. It went on for 1 hour and 40 minutes.
In the meantime Khanzhonkov continued to promote his cause: in the
1910s his film studio began to make popular science films. These included
unique pictures: about the first round-the-world voyage across the Arctic
Ocean, for instance. Khanzhonkov's attitude to such films was very serious:
he even formed a special science department at his film factory.
The first joint production film was also shot at Khanzhonkov's studio.
It was a Russian-Italian picture "Cabiria", whose script had
been written by the popular Italian poet Gabriel d'Annunzio. The film was
a great success not only in Russia, but also in Europe. According to eye-witnesses,
in the first week it was on in Moscow long lines formed to get the tickets
to it.
Khanzhonkov's activity was not confined to film production alone. In
1912 he established an association of film producers - the prototype of
today's Union of Russian Cinematographists, and began to publish popular
journals which printed film scenarios.
After the bolshevik revolution Khanzhonkov was compelled to leave Russia.
He emigrated to Austria, where he began to finance research on the possibility
of making sound films, but a few years later, at the personal invitation
of the Commissar for Education Lunacharsky, he returned to Russia and took
part in establishing Soviet cinematography. Unfortunately, the situation
at that time was not conducive to creative search, and his main project
- to build Russia's Hollywood in the Crimea on the Black Sea coast - failed
to be carried out. Moreover, Khanzhonkov found himself out of business.
After his death in 1945 he was forgotten. His Triumfalny movie house was
given another name - Moskva; his pictures were referred to as "bourgeois"
and "decadent". The outstanding film producer was recollected
only during the perestroika. None other than Rasim Darghiah-zade worked
to open a video center of ethnic cinematographies in the former Triumfalny
movie house, which began to be called The House of Khanzhonkov. An ordinary
movie house in the Soviet times, it has turned into a big cultural center.
The House of Khanzhonkov is a unique festival center, says Rasim Darghiah-zade.
In the seven years since it was established we have conducted about 150
festivals and retrospectives displaying different sides of Russian and
foreign cinema. Our 1992 achievements were even included in the Guinness
Book of Records: we showed 451 films on one screen within a year.
Our major goal is to show the so-called non-box office films, which
other movie houses ignore. For instance, we present programs of pictures
filmed in ethnic republics of the former USSR and Russia: this year we
held the retrospectives of Dagestanian, Ossetic, Jewish and Russia's youngest
Bashkirian cinema. In this way we continue Khanzhonkov's educative traditions,
for in his time he invested a lot of money in promoting ethnic cinema in
the Russian Empire. In fact the first film studios in Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Central Asia owe their emergence to him, Darghiah-zade says.
Even though the role played by Alexander Khanzhonkov in Russian and
Soviet cinema was ignored for many years, he is still the first who created
Russia's film industry. Maybe without him Russia would not have become
a leading film power, which it continues to be despite its temporary difficulties.
