Matsuev work for 6 fingers. Denis Matsuev: "... such fingers, and what does he do"
1. Whoa, where am I ?!
Kreisler and Rachmaninoff performed Frank's sonata at Carnegie Hall. The violinist played without notes and ... suddenly his memory let him down already in the first movement! Kreisler came closer to the pianist and looked at the notes, trying to find the beat where he could "catch" his partner.
- Where are we?! Where are we?! the violinist whispered desperately.
“At Carnegie Hall,” Rachmaninov replied in a whisper without stopping to play.
2. Do you mind? ..
At the rehearsal of Sergei Rachmaninoff's first opera Aleko, Tchaikovsky approached the twenty-year-old, still unknown to the author, and asked embarrassedly:
- I just finished the two-act opera Iolanta, which is not long enough to take an entire evening. Would you mind if it is performed along with your opera?
Shocked and happy, Rachmaninov could not answer and was silent, as if he had taken water in his mouth.
“But if you are against ...” Tchaikovsky began, not knowing how to interpret the young composer’s silence.
“He just lost the gift of speech, Pyotr Ilyich,” someone prompted.
Rachmaninov nodded his head vigorously in confirmation.
“But I still don’t understand,” Tchaikovsky laughed, “are you against it or not. If you can't speak, then at least wink ...
Rachmaninoff did just that.
“Thank you, flirtatious young man, for the honor shown to me,” Pyotr Ilyich was amused.
Young Rachmaninoff
3. A joke with a torpedo boat
Once Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin decided to play a trick on a newspaper reporter and said that he intended to acquire an old destroyer. The cannons removed from the ship have already been brought and placed in the garden of his Moscow house. The reporter took the joke seriously, and this sensational news was published in the newspaper.
Soon a messenger from Rachmaninov appeared to Chaliapin with a note that read:
"Is it possible to visit Mister Captain tomorrow? The cannons are not loaded yet?"
With his beloved dog Levko
4. "The most important thing"
Once a certain caustic and not very competent interviewer asked Sergei Vasilyevich a "smart" question: what is the most important thing in art?
Rachmaninov shrugged his shoulders and replied:
- If there was something most important in art, everything would be quite simple. But the fact of the matter, young man, is that the most important thing in art is that there is not and cannot be something of the most important thing ...
5. Alas for me ...
Rachmaninov was a very fearless man, he was never afraid to tell the truth, even to the detriment of himself. Once in Switzerland, pianist Joseph Levin came to him and asked for advice:
- Sergei Vasilievich, tell me how to play Beethoven's First Concerto, I have never played it.
The internationally renowned composer and eminent concert pianist threw up his hands:
- What advice can I give you? ... You have never played it, and I have never heard it ...
6. Either cough - or play
Sergei Vasilyevich did not like very much when they coughed in the hall. Playing his new Variations on a Corelli theme, Rachmaninov kept track of how many coughed in the hall. If the cough intensified, he skipped the next variation, there was no cough - he played in order. The composer was asked:
- Why do you dislike your own variations so much?
- My variations are so disliked when they are coughing, that they themselves run away from my fingers, preferring not to sound ...
7. Souvenir for memory
Once Rachmaninov received a letter from a certain gentleman, in which he wrote: "... When I stopped you at Carnegie Hall to ask for fire, I had no idea who I was talking to, but soon I recognized you and took the second match as souvenir ". Punctual Rachmaninov replied: "Thank you for the letter. If I had known earlier that you are an admirer of my art, then without doubt and regret I would have given you not only the second match, but even the whole box."
8. A cautionary tale
The famous pianist Iosif Hoffman wrote an enthusiastic letter to Rachmaninoff, which included the following lines: "My dear Premier! By" Premier "I mean: the first of the pianists ..."
Rachmaninov immediately responded: "Dear Hoffmann, there is such a story: Once upon a time there were many tailors in Paris. When one of them managed to rent a shop on the street where there was not a single tailor, he wrote on his sign:" The best tailor in Paris. " Another tailor who opened a shop on the same street was already forced to write on the sign: “The best tailor in the whole world.” But what could the third tailor, who rented a shop between the first two, have to do? He wrote modestly: “The best tailor on this street.” Your modesty gives you every right to this title: "You are the best on this street."
9. Addition
Rachmaninov often repeated that eighty-five percent of him was a musician ...
- And what are the other fifteen? - they asked him.
- Well, you see, I'm still a little bit human ...
Rachmaninov with his granddaughter, 1927
10. Shoemaker
Rachmaninoff's periods of creative doubts often happened not after failures, but on the contrary, after particularly successful concerts, and he experienced them painfully.
Once, having finished his performance under the stormy delight of the audience, Rachmaninov locked himself in the dressing room and did not open it to anyone for a long time. When the door finally opened, he didn't let anyone say a word:
- Don't say, don't say anything ... I myself know that I am not a musician, but a shoemaker! ..
11. Walking piano
Some French pianist really wanted Rachmaninov to listen to her. Finally she succeeded, and, having appeared in his Paris apartment, she played him the most difficult study of Chopin without a single mistake. Rachmaninov listened attentively to the performer, then got up from the chair with displeasure and said:
- For God's sake, at least one mistake! When the pianist left, he explained:
- This is an inhuman performance, this is some kind of piano, you should make a mistake at least once ... there would be something to talk about. And so - a good piano, - and, sighing, he waved his hand hopelessly.
12. Biggest hands
Rachmaninoff had the largest keyboard coverage of all pianists. He could cover twelve white keys at once! And with his left hand, Rachmaninov freely took a chord: from E flat salt to salt! His hands were really large, but amazingly beautiful, ivory-colored, without swollen veins, like many concert pianists, and without knots on his fingers.
At the end of his life, the buttons on Rachmaninov's boots (namely, he liked to wear boots with buttons) were buttoned only by his wife, so that before the concert, God forbid, the toenail was not damaged ...
13. Why?
When Rachmaninoff arrived in America, one music critic asked in surprise:
- Why does the maestro dress so modestly?
“Nobody here knows me anyway,” Rachmaninov answered.
Over time, the composer did not change his habits in the least.
And the same critic asks again a few years later:
- Mastro, your material circumstances have changed significantly for the better, but you did not dress better.
“Why, because everyone knows me anyway,” Rachmaninov shrugged his shoulders.
14. Oh, those paparazzi! ..
Once, having arrived at a concert in an American city in order to avoid meeting with correspondents, Rachmaninov was the last to leave the empty carriage and walked in a roundabout way directly to the waiting car.
Rachmaninov did not like the annoying paparazzi who pursued him during concert performances in America, Europe, at home, and as much as possible tried to avoid them. However, a photographer with a camera at the ready was already waiting for him near the hotel. Rachmaninov almost at a run entered the hotel, not allowing himself to be removed. But when the composer went to dine in a restaurant, a man with a camera again found himself at his table and began to take pictures of him. Shielding his face with his palms, Sergei Vasilievich said, not without irritation:
- Please, leave me alone, I do not want to act ...
In the evening, having bought a newspaper, he saw his photograph. The face was really not visible, only hands ... The inscription under this picture read: "Hands that are worth a million!"
15. Senard
From 1924 to 1939, the Rachmaninoffs spent the summer in Europe, returning to New York in the fall. In 1930 S.V. Rachmaninov acquired a plot of land in Switzerland, near Lucerne. Since the spring of 1934, the Rachmaninovs have firmly established themselves in this estate, which was named "Senar" (Sergei and NAatalia Rachmaninovs).
Composer with his wife
16. I believe in victory
During the Great Patriotic War Rachmaninov gave several concerts in the United States, all the money collected from which he sent to the Red Army fund. He donated the collection from one of his concerts to the USSR Defense Fund with the words: “From one of the Russians, feasible help to the Russian people in their struggle against the enemy. I want to believe, I believe in complete victory. "
17.
The melody of the popular song "All by myself", which appeared in 1975 and is best known by Celine Dion, was completely borrowed by its author, American musician Eric Carmen, from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Initially, Carmen believed that this work was in the public domain, and found out that this was not so, only after the official release of his disc. Because of this, he had to settle all legal issues with the heirs of Rachmaninov and indicate the name of Sergei Rachmaninov as the official author of the music for the song.
The Rachmaninov family, according to family legends, originates from the Moldavian ruler Stephen III the Great (c. 1433 - 1504). His grandson boyar Rakhmanin, who had already served the Moscow sovereigns, got his nickname from the name of a mythical people in medieval Russian legends - Rakhmanov (blessed, from the Ind. "Brahman"; however, "Rahman" in Russia was also called a lazy person).
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was born on April 1, 1873 in the family estate of Semenovo, Starorussky district, Novgorod province.
His musical genius developed at a truly Mozart pace. The boy's interest in music was awakened at the age of four, and at the age of nine, Seryozha entered the piano department of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The 13-year-old boy was introduced to Tchaikovsky, who later took a great part in the fate of the young musician. At the age of 19, Rachmaninov graduated from the conservatory with a large gold medal (in composition), got a place as a piano teacher at the Moscow Mariinsky Women's School; at 24 - became the conductor of the Russian private opera Savva Mamontov.
But then there was a breakdown. His groundbreaking First Symphony and First Concerto at the premieres were unsuccessful, causing a serious nervous illness. For several years, Rachmaninov could not compose, and only the help of an experienced psychiatrist helped him out of the painful state.
In 1901 he finished his Second Piano Concerto. The successful premiere restored the musician's faith in himself, and he accepted the invitation to take the place of conductor in the Moscow The Bolshoi Theater... After two seasons, he went on a trip to Europe and America. This tour brought him worldwide fame.
Shortly after the 1917 revolution, Rachmaninoff left Russia. He chose the United States as his place of permanent residence, toured extensively in America and Europe and was soon recognized as one of the greatest pianists of his era. For the last twenty-five years of his life, he did not compose anything, but only gave concerts and recorded records.
During the Second World War, Rachmaninov gave several concerts in the United States, the entire collection of which he sent to the USSR Defense Fund with the words: “From one of the Russians, feasible help to the Russian people in their fight against the enemy. I want to believe, I believe in complete victory. "
Alas, he did not live to see Victory. The great Russian musician died in Beverly Hills (California) on March 28, 1943.
***
Rachmaninov had an incredibly large span of fingers - he could immediately cover twelve white keys! And with his left hand, Rachmaninov freely played a chord from E flat G to G!
His hands were simply huge, but at the same time amazingly beautiful, ivory, without swollen veins, like many concert pianists, and no knots on his fingers.
At the end of his life, the buttons on Rachmaninov's boots (and he loved exactly the boots with buttons), was buttoned only by his wife, so that before the concert, God forbid, the toenail was not damaged ...
With Chaliapin
***
When young Rachmaninov, together with his friend Chaliapin, first appeared at L.N. Tolstoy, the young man's knees trembled with excitement. Chaliapin sang Rachmaninov's song "Destiny", then the composer performed several of his works. All listeners were delighted, enthusiastic applause burst out. Suddenly, as if on command, everyone froze, turning their heads towards Tolstoy, who looked gloomy and displeased. Tolstoy did not applaud. We went over to tea. After a while, Tolstoy approaches Rachmaninov and says excitedly:
- I still have to tell you how I do not like all this! Beethoven is nonsense! Pushkin, Lermontov - too!
Sophia Andreevna, who was standing nearby, touched the composer's shoulder and whispered:
- Pay no attention, please. And do not contradict, Lyovochka should not worry, this is very harmful to him.
After a while, Tolstoy again approaches Rachmaninov:
- Excuse me, please, I'm an old man. I didn't mean to offend you.
- How can I be offended for myself if I was not offended for Beethoven? - Rachmaninov sighed, and since that time Tolstoy did not have his leg.
***
At the rehearsal of Sergei Rachmaninoff's first opera Aleko, Tchaikovsky approached the twenty-year-old, still unknown to the author, and asked embarrassedly:
“I have just finished the two-act opera Iolanta, which is not long enough to take an entire evening. Would you mind if it is performed along with your opera?
Shocked and happy, Rachmaninov could not answer and was silent, as if he had taken water in his mouth.
“But if you are against ...” Tchaikovsky began, not knowing how to interpret the young composer’s silence.
“He just lost the gift of speech, Pyotr Ilyich,” someone prompted.
Rachmaninov nodded his head in confirmation.
“But I still don’t understand,” Tchaikovsky laughed, “are you against it or not. If you can't speak, then at least wink ...
Rachmaninoff did just that.
“Thank you, flirtatious young man, for the honor shown to me,” Pyotr Ilyich was amused.
***
“Maestro,” an aspiring pianist once asked Rachmaninoff, “is it true that one has to be born a pianist?
- It is absolutely true, madam, - Rachmaninov smiled - without being born, it is impossible to play the piano.
Chopin's Nocturne performed by Rachmaninoff
***
Once at Carnegie Hall, Rachmaninoff performed Frank's sonata together with the outstanding violinist Kreisler. He, as usual, played without notes and ... suddenly his memory let him down already in the first part! Kreisler moved over to the pianist and looked at the notes, trying to find the beat where he could "catch" his partner.
- Where are we?! Where are we?! The violinist whispered desperately.
“At Carnegie Hall,” Rachmaninov responded calmly.
***
Once a certain caustic and not too competent interviewer asked Sergei Vasilyevich a “smart” question: what is the most important thing in art?
Rachmaninov shrugged his shoulders and replied:
- If there was something most important in art, everything would be quite simple. But the fact of the matter, young man, is that the most important thing in art is that there is not and cannot be something of the most important thing ...
***
Some French pianist really wanted Rachmaninov to listen to her. Finally she succeeded, and, having appeared in his Paris apartment, she played him the most difficult study of Chopin without a single mistake. Rachmaninov listened attentively to the performer, then got up from the chair with displeasure and said:
- For God's sake, at least one mistake! When the pianist left, he explained:
- This is an inhuman performance, this is some kind of piano, you should make a mistake at least once ... there would be something to talk about. And so - a good piano, - and, sighing, he waved his hand hopelessly.
***
When Rachmaninoff arrived in America, one music critic asked in surprise:
- Why does the maestro dress so modestly?
“Nobody here knows me anyway,” Rachmaninov answered.
Over time, the composer became rich, but did not change his habits in the least. And when the same critic again asked him why, despite his success, the maestro did not change his dressing habits, Rachmaninov shrugged his shoulders:
- Why, because everyone already knows me.
***
Rachmaninoff's periods of creative doubts usually happened not after failures, but on the contrary, after particularly successful concerts, and he experienced them painfully.
Once, having finished his performance under the stormy delight of the audience, Rachmaninov locked himself in the dressing room and did not open it to anyone for a long time. When the door finally opened, he didn't let anyone say a word:
- Don't say, don't say anything ... I myself know that I am not a musician, but a shoemaker! ..
***
Rachmaninov was not afraid to cut the truth, even to the detriment of himself. Once in Switzerland, pianist Joseph Levin came to him and asked for advice:
- Sergei Vasilievich, tell me how to play Beethoven's First Concerto, I have never played it.
But the world famous composer and pianist just threw up his hands:
- What advice can I give you? ... You have never played it, and I have never heard it ...
***
Rachmaninov always listened to the audience in the hall, and most of all did not like it when they coughed in the hall. There is a known case when, during the performance of his new Variations on a Corelli theme, Rachmaninov vigilantly watched how often they coughed in the hall. If the cough intensified, then he simply skipped the next variation, but if it was quiet, he played in order.
***
Nikolai Slonimsky's book Musical Anecdotes contains a fragment where he depicts Rachmaninoff's impression of listening to Stravinsky's The Firebird:
“I remember that when we listened to the solemn, triumphant finale of the Firebird, I saw tears in Rachmaninoff's eyes. He exclaimed: "God, what a brilliant work. It contains real Russia." And when he was told that Stravinsky loves honey, he bought a large jar of honey and took it to Stravinsky's house himself. "
***
Rachmaninov often repeated that eighty-five percent of him was a musician ...
- And what are the other fifteen? - they asked him.
- Well, you see, I'm still a little bit human ...
***
The melody of the popular song "All by myself", which appeared in 1975 and is best known by Celine Dion, was completely borrowed by its author, American musician Eric Carmen, from Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 (its second movement). Initially, Carmen believed that this work was in the public domain, and found out that this was not so, only after the official release of his disc. Because of this, he had to settle all legal issues with the heirs of Rachmaninov and indicate the name of Sergei Rachmaninov as the official author of the music for the song.
And the melody of the famous song Full Moon And Empty Arms (1945) by Buddy Kay and Ted Mossman continues the theme from the 3rd part of the Second Concerto (on video from 5.22). (Ted Mossman he adjusted, according to his colleagues, Chopin's polonaises, masterpieces by Saint-Saens, Rimsky-Korsakov, worked on Bach, Beethoven and Schumann to Broadway songs, and did not ignore Wagner's Tristan with Isolde.)
The most famous recording of the song was made in 1945 by Frank Sinatra (there is also a cover of Bob Dylan, if you are interested, type it yourself into a YouTube search).
Delovoy Petersburg talked to the famous pianist who flew to Petersburg from Davos via Paris and Moscow.
The performance at the Mariinsky Concert Hall opens the famous pianist's Russian solo tour. The musician, who has performed with great success in the most famous halls of New York and Vienna, Paris and Milan, London and Washington, is eagerly awaited in Tyumen and Chelyabinsk, Kirov and Perm.
“For me, these concerts are the most important of the season,” says Matsuev. - Our audience is the most dear, and on the other hand, the most difficult. I learned the program when I was a student, then it lay down with me. This is romantic music - "Scenes from Childhood" by Schumann, Chopin's ballad in F minor, Prokofiev's sonata No. 7.
The program should lie down, then I return it to my repertoire. These are some of my favorite pieces, I have been playing them for 20 years, now I have approached this music from a completely different angle, and it will sound completely differently.
I attach particular importance to my solo concerts in Russia, despite not the best conditions for this. I mean, first of all, our unfortunate halls - this is a huge problem, new halls are not being built in Russia. The Mariinsky Concert Hall is a sensation, a breakthrough; in Russia there are five halls throughout the country where you can play a world-class concert.
And the halls are regrettable, and the instruments are not in the best condition, but I close my eyes to that, because the most important thing is the atmosphere that prevails at concerts in Russia. The eyes of the audience that comes out after the concert are worth a lot.
You can play on any wood, in any hall, just to get this energy, this contact with our audience. I never play a program in Russia that I have to play abroad. On January 29, I performed in Paris, before that in Davos, Valery Gergiev, Yuri Bashmet, and I gave a concert for our politicians.
It lasted a very long time, as a result, I landed in Paris an hour and a half before the concert. Nervous - but the concert was not the worst. You can say that I played out in Paris to play on the Russian tour, and not vice versa.
- Recently you recorded a disc with the performance of unknown works by Sergei Rachmaninoff. How come they haven't been performed yet?
- These are student works by Rachmaninoff in 1891. Legend has it that Rachmaninov greatly appreciated the opinion of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and gave these notes to him for approval. Tchaikovsky's secretary did not transmit the note, and the trace was lost. Several years ago, employees of the Glinka Museum unearthed the sheet music, restored it, and handed it over to Alexander Borisovich Rachmaninov, the composer's grandson.
Nobody knew how to play it - after all, these were bare notes, without tempos. We became close to Alexander Borisovich, several times I lived in Rachmaninov's house "Villa Senard" in Lucerne, Switzerland, and in his Parisian apartment. In Switzerland, on Rachmaninoff's piano, the album was recorded.
This is a unique grand piano, a 1929 Steinway. The pre-war Wallways have a phenomenal sound. The upper register is like a human voice, and the bass sounds like a matte sound. A very special feeling of touching the keys of this amazing instrument. Previously, such pianos were made by hand, but now their production is put on stream, like furniture.
Actually, I played different instruments of the highest quality and terrible quality. 10 years ago I had a piano "Tyumen" at my house, the Japanese came and wondered how I could play on such a chest.
- What creative plans have you not been able to realize yet?
- I am very greedy for the repertoire, and I want to learn a lot of new things. The repertoire of the instrumentalists is limitless, in contrast to the string and brass players. Now I have Brahms' Second Concerto, Beethoven's 32nd Sonata, Beethoven's Fifth Concerto, and Chopin's 24 Preludes at stake. This is what I have to do in the shortest possible time.
I went to these works for a very long time, it will be a milestone work in my life. It’s not a fact that it will work out, maybe I’ll postpone it, because I really don’t want to bring to the stage what doesn’t work. I am convinced that a musician should play what is close to him at one time or another. If it's romance, then it doesn't matter at what age the performer is. Horowitz and Rubinstein played romance at 90.
- How do you choose things for the repertoire? Do you consider the tastes of the public?
- Certainly. Many letters come, including over the Internet, with requests to perform this or that work. Of course, I take into account the wishes of the impresario, and directors of festivals, and directors of orchestras, and my teachers, my dad, my professor. But you have to play exactly what you can penetrate to the end.
If I was asked two years ago if I wanted to play Brahms' Second Concerto with the New York or Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, I would say no, because I would not play my own concert, I would not take risks even with the greatest orchestra, or a great conductor. I play what I have lived, experienced.
- How do you manage to do so many concerts?
- When I look at my schedule, sometimes I feel bad. I have a constant road condition, and it keeps me in good shape. Of course, sometimes the body gives the bells. Some musicians like to play one program throughout the season, with long breaks, and I like to change the program often, and play very often.
I recharge when I go on stage, all adversity, all the blues, the painful state go away. When you are not feeling very well, a concert is what you need. The energy that comes from the audience is the best medicine, especially with our audience. I really like to communicate with people after the concert, the opinion of the public is very important to me.
- What was the most important turning point in your life?
- When I left my hometown Irkutsk. My parents abandoned everything in Irkutsk and went with me to Moscow. Since then, they are always with me, my success is mainly their merit, and I value this very much.
- What do you think is your greatest creative success?
- I am always dissatisfied with myself, I think that everything is still ahead.
- What advice would you give to parents whose children make music?
- Previously, every second child went to a music school, and this only helped. If a child has an ear for music, data, you need to do so that he is engaged, even if he does not want to. I didn't want to study either, and never did much.
Since childhood, I remember that I liked performing: at home, or at an academic concert in music school... I knew that I could capture the audience, I even liked to parody. But the very process of studying for me was akin to hell.
- What makes you help young musicians?
- The great tragedy of our profession is that a huge number of musicians remain unclaimed. Unfortunately in recent years 15-20 the ill-fated laws of show business have penetrated our classical music. Especially after the famous concerts of the three tenors in the stadiums.
Not a single impresario will now invest in young artists, because no one wants to take risks, especially in such a difficult time. A large number of musicians leave the conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg every year, they just find themselves on the street. Someone goes to restaurants, someone to underground passages, someone generally ties up with the profession.
In Soviet times, there was not such a bad distribution system, when a graduate knew where he would go: even to teach at a music college, at a music school. Now this is not the case either. I have a Crescendo festival for young performers, which opens up new names. We give them the opportunity to play with an orchestra, perform with a chamber program.
Wednesday is the most important thing for a musician. There is a creative summer school in Suzdal, where classes have been held for 15 years. There, children study with leading professors of the Moscow and St. Petersburg conservatories. It is a matter of honor for me to support these projects. The goal of the New Names Foundation is to protect and cut talents.
- Are you worried about the crisis?
- I was recently in America, played with the Cincinnati Philharmonic Orchestra, which also performed in St. Petersburg - this orchestra is on the verge of bankruptcy. In America, the situation is now very alarming, the attendance of concerts has dropped by 60-70 percent, the halls are almost empty. Our audience still goes to concerts, but there will be trouble if it is zombified every day from TV channels, which is bad with us, nothing good will come of it. People cannot be kept in a panic. I come to the country, watch the news, and I immediately start to pound.
Of course, you need to show problems, but there is always a way out. The main thing is to preserve the trend that has been in recent years when they began to give grants to orchestras. Musicians after 50 dollars a month began to receive 2-3 thousand. God forbid to ruin it, it will be really a disaster. Provincial orchestras should also be supported - Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Samara, Saratov, and we should not forget about them either. This is why there is a council on culture under the President of the Russian Federation, of which I am a member.
In theaters, the situation is very difficult. The salary at the Central Music School at the Conservatory, which I graduated from, is a little over 2,000 rubles, how can you live on that? Most of our teachers teach in China, where there are about 70 million pianists.
In private schools, which are the basis of the music business in China, musicians teach not only from Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also from all over the Far East, from Irkutsk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk. SOS must be blown! If we are talking about music education, first of all we need to think about what is happening in music schools.
I really do not like the word "prodigy". If a little star, a talented child appears, they immediately try to exploit him, because this is money! But 80 percent of such young talents dissolve on the horizon. And make a star classical music just like pop stars do - impossible in principle. After all, you need to put 20-25 years of life on this, without a guarantee of success.
- What would you like from journalists?
- In our newspapers, the sections where there were reviews are being closed. Allegedly, no one reads this, and if a review comes out, it must have some yellow tint. But if we focus on the people who watch "Full House", then we will drive ourselves into the herd.
They take me apart in London, Vienna, Paris, but this is not here. At my place in Irkutsk, I got from the mezzanine the magazine "Musical Life" for 1972, with a large detailed review of the Neuhaus concert. I would like to be disassembled the same way.
- What do you do when a free window appears in the chart?
- I don't have a vacation, and I feel a lack of energy due to the constant change of time zones, but it's very difficult to get out of the rhythm. There is also a moment of happiness for which I have worked all my life. If you have chosen the profession of a concert pianist, you must play. Maybe in a year I will be playing 5 concerts a year.
What is charging me? Probably my childhood friends from Irkutsk, the city where I was born. We gather with the whole company at Lake Baikal, where you can take a steam bath, dive into an ice-hole. This is a moment of happiness that I treasure very much. If I do not visit Baikal, in the taiga, which has a unique energy, the season may not work out.
I am a cheerful person, this is perhaps the only thing that saves me from this crazy schedule. There is a phrase by Yuri Khatuevich Temirkanov: I am afraid of people who have no sense of humor. By the way, have you heard the last joke about me? A pickpocket thief comes to the concert of Matsuev, and says after the concert: what hands, what fingers, and he is engaged in such garbage!
- They say you are a big fan of football?
- Yes, I have been rooting for Spartak for 23 years, but I am happy for Andrey Arshavin, who wanted to play in England, and got this right. May God grant him success, like Roma Pavlyuchenko, who has already scored 12 goals there. The Tchaikovsky Competition, like the FIFA World Cup, takes place every four years.
And in 1998 it helped me a lot, because during the competition ( the winner of which was Denis Matsuev - ed.) I watched the championship, and did not practice the piano, it saved me from the insane atmosphere, when many were losing their nerves. Football for me is an outlet and a salvation from a tough schedule.
- Who would you like to play four hands with?
- Unfortunately, these people are no longer alive. I would like to play with Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov, with Vladimir Horowitz, with Michelangelo, with Gilels.
- When you play, how do you imagine the listener?
- I look into the audience and present the audience as a whole. I am convinced that the musician is the guide between the composer and the audience that comes to the hall. The audience is the most important thing for me.