Conductor Mravinsky

... Mravinsky aged beautifully. Gothic was old, without losing power over what he owned perfectly - over the sound ...

... Mravinsky aged beautifully. Gothic was old, without losing power over what he owned perfectly - over the sound. Once, in his country house in the Baltic states, in a conversation for tea, falling into a banal idea of ​​an elderly person, I began to tell something loudly (too loudly). He listened and answered quietly and accurately. This strange communication was interrupted by his wife, whispering in my ear: "You speak so loudly, to hear well - part of his gift."

It was true, I knew her. I was lucky enough to observe the process of observing their pure sound and silence. The clicks of the camera were agreed, and their garbage tone was taken out of the brackets. I stood at the right (if you look from the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic) for the expense of the backstage, and in three days he got used to me, like a column or a curtain. However, from the first minute he did not take into account my presence. Only once he looked up at me, and the whole orchestra looked in my direction with a dumb question: did I take off a unique moment or missed? He took off, took off: Mravinsky laughed at the remote control!

The reason was really funnier than nowhere. He said: “Let's start with the fifth digit,” and it seemed to the parts of the orchestra - “Start with the first” ...

Having finished the rehearsal, he rested in the conductor's room. I asked the orchestra inspector to talk with the maestro. I wanted to take it off on the stage of one, after work. “You are crazy,” the inspector was frightened, “he does not like to be photographed at all, but to pose ... No, fire.”

The thrill is contagious. Nevertheless, I entered the room:

- This photograph will be a memory ...

“I have a wonderful memory,” Mravinsky said dryly. - I do not need anyone's confirmation.

“Good,” I agreed. “Have you done your job?”

- Yes.

- But I don't. As a professional, you must understand me.

- This is an argument.

I hurried into the dark hall.

- Light! Give the light!

No one moved. At that moment, Mravinsky came out from behind the wings.

“Light the chandeliers,” he said quietly. There was a hasty clatter, and after a few seconds it became light, as if at a festival.

After shooting, he invited to the concert and asked not to take pictures in the evening.

“I would not want to be disappointed,” muttered the maestro.

I spent the first department behind the scenes. In the intermission we met.

- Do not take off?

- No.

Fearing the temptation, I left the cameras in the conductor. Behind the chair.

The second compartment began. Mravinsky dominated the orchestra, the hall, the world, from which he was nevertheless completely detached. It seemed ... a bad thought to go behind the camera, barely born, was immediately interrupted by the short gaze of Mravinsky because of the remote control. I was immediately embraced by anxiety and the usual desire to justify myself: not to blame!

In the next pause, he looked at me again; I raised my hands, showing that they were empty, but he was inexorable. Literally lifting over the floor, Evgeny Alexandrovich Mravinsky looked from the hall to the artistic foyer. With some resentment, I was waiting for him after the concert at the door of the conductor's room.

- I did not shoot. Specially locked the cameras here, with you.

He sniffed muffledly, laughing.

- Locked it? So you were not sure of yourself. Not so wrong.

The world was restored.

“I'm taking pictures too,” he said. - Flowers, animals. It is sometimes difficult to resist. If a person is not impassive.

Now time has passed, there is no Mravinsky, but the photographs remained. They complement our memory of him. Or confirm. Then he was not so right.

PS Preparing this note, I climbed into old negatives and - Oh, horror! -I saw that nevertheless, Evgeny Alexandrovich took a picture during the concert. 4th Tchaikovsky, and I shoot. It turns out that Mravinsky was right that he teleported me from the hall.