Mikhail Fikhtengolts. Uncomfortable posture of the conductor

Uncomfortable posture of the conductor
The Russian National Orchestra opened the season

Mikhail Fikhtengolts

Date of publication: September 12, 2000

There was something suspicious about the fact that the Russian National Orchestra was opening its anniversary season with solid hits. In a previous note, I already spoke about this, but I turned out to be wrong, underestimating the conductor’s foresight. Playing hits that are doomed to success (Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and Sixth Symphony, Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto) is, so to speak, a subtle strategic move that allows one to divert the public's attention (and some of the criticism) from the performers to their favorite melodies. In addition, some of the programs of both concerts, September 7 and 8, were already performed in July at the Vladimir Spivakov Festival in Colmar - there was no need to learn them. However, the most important distraction is to hide the conductor's awkward posture .

It's already been two years since Spivakov has been proving to others that he was made for a symphony orchestra. Let's not talk about how well he does it; time will tell about that later. If you ask the musicians of the RNO about this, the collective will be divided into two parts - some consider their current chief conductor to be a direct descendant of Karajan , others contemptuously call him a “regulator”. So everything here is also shrouded in mystery.

I will only note that the conductor’s position is uncomfortable for Spivakov. In his work, he is focused primarily on the public and he hates to have his back turned to her, who adores him. In this, the philanthropist Spivakov, as Elena Cheremnykh once aptly noted in Kommersant, is radically different from the previous head of the RNO - the misanthrope Mikhail Pletnev . The inconvenience of the pose dictates the repertoire - there is no room for special delights here yet. Of the popular composers, Spivakov, as was clear last year, is especially successful with Shostakovich .

His Ninth Symphony, played on the first day, is inferior to its brothers in the amount of accusatory pathos; in it, Shostakovich emphasizes the dance, genre element, which, however, is strongly colored by the usual grotesque and irony. This is the perfect cocktail for Vladimir Spivakov - the music is rhythmic, elegant, and does not require much effort to coordinate orchestral groups. The Ninth Symphony in his interpretation sounded very compact and catchy. Behind the street music, waltzes and marches, Strauss's waltzes and polkas, so beloved by the Moscow Virtuosi, are visible with frightening consistency, which, however, is nothing reprehensible - any conductor has his own genre guidelines. In the case of Vladimir Spivakov, dance is such a reference point.

It is much more difficult to cope with the orchestra when there is no dancing. The conductor's position becomes much more uncomfortable when the soloist appears - you need to pay attention to both the orchestra and him. It was difficult to chase two birds with one stone, and the orchestra, at Spivakov’s suggestion, abused the soloist, Nikolai Lugansky. Plunging onto the pianist with his huge bulk, hammering him with his powerful sound, the RNO resembled a repeat offender, allowing a lot of false notes, inappropriate accents, in general, everything that the best Moscow orchestra should not have by definition. Meanwhile, the soloist was not worthy of such a swinish attitude towards his person.

Nikolai Lugansky may not have been kissed by God, but this does not negate his intelligence and technical skill. By the will of fate and the mafia jury, having become one of the first “lost illusions” of the Tchaikovsky Competition, he never became fashionable, nevertheless maintaining his reputation as a talented and competent pianist. He easily overcomes the many kilometers of jungle in Tchaikovsky's First Concerto, contrasting the composer's excessive verbosity with precise and correct calculation. Wagner’s Sehnsucht, impressionistic chiaroscuro, and Mozart’s beauty of melody suddenly appear in the sound palette. The Laureate's First Concert, this well-worn Russian souvenir, sounds smart and subtle. Lugansky's nostalgic outpourings of Rachmaninov in his Second Concerto are somewhat less successful - here precise calculations and a cold mind go against the music, which requires some kind of special, confessional mood. Against the background of a complete misunderstanding of the orchestra and the soloist, a peculiar conversation between the mute and the deaf, the conductor looked especially stupid, unable to calm the discord and bring everything to a common denominator. Needless to say, the position is uncomfortable .

The saddest thing is that the matter was not limited to the failed romance with Nikolai Lugansky. Ahead was Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony.

The sixth symphony, according to Spivakov, is a written certificate of death, reeking of the smell of office and printing ink. Any, most heartbreaking tragedy can be retold in telegraphic style, and all the flavor of what happened will disappear, evaporate, leaving behind pale, unintelligible gossip. This is approximately what happened with "Pathetique". It would seem that Spivakov’s temperament has room to develop - here you have emotions in tatters and significant pauses where you can freeze in a beautiful pose, and a familiar march (marshik) - but the conductor resembled a schoolboy reciting poetry by heart and secretly dreaming that the poem it's finally over. The audience fell silent, lulled by the waltz, but perked up during the march-scherzo and, apparently mistaking it for the finale, immediately reacted with an ovation - the instinct acquired during Spivakov’s favorite “Polka Pizzicato” unmistakably worked. After all, everything should end loudly, rhythmically and with cymbals. Probably at that moment, when the fans babbled “Bravo!” before the grave finale, Vladimir Spivakov felt like the most unfortunate person on earth. Here, for the first time, the conductor’s position came in handy, the rest of the time causing so much inconvenience - with his back to the stupid audience.