Translated material
Questions of mythology
Books about music from the publishing house "Classics XXI"
Norman Lebrecht. Maestro Myth. Great conductors in a battle for power.The music publishing house "Classics XXI" again asks to love and favor Norman Lebrecht - musicologist, critic, newspaper columnist (Daily Telegraph), author of the acclaimed study "Who Killed Classical Music." Another of his books has just been published: “Maestro Myth. Great conductors in the struggle for power" - with drawings in the style of ancient engravings on the scarlet gloss of the cover, depicting a duel with swords, with a violin instead of a shield.
The abstract states that “Lebrecht is once again on the warpath.” However, it must be said that “Maestro Myth” was written not as a continuation, but, on the contrary, before Lebrecht’s main bestseller. And it is more a test of the pen than the second series of an ambitious detective story. Even the title itself suggests that Lebrecht is still shy and is addressed to an intellectual, albeit very broad, public. In the next essay, which deals with murder, the British journalist no longer flirts and boldly pushes the boundaries of the audience almost to the tabloid limit.
In essence, the reader will not find any new questions or new answers if we compare this study with the bestseller. Great conductors, their unscrupulous agents, the problematic of power as such and the ability of culture to create local myths for different groups of consumers (coupled with the same problem of commerce, described in detail in Lebrecht’s main work) are the same killers. Although some of them are at the same time victims of a bloody history that occupies the author in both one and another book. And the unconditional victim, according to Lebrecht, turns out to be the profession itself, although the obvious conclusion smacks of a sad paradox more than anything else: the fact that now great conductors cannot be found during the day is, in fact, the fault... of the great conductors.
They were the heroes of the latest mythology, existing during the period of the birth and flourishing of the culture of a mass consumer society. “The evolution of conducting has given us a portrait of a Maestro who turned into a corporate robber and media baron...” - as always, the author swears strongly. It is this “bandmaster-master-messiah-dictator-hero-lover-business tycoon-manipulator” (this is roughly what, according to Lebrecht, the contours of the historical transformation of the profession look like) is to blame for the fact that in the place of the mythical “Maestro, Robber and Baron” there is now artisans, robbers and barons dance.
The circle is closed, at least at the turn of the 80s and 90s, when this book was written.
One way or another, here we have another delightful musical reading, another practical illustration of the theoretical calculations of postmodern ideology: a text juggling with tabloid anecdotes and sophisticated research, a text that deftly plays with genres (historical novel - catalog - chronicles - ladies' fiction-detective-scientific research), a text that lures a wide variety of audiences into the net and skillfully operates with a wide variety of facts and materials.
Gregory Gordon. Emil Gilels. Beyond the myth.
The fantastically forgotten name of a fantastically brilliant man, who played a fantastically important, fundamental role in Russian culture, is finally showing up a little in the cultural landscape. Although these appearances are almost accidental and only emphasize the paradoxical nature of the story that happened to the name and fame of the brilliant pianist.
Grigory Gordon, in his book about Gilels, polemicizes against the myth (about the strict Soviet servant), which seems to be an extremely noble task. Especially when you consider that the myth, despite its extremely outdated, dilapidated, faded and completely irrelevant state, has, in all likelihood, had a huge, albeit quiet, influence on our memory, which just as quietly expelled the figure of Gilels not only from its mythical pedestal, but also from the space of culture in general.
The name of Gilels was not subjected to new mythologization - like the figure of Richter. Competitions and festivals are not dedicated to him, people do not appeal to him, they do not gossip about him. Light attempts to remember the bright music of a unique musician were made in the last concert season, on the occasion of the anniversary. But they did not break the silence that surrounded Gilels in a tight ring. And this book, despite its thickness and solidity, polemical sharpness and richness in uncluttered, never before published facts, materials and formulations, will probably not tear apart either. Which, however, does not deprive it of the merits of its own content (as well as form), or the importance of the very fact of its appearance in this forgetful world.
Peter Michael Hamel. Through music to yourself. How we know and perceive music.
And again about mythologies - ancient and new, local to the extreme and general to the point of blur. The book by Peter Michael Hamel, published 30 years after the original German publication, talks about music (the most diverse - ancient and modern, experimental and spiritual), about breathing therapy, about musical auto-training, about the practices of the East and the crises of the West, presenting a crystal clear an example of Western European seventies, who experienced the cultural challenges of the 60s in childhood and skillfully transformed a strong shock into soft scientific and practical awe.
The preface to the Russian edition was written by the authoritative musicologist Dmitry Ukhov, who clearly and in detail explained fundamental things to specialists and the general reader, so that none of the above-mentioned persons would mistake our author for a street charlatan, which he, of course, is not, but which an ignorant person might mistake him for. or an inattentive reader, if he just glances at the headings of the chapters and sub-chapters: “The Esoteric World of Sounds and the Study of the Harmonic”, “Music Between Worlds”, “The Healing Effect of Music”, “Timbre as a Carrier of the Spiritual Principle”, “The Search for Your Own Sound”. In fact, no matter how suspicious individual titles may look to someone, Hamel’s book, like many monuments of the seventies, is serious, detailed, reasoned, non-aggressive, decorated with impeccable logic and examples, equipped with notes, appendices (notes, diagrams) and a bibliography. Hamel appeals to his own experience and serious research. Musician, composer, sociologist, psychologist, multimedia artist, adept of “collective improvisation”, which has enriched European musical practices with experiences from the East, does not impose an opinion on the reader, but draws possibilities that are not canonized by culture and asks questions that are relevant not only in the 70s, but also now : about the crisis of the public and the crisis of publications, about why now there is no unity of musicians and listeners that existed in the good old creative times and how it could be restored.