"I did not want to do like Metallica"

On November 23 and 24, Bi-2 give a traditional autumn concert with a symphony orchestra of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, each visitor of which will receive a freshly printed CD as a gift “Bi-2” & prague Metropolitan Symphonic Orchestra . " COLTA . Ru I talked with the creators of this record-left and shura Bi-2, the co-producer of the album Sergey Bolshakov and conductor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs orchestra, Colonel Felix Aranovsky, about why it was necessary to go to Prague and what the traditions of the Soviet stage have to do with it.

-Why did the Bi-2 group needed a second album with a symphony orchestra, and even with Prague?

Shura Bi-2: Once a year, when we play concerts with an orchestra, we add four to five new songs to the program. In five years, we have gained about 16 songs that we decided to record. The first symphony album with Sereg (Bolshakov. - Ed. ) Wrote with the orchestra of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at Mosfilm. They wrote for a very long time-two or three weeks, then he edited another year. Therefore, this time he proposed to go on a different path. He found three orchestras ...

Sergey Bolshakov: Prague, Hungarian and Bulgarian. Orchestras chose on my cinema channels. Familiar European sound engineers, who constantly write orchestras for the cinema, said that there would be no problems with them. You just come with notes - that's all. At first I did not believe-from my own experience.

Felix Aranovsky: Me too.

Bolshakov: We chose the Prague Orchestra. We went to them with Felix. When we decided to carry out the first rehearsal with them, they said - we do not need, we will play right away.

Aranovsky: This is a upper class orchestra! Prague team! They played from the sheet as if they taught the material for a very long time. Different strokes, but surprisingly accurately in intonation and in the ensemble. These five to six days in Prague were unforgettable. Prague orchestra delighted us - disciplined, enthusiastic, warm, emotional. Performing skills, the highest level of the game in the ensemble, an amazing understanding and feeling of stylistics of rock music. Strokes, articulation, drive, complicity, co -creation - all this bribed with quality and sincerity.

- Let's rewind the story back - how did you meet?

Aranovsky: 10 years ago, a wonderful American singer Diane Shur came to Moscow. At the concert in Tchaikovsky’s hall, a girl, a Muscovite, performed with her. Also invisible. I was looking for her for eight months, and I helped me find Yuri Sergeyevich Saulsky, a famous composer, unfortunately, already having left us. Together with this girl, her name was Rita Petrov, Sergey Bolshakov came to the rehearsal and said that he wanted to record her. Then he showed this entry Shura.

Shura Bi-2: We then wrote an album-in my opinion, “Foreign Bar”. I heard Felix Pyazzole's orchestra playing, and thought: cool.

Aranovsky: Shura came to get to know the stage: "Is this your orchestra?" - "Yes." - "And who was arranged?" - "Gennady Kornilov." So Gennady Kornilov and I began to make songs “Bi-2” for the orchestra. At first there was “silver”, then the “colonel”-after a few months 17 songs were already made, and the first concert was exploded by a bomb in the drama theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Since then, we have been working for nine years, and I, as a modest accompanist, can say that I am very glad that life brought me to these amazing people.

Shura wanted in the golden age of the Soviet stage. And Kornilov put him there.

Bolshakov: And now - about Kornilov.

Aranovsky: How much time do we have? I can talk about Gennady Kornilov endlessly. He is the first issue today.

Shura Bi-2: Kornilov is an old Soviet guard: he arranged the songs of Magomaev, Kristalinskaya, Miansarova ...

- It is felt.

Aranovsky: He could have done in a new way, but Shura wanted in the golden age of the Soviet stage-in the 60-70s. And Kornilov put him there.

Gennady Kornilov, like me, is a personnel officer, a graduate of the Faculty of Military-Dirige at the Moscow Conservatory. For many years he was the head of the department of instrumentation and reading of the scores, that is, this subject is his horse, he is both theorist and practitioner.

There is a concept of instrumentation, or orchestration. This is when the master transfers the source material by means of another in composition of the team, in our case the orchestra. That is, the picture, as it were, is painted with other colors. A completely different matter is arranging. The profession of an arranger involves not only coloring, but also significant changes in the drawing itself. This is already composer work, co-authorship in a sense. This is not just a Bi-2 music dressed in other clothes. This is another culture. Gennady Kornilov brought orchestral thinking to rock and roll, which was formed in the European musical culture for several centuries. At the same time, he was extremely carefully treated by the music “Bi-2”, which in itself deep, soulful, sincere, multi-ghost, full of unexpected solutions ...

-The Bi-2 group is a rock band associated with a fashionable English sound. Why suddenly-a Soviet pop school, return to the 70s?

Leva Bi-2: one does not interfere with the other. As Felix said, we are quite eclectic. But for us, a project with a symphony orchestra matters only after our original songs come out. We start with rock and roll. And then we are already introducing our listeners with another interpretation of our work.

Shura, you need to advance to Grammy!

Shura Bi-2: What Kornilov and Felix do is the gone era. No one is playing like that now. When we met with Felix and Kornilov, we brought them as an example of Portishead - “ Rosland NYC Live in New York ” and Bjork. Well, they listened, listened ...

Aranovsky (with sarcasm) : Especially Bjork impressed us .

When we started the work, Shura brought many records where rock and roll was connected to academic music. But what was done by Kornilov and Bi-2 is the highest aerobatics, the best that is with the orchestra now. I was a week ago at the S Corpions concert at Crocus. It was amazing. But the orchestral solution of Bi-2, perhaps, is cooler. Scorpions have an orchestra, a background, a background. And Shura and Leva agreed with the Kornilov concept that the orchestra and Bi-2 were two equal participants, as in the Concerto Grosso of the XVIII century, when soloists and orchestra are equal, competing and complementary parts of the whole.

Shura Bi-2: We did not want to do like Metallica and Scorpions , because there the orchestra plays an auxiliary function - the keys, by and large.

- Tell us about how the vocals wrote.

Shura Bi-2: After the orchestra was recorded in Prague, they brought all this back to Moscow. Most of all, it took all the vocalists. To grow the graphs of Vari Demidova, Lena Kaufman, Julia Chicherina, Tamara Gverdtsiteli and Nastya Field. Even Diana Arbenina was supposed to sing “white clothes”, but she did not succeed. It took three months - all summer. Then they edited their voices, and Seryoga and I went to Los Angeles for information.

Aranovsky: I have to compliment Shura and Lev that the voice is recorded perfectly. Shura, you need to advance to Grammy! We need to think about who will do this - we or you.

(Laugh.)

Shura Bi-2: The American who reduced was liked. Seryoga will not let you lie!

- And who was reduced?

Bolshakov: Tommy Vikari is a famous Hollywood sound engineer who made the sound “Walli”, “In Search of Nemo” and to Bond films.

One 16-year-old girl wrote that she first saw a harp at the Bi-2 concert.

Aranovsky: There is another important point - educational. More recently, at a concert in St. Petersburg, eight thousand people looked with admiration for Leo and Shura, and along with the music “Bi-2” they were instilled in them, violin, alt, cello, clarinet and Valtorna ...

Shura Bi-2: Felix, we have blushed already ...

Aranovsky: And I'm proud! You will not believe what I heard from some of your fans. One 16-year-old girl wrote that she first saw a harp at the Bi-2 concert. This is cool. Listening to “Bi-2” with an orchestra, they join the great orchestral culture. And this is not just entertainment, this is an education.

Album “ BI -2” & PRAGUE METROPOLITAN SYMPHONIC Orchestra already V sale .