Alexander Manotskov: "The composer is not a tolerant profession"

At the end of his one -year curators on the Platform project, composer Alexander Manotskov held the Future Music festival, consisting of a record number of special works written for him. Among the authors were Vladimir Martynov, Dmitry Courland, paired with the art group Provmyz, Anton Vasiliev paired with Sergey Nevsky, Vladimir Rannev, Peter Pospelov, Boris Filanovsky, Sergey Pollov, Kirill Shirokov. Each festival day consisted of music and subsequent discussion with the public. And at the end of the festival, Alexander Manotskov discussed him with Ekaterina Biryukova.

- There is a feeling that the “platform” is such a greenhouse place for composers, who, if they even have disagreements, try to hide them in order to jointly oppose hostile reality.

- This is wrong. Look. Composer - he is also expressed mainly by music. He speaks any words in the context of his music, it is impossible to tear them away from it. And their value, weightiness gives only the musical reality that the composer does. Therefore, all our discussions after concerts are not so much so that the composers talk to each other in words. This is all expanded primarily in the direction of the listener. And the composers, in fact, spoke music with each other. And everyone understood each other. And tell each other who is right, who is wrong, I think, still nothing. Especially publicly. Not that everyone would like to scratch their eyes, but restrain themselves from decency. No. Not at all. Just if there is some kind of dispute, then it has already happened when the music sounds. And any disputes of a critical property, it seems to me, do not instinctively occur. And not because there is some kind of convention to be sweet.

- During the discussion of the music of Boris Filanovsky and Pyotr Pospelov, whom you brought in the same program, it seemed to me that Borya just sewn up his mouth. And then everything that he thinks about Petit's music was quite tough on Facebook.

- Well, this is his decision. You ask him. I read the comments in the FB and, with all their subjectivity, I see that people, even without being musicians, are well aware of what is worth it, the more nutrition, the less. That is, it is clear that “there are values ​​of an unshakable rock over the boring mistakes of the centuries”, and, it seems to me, a very important property of the profession of the composer is to insist that this rock is. If you have a saber, you can measure the world. Composers have this saber. The composer is not a tolerant profession. Tolerance is not our virtue. This is a profession, which involves as indirect, but inevitable consequences - jealousy (in the original meaning of the word) and rage.

At the same time, the composers have no complaints about each other that you need to write in some specific style, technique and nothing else. No need to hack - this is the main thing. We must write well and the way you write. It's not about whether you write tonal music, sound -breeding, noise. All these adjectives have already left the battlefield. Now they do not matter at all.

In essence, Igor Fedorovich Stravinsky had learned to hear and write serial music as tonal half a century ago, simultaneously fulfilling all its restrictions. It seems to me that this is a kind of general trend. All music is now tonal. Everything is tonal. Because tonality is the ratio of times. Because notes are time, nothing more. That is, this is some oscillations per unit of time. When we say “la” - we simply say “440 times a second”. This is what we say. This is the same as the pace, duration.

And such a look helps to create absolutely any configuration. The composer can place his headquarters on any floor. And he can leave one of the floors empty. Like Courland, for example. It is the floor of “sounds” - well, the fact that in the dictionary of the 19th century we consider sounding - leaves empty. But the music still remains tonal, because all the gravities that are there are temporary. And temporary gravity is tonal gravity. You just need to make a small zoom out and understand that the tonal is now realized differently. And the composer just now has more freedom.

Now you can write any music. It is important that she is her own. Today, the battlefield of the composer is with himself. Only we must realize that it is. Now there are only two types of composers. There are those who understand that you should have your own battle, your own ascent, that otherwise you are professional. If you do not devote every action to this battle, then you just rotate someone else's drum. And there are those who do not understand this.

And if we talk about some composer disputes, today it is not a war between Cooper and Lully or between the supporters of Stravinsky and Shtokhausen, but a mutual rejection between people who believe that you can, well, just write music, and people who understand that this is not so that your work is a very large extent to win the right to do this. And how exactly you conquer it, your individuality is expressed.

- Nevertheless, when compiling a program, you mean a fairly wide range of styles?

- When different styles are combined into one festival - styles in the archaic understanding - this does not mean that it was specifically conceived how, there will be music with soberness and music without soundness. No. Vice versa. If we talk about a general approach, then he is definitely not like that. Courland, as we know, can also write music - by Sonoric in the spirit of Martynov. But it is clear that this is completely different. This is another creature. The cockroach and the lizard are similar from afar, only one chitin and the other protein.

I did not mean such a flat approach - I wonder who will fall into the future: tonalists or avant -garde? Well, I’m not a moron and understand that the boundaries are not in this place, but on the one I said.

- Why didn't you participate?

- And I participated. Look at the program - this is my centon. I actually had my own project for this festival, but I decided not to do it, because someone should be on duty. Someone should be the master in the house. Wash the dishes. I started this strange story, I have to bear full responsibility for it, it seems to me right.

- At the beginning of our conversation, you emphasized that the composer is expressed primarily by music, not words. It seems to me that composers are now very able to speak. And the verbal, explanatory part of their opuses is becoming more important and more important. Sometimes it seems: if you remove it, everything will fall apart. You do not feel in this danger?

- I feel danger. Therefore, I did this specifically in every concert: first we listen to music, then we say. Because if you explain something in advance, lay the straw, create a context in which you need to listen, and then only listen, this is wrong.

- Where is that border when the music still remains music, and does not turn into a performance, about which you can read the explanation on the wall?

- It seems to me that at our festival there was not a single work that is enough to read on the wall. The right composer is an obstacle that needs to be overcome. If there is some kind of topicality, if I take some material that begins to smell today, then I must create an artistic phenomenon that conquers, outweighs. For example, I now wrote an opera on the libretto of a modern author, I threw out a mat from there-not because of the hypocrisy, but because I want my work to win, and not that someone showed a pussy.

The work should create its own context. And fight him. Now, if it creates it itself, o'key, all l e ge artis . And if it works like a poster, I lose interest. Well then go better and take care of the overthrow of power. And by the way, I willingly take part in such things, I am not an apolitical person at all. But art is stronger than it. Art, even if it takes something today, always speaks of timeless. Any form is about birth and death. Any work of art is obviously tragic. Now, if it has this catharsis, this tragedy, then it can live in this form absolutely any content.

There can be - this is how Vasiliev with Nevsky - the personnel of Putin's inauguration. And, on the one hand, it seems it doesn’t care that this is Putin. And on the other hand, what is happening, wins, digests him. Well, Putin Figutin. The miracle is just this: it seems to be Putin, and not about Putin. There is an exit to some orbit away. It does not spark back.

- The general place began to scold traditional concert venues - for the fact that almost all of them could not hurt with modern music. But does it make sense to break through this music there? It seems to her much more comfortable in non -philological spaces.

- And I do not see any conflict between new music and traditional halls. Despite the fact that I personally crawled out of my music history from God knows what basements and from time to time I find myself again. How do I like the concert situation? It maximizes the importance of what we listen. That's all. A situation is created for people of a certain cultural norm, which most helps to concentrate attention on what will sound. It's very cool. I do not see anything bad about it.

I always perplexed when they say that the concert form has died. Of course, if you can’t write something worthy of attention within 45 minutes, it is more profitable to turn on the video and so that there is still smoke and everyone went back and forth with beer glasses. And if you can - so, of course, I want you to listen carefully.

Another thing, you can then go into the underpass and play the same there. This is such a little crucifixion - I surrender to the situation and see what is stronger: the fragile that I do, or what hits me from the outside. What will win? This is also an interesting move. Although he should not be the norm.

And from all these sites, where they are not friends with modern music, you just need to be reduced to FIG. After all, how does most concert venues in Moscow, St. Petersburg, anywhere, do? You come there, there are people who actually receive a budget salary. And what word do they immediately say? "Rent." "Our hall costs so much." And they call such an amount - not even in the evening, but in an hour - as if I would get a half tons for this hour of gold. What nonsense?! Nevertheless, the musicians know this terrible word "price tag". These price tags, like Birochka, hang on all concert venues. You just need to tear them to a damn mother, and that's it! There will be a very interesting concert life right away. Now Andrei Mighty opened for music a new BDT scene on a stone island. And immediately there are a bunch of interesting people who are ready to rush there. Just a person does not take money for rent.

-But among the traditional sites there is still a Rachmaninsky hall, where the next festival of modern music “Moscow Forum” is the other day. To which Helmut Lahenman himself will come.

- Because there is Vladimir Tarnopol. There is Alexey Lyubimov there. Everything rests on several ascetics.

- How does the public of your and conservative festivals differ?

-In my opinion, nothing. Ladies came here many times for 60 from BZK. And in the Rachmaninovsky hall I see the same people that I see here. This is an identical party. Now, it seems to me, there is a process of expanding the audience of new music. People begin to cut off that they are urgently necessary for them, something without which they can’t live without. They sit on it.

It seems to me that we are what the studio of new music does is the mainstream. It should be mainstream. It should not be a ghetto. The first piano concert of Peter Ilyich will not go to listen to one hundred and fifty times. And here - at least something that you have never heard. It seems to me that so.