Subtle work

The release of the new disk of the famous pianist Grigory Sokolov almost coincided with his 70th anniversary

There are a lot of good pianists in the world. Dozens of perhaps hundreds of thousands.

Of these, approximately two dozen people are able to gather a full hall of almost any size in any country and in any city where there are such halls: just hang a poster with a name and program (and the program itself is not particularly important) - and there are no tickets.

Grigory Sokolov gives such And-winged concerts in the season from about 70 to 80, and he plays only in continental Europe: neither the Country of Asia nor America is included in his touring geography, even in the UK he still does not appear due to disagreement with British visa requirements. And the British are still slightly offended by him.

With the largest German company Deutsche Grammophon, this artist has a pretty unusual, but very clear one:

Only live concert entries without any editing or installation are available on the disks and only those that he himself will consider to publish it.

He is asked and he says “yes” or “no”, but at the same time he is deeply convinced that the best concerts are always unwritten.

That is how both disks were collected, which came out in the spring of this year almost exactly on the birthday of the pianist, April 18: sound - from concerts in Spain, Italy and Germany and a complete video of performances in Turin in 2017, where Mozart and Beethoven were played.

From the program of the tour of 2019–2020. Two notebooks of the piano plays of Brahms (OP 118 and OP. 119) were selected - a notebook of Beethoven boars (i.e. "trinkets", or "trifles", which, however, should not mislead anyone) - the Beethoven's early sonata and seven plays on BIS: there are always many of them in each concert of this pianist, and leave the scenes after two. Departments, not playing the third, he almost never succeeds.

It is a pleasure to give such notes: little is still so exactly corresponded to such different, even opposite expectations, which are generally from the performance of classical music, so that the status, legend, recognition, and crystal pure reputation, and the exquisite taste, and the artist’s fundamental position are immediately. Yes, and quality, of course.

And the fundamental position - in the case of this specific artist - at least in a complete abandonment of playing with any orchestras

- And in general, with any partners, only solo, because it is most correct to do not depend on anyone, and in every sense, and above all in musical.

And also in the fact that for thirty years - from the very beginning of the nineties - Sokolov does not record anything in the studios, believing that the meaningful correct performance of any music is possible only from beginning to end in real time - and nothing can be “glued” from the details.

That is, the path that goes - or it has already arrived - to the perfection most of his colleagues (these are out of those about two dozen pianists that are collected everywhere and always full halls) - it is simply impossible for him.

Nevertheless, he is a perfectionist, of which few, and an introvert, which are practically never among the concert artists today. No interviews, no selfies, no autograph sessions-but what a silence in the hall!

Such silence does not happen if the “charm itself” goes to the stage, which willingly and a lot of smiles and in every possible way contacts the audience - or “spontaneity itself”, which looks literally in this hall, like in the mirror: the ways to conquer hearts, very popular among good pianists who are confidently going to success.

When Sokolov plays Beethoven or Brahms (yes, in principle), he does not turn to the public at all. He leads a continuous and infinitely interesting dialogue with exactly one interlocutor: either with himself about the author - either with the author about his text. In any case, the third superfluous - but the attention of the pianist is so absorbed in this communication that almost any audience is instantly involved in it and is passionate about it, although the person himself does not do anything for this for this. He just plays, and he is good. Although, to be honest, if there weren’t microphones in the hall, it would even be even better - because as we already know, he believes that the best concerts are always unwritten - and that perfection is actually unattainable, but no effort, time, patience and labor is not a pity to get a step closer to him.

This is really a very subtle work - how Grigory Lipmanovich Sokolov plays on the piano - and it would be familiar, but it is wrong to call it “jewelry”, because it is much more difficult than the work of any jeweler - with all, as they say, respect.

In terms of the complexity of the tasks and accuracy of their solution (if also monitoring your hands), this work is much more similar to how the perfect surgeon operates - it is the confident fast concentration that is given in the amount of decades of experience plus continuity of practice, plus an unmistakable intuitive sense of time, especially when time is measured not in seconds, but in heart beats.

And from this, incredibly different timbres are also obtained - sound colors, shadows, shades and gradations of light, about which the reviewers of Sokolov’s concerts in many languages ​​are written with unchanged admiration - both filigree and narrative, that is, the ability to play a notebook of individual (but together created and together) plays precisely as a coherent, continuous and non -transmitted, but unequivocal. The narrative - which actually happens in front of the eyes of the amazed audience with the same Bohangoven luggles or such seemingly short and simple “autumn” stories of Brahms, about which Brahms himself said that we will never be able to write as beautiful as Mozart - so let's try to write at least as cleanly.

Or with an almost endless chain of variations on an infinitely simple topic in the last part of the last 32nd Beethoven sonata at the Turin concert.

And yet - perhaps this is also about the artist’s fundamental position. Unlike very many of his colleagues, Grigory Sokolov does not at all apply to the notes and any fixation of musical performance as “inheritance”, as a “imperishable” (there is such a frivolous word in the language of creative workers, usually means just a marginal seriousness) - as “remains in history”. And this is also very audible:

It is not a game “for eternity”, everything is happening right now, and it is here, where the full hall gathered and there are no tickets, and microphones are just a permissible compromise, a special sign of respect for those who did not get into this hall.

Unlike compromises, unacceptable - like forced cooperation with conductors who do not know how to accompany and interfere with playing, or empty conversations with journalists - and therefore remaining for him in the past.

In order to configure everything thinly as it sounds now, including these new records, an incredible firmness of character and music beliefs was also needed. And the honesty that Sokolov puts in his favorite phrase: "Everything I can say, I say at my concerts."