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1. 20th Anniversary of Perestroika - Interview given to 'Summerlove' Magazine Berlin before his concert at the
Berlin Arena 16th June 2005 in the presence of Mikhail Gorbachev
2. “Yuri's
Back” – Telephone Interview given to “The Register-Guard”,
USA, in September 2003
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Interview given by Yuri Rozum to "Summerlove" magazine, Berlin, Germany
before his concert at the Berlin arena on 16 June 2005. Dedicated to the 20th Anniversary of perestroika. In the presence of Mikhail Gorbachev Summer 2005
In his speech at the Berlin Arena on 16 June 2005 Mikhail Gorbachev said:-
"Yuri Rozum is a great Russian musician, whose life path is
directly linked to perestroika – thanks to perestroika he was given the
opportunity to travel the world and people in other countries can now
enjoy his art.”
At
what age did you start playing the piano and when did you decide to pursue a
musical career?
Y.R.:
When I was very young, my parents, both professional musicians, believed
that I had no ear for music at all, because I couldn’t sing a single note
correctly. Then one day my mother’s friend, also a musician, was playing
games with me at home and discovered that I had perfect pitch: she would
play a chord of several notes on the piano and I could repeat it after her
perfectly not knowing a single note or key. As a result I started playing
the piano at the age of five and a half. My first teacher, although very
professional, was very strict and cold and could not interest or inspire me,
so at that time (at five and a half) I made a firm decisions that I didn’t
want to continue with my music studies. Then a year later, I was introduced
to another teacher, the famous Anna Artobolevskaya, who changed everything.
She was not just a wonderful teacher, but a beautiful person, who simply
exuded warmth and love and I decided that I wanted to continue studying
music, provided I was in her class. I also decided then that I wanted to be
a professional musician. This love was mutual – she very soon told my
parents that I was a perfect candidate for the Central Music School, where
only children with outstanding music abilities were accepted – every year
there was a contest to enter the school and only about 15 children were
selected from all over the Soviet Union. Becoming a student at that school
also meant that one would pursue a professional music career in the future.
What
attracted you to the piano -visiting concerts or was it more influenced by
your parents?
Y.R. As
I said, my parents were both musicians: my father was a famous baritone, and
mother was Professor of music and conductor of the Academic Russian Folk
Choir. Our house was always full of people, a lot of them musicians; there
was always music and singing. My father would give impromptu concerts to
our guests accompanied by my mother or one of the friends and in summer when
the windows were open there would be a crowd in the street outside our house
listening to my father and applauding.
As soon
as I started my music studies I would also accompany my father during home
concerts. I played on the stage for him for the first time at six and a
half. And from the beginning of the 70s (I was Moscow Conservatoire student
by then) we would tour the country together with concerts, him singing and
me accompanying.
During
my music studies I also attended many concerts and listened to recordings.
The teaching methods of Anna Artobolevskaya meant that all her students had
a very broad musical education. All of her students attended concerts
together and then discussed them. During her classes, we all played for
each other and very often her former students, who were already professional
concert pianists were also present and would play for us, students, and
listen to us play. So we were all mingling in one big “music pot”.
How
much did/do you practise now and in your early piano days and how do you
motivate yourself?
In the
first 8 years of my studies at the Central Music School I practiced
criminally little – I was quite lazy then.
I was obviously absorbing a lot
of music ideas, emotions, building a foundation for the future, but I hated
practising for hours. But during the last three years of the School before
entering the Moscow Conservatoire I became a student of a famous
Conservatoire Professor Evgueny Malinin, who was a student and assistant of
legendary Henrich Neihaus. It was a great honour to be taught by a
professor of Conservatoire still being at school. At that time I suddenly
realised, that although I had a lot of ideas, I couldn’t really express them
in my playing – I simply lacked the technique. It was then that I started
working seriously, practising like a ballet dancer at the bar, for 5 to 9
hours a day.
My
motivation has always been a desire to realise my music ideas, to pass them
on to my listeners and make them understand me and to reach a certain degree
of freedom in performing. All this requires a lot of hard work.
My
current life-style and performing schedule (with a lot of travelling
involved) does not allow a regular pattern of practising, so I can’t say how
many hours I practise every day. There are days when I don’t practise at
all and then for days before the performance I might practice all the time,
day and night, with 3-4 hours a day for sleep.
Who
are your favourite composers? Both for listening to and playing?
As a music lover I like to listen to variety of
music by different composers, be it piano music, orchestral or choir
compositions. I enjoy a lot of music that I don’t play myself, ranging from
ancient music by Palestrina and Scarlatti to contemporary music by Gorezki
and the Beatles.
As a performer, my repertoire consists mainly of
music by romantic composers. Although I can’t say that I prefer Rachmaninov
to Liszt or Tchaikovsky to Chopin. Being a concert pianist is a dynamic
process: at different times certain composers and pieces of music become
closer to you, then you move away from them, so I can’t really say that I
have one favourite composer. But I see my special task in performing
Russian music for the world audiences and probably of all composers
Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov are the closest to my heart. Tchaikovsky for me
to a certain extent is a sort of Dostoevsky in music. He opens up such
depths of a Russian soul, a suffering, seeking soul, which no other composer
ever opened before, I think.
Rachmaninov is the beauty of my country, never ending landscapes, vast
plains disappearing into infinity, it is chivalry and warmth. And of course
it is the beauty of melodies, the beauty of music phrases, of voicing. I
think he is a composer who managed to revive the real beauty of music in the
20th century.
Classical music by Russian composers - how would you describe the
differences between them and works by German, British or French composers?
Traditionally there is a belief that music of Russian composers is more open
and emotional, as the Russian nation is on the whole. But music is an
emotional substance per se, composers of all nationalities are expressing
their emotions through their music, but they do it in their own ways. But I
wouldn’t want to generalise here, each composer is individual and
Tchaikovsky is as different from Debussy, for example, as Debussy is
different from Beethoven. I suppose what common for all Russian composers
is the fact that the roots of their music are in Russian folklore and
Russian Orthodox Church music.
What
do you think of when you play - do you visualize stories or random images
e.g.?
For me
music first and foremost is a special language. Playing music is telling a
story, a music phrase is similar to a spoken word. When I play I feel like
a speaker who is trying to convince his audience or a storyteller who is
sharing his inmost experiences with his listeners or a humble man who has
come for a confession and is pouring out his heart,.. Every time the music I
play is a story that I am telling my audience and trying to make them
understand me. Music is a language that a musician uses to express his
feelings, emotions, experiences without putting them into words.
Do
you compose as well?
No, I
don’t – I think enough bad music has been composed to date and I don’t want
to add to it. In order to play all existing great music one would need at
least five lives, so I am trying to concentrate on what I can do well.
Are
your interpretations of musical pieces influenced by moods or do you try to
follow an original idea?
When I
am learning a new piece, I try to take in all the original ideas of the
composer, understand his intentions and wishes and after a while you become
so akin to the piece that it feels like your own. And then when you go on
the stage and play, you are expressing your own feelings and moods through
this music, so each and every performance is different according to how you
feel at that moment.
Playing the piano can be physically exhausting - how do you keep fit? And
what kind of music do you like listening to in your spare time (also rock,
jazz, electronics etc.?)
Well,
for many years now I have practiced Hatha Yoga, but only the physical
exercises of yoga. Yoga philosophy is something different, but some time
ago I was very much into it. I got so involved that I started to play
worse. My professor of music didn’t know what was happening to me, but could
hear that I started to play somewhat too plainly: certain emotions, colours
were gone. And he advised that I should rethink something, re-evaluate. I
thought about it long and hard and realised that of course it was because of
yoga. The idea of yoga is total absence of emotions, your conscious and
subconscious, your heart and soul are absolutely clear so that you can
reflect the Absolute. And what can you play once everything is clear? Music
is fighting - it’s ups and downs, it’s the life of your soul, it is
definitely not all peace and quiet. Maybe at a certain point it can be, but
on the whole it’s a progressive movement, it’s a road through life, which a
musician should show in his playing. So in this case yoga didn’t help me at
all. Perhaps for certain individuals it is good and useful, but for my
individuality it was a sort of self-destruction. So I only kept physical
exercises and they are helping me a lot. Every morning I do a number of yoga
positions, absolutely every morning. Even if I am travelling, I do the
postures on the floor of a train or if I am flying, I would find a quiet
corner at the airport and do my exercises. People look at me like there is
something wrong with my head, but I still do it. And before playing at
concerts and during intervals, I always do a headstand. For many years now I
haven’t missed a single day. The only break in my yoga practice was a couple
of years ago when after a very successful concert a crowd of fans broke my
rib, so for two weeks I couldn’t do any physical exercises.
As to
music listening in my spare time, I like very different kinds of music, but
I am always looking for meaning, and sense in the music is in its melody and
harmony. There is enough disharmony and dissonance in real life, so there
is no need to put it into the music. So if I can find sense in music I
listen to anything from folk to rock.
How
do you experience Russia today - what difficulties does it face?
Do you like
Putin as President?
During
my life I have experienced Russia in many different ways: there was a time
when I was somewhat a prisoner in my own country, I wasn’t allowed to travel
abroad for many years; then there was a period when I practically lived in
the West visiting Russia from time to time and spending not more than a
couple of months there in a year. Now the balance is changing again and I
am leaning more towards Russia. I think all the upheavals that Russia has
been through in the 20th century will take a long time to settle
and stabilise. At the moment the country is still very much in transition,
everything is changing, bubbling away there; there are new beginnings,
searches going on, the country is still intoxicated with its new freedom,
there are lots of new opportunities, in short it is a very interesting
time. The country is like a teenager trying to find its identity. And at
times like this the high art has a very important role to play; its mission
is to help people not to lose their cultural traditions, their heart and
soul. I have recently set up a charitable foundation in Russia. It is
called the Yuri Rozum International Charitable Foundation. I have many
friends who help me with this work and my main motive is to give access to
the wonderful art of classical music to as many people as possible in
various parts of Russia.
President Putin – well, I feel that this is a big step forward for my
country after Boris Yeltsin. That was the dark time of corruption and lack
of anything spiritual.
YURI'S BACK
The Register-Guard, 09/28/2003
By Fred Crafts
Pianist's tough road in music finally returns to a favourite city
Pass the word. Yuri Rozum's coming. Coming to Eugene. Coming back home,
so to speak.
The Russian who is arguably Eugene's favourite classical pianist
played here so much in the late 1990s that he could have been
considered a local musician. Then, he disappeared.
Now, after an absence of almost four years, he is returning to
play Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Oregon
Mozart Players next weekend. He will also play works by Frederic
Chopin and Franz Liszt in a solo recital this Wednesday that is a
benefit for the Oregon Mozart Players.
And, boy, is he one happy guy.
"It was part of my every year's schedule, coming to Eugene," Rozum
said by phone from a concert stop in Mobile, Ala. "It was like a
special reason in my life. Then, it was cut. I don't know because
of what. We didn't find any way of communication."
Sources say the Oregon Mozart Players' inability to pay what for them
was a high fee for Rozum's services kept the two apart.
"I missed it emotionally because I love Eugene. I love Eugene
audiences very much. I like very much to play with the Oregon
Mozart Players.
``Therefore, I'm happy to come again and to see my old friends,"
Rozum said. "To come back and to re-establish our relations was my
dream."
Rozum will find the Oregon Mozart Players have undergone many changes
in his absence. There is new executive director David Bretz and
new artistic director Glen Cortese. There is also a new board and
a new can-do spirit within the orchestra that is coming back after
falling on hard financial times.
Cortese, who will be making his debut as conductor, has heard plenty about Rozum.
"He's very well liked and respected in the Eugene community,"
Cortese said by phone from his home in New York City. "I've never
worked with him before and neither have I heard him play. But he
comes highly recommended."
The last few years have been very good for Rozum.
He will be 50 next Feb. 22, and is at last gaining recognition as one
of the world's foremost pianists, something Eugene audiences
latched onto when he turned up here in 1994 on his first North
American trip, after years of being held down by the Soviet
regime.
Anyone who doubts that persistence pays should study Rozum's
career. Once prevented from playing concerts outside his native
country, and even there banished to playing in kindergartens and
hospitals in Siberia, the fiercely determined Rozum stayed the
course to rise through the ranks.
He recently was given his country's top artistic title, People's
Honoured Artist of Russia, an award that puts him in the company
of such fellow recipients as Sergey Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich
and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Anyone who has experienced Rozum's burning desire to make music knows that an
honour of this magnitude doesn't come without sacrifices: sleep, health, family, relationships, everything.
About the award, Rozum said, "It was absolutely a surprise for me. I
was in Germany. As usual, I stayed up all night playing and went
to bed in the morning. Then two, three hours later I was deeply
sleeping and somebody called me from Russia to tell me the
news.
"It was so far from reality, I couldn't take it seriously. When I woke
up two, three hours later, I thought, `Was it a call or was it a
dream?' '
As it turned out, Rozum was so intent on honoring his concert
engagements that the night he was scheduled to receive the award
from Russian President Vladimir Putin, he was playing a concert in
Germany. A friend picked up the award and mailed it to him.
"The main thing is not the award but the title," Rozum said.
Rozum, who has given 20-some concerts in the Eugene area comes to
town this time with an entirely new set of credentials.
Where previously he struggled to get engagements in Russia, now he
plays all the biggest halls in the biggest cities with the best
orchestras. A recent Moscow news media poll placed him among the
top 10 classical musicians in Russia.
Rozum now spends almost half his time in Germany, where he has a
large and devoted following. He is on a United States tour now,
and on Jan. 10 he will embark on a two-month North American tour
with the Moscow State Radio Symphony, concluding at the Hult
Center for the Performing Arts on March 7.
Meanwhile, he has recorded numerous CDs. The latest, "Yuri Rozum Live," was released just days ago.
On the private side, Rozum and his wife have divorced. His
8-year-old daughter, Alexandra, now lives with him in Moscow,
although he admits he is mostly on the road.
"Even when I am in Russia, I am on the road," he said. "If you
collect all the days I have off, then there'll be maybe 30, 40
days when I spend time in my real household.
"On the one hand, I am homeless; on the other hand, I have a lot of homes all over the world."
Yes, Rozum is still very much the workaholic - practicing long
hours, often through the night, seldom sleeping. Is he holding up
OK?
"Yeah, sort of," he said with characteristic candour. "I think my
immune system is not perfect because I permanently ruined it by
sleeping two, three hours a night, and with all this jumping from
one country to another and changing the time zones and eating some
unhealthy things like coffee and salt and fat. But I want to enjoy
my life and to do whatever I like, even when it's unhealthy.
Somehow, I keep going."
Sustaining Rozum through the stressful regimen is his devotion to
doing yoga in the morning. "Whatever happens - whether I am ill or
I am travelling - I have done 10 minutes or more of yoga every day
since I was 17."
Of course, also sustaining him is his passion for music.
"That's unchangeable," he said.
Approaching his milestone 50th birthday has put Rozum in a
reflective mood about his career. He always "hoped and dreamed" he
would have a career, but then "my life killed all my dreams and
expectations when I was closed in the Soviet Union and when I only
played on upright pianos without many keys in kindergartens and
hospitals and rest homes in Siberia. Step by step, I lost all my
hopes.
"I just went on because I loved music and I thought I couldn't
do anything else. I didn't know how long I could survive in this
state, because at the time I became quite nervous that I was
losing my profession."
But then a miracle happened. Everything in Russia changed. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Perestroika occurred.
And, for Rozum, "a new life started." He was celebrated at home, and free to tour.
But it was a life of peaks and valleys, of starts and stops. Or as
he puts it, "many developments and many pressures."
"For the moment, it is a development again and quite positive,
quite optimistic. But who knows? Nobody knows what could
happen."
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