2 - 8 March 2001
Once in Australia he received a
phone call from a friend, “A friend of mine is very ill, it’s incurable, she
heard you play two years ago and now she is asking me to bring her to your recital.”
After the recital the lady was introduced to the pianist, “When you were
playing I heard God speaking to me through your music, and He said that I would
live.”
“And what was the outcome of this almost mystical story?”, I asked London manager of the brilliant pianist Yuri Rozum, who came together with the musician to Moscow to his concerts. Irina Thomas, Yuri’s manager, told me the end of the story. “This lady survived and is living today. When I’ve recently told Yuri about it, he replied, “Isn’t it what we live and work for?”
...On the day of the recital there
was a real snowstorm in Moscow. It was a heroic deed in itself to get to the
Conservatoire hall, but nothing can stop Moscow public. A full house was
waiting for Yuri Rozum: that evening he played seven encores.
According to the pianist, all his
life is connected with the Moscow Conservatoire, “Wherever I am playing, this
hall is always in my heart. Everything is here, the purgatory, the Last
Judgement, the aim and the meaning of life.”
Yuri Rozum devoted the piano
evening at the Maly Hall to the great masterpieces of Russian classical music.
The first half was all Tchaikovsky, including a rarely performed first opus -
“Scherzo a la Russe”. The second half was devoted to Scriabin and Rachmaninov.
And there was practically the third part of the recital made of encores. This
performance confirmed Rozum’s reputation of a virtuoso pianist, who according
to the recent poll was included in the top ten musicians in Russia.
It seems that the master himself
was content with the way the evening went. Especially, as he confessed in an
interview after the concert, that it is more difficult for him to play in this
hall than somewhere in the States in a huge hall seating 2 to 3 thousand
people. “Each time you have to cope with enormous responsibility, all the
history, that is connected with this hall, before you can feel at home and in
control of the instrument, the sound and the audience. And there is a long way
before you reach this point.”
The musician, who has the best
concert halls in the world open for him, practically grew up in the Maly Hall
of the Conservatoire. He played here for the first time in 1968 in the concert
of the best students of the Central Music School. “It’s amazing, but that time
I also played Scherzo a la Russe. In those days I was a student of Anna
Danilovna Artobolevskaya and it was her idea: Tchaikovsky’s opus No.1 is a
rarely performed piece, and I really felt for it and perhaps that’s why I was
selected to participate in the competition.”
But for a long time his career
went not the way his teachers expected. Both Anna Artobolevskaya and those who
took over, brilliant teachers Evgueny Malinin and Lev Naumov, were preparing
their student for important international competitions immediately after
graduation from the Conservatoire. But at the end of the 70s, when he were to
travel to Brussels to a superb Queen Elizabeth competition, at the last moment
he was left behind without any explanations. “You will go in a week’s time,” they
calmed him down at the Conservatoire. That week lasted for six years.
“Banned from leaving the country”
in those days meant “without any prospects.” Concert tours were narrowed down
to the limit. Instead of the Moscow City Philharmonia he worked for the regional
one, instead of the main concert halls of the country he played in the
provinces at trade-union convalescence homes, old people’s homes and the like.
Once Yuri had to play at the mental hospital not far from Moscow. He still
remembers that recital, “The audience were all intelligentsia, extremely
knowledgeable. It was a real pleasure to play for them.”
He was allowed to travel to the
West for the first time at the end of the 70s. He came back from his first
competition, Queen Sofia competition in Madrid in 1979, with the third prize.
And in April 1980 he won the first prize at Maria Canals piano competition in
Barcelona. There in Spain he also got a special prize for the best performance
of Spanish music. Then there were successes at international piano competitions
in Tokyo in 1983 and in Montreal in 1984. And then ... another pause for
another 6 long years: looked like somebody lost their sleep over the case of
student Rozum.
At that time his classmates
already played with famous orchestras, travelled from one competition to
another and Yuri was kept in reserve. The reason came to light much later: his
teacher at the Conservatoire Valery Afanassiev didn’t come back after an
international tour. And bureaucrats of the music became extra vigilant. Also
somebody’s unfriendly eye spotted a book by Solzhenitsin on student Rozum’s
book shelves. They also remembered his zealous interest in Eastern
philosophies. And as is well known, the Orient is a very special thing.
All this was enough to put a lid
on the musician’s career. At least, for some time. In those years his father’s
support was especially important. Alexander Rozum was one of the masters of the
Russian singing school with baritone of rare quality and beauty, People’s
Artist of Russia. They were very close. “You will break through, everything
will be OK. I believe in you”, his father, Alexander Grirorievich, kept saying.
He tried not to miss a single concert of his son. He was the first listener and
the first fan, but he did not live to see his son’s main triumphs. It was his
mother who saw his recognition come.
Galina Rozhdestvenskaya has a name
of her own in the music world. She is Professor at the Gnesins’ Academy of
Music and conductor of the Russian Academic Folk Choir of Radio and Television.
But she never goes to her son’s concerts not to cause him extra worrying. But
every time she gives him her blessing and an invariable bar of chocolate.
Chocolate is the only treat in quite a strict diet, which his life in the West
demands.
It was not until the 90s that he
had a chance to take advantage of invitations from abroad. He had to start
building up his career from scratch.
“All my connections that came
through competitions were completely forgotten by then. After the competitions
I received invitations, but never went anywhere: knowing that KGB will not let
me go anyway, Gosconcert replied that I was ill, too busy and so on. So I had
to start from the beginning. And at 36 it is not that easy, believe me.
Besides, all Western music agencies were crowed with musicians from the East.
Everybody who had any connections used them after perestroika...”
On a private invitation he arrived
in Stuttgart, capital of Baden-Wurtemberg and one of the music centres of
Western Europe. His friends organised an unpaid recital in a place called
Kirheim, not far from Stuttgart. A couple of people from the music industry
heard him there and offered one or two professional recitals. But during the
first years it was his friends and fans who appeared immediately after his
first recitals, who took on organisation of his concert activity. They tried to
arrange small concerts at chamber halls in small towns in Germany. It went like
this for quite some time.
Yuri says, “I didn’t have any CD
recordings, which can be sort of a business card. There was an LP recorded in
the Soviet Union, but Western agencies were already working with CDs, so it was
of no use.”
Then a conductor heard him play
and brought him to “Mediaphon” recording studio. They recorded the 1st and the
2nd Rachmaninov’s piano concertos. And after that came a breakthrough. The CD
was nominated for the German Music Critics’ Prize.
“This is a very prestigious
European prize, and though we didn’t get it the nomination itself was very
important. Shortly afterwards I went to Australia, then some connections
appeared in America, at the same time I was building up my German connections.
At the end there was a time when I slept for 2-3 hours.”
At present Yuri Rozum lives and
works in Stuttgart. His life is full to the brim. Professor Rozum gives master
classes in Europe, the States, Australia, Japan. He makes a lot of recordings.
One can find recordings of Beethoven and Schubert sonatas in the international
recordings library. He was invited to be a member of the Jury at the famous
Seiler International Piano Competition in Germany. But he still considers his
concert activity to be his main priority.
“My days are all very different,”
Yuri goes on. “Sometimes I wake up in the morning and try to remember where I
am and what I have to play that evening. Today it’s Bremen, tomorrow Munich,
the day after - Cologne. Such is concert life. Normally in Germany I practise
till 5-6 in the morning, then I sleep for a few hours and then everything
starts all over again. I am a night person. By the way, it is the best time for
practising in a concert hall to which I have access, because during the day or
in the evening it might be busy. Night is my favourite time.”
The pianist has a very extensive
repertoire: in one year he sometimes plays up to 15-16 different programmes. So
who is his favourite composer?
“I love many composers, but my
favourites are romantics of all now two past centuries - the 19th and the 20th.
But I play very little of contemporary music.”
Before the concerts the master
spends 15-16 hours at the piano and at every meeting with the public he always
gives his best performance. His yoga exercises help him to keep in shape:
Western professional insurance prevents musicians from playing most sports,
including skating and skiing, but not yoga.
Many of our well-known musicians
now work abroad: Bashkirov teaches in Spain, Krainev - in Germany. So is the
reputation of our piano school still as great as it was in the past?
“In those days we were all in the
same boat, both professors and students were competing with each other. It was
kind of high class concentrated competition, which made the general level just
shoot up”, says Rozum. “It doesn’t
exist anymore, teachers and students are leaving. If you want to take part in a
competition, you don’t have to pass ten selections like in those days, just
fill in an application form and you are there.”
In summer Yuri Rozum is planning
to come to Moscow again to work on recordings of works by Sergei Rachmaninov.
He has already recorded the 1st and 2nd piano concertos and now plans to
continue: the 3rd concerto and the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. Now it has
to be decided who is going to conduct the Radio and TV Symphony orchestra,
which is also part of this project. During that time the pianist also plans to
play at the festival “Music in Moscow Palaces and Estates” in Kuskovo:
“For a Russian musician it is both
an honour and a soul treat to play for Moscow public. Nobody feels and
understands music the way they do.”
In August he will also play
Rachmaninov’s 3rd piano concerto at the festival in Germany. He is taking part
in this prestigious music event together with the conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev.
And then he plan to have a holiday - the first one in many years. Does the
musician have any favourite places? Born in Moscow, as a child he used to spend
every summer in the North of the Volga river not far from the town of Rzhev.
His mother’s parents are from those parts, the grandmother had an estate there.
And today Yuri is still in love with the nature of the Volga and says that he
cannot have as good a rest anywhere else.
Dmitry Gorokhov