Vyacheslav Kuznetsov Belarusian composer biography. "A person with a smartphone is no smarter than a distant ancestor"

Composer, laureate of the State Prize, professor of the Academy of Music Vyacheslav Kuznetsov is a more than well-known personality in the music world. Music lovers enjoy his symphonic works, fans of ballet art could fully appreciate Vitovt, brilliantly presented by the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre. On January 28, the President signed a decree conferring the title of Honored Artist of the Republic of Belarus to the composer, and today his choreographic symphony Cleopatra will be performed at the Belarusian State Philharmonic Society.

Your ballet Vitovt, staged at the Bolshoi Theater, created a stir and is still being successfully performed. How much demand is there for writings of this kind?

Our ballet school is very strong, and the audience loves dance. There is a tradition of Belarusian ballets, I continue it. But there are also difficulties. It is necessary, firstly, to find a topic, secondly, to interest the theater, thirdly, to create a creative group, find like-minded people, and fourthly, to finance. And fifthly, it is necessary that the performance bring some income, so that the public goes to see it. If everything fits together, great. Vitovt, for example, had a very powerful production team, starting with playwright Alexei Dudarev. By the way, this is a good idea when the theater chooses a theme, composer, playwright, artist.

- If we talk about the theater, then work to order is a thing, even from the point of view of history, it is quite natural.

Of course. It is difficult to imagine a picture when a young author comes: behold, I have written an opera. Well, I wrote - and well, congratulations. I believe that the Ministry of Culture should also regulate the process. Some global idea came to the Ministry of Culture, for example, to put on an opera based on our national story. And they decide: we will ask this composer, this artist, and so on. Ideally, this should be the case, in large productions, at least. If a composer brings a small vocal cycle, they sang it, and that's it. And the theater is a complex, heavy machine, and you can still put it into action! Now I (also commissioned by the theatre) am finishing the ballet "Anastasia" - about Anastasia Slutskaya. The same principle: they called Anatoly Delendik, who wrote the script for the film, offered to write a ballet libretto and invited me. And we are slowly working with choreographer Yuri Troyan. Step by step, slowly.

How long does it take to write a major piece?

A year or two, or even three. “Cleopatra”, which will be performed at the Belarusian State Philharmonic Society on February 11, I have been writing for three years. There, of course, you will hear a purely symphonic version of the ballet score, but thanks to the idea of ​​the conductor Alexander Anisimov, two readers will be introduced - actors of the Yanka Kupala Theater. They will give poetic content: texts by Plutarch, Bryusov, Akhmatova will be heard ... The Philharmonic is a hospitable home, I don’t even remember how much of my music has been played there over the years, but it’s an honor for me to sound within these walls.

The play "Vytautas" is not a history textbook, but rather a stage fantasy.
Photo by Vitaly Gil.

You are a person well-versed in literature, and, as far as I know, you not only turn to poetry, but also do not bypass prose writers.

Yes, I have the opera Notes of a Madman based on Gogol. Wonderful lyrics, such that he sings himself! By the way, it was staged at the Bolshoi Theater in 2005. He wrote an opera based on Nabokov - "Invitation to the Execution". I suggested it for staging, but the name, apparently, scares it off. And Dostoevsky? He made several attempts: he composed choral works and vocal ones.

- Vocal? How can you sing Dostoevsky?

In "Demons" there is an epigraph - a quote from the Gospel - I took it and sang it. The result was "Fragment of the epigraph to Dostoevsky's novel "Demons". Shostakovich has "Four Poems of Captain Lebyadkin". I wanted to try to write music by the fifth, and even planned an opera based on The Possessed, but the task, of course, is not an easy one. I was approaching this idea, but so far it is only in projects.

- Do you collaborate with contemporary authors?

I am attracted not so much by modern as by folk texts. I find there a lot of things that today's authors do not have. Although I have written a large composition based on the verses of Jan Chechot for the male choir, I love Bogdanovich very much - in my opinion, he is our most lyrical, piercing poet, such depth and pain are felt in every line ... And his poems are very musical.

- You write a lot for the choir, but now the choirs are often perceived as a kind of archaic.

On the contrary, they are more than modern! People simply do not know, they are not interested, but you imagine a choir, a chapel, where 60 - 80 voices. And imagine that the composition is written with each voice in mind. What kind of music could it be! I'm not talking about the Baltic traditions, where the choir is the foundation, but we have a huge folklore layer in Belarus. As a student, I went on ethnographic expeditions to Polissya: what deep places there are, grandmothers in such distant villages - we sailed there in boats, because there were no roads! The fact is that songs taken from the archives and already transcribed are a shadow of the real ones, and you should always take the original. When a folk song is deciphered, on this basis the composer then creates a certain pan-European version, losing the subtleties of performance, all the color. It is very difficult to record a folklore song, its rhythmic, intonational turns. It's easier to do everything according to European standards - the stage does just that. He takes a diamond, grinds it, and brings it to a common denominator. I understand that this is also necessary for the sake of popularizing folklore, but if you work seriously, then only relying on the basics, on the primary source.

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On March 23, a concert dedicated to the work of Vyacheslav Kuznetsov was held in one of the BSAM concert halls. Vyacheslav is a laureate of the Presidential Prize, a professor at BSAM, one of the leading composers in Belarus. The event was organized by two people - Alexander Khumala and Natalia Ganul, for which I immediately thank them very much.

“In the works written by Vyacheslav for the choir, both folklore and philosophical themes are incredibly intertwined, there is an appeal to authentic jazz motifs, interpretations of the original poetry of Velimir Khlebnikov, an understanding of the painting of Pablo Picasso,” the host said excitedly. "Today a diverse palette of music by Vyacheslav Kuznetsov will be presented," she concluded, and the audience froze in anticipation.

The evening began with "Singing the Oldest People" - compositions written on the verses of Jan Chechet, the famous Polish-speaking Belarusian poet and folklorist. His texts, translated by Vladimir Markhel, were brought to Mr. Kuznetsov back in 1996 by Viktor Skorobogatov. Vyacheslav fell in love immediately! Thus, some of the most successful works of the composer were born - so accurately Vyacheslav managed to convey the flavor of the Middle Ages, and the choristers - brilliantly reproduce their plans. Young people from the BAHAЎSKI GURTOK ensemble performed sternly and heartfelt compositions of the 13th-16th centuries. Proudly and with a sense of their own (“knightly”) dignity, the choristers pulled notes at once, so much so, as if thunder rumbles (tomorrow - into battle!). It seemed that these brave and unshakable "knights" as a fraternal squad were defending some castle - no less! Hymns to princes interspersed with odes to beautiful ladies. Romanticism whips with a powerful stream, washes away all sorts of prejudices in its path, makes you plunge into the atmosphere of the Chronicles. The choir certainly copes with its task: we believe it. Surprisingly artistic conductor Alexander Khumala either stood on tiptoe, or gave secret signs to the choristers, who were completely subordinated to the dashing waves of his impulsive hands. Children with carnations poured onto the stage, and noble knights have long found something to do: they will pull up chairs for the next performers.

The parish choir of boys and youths SYMONKI exists under the auspices of the Church of Saints Simeon and Helena. It was formed in 1999, on the day of St. Simeon. Symonki is a laureate of the sacred music competition "Mighty God" in 2006. The conductor of the choir is Elena Abramovich. Boys (with amazing angelic faces) and serious young men performed five Belarusian cants. The EDELWEISS girls' choir arrived in time to replace it, which has existed for four years on the basis of the choir group of the Youth Palace under the direction of Ekaterina Ignatieva. In 2006, in the Polish city of Lanach, at the festival of sacred music, she was named the best conductor, and EDELWEISS was awarded the Grand Prix. The team traveled a lot around Austria, Poland, the cities of Belarus, and at our concert they performed very beautiful, truly girlish compositions - "kalykhanki". The program of the girls' choir surprisingly contrasted with the program of the BAHAЎSKI GURTOK ensemble: women take care of children, men defend them. This simple idea was presented by Vyacheslav Kuznetsov in a musical way as well as possible. During this touching performance (“bainki”, “sheranki katochak”), a good half of the hall, consisting of women, perked up and since then has been constantly smiling with truly maternal tenderness. This was followed by a children's exemplary choir school N 145 called RANITSA. The kids ran out in multi-colored tights and with different hairstyles (oh, I remember how the teachers get angry: “So that everyone has the same performances!”), Chaotic and eccentric, with an excellent, very well-chosen program - the composer Vyacheslav Kuznetsov's view of children's games . Schoolchildren diligently portrayed immediacy in their movements, perkyly turned to each other, leaned over and spun in every possible way - the staging turned out to be very useful. The conductor of this whole celebration of life is Svetlana Gerasimovich, who, by the way, has been a teacher of Alexander Khumala, the organizer of the concert itself, for conducting for almost five years. The BSPU students got a completely different topic: the philosophical lyrics of Maxim Bogdanovich, or rather, "his lyrical nerve" itself, as the presenter allowed herself to put it. Under the direction of Yulia Mikhalevich, they performed the program "Two Choirs" ("Crying Summer" and "All That Died Long ago") more viscously and, as expected, a little melancholy. The evening ended with the professionalism of the Orthodox choir RADZIVILA under the direction of the beautiful Olga Yanum, who, in all her irresistible enthusiasm, simply fascinated.

After the concert, a conversation took place with one of the organizers of this action. Alexander Khumala, a young, endlessly enterprising and contagiously enthusiastic musician, winner of an international competition, fifth-year student of BSAM, willingly shared his thoughts.

Tell us about the concert itself. What is his idea, what is the main message and what is unique...
– In general, we certainly have choral music. Concerts are being made, there are festivals... The uniqueness of this concert is that it has never happened before when one composer gathered various choirs around him. Both well-known choirs and completely unknown choirs performed: for example, the choir from the Belarusian State Pedagogical University has existed for only the second year, and prepared a very strong program! It is also important to note that the concert was attended by completely different groups in terms of composition and texture: both children's, and adults, and mixed. Different in content and orientation - Catholic, Orthodox, student, children's, professional and amateur!

– The concert was dedicated to the work of Vyacheslav Kuznetsov...
- The name of Vyacheslav Kuznetsov is very famous in our circles, but there was no such thing as organizing a concert in his honor. I think this event is very important also because the work of a composer who lives NOW was presented. The realization that a composer is working with us, who is recognized, who creates ... And not in the worst way! You know, the problem is that we are used to comparing. I do not argue: Beethoven is Beethoven! But Kuznetsov has occupied his niche, and one cannot turn a blind eye to this. The task of our performers is to support our music. Egregious cases are well known when, for example, Bach was forgotten for a hundred years... It so happened that a person must first die in order to be recognized later. The same with Picasso - during his lifetime he was starving! With this concert, we wanted to emphasize the significance of what our composers are doing NOW, in our time. Roughly speaking, do not wait for their death to receive them... Kuznetsov is one of the brightest Belarusian composers, he is in the forefront of modern Belarusian music. His work is diverse and diverse: he has a lot of avant-garde, chamber, symphonic, experimental music. Suffice it to say that he has already had three world premieres: in 2007, his "Ritual" was staged in Japan, as well as premieres in Switzerland and Germany. We recently had the premiere of his ballet "Macbeth", a year ago we staged his opera "Notes of a Madman" ... Yes, Kuznetsov sounds. But still not as often as we would like: the same chronicles performed at the concert by the BAHAЎSKI GURTOK choir were written already in 1996, and performed only once, in 1998, by the UNIA choir under the direction of Kirill Nasaev. The chronicles themselves are absolutely unique! They describe the events of the XIII-XVI centuries - the very time of the formation of the Belarusian people. These are the times of the emergence of ON, vitovts, jagailas, radzivils ... understand? The chronicle genre has never been embodied in our musical concept! Usually these are documentaries, monographs, and so on... And, oddly enough, the only one who wrote in the chronicle genre was Prokofiev, with his "War and Peace"! Vyacheslav Kuznetsov's musical comprehension of the poetized chronicle of Jan Chechet is extremely important as an appeal to the bright national color, because the self-consciousness of peoples is formed at the expense of the roots, and nothing more. It is bitter to realize that we are losing our roots, our historical roots! In terms of intensity, these works can be compared with Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky" - they also reveal the historical stage of a certain time. Kuznetsov turned to those issues in order to create something not folklore, I emphasize, but deeply national. He also has folklore cycles (the same cantata "Vyaselle"), but this is completely different! Vyacheslav represents the music of a people that has very great historical roots - the music of the Belarusian people.

- What difficulties did you have (and did you have) to face in organizing the concert?
- There was one particularly difficult problem. Choral music is unique in that the choir is not just one person. As, for example, organizing a concert of instrumental music, you agree with each individual musician - and everything is ready! The choir is a whole team that has a leader. And this leader must certainly interest and captivate the entire team! You know, in order to arrange this concert, that's all that I am now "pour" on you - I "pour" on all watchmen, officials, all leaders and conductors. The task of conductors and leaders, in turn, is to captivate the team. Anyone can object: "But I don't like it!" It's about what they did manage to captivate! You know, these people were addicted! Here, for example, the RADZIVILA choir is going on a tour of Germany the other day, and then they are offered to prepare for our concert. Their leader Olga Yanum said that at first they were very distrustful of the idea of ​​the concert, and then they worked with such enthusiasm! Remember how they sang? Wonderful! Initially, there is some bias, yes, but it is important that our youth are captivated! There were quite a lot of people at this concert - people even stood! Although the advertising was minimal: the day before the concert, a poster on the Internet portal tut.by. One girl with bright green hair who read an advertisement on the Internet came up to me after the concert and took my phone so she could get the recording of the concert later...

– Are our composers in demand?..
- Our composers, alas, are not in demand among the listener. We are all accustomed to evaluate in terms of "like - dislike." And as long as this strange race goes on, nothing will come of the flourishing of our culture. Now it is important for us that we are not evaluated, but appreciated. We valued what is "growing" and is the face of our country and our people. We must finally stop comparing our culture to others and go back to our roots. We, of course, must go out, learn from others, but be sure to return and exalt OUR face! Just as you can't compare a banana to an orange, so you can't compare our culture to any other. I am deeply convinced that the revival of the nation is possible only through the revival of culture. And not physical education, but culture!

“Well, it’s not Mozart!” the majority exclaims, turns around and hastily leaves home. But one has only to take a closer look - and you notice how fabulous beauty blooms ...
After the concert, I approached the hero of the occasion, Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, and asked how he liked the concert, whether he was satisfied ... "Yes, I'm happy with everything! I got great pleasure from such a wonderful performance!" Vyacheslav simply beamed.

Maria GRUDKO

Vladimir Ivanovich Kuznetsov was born on June 20, 1920 in Perm. From the age of 5 he began to master the harmonica of the “Russian system” (diatonic). This harmonica was bought by an older brother, who, having gone to study at an institute in Sverdlovsk, left it in his parents' house. And so, when little Vladimir learned to play, they began to invite him to parties, feasts, weddings to play folk music. As a child in Perm, he often went to the skating rink to skate. Music from gramophone records sounded at the rink, and he really liked this pop music.

In 1932, at the age of 12, he already performed the “Turkish March” by V.A. Mozart and the overture to G. Bizet's opera "Carmen". He selected all the works by ear, sometimes he even had to change the original keys due to the limited range of the instrument. In 1932, the Olympiad of children's amateur performances was held in Sverdlovsk. Vladimir, who went there with his harmonica to participate, had to bow several times after a successful performance. He became a laureate, and as a reward, the organizing committee of the Olympiad fulfilled his cherished desire - they bought him a new instrument. My brother was a radio amateur, he himself made a tape recorder and a player, so that records from various records constantly sounded at home.
At that time, Vladimir often sat at the gate and played in the street, passers-by gathered and listened to him. One day a circus group passed by and invited him to work with them. Vladimir played several performances-concerts with them. Not far from the place of performances there was a market and carousels with musical accompaniment - the game of bayanists. The young musician went to listen to them with great pleasure.

Before entering the school, he was often invited to dance evenings, where foreign newfangled dances sounded: pas de quatre, padespaigne, waltz-boston, foxtrot. Vladimir really wanted to learn how to play the button accordion professionally. At the age of 16, after graduating from the seven-year period, his father brought him to enter the musical and pedagogical technical school in Perm. It turned out that the recruitment had already taken place, but, after urgent requests for the boy to be accepted, they listened to him, learned about the victory in the competition (Olympiad), and the decision was made instantly - to enroll immediately!

While Vladimir was in his 2nd year at a music school, a song and dance ensemble of the RSFSR came to Perm on tour. A competition was announced to fill the vacant position. By that time, Vladimir was already working in a workers' club. In 1939, he was accepted into the ensemble, and he went on tour as part of this ensemble to Yaroslavl. In 1940 the ensemble moved to Leningrad.
In the same year, a draft board was held in Leningrad, to which V. Kuznetsov was also called. One of the members of the commission, the head of the school for junior aviation specialists, was an accordion player and, having learned that Kuznetsov was an excellent accordion player, took him to Oranienbaum. Once, during a trip to purchase an accordion, in Tallinn, Vladimir met his acquaintance from the song and dance ensemble of the RSFSR, who informed him that bayan players were being recruited into a new ensemble under the direction of I.O. Dunayevsky. The idea of ​​working in this ensemble did not leave Vladimir. Here is what Vladimir Ivanovich himself recalls about this episode: “Once, while in military service, I went AWOL to Leningrad, but in the train car, it must happen, I met the head of the soldiers' club, where I was listed as artistic director. There was a long conversation about the urgent need to return to the service, that this is a violation, and so on. I said that I understood everything and would immediately return, but the desire to get to the ensemble in Leningrad was stronger. I got off the train, waited for the next train, and nevertheless went to Leningrad. I arrived at Trud Square, where the Central Ensemble of the Navy (or, as it was then called, the Ensemble of the Five Seas) was based, where I was auditioned and enrolled in the staff.

After the outbreak of the war, the ensemble moved to Moscow. On April 1, 1942, the team was evacuated to the mainland along Lake Ladoga, and for two weeks, exhausted, they reached Moscow. Shortly before the evacuation, a concert was organized in Smolny in front of the party leadership of the city. Before the concert, the artists were fed with porridge, but during the concert people fainted, and it was for this reason that the decision was made to evacuate the ensemble. With the move to Moscow, the restoration of health and concert activity began.
During the war, concert brigades were formed, which went to the battlefields, naval ships and coastal units with concert programs. Vladimir Kuznetsov worked with such artists as Nikolai Trofimov, Pavel Necheporenko, Olga Nesterova, Ben Bentsianov. In 1944, one of the film concerts was filmed in Moscow, in which V. Kuznetsov accompanied Ivan Kozlovsky, who performed the song “A blizzard sweeps along the street”. At one of the reviews of ensembles of fleets, which took place during the war, an acquaintance with the famous bayan player Yuri Kazakov took place.
In 1944 the ensemble was disbanded. Vladimir Kuznetsov and accordionist Boris Petrov were sent to the Baltic Fleet Ensemble in Leningrad, on the same Labor Square. The ensemble was part of a large formation - the Theater of the Baltic Fleet, which consisted of a drama theater, jazz and an ensemble (choir, orchestra, dance group). In 1944, Vladimir Kuznetsov married in Leningrad - the secretary of the ensemble became his wife. Soon the ensemble moved to Tallinn, then Baltiysk (Kaliningrad) and finally to Klaipeda. In Baltiysk, Kuznetsov was appointed head of the orchestra. The military period of the biography of V.I. Kuznetsov was awarded several military awards, including the Order of the Red Star, which the musician was awarded for his active concert activity on the ships and bases of the Northern Fleet. Thus, the peaceful work of the musician was equated with the heroic deed of a soldier.
In 1948, V. Kuznetsov was demobilized and returned to Leningrad. In the same year, he was accepted into the staff at the Leningrad Radio. After the war, dancing evenings were held in the First Five-Year Plan Palace of Culture, where Vladimir Kuznetsov played in a duet with Boris Petrov. In the Marble Hall of the Palace of Culture named after S.M. Ilya Lozovsky's jazz orchestra performed at Kirov, Vladimir Kuznetsov was invited to play jazz compositions between performances of the orchestra. In 1948, a duo of accordionists Vladimir Kuznetsov - Ivan Tikhonov was formed, who voiced programs on the radio, live concerts. The duo's repertoire included their own adaptations of Russian and other folk songs and dances, arrangements of Russian and foreign classics. In parallel, Kuznetsov worked in the orchestra of Russian folk instruments named after V.V. Andreev and in the youth orchestra of Ilya Zhak.

In the 1950s, the artel "Plastmass" was formed, which produced gramophone records (music director - Anatoly Badkhen). Vladimir Kuznetsov began to be invited to the recordings. He recorded as an accompanist with Galina Vishnevskaya, Joseph David (trombone), with solo compositions, with the ensemble of Ilya Zhak. In parallel, records were made at the Radio House, mostly solos and duets with I. Tikhonov, V. Tikhov, T. Strelkova. In 1951, the first trips of Soviet artists to Finland began to be organized. Somehow Vladimir Kuznetsov and Boris Tikhonov (a well-known button accordion player from Moscow) ended up in the same group, they played in separate groups, but in one concert they played a duet Fantasia about Moscow and Karelian-Finnish Polka. On one of his trips to Denmark, V. Kuznetsov accompanied the famous singer Olga Voronets. In 1954, the duet V. Kuznetsov - I. Tikhonov went on tour to Sweden and Norway with a large group of artists from all over the USSR, after which in 1955 the musicians were offered to go to work from Radio to Lengosestrada. After ten years of joint work in 1958, the musicians parted ways. Since the 1960s, active concert tour activity began in various compositions, which continued until V. Kuznetsov retired in 1980. Since the 80s, Vladimir Ivanovich Kuznetsov has continued to actively participate in concert life. He is a regular participant of international festivals of music for bayan-accordion held in different cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Vilnius, Perm, etc.), the grateful St. Petersburg public also fondly remembers the musician's anniversary concerts. In 1996, Vladimir Ivanovich Kuznetsov was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.

The life of a professional musician, artist is rich in various events, impressions, and meetings. IN AND. Kuznetsov during his creative life met with many famous and popular artists, musicians, people of art and just interesting personalities (Lydia Ruslanova, Vladimir Troshin, Valentina Levko, Boris Chirkov, Antonina Smetanina, Vasily Stalin, and many others). Such meetings always enrich the inner world of the artist, expand his creative potential, contribute to the crystallization of talent and encourage him to show a creative attitude towards the creation of new works of art. IN AND. Kuznetsov is the author of many popular songs, compositions, arrangements for accordion, for duets and ensembles, which significantly expanded the accordion repertoire and demonstrated the novelty of the approach to the accordion as a musical instrument.

It is incorrect to compare modern culture with the standard - the classics of the 19th century. Society has changed dramatically: not books, films, performances are noticeable, but only scandals around them. There is no scandal - there seems to be no creator, even if he is at least seventy-seven spans in his forehead. So it turns out: the classics among us are invisible people. Minsk-News talked to composer Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, whose ballet Anastasia will be staged by the National Opera and Ballet Theater of Belarus in October this year.

Originally from Vienna

- Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, looking into the directory, we learned that your small homeland is the capital of waltzes and cakes Vienna. What is it like?

— The Belarusian composer with a Russian surname comes from Austria — yes, it happened (laughs). My father went through the war and remained in the Vienna garrison. But shortly after my birth, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Austria. So the first childhood memories are exclusively about the city of Baranovichi. I feel like a Belarusian. Belarusian folklore is very close to me. There is a feeling that the roots of the ancestors go to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. By the way, her mother's maiden name was Zaretskaya.

— What is your first musical instrument?

— Piano. Like all boys, I loved football very much, but ... My mother, apparently, felt something, once she took me by the hand and took me to a music school. By profession I am a pianist.

— At what age did you come to Minsk?

- Conscript: served in Uruchcha. Came to audition at the conservatory. Anatoly Vasilievich himself blessed me to the composer's field (composer Anatoly Bogatyrev - the founder of the Belarusian national school of composers. - Author's note). Very warmly received, listened to. From that moment Minsk became my city. I know him by heart.

Four operas and eight ballets

You have been writing music for almost half a century. Do you write to order? Or are you obeying some inner need?

- Ballets and operas are not composed in one month or even in one year. This must be understood ... I have eight ballets, and all of them are custom-made. In addition to the first - "The Twelve Chairs". I composed it as a student at the conservatory (Vyacheslav Kuznetsov studied composition under the guidance of the People's Artist of the USSR composer Yevgeny Glebov. — Author's note). Their fates are different. The ballets The Twelve Chairs, Shulamith and Cleopatra did not make it to the stage. "Polonaise" was staged by our choreographic school, shown in Minsk at the Philharmonic and on the theater stage. The ballet "Kleofas" was performed in concert in Vilnius, Warsaw, Paris. Everything went well with Macbeth, which was staged by Natalya Furman, it ran for ten seasons at the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus.

When the theater is interested in having a significant work appear on its stage, it gathers a team of like-minded people. This happened with the ballet Vitovt. At the end of the 2000s, a strong creative team was formed: Alexey Dudarev, Vladimir Rylatko, Yuri Troyan, Vyacheslav Volich, Ernst Heydebrecht. They invited me. The work went on for several years. I brought the written fragments to the theatre, clarified the creative positions, because the further the process of creating a performance goes, the more difficult it is to remake the music, especially the score. I wrote “Vytautas” with pleasure, as if I was taking out of my soul what had accumulated all my life. The production was taken to Moscow and Vilnius, everywhere there were full houses.

I have four operas: Notes of a Madman, Invitation to an Execution, Humbert Humbert, and Professor Dowell's Head. The Bolshoi Theater of Belarus staged only Diary of a Madman. Now she is no longer walking.

- You choose Gogol, Kharms, Nabokov as a literary basis ... Do you read a lot?

I love the rustle of the pages. And I read, apparently, not like others. For me, lyrics are either musical or not. The music of words is not a metaphor. I wrote the cantata "Quiet Songs" to the verses of Maxim Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich sounded in me immediately. In literature, he stands apart, you cannot compare him with anyone, he is unique. Something similar happened to Jan Chechot. In his "Songs about ancient Litvinians" Chechot rhymed the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. On the basis of "Songs ..." I wrote a cantata for male choir and percussion instruments. And the idea was given to me by Viktor Skorobogatov, the head of the Belarusian Chapel.

- There is time for reading. And for the rest? Do you go to theaters?

- I go, and I feel special affection for Kupalovsky. There was a case: six years ago I was included in the commission for theater awards, and with great pleasure I walked around the Minsk scenes, looked at everything. The Belarusian State Puppet Theater caused a special thrill. As a student, I was in charge of the musical department there. For 30 years there has been "Little Red Riding Hood" with my music.

Anastasia is not a doll

- Luck with Vitovt prompted the Bolshoi to create another national ballet. This is again the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

- Only a century later, closer to us, and the story is different. They thought for a long time and settled on Princess Anastasia Slutskaya, who, after the death of her husband, led the fight against the invasion of the Tatars. The woman is bright, strong-willed, courageous. There has never been such a personality in our ballet. We will show her in motion - a girl, a girl, a married lady, a widow, a warrior, a prisoner ... She is an absolutely living person for us. This is not a doll.

- How does the story of Anastasia end for you?

- Dots. No pretentious ending - only a slight sadness from parting with the heroine. We strive to ensure that the viewer wakes up the genetic memory, so that he feels nostalgia for those times.

- Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, what musical means, instruments do you choose to create historicity and national flavor?

- Of course, the simplest thing is to put up cymbals, find a dudar, make a video projection with a flying stork. This is a purely external effect, a frontal solution. I don't run to them. A good hundred excellent musicians play in the symphony orchestra. The richest sound palette! The skill of the composer lies precisely in the use of these possibilities. So that the viewer has the illusion of being in Slutsk of the 16th century.

— Illusion?

Who knows exactly what happened 500 years ago? What did they eat, how did they dress in life, and not for a formal portrait? But feelings, emotions, spiritual needs can be imagined and conveyed, because a person, in essence, has not changed much. If he has a smartphone, this does not mean that he is smarter than his distant ancestor. On the contrary, the ancestor is smarter, if only because he had more time to think about life processes.

- Is there a danger of getting a double of Vitovt?

- I will say this: the shadow of danger hovers. But Anastasia will be a different performance. Firstly, our creative team has developed a very gentle, reverent attitude towards the heroine, and this will create a different mood than in Vitovt. Secondly, the eastern theme should sound powerfully in Anastasia: the clatter of the hooves of the Tatar cavalry, the flight of arrows ... The West and East will converge, the male and female elements will collide. So intended.

Tsaryuk Varvara Albertovna

student 5course dep.musicology,
BSAM,
Republic of Belarus, Minsk

Aladova Radoslava Nikolaevna

scientific supervisor, Ph.D. art criticism, associate professor
BSAM,
Republic of Belarus,Minsk

The world of vocal music by the Belarusian composer Vyacheslav Kuznetsov (b. 1955) is surprisingly diverse. He is attracted by the poetry of F. Garcia-Lorca, and the paradoxical, caustic-sarcastic poems of K. Prutkov, and the texts of I. Brodsky, and the absurdity of V. Khlebnikov. Such an inclusiveness of literary sources is associated with the breadth of the aesthetic views of Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, who testifies: “I am interested in new ideas, I am attracted to the authentic sources of creativity, not spoiled by civilization. I find them in folklore, in the work of Picasso, Khlebnikov, early Zabolotsky, in the drawings of children, in real Negro jazz.

A separate area of ​​interest for the composer is the literature of the absurd, which Kuznetsov has been addressing since the early 1990s. So, in 1992, the composer creates "Hamlet's Monologue" from "Dysmorphomania" by V. Sorokin for voice and prepared piano, a year later - "Eophonia" for 8 voices and 45 percussion instruments to the text of Velimir Khlebnikov, in 1997 - choral diptych "Music for Alice" lyrics by Lewis Carroll. In the 2000s, two works based on texts by Daniil Kharms, a Russian writer, poet and playwright, appeared.

The revival of the creative heritage of Daniil Kharms, who became a victim of Stalinist repressions, takes place during the years of perestroika, when he becomes one of the most published and studied Russian poets of the twentieth century, and, according to Jean-Philippe Jaccard, is recognized as the founder of European literature of the absurd. It was Vyacheslav Kuznetsov who was the first among Belarusian composers to turn to the literary heritage of Daniil Kharms, creating a multimedia composition “Two Texts by Daniil Kharms for Four Performers” (2003) and a choral composition “Merry Old Man Kharms” (2010).

The composer was attracted by the brightness and originality of the poetic word, which at the same time has ambiguity and depth of semantic content. Kharms's aesthetics turned out to be close to the composer and its paradox, the poet's desire to comprehend the world order under the dominance of absurdism.

In the work “Two Texts by Daniil Kharms”, music, graphics and theatrical stage action merge into one. V. Kuznetsov mounts two texts by D. Kharms: "Man is made up of three parts" and "Blue Notebook No. 10". The first of them describes a person, consisting of disparate non-standard elements: "Beard and eye, and fifteen arms", reflecting Kharms' discrete vision of the world. This text is paradoxical in its essence: the quasi-analytical beginning “man is made up of three parts”, which implies some systematization, is contradicted by the refrain that is stable in all three stanzas "heu-la-la-drum-drum-tu-tu". At the same time, the tripartite structure of a person, given in the first verse, is confirmed not meaningfully, but purely constructively. In the third stanza, the previous thesis is negated: "fifteen pieces, but not hands", which finally destroys the three-part structure of the object. The only stable element of the poem is the refrain, which not only serves to emphasize the rhythm like children's counting rhymes, but also concentrates all the irrationality of the text. The second text, on the contrary, represents an absurd person who had nothing "so it is not clear who is being talked about." Harms also lists the elements that testify to the existence of a person, but the result of the poem is the denial of his existence. Thus, Harms creates a parody of the narrative as such, and the writing itself serves the sole purpose of exposing the void behind the object. By alternating phrases, these texts merge into a single narrative, which contributes to the strengthening of absurdism in their semantic content. The unifying beginning for them is the epigraph borrowed by Kuznetsov from the third text of Daniil Kharms "Makarov and Petersen", which reads: "Gradually, a person loses his shape and becomes a ball." Thus, a new semantic subtext arises, generalizing the metamorphoses of the hero Kharms-Kuznetsov.

The literary basis of the work for the choir "Merry Old Man Kharms" was the children's poem "Merry Old Man" by Daniil Kharms. This text is built on the constant deception of the reader's expectations - the old man, faced with a terrible reality for him, reacts in a very unexpected way: he laughs loudly. Rhythm-forming significance here is acquired by onomatopoeic interjections, highlighting the rhythm of the verse by using repetitions of syllables and chanting. Thus, this text uses the techniques of imitation of children's speech in order to create a language game. At the same time, Kharms's laughter expresses not only the comic, but also the deeply tragic beginning inherent in all absurdist texts.

In the work of V. Kuznetsov “Two Texts by Daniil Kharms”, the alternation of fragments of Kharms texts plays a formative role. Their musical implementation is contrasting in terms of performance composition, dynamics and manner of performance: the first text is performed solo, on the dynamics f, in the manner Sprechstimme; the second - speech recitation, accompanied by percussion instruments, on the nuance mp- mf. Election as composer Sprechstimme as a means of realizing the first text is connected with the musicality of the verse inherent in it, namely, the rhythmicity of its refrain. Each appearance of this refrain in the work is accompanied by an indication of the size 7/8, which corresponds to the number of its syllables. The instrumentation also contributes to the creation of the image of an absurd person in the work: this is an unconventional composition of percussion, among which there are such as frusta, klaxon, river-river, flexatone, vassamba, vibroslap. In general, the whole composition consists of three sections of variant-repetitive structure and a code, which, returning a phrase from the first text, is a musical and semantic generalization of the dramatic lines of both texts - the line “fifteen pieces, but not hands” is already realized using two intonation methods . The prerequisite for this synthesis was the correspondence of this phrase to the figurative sphere of the second text, since there is a denial of the presence of the described object.

Thus, in this piece of music, Vyacheslav Kuznetsov embodied the key ideas and images of Daniil Kharms' creativity: anti-world, discrete vision, ambivalence of worldview. At the same time, the composer turns to the genre of instrumental theater, presenting the percussion ensemble as a “living organism”, capable of moving and being on stage in constant motion. The phenomenon of play inherent in this genre and the powerful energy of the rhythmic beginning come into conflict with such ideas of the poetic text as the exposure of emptiness, the destruction of the structure of the object. At the same time, such a paradoxical musical reading fully preserves the absurdist spirit of the poetic source.

In the work for women's choir without accompaniment "Merry Old Man Kharms", V. Kuznetsov, following the poetic text, emphasizes the expressiveness of its phonetic side. At the same time, while working with a poetic text, the composer makes some changes to the refrain of the poem, imitating the laughter of an old man. V. Kuznetsov finds an individual musical embodiment for each interjection. The intonational material of the refrain undergoes development throughout the entire composition, as a result of which the sound of certain phonemes becomes sharper. In addition to accentuating the sound-visual side of the text, the composer also strives to embody the unusually strong rhythmic energy of Daniil Kharms' poetry, actively using syncopated rhythm. As a result, in the author's musical reading it is precisely game the beginning comes to the fore and becomes the basis of its ideological content.

Thus, in the considered works of Vyacheslav Kuznetsov on the texts of Daniil Kharms, two ways of implementing the poetic fundamental principle are revealed. On the one hand, this is the isolation of only one semantic line from the content of a poetic text and the one-dimensional musical reading associated with this. On the other hand, it is the creation of a multidimensional image of an absurdist poet, which is achieved with the help of the ultimate concentration of the main ideas of his work on a relatively small scale of a musical work. The poetics of Daniil Kharms turns out to be close to the artistic worldview of Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, who implemented the key ideas of his philosophy in these works.

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