The music of Mikael Leonovich Tariverdiev is unfamiliar only to those who have not seen the films “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!” That is, in the vast post-Soviet space there are practically no people unfamiliar with his work.
Childhood and youth
He was born in August 1931 in Tbilisi, which at that time bore the old name - Tiflis. The family of the future maestro was of noble Armenian-Georgian origin. Grandfather Grisho Akopov, mother’s father, was the owner of a huge orchard. Grisho Akopov had a luxurious house on three floors, in which Mikaela Tariverdiev’s mother, Sato, grew up.
Despite her noble origin, Sato Akopova became interested in Bolshevik ideas during the Civil War. She even had to spend a short time in prison, where the Mensheviks put her. According to family legend, she met her future husband Leon Tariverdiev, the red commander of the cavalry regiment, precisely on these days. Leon's regiment was the first to break into Tiflis, liberating it from the Mensheviks.
Mikael Tariverdiev was an only child. Mom dedicated her whole life to him. It was she who took her 6-year-old son to the music school at the Tbilisi Conservatory. At the age of 8 he wrote several pieces for piano, and at 10 he became the author of a symphony.
At school the boy's situation was somewhat worse. Due to lack of time, after lessons he had to rush to the music school; he had little contact with his peers. The guys kicked the ball around the stadium and, having formed two enemy groups, fought with each other. He was disliked for his lack of participation in public life.
But Mikael wrote the anthem for his native school. True, this did not save him from expulsion. In the penultimate class, he spoke at a Komsomol meeting, defending a classmate. He became deaf from a blow dealt to him by the school principal. I had to finish my studies at night school.
At the age of 16, the young musician entered a music school. He graduated in a year. This was the time of the first triumph. The choreographer of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theater asked the talented guy to write two one-act ballets. He coped with this task brilliantly. Both ballets were part of the theater repertoire for two years. Tariverdiev spent his first fee on a beautiful hat.
Mikael Tariverdiev’s youth was not cloudless. In 1949, his father was arrested. At that time he was the Director of the Central Bank of Georgia. The son and mother were forced to hide, moving from apartment to apartment. I even had to go hungry. In order to somehow survive, the young pianist gave music lessons.
Then there was a short period of study at the Yerevan Conservatory. But Tariverdiev didn’t like it here, and he went to Moscow. It is noteworthy that at this time the ardent young man almost got married. He became interested in the niece of the famous. But the girl cheated on him, and Mikael broke off the engagement.
At the Gnessin Institute, Tariverdiev had to take an exam from the uncle of his failed bride. But Aram Ilyich was fair. The guy turned out to be the only one who received a solid A from Khachaturian upon admission and overcame a huge competition. Moreover, he soon became Aram Khachaturian’s favorite student.
Music
In Gnesinka, the young composer and musician finally determined his range of interests: opera, chamber vocal music and film music. My studies went well, but life in the capital turned out to be too expensive. In 1953, after his death, his father was released from prison. But the parents could not help their son. He had to work part-time as a loader at the Rizhsky railway station.
There he met VGIK students like him. Once the future actors shared that they were looking for a composer for their course work. This is how the first music of Mikael Tariverdiev, a 4th year student, appeared, written for a film. It was called "Man Overboard." And in 1958, music was written for the film “Youth of Our Fathers.”
The first vocal cycles appeared in Gnesinka and the composer’s debut took place in the Great Hall of the capital’s conservatory. Tariverdiev's romances were performed by the famous singer Zara Dolukhanova. They had considerable success.
In the 1960s, the composer discovered himself in a new role, which he called the “third direction.” The maestro tries to convey poetry to the music he wrote. This is how monologues appear on poems by Grigory Pozhenyan and.
Soon Mikael Leonovich begins to collaborate with performers who, in collaboration with the composer, become famous. This is how Tariverdiev managed to create the trio “Meridian” and the vocal duet of Galina Besedina and Sergei Taranenko. And also help you find your style and debut. The future Russian pop diva first became famous for her songs for the movie “The Deer King.”
The human qualities of Mikael Leonovich could be judged by his noble deeds. Almighty, who headed the Union of Cinematographers of the Soviet Union at that time, sent Tariverdiev to present Kalik’s film to France. But the director himself, who served time in the camps, was not allowed to travel abroad. The composer refused to go without him. During this time, he was not allowed to go abroad for 12 years. No, he was not hounded or trashed in the newspapers, but the atmosphere created was as if Tariverdiev did not exist.
The next wave of popularity, which brought the composer to the top, was associated with the cult film “Seventeen Moments of Spring.” Today it is unthinkable to imagine this film without the music of the brilliant Tariverdiev, although at first he wanted to refuse this work. Mikael Leonovich thought that we were talking about another “spy” series.
Mikael Tariverdiev at work But after reading the script, I immediately agreed. We auditioned for songs for the film and. They sang wonderfully, but, according to the musician, their voices were not suitable. He was chosen, which became the reason for Magomayev’s long resentment.
How important director Lioznova considered the composer’s music can be judged by the unprecedentedly long “musical” episode of the meeting with his wife. This scene lasts 8 minutes without a single word or action.
The series became a cult immediately after its release and brought enormous fame to everyone involved with it. But Mikael Tariverdiev was not included in the list for the USSR State Prize. This happened due to a damaged relationship with Tatyana Lioznova. She decided to include herself in the credits not only as a director, but also as a co-screenwriter. I opposed this. They turned to Tariverdiev as an arbitrator. He sided with Semenov.
But people's love did not bypass Tariverdiev. His songs from “Seventeen Moments of Spring” were endlessly played on the radio and received two first prizes at “Song-72”. Such fame did not please his less fortunate colleagues and became the cause of a dirty intrigue that took away a lot of the composer’s health.
There was gossip that Tariverdiev stole the music for the film about the legendary Stirlitz from the French composer Francis Ley. Allegedly, exactly the same music was written by a Frenchman for the film “Love Story”. First there were calls - allegedly from France - to the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. Then a fake telegram came to the Union of Composers with the text:
“Congratulations on the success of my music in your film. Francis Ley."
The cruel joke was developed. Many colleagues who were previously considered friends turned their backs on Tariverdiev. His works were heard less and less on radio and television. At Mikael Leonovich's concerts, he receives notes asking whether it is true that he stole music from a Frenchman and the Soviet government paid a huge fine. The composer is curtailing his concert activities. And when he is already on the verge of a nervous breakdown, his friends help him contact Francis Ley himself, who refutes this rumor.
The fame that came to the composer in 1977 seemed to be compensation for all previous humiliations. The cult film “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!” was released. Mikael Tariverdiev's music for songs based on poetry was magnificent. The songs themselves were performed by Alla Pugacheva.
For the music for this film, Tariverdiev received the USSR State Prize. Largely thanks to Eldar Ryazanov. After all, the music commission for state awards opposed it. Apparently, the reason was Tariverdiev’s choice of authors of poems who had recently been disgraced. Mikael Leonovich was awarded the title of People's Artist in 1986.
The composer wrote not only film music, which made him famous, but also operas, chamber vocal works, organ and instrumental music, and ballets. He worked, as a rule, at night. Then the muse came to him most often.
One of the musician’s last known works is the organ symphony “Chernobyl,” which he wrote after a trip to the contaminated zone shortly after the accident. He later shared that he had no intention of writing anything. The symphony was born unexpectedly, inspired by the tragedy he saw.
Few people know that in the spring of 1987, the ballet “The Girl and Death” to the music of Tariverdiev was supposed to be released at the Bolshoi Theater. But a week before the premiere, the performance was suddenly cancelled. These were intrigues against director Yuri Grigorovich. But the composer took this blow hard.
During his life, Mikael Tariverdiev wrote music for more than 130 films. But fans of his talent also value the composer for his excellent music for plays, operas, organ concerts, ballets and romances.
Personal life
Not only the creative, but also the personal life of Mikael Tariverdiev turned out to be stormy and rich in events and passions experienced. The composer was extraordinarily handsome and impressive. Tall, slender, thin, he dressed well and followed fashion. Women adored him, he paid them in the same coin. But his marriages and affairs often ended badly.
He did not live long with his first two wives, Elena Andreeva and Eleonora Maklakova, and divorced. In his first marriage, he had his only son, Karen. Subsequently, he graduated from the Ryazan Higher Airborne School and took part in the war in Afghanistan in the GRU special forces units.
Of the composer’s numerous novels, the most famous is his affair with the actress, a beauty, with whom he was in love for a long time. The tragedy happened when the couple was returning to the capital in Tariverdiev’s car. Maksakova was allegedly driving. Suddenly a man ran out onto the road. He died from a collision with a car.
The composer took all the blame. The investigation lasted for two years, and then the humiliating trial. The musician’s beloved did not appear at the decisive meeting. Rumor has it that she preferred to relax with friends. Mikael Tariverdiev did not forgive her for this.
It is noteworthy that the actress herself claims that the whole story about Tariverdiev taking the blame upon himself is a monstrous myth invented by his third wife. They say that Eldar Ryazanov later adopted this plot for his film “Station for Two.”
Mikael Tariverdiev’s personal life changed after meeting with musicologist Vera. They met at the Moscow Autumn festival in 1983. Finally, the maestro found the only woman with whom he felt calm and comfortable. They lived together for 13 happy years. In his book of memoirs, the composer wrote that for the first time he felt that he was not alone.
After the death of her husband, Vera Gorislavovna Tariverdieva published the book “Biography of Music”, in which she wrote about the life and work of her brilliant husband.
Death
At the end of May 1990, Tariverdiev underwent heart surgery in London. His destroyed heart valve was replaced with an artificial one made from the same alloy from which the Shuttle's skin was made. The composer joked that he now has a heart of iron with a 40-year guarantee.
But death came to Mikael Leonovich much earlier, in the summer of 1996. He was vacationing with his wife in the Sochi sanatorium “Akter”. On July 25, early in the morning, the composer passed away. On this day, he and his wife were supposed to return to Moscow.
Mikael Tariverdiev was buried at the Armenian cemetery in the capital.
"Died with him"
This happened in the summer of 1996. Tariverdiev, known for his music for “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and “The Irony of Fate,” went out onto the balcony, lit a cigarette – and that’s it...
“Mikael Leonovich was seriously ill, but we resisted in every possible way,” recalls the fragile woman, the composer’s wife Vera Gorislavovna. “I wasn’t ready for this.” No one is ever ready to die. It’s hard to put into words how you feel when a loved one passes away in your arms... It seems to me that I died with him. This is such pain... it’s not even pain anymore - it’s a feeling as if you were cut in half and you live here with one half. And the other half is there...
There were relatives nearby, the composer’s son from his first marriage, Karen. On the 41st day, she sat down to finish the book “I Just Live,” which her husband did not have time to finish.
“Mira Salganik, the named sister of Mikael Leonovich, helped me a lot during that period,” Vera recalls. – We lived together for 8 months. It was impossible for Mira to be alone. Probably me too.
When the book was finished, the decision about how to live further came naturally.
“Since I couldn’t imagine life without Mikael Leonovich, the only way to survive was to stay with him and study his music,” explains Vera Gorislavovna.
The first International Organ Competition, the program of which necessarily includes the performance of works by Mikael Tariverdiev, was held in Kaliningrad in 1999. Today it has grown, become well known in the world, and winning it is considered very prestigious. And then there were no such competitions, or indeed organ competitions in general, in Russia.
“In the case of the fate of Mikael Leonovich, there is one difficulty,” says Vera. – For many years he was known as a composer of film music. But the fact is that cinema is the “top” of his life. There was also a hidden side to his activities. He wrote ballets, operas (some of them were staged), instrumental concerts, organ music, and vocal cycles. This is something that was little known to people, but was the main meaning of his life. And I had to definitely state this main meaning of his life. After all, he himself had not heard much of what was written.
Everyone knows this now: it’s not enough to compose anything. The “product” still needs to be properly promoted. Any means are used: large budgets, large-scale PR... Soviet people thought in other categories and acted on a whim. Some were rescued by influential friends, others by resourcefulness. Tariverdiev had neither one nor the other.
“Mikael Leonovich worked outside the space of orders,” says Vera. – I wrote on the table and did not promote myself. This was contrary to his human principles. When we were together, I also faced other tasks. I needed to take care of Mikael Leonovich, love him, be a part of his life.
Today Vera is trying to give life to what is on the shelves. Mikael Tariverdiev left a significant legacy. Literally. One ballet, “The Girl and Death,” stored in a suitcase, a kind of symbol of the composer’s work, weighs 17 kg!
The music for “Seventeen Moments” was called plagiarism
This was one of his most difficult experiences. After “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” Tariverdiev was accused of plagiarism - as if he borrowed the theme of the prelude, which became the hallmark of the film, from the French composer Francis Ley. It all started with an anonymous telegram addressed to the head of the Union of Composers of the USSR Tikhon Khrennikov: “Congratulations on the success of my music in a Soviet film. Francis Ley." People who know creative morals guessed that Nikita Bogoslovsky was behind the harassment campaign, but there was no evidence of this.
“At the end of his life, Nikita Vladimirovich admitted that it was he who sent the telegram,” Vera comments. “Francis Ley still wonders why people ask him about this.”
If anything, the garage will help out
...The seemingly completely innocent word “producer”, which accidentally flew off the tongue, suddenly makes Vera perk up.
- I'm not a producer! – she declares decisively. – I am an anti-producer. The producer is the one who earns money, but I only know how to spend it. And I spend it. Just over the last year, I was given the orchestration of the opera “The Marriage of Figarenko” (this is Mikael Leonovich’s last opera). We have reconstructed the score of The Deer King stolen from the Cinematography Orchestra using drafts and recordings.
– Thank God, I can afford the life I lead. And don’t think about your daily bread. Today this is true. And if something happens, I have a garage that can always be sold.
Olga Saburova.
They both had to live a double life, come up with their own system of principles for a happy life apart, in order to reunite and live together for 13 happy years. Mikael Tariverdiev could never complain about boredom and monotony in his life. He had many affairs, several marriages, and the favor of female fans. Vera had a husband, a son was growing up, and she was not at all ready to part with her calm, established world.
“Only the heart is vigilant...”
Mikael Tariverdiev and Vera met in 1983, when she, a young journalist from the newspaper “Soviet Culture”, asked the composer to write an article about “The Musical Offering” by Rodion Shchedrin.
Mikael did not know Vera herself, but was familiar with her articles. He thought that she wrote rather impudently, and imagined the music columnist as an older lady. Moreover, her reputation was ambiguous: on the one hand, a brawler, and on the other, a zealous fighter for justice.
The composer was surprised to see not a mature woman, but just a girl who retained some kind of childish naivety and spontaneity. Only later did he realize that behind the deceptive appearance was hidden a persistent disposition and a serious attitude towards life.
After the article was published, Mikael Leonovich invited Vera to a music festival in Vilnius. It was there, in the hotel lobby, that she realized that something was happening between them. It seemed that they had known each other for a hundred years, but they were afraid of this rapprochement, and therefore, like the Little Prince and the Fox, they began to gradually approach each other. Later, the composer would write in his book “I’m Just Living” about the fear of frightening away something important and the feeling that there were no other women in his life. There is only one - Faith.
Double life
Their relationship could not be called a romance. This was their life. Closed with a veil of secrecy from prying eyes, shrouded in tenderness and deepest intimacy. It was only their world, in which there was only enough room for two. Each of them, somewhere out there, behind the veil, lived a completely different life.
She had a husband and son there, whom she was afraid of losing. She was constantly haunted by the fear that everything would be revealed and her beloved Vassenka would be taken away from her. Mikael Leonovich also acquired a woman who served as his cover, diverting suspicion from his relationship with Vera.
They even had their own New Year. When they met on January 31 in the afternoon, they drew the curtains, turned on “The Irony of Fate” at the moment when the chimes struck, and it was their holiday.
After some time, the realization came that it was impossible to exist in parallel worlds. They were finally reunited.
Strange life
Vera and Mikael Tariverdiev at the Nika Award ceremony, 1991. / Photo: www.hellomagazine.com
For some, their life together might indeed seem strange. Vera called him “You” throughout the 13 years of their marriage and couldn’t even imagine that it could be different.
He was the real head of the family, and she completely resignedly accepted the rules of his game. They agreed that she would be to blame for all life’s troubles and problems. It’s so simple - just assign someone to blame once and no longer look for someone else to blame! However, it’s not difficult to be guilty with Mikael. This is, in essence, a game that helps avoid conflicts.
What he disliked most was disorder; it irritated him. Vera could not stand his insults at all. True, in all 13 years he was offended by her only three times. The first offense was related to the violation of the deadlines for Vera’s writing of an article about Maria Lemesheva. The second came when he noticed insincerity in another article by Vera. And the third was directed at Vera herself, who was wearing the wrong shorts, which, in his opinion, she should wear in front of strangers.
There were legends about Tariverdiev’s pedantry. But his wife, a lover of creative disorder, did not particularly suffer from this. She was allowed to create a kind of chaos in her own things behind closed doors. But everything that concerned the composer was brought to perfection.
After meeting Vera, Mikael Leonovich turned from a recognized Don Juan into a real faithful spouse. For him, other women really ceased to exist. He was sure: she would never leave him, betray him or disappoint him. They are truly two halves of one whole.
Faith remains faithful to him today, when more than 20 years have passed since his departure. She lives on memories of him and his music.
Mikael Tariverdiev did not find his happiness on the first try, just like the king of operetta
© M. Tariverdiev (heir), 2017
© V. Tariverdieva, 2017
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Mikael Tariverdiev
I'm just living
Tbilisi – a polyphonic city
“Isn’t it obvious that I’m the only one,” I answer when people ask me if I have a brother or sister.
The blue sky of my childhood, the sky of Tbilisi, hot summer, the air filled with the smell of southern greenery and so thick that it seems that it can be cut into slices. And mother. Mom, who comes to meet me. It takes my breath away, I don’t see her face - only the radiance emanating from it.
The house in which I was born once belonged entirely to our family, or rather, to my mother’s family. An ancient one, built in the shape of the letter “P”, it always seemed huge to me. When I saw him much later, he seemed smaller to me. Or did I just become an adult? It was a beautiful house, even for Tbilisi, on three floors, with a large courtyard, in which there was a fountain and a huge mulberry tree.
A park about a kilometer long descended from the house to the river. Next to the house is a church, or rather a chapel. In general, a family nest. The Akopovs – my mother’s last name – were well known in Tbilisi. One of my mother's uncles was the mayor of the city for some time. And there was also a dissolute uncle. He was considered extremely frivolous and was constantly condemned, although he was a completely harmless person. When he went on a spree, went on a spree, he hired three carriages. In one he rode himself, in the other his hat rode, in the third - his cane. Even I heard outraged stories about his behavior. It’s strange, but in Tbilisi there are still a lot of people who seem to be from the past, from the old life. In many ways, it was they who set the tone in the city even in Soviet times. In Georgia, the word “comrade” has not replaced the word “master”. Elders were often addressed as "batono". And the old names were still respected.
Our house was expropriated after the revolution. A sanatorium was built in the park, and various people were accommodated in the house itself. At first they gave us three rooms, then two, and when my father and mother moved to a state apartment, the rest of the family huddled in one.
Kura, noisy, beating on granite embankments, and where there are none, on polished stones. For a long time I was convinced that rivers are only like this. They just have to be swift, treacherous, with whirlpools that are fraught with fascinating danger. Of course, I read about other rivers, but when I found myself in Russia and saw the Volga for the first time, I was amazed at the calmness and indifference of a huge mass of water that does not rush anywhere. And only after throwing the stick, I realized that the water mass was still moving. It was not at all like that mountain river in which a seven-year-old boy, as I remember, could not stand on his feet.
Summer. Mom left for work. Father too. I hang around idle with Marus, the housekeeper who lived with us. Marusya also goes somewhere, and the yard boys call me to the pool. I'm terribly interested, because this is the first real swimming pool in Tbilisi. We ride the tram for a long time, but in vain - they drained the water, it was a preventative measure. We run to the river, it’s very close. The guys decided to go for a swim - there is no embankment in this place. They began to undress. They took off their shirts, took off their sandals and trousers. We jumped into the water. And me too. But I can't swim. I'm embarrassed to say. It carries me, but I am silent. The guys understand what is happening - I am the youngest among them - and start screaming. Some unknown young man jumps into the water, picks me up, but also cannot go ashore. And we sail along the shore. I remember asking him all the time: “Are you comfortable?” - “Shut up, don’t bother me!” - he shouted. So he swam with me halfway through the city, from the circus to the market, probably a kilometer and a half, until the embankment and stairs appeared. There the guy pulled me out, and we, wet, went back. Only then did I really get scared. Why didn't I say I couldn't swim?
Returning home, I secretly dried my clothes. At night I began to dream of a stormy stream. The water carries me, and I drown, drown. I haven't slept for several days. I've got a fever. Mom asked what was wrong. But I was silent. Later she accidentally found out about this story.
And a soldier came to Marusya on Saturdays. He sat in the kitchen and drank tea. This aroused my keenest curiosity. One Saturday Marusya took me to the Park of Culture and Recreation. A parachute tower had just been built there. A hefty one. She sent me into an absolute frenzy. I still remember this completely crazy desire to jump from the tower. But how to do this secretly from Marusya? Just then, very opportunely, a soldier appeared and began chatting cheerfully with her. I, having begged for some change for ice cream, ended up at the ticket office of the parachute tower.
“I’ll have a ticket,” I handed over the ten-kopeck piece.
“No, boy, you need to weigh yourself,” the cashier answered.
I weighed myself.
- Can. - The ticket was sold to me.
I ran to the stairs. But the higher I rose, looking through the bars of the tower, the further the ground moved away from me, the less I wanted to jump. And I began to give way to those who were rising behind me. And yet I got up. When I looked down, my soul sank into my heels. No, not on the heels. The whole soul went into my throat. My stomach felt cold, and my heart was pounding in my throat, my nose, my ears, my eyes. But not in the heels. And again I don’t say: “I don’t want to.” I let the attendant put the canvas straps on me. The huge open parachute itself pulls me towards the barrier. The barrier swings open, I am thrown out, and I plummet down like a sack. I fly with a stone until the lines are tensioned, and hover several tens of meters above the ground. I don't have enough weight to land - I'm only five years old. I see my Marusya running with the soldier below, everything is so small, people are screaming. I pull myself up with my arms and still gradually descend. There is one thought in my head. So that Marusya doesn’t tell her mother. My mother learned about this story many years later.
But no one found out about the story with the pistol. I had a friend Igor Agladze (Agladze is a well-known surname in Georgia, Igor’s father was an engineer, his uncle was the president of the Georgian Academy of Sciences). One day he and I were at my house. Alone. And suddenly they found the keys to the drawer of their father’s desk. Driven by curiosity, we opened it and saw a real Browning! Separately lay a holster and an empty pack of cartridges. We couldn't resist shooting. We rushed to the attic - our apartment was on the top floor - climbed onto the roof and, as I remember now, shot into the drainpipe. Once him, once me. What has begun! Whistles, bustle, we immediately went home, cleaned the pistol with sunflower oil, and flushed the spent cartridges down the toilet. It was then that the doorbell rang. The fact is that our house was located on the street along which the first secretary of the Georgian Central Committee, Charkviani, went to and from work. Before Charkviani was supposed to appear in his luxurious ZIS-110, the street was filled with people, NKVD members. It was at such a moment that we started shooting.
-Didn't you hear the shooting? – asked people in black suits who appeared at the door.
“No,” we answered. - It seems like a firecracker went off.
– Who are the adults at home?
- Nobody.
They went into the apartment, examined everything, made sure that no one was there, and left, convinced that seven-year-old boys could not have shot. What would have happened to father if they had suspected us!
The smell of watermelon appeared in the city. Fresh watermelon. It was snowing. Snowflakes melted as they flew, and the asphalt was covered with a film of rain. It's a shame! But sometimes snow still covered the ground and evergreen trees. It was a holiday! We poured out into the street, pulled the sleds hidden in the closets, the fun continued until the first rays of sunshine. The snow was disappearing. But in the spring everything turned white again - the cherry trees were blooming. And lilacs, a huge amount of lilacs. I absolutely loved the May Day holiday. Cherries were sold directly on the streets. Clusters of cherries strung on sticks like grapes. Ice cream makers, cheerful, in clean white coats, with carts on two wheels, with a handle.
The house in which I spent my childhood and youth stood on a mountain. It was also built in the shape of the letter “P”. The balconies opened onto the courtyard, which was located on three levels, which were connected by two semicircular staircases. The windows are open and music is coming from everywhere. Schubert. Sketches by Czerny. From some window - an ineptly selected Georgian melody. There's a radio playing somewhere. All this is mixed, but does not create the impression of disharmony. The music sounds low and unobtrusive. She is like a part of life, a continuation of this courtyard, this city. She doesn't show off. She just lives. Sometimes in the evenings, men gather outside some window, or even just on the balcony, and the famous Georgian music-making begins, which is absolutely incomprehensible to me to this day. How do people who have never studied anywhere, meeting perhaps for the first time, arrange a melody for four, five, six voices with such precision on the fly? This is polyphony of the highest class. I can’t understand this and I admire it endlessly.
Perhaps the ancestors of the Georgians lived in the mountains and polyphonic moves, such as the canon, were suggested to them by the echo of the mountains, and then more complex forms were born? Maybe this land itself is so amazingly beautiful and generous that it’s impossible not to sing? I’m not an expert in folklore, and in Georgian melodies there are probably songs about hard times. But what I heard as a child were songs about love, tenderness, and beauty. I grew up singing this. And also on Schubert.
My aunt Margarita studied at the conservatory. This was my mother's younger sister, everyone's favorite. Cheerful and frivolous. She recognized only one composer - Schubert. Because of this, she had constant troubles with teachers. She didn't want to study according to the program, she only wanted to sing Schubert. Her voice sounded best, she believed, in the toilet. She closed herself there and sang. It ended with her leaving the conservatory in her third year. But the first music that I consciously remember were romances and songs by Schubert. I love them to this day. They still delight me with their transparency, purity, and nobility.
I began to study music almost by accident. Our neighbors just had a piano. I began to visit them so often and bark that the neighbor, unable to bear it, said: “Let dad buy you a piano.” That's how it all started. Very quickly I got tired of playing scales, exercises, Maikapar plays and compositions like “The Funeral of a Doll.” What a doll! I didn't have any doll! The very name humiliated my dignity. But I couldn’t play more complicated pieces yet. So what to do? I began to do what was interesting to me - to compose.
My main dream was to learn how to record. A curious thing. When I learned to record, I understood one law: the first stage of learning or skill - you record music, and in reality it turns out to be much poorer and uninteresting than what you imagined and played. The next stage is when you record the music you made up, and it sounds the way you imagined it. And much later, you record the music you composed, and it sounds more interesting than you imagined. But I realized this many years later.
My mother took everything very seriously. Learn to learn like this. And I have a new passion - reading. I read everything, non-stop, I tried to deceive my mother and Marusya. He put a book on the music stand and improvised something under it.
Mom, coming home from work, asked Marusya:
After all, while going about her business in the kitchen, she actually heard my exercises. As a result, I developed quite a high technique. I just read a lot.
A feeling of beauty, a childish feeling of love, when it seems that the whole world loves you. Not just your parents, but everyone, everyone, everything. When you can’t shake the feeling that just go out into the world and you will receive the tenderness of passers-by in response to yours. I remember this trust in everyone around me.
I also remember the whispers that rang through the yard. They hid something from the children, but we understood a lot, and a lot, a lot was etched into the children’s memory. “They took Uncle Levon from the third floor. And Aunt Nino from the fourth.” At first there were fewer whispers, then the adults whispered more and more often. What did the word “taken” mean? Where did you take it? When will they return? I could not understand. Much later it became clear that few people returned from where they were “taken”.
I was friends with two girls. Their names were Gemma and Jessie. We lived on the same floor. They took their mother. They were whispering in the yard, trying not to let us children hear. But in fact, sometimes we knew more than everyone else, the adults. They said about Gemma and Jesse's mother that the NKVD took her because she was a Turkish spy. I couldn't get my head around it. I knew the spies, I saw them in the film “Engineer Mistake Cochin.” We have seen spies in other films. They were treacherous, two-faced, evil. The word “spy” did not fit in with the appearance of Gemma and Jessie’s mother, who smelled of butter cookies—she always treated them to the children, including me—who had such kind hands, such kind eyes. But when I told our shoemaker Suren about this, who was sitting in the basement, in a small closet filled with old shoes, the wrinkled, kind man replied: “Shut up and never tell anyone about this. Otherwise it will be bad for your dad and mom.” For some reason, he didn’t smoke cigarettes, but always rolled something out of transparent paper. This aroused my keenest interest.
They were together for 13 years. But they never switched to “You”. So as not to show overwhelming tenderness towards each other in public.
By the time we met, Mikael Leonovich had been married several times. I have never lived with any woman for long. And the wives were, as he said, “coming.” I then worked at the newspaper “Soviet Culture” and was a music columnist. I had a name and a reputation... scandalous...
~ Looking at you, you can’t say that you are a lover of fried food...
No, not in that sense. I defended justice. In music. And I really enjoyed doing it. I was the first person to write about Schnittke in the newspaper of the CPSU Central Committee, and this was the first positive review of him in the Soviet press. This was considered a scandal at the time. Several years ago I graduated from Gnesinka, defended my diploma in French music XN! century and was very passionate about her work at the newspaper. I was married and had a child. Although it was already clear to me that the marriage had exhausted itself. You know, this happens when people get married in search of freedom. My first marriage was just such a case.
~ What, figuratively speaking, was lack of freedom?
My mother, whom I adore, is a strong-willed person with certain ideas about how to build life and relationships. She tried to format my life according to her ideas. I fled from this into marriage. I was 19 years old.
~ When you met Tariverdiev, you were twenty-six, he was fifty-two. How did the acquaintance happen?
Somehow it turned out that way. that Mikael Leonovich knew me from publications. Naturally, I knew him as a public person. Although I can’t say that I was a connoisseur of his music back then. Having learned that he wanted to write an article about Rodion Shchedrin, I called and we agreed to meet. Mikael Leonovich invited me to a rehearsal. Actually, that’s how we met. Then he invited me to his concert. Then we met with him again. He wrote an article and it was published. He really liked the article, and at the same time he bragged about me and the article...
Then we went to the chamber festival of symphonic music, which Shchedrin organized in Vilnius. At this festival, Tariverdiev's violin concerto was performed. This was in October 1983. First day in Vilnius. We, a large delegation from Moscow, were just assigned to our rooms, after which we all met in the hotel lobby. And I remember this moment well - how Mikael Leonovich came to meet me with some special look. I have never seen him like this in Moscow. That's when something happened. We spent the whole day together. And then throughout my life...
Then, in Vilnius, he invited me to a restaurant in the evening. And he offered to play on the small piano that was there. I got scared and refused. But he played. Prelude “Meeting My Wife” from “17 Moments”. Much later I realized that for him this was something out of the ordinary. He didn't like playing in groups. Especially in a restaurant.
“...Vera was there too. Vilnius, fog, a strange feeling that we have known each other for a long time. A feeling of fear of frightening something away. The desire to tame... I had many women. There is only one left. For the first time I was not alone. And for the first time I had a feeling of fear. I've never been afraid of anything. I really wanted to prolong the feeling of joy and flight…” (From the book “I’m Just Living” by Mikael Tariverdiev).
~ Have there been any feelings of mistrust?
Absolutely not. I am a naive and gullible person. And he is the same. And then, rather, he was seduced than he was.
~ I meant his reputation as a Don Juan?
Andrei Voznesensky said very precisely about him: a mixture of Don Juan and Don Quixote. Of course, he felt and understood women. And women really liked him. He is so bright, beautiful, extraordinary... ~ What did you feel then, at the first moment of meeting?
When we met, there was such a warm feeling of not being alone. But the feeling of closeness, not accidental closeness - it unfolded gradually... He himself believed that he was a loner, and everyone around him thought so too. In me he valued not just a woman, but a close person. He was betrayed more than once, using his nobility. The story of an actress who, while driving his car, hit a man to death is well known, and Mikael Leonovich, in order to protect her from persecution, took all the blame upon himself. He was threatened with prison and time. The amnesty saved me. But the woman, at the most dramatic moment when the trial was going on, left the city. Mikael Leonovich almost lost his legs then. The romance ended irrevocably. Then this story formed the basis of the plot of the film “Station for Two” by Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky. Mikael Leonovich reacted very painfully to a personal drama that suddenly became public, captured in film... And he was also invited to the premiere.
And when, before his eyes, the relatives of the photographer Umnov threw the entire archive into the trash, he became incredibly agitated, because he thought that he would subsequently suffer the same fate. He didn't have a person he could rely on. Probably, it was partly a premonition of the inevitability of his fate... And when he suddenly got hold of me, he felt comfortable because he knew that I wouldn’t throw anything away, I wouldn’t betray him.
“...Back then she still wrote impudently. I imagined her as a fat older musicologist. And when I saw her for the first time, I was surprised at her naive, half-childish appearance. However, I soon realized that the naive appearance is somewhat deceptive...” (From the book “I Just Live” by Mikael Tariverdiev),
~ You mentioned Eldar Ryazanov. Together they made everyone’s favorite film “The Irony of Fate” and were friends for a long time.
Mikael Leonovich met Ryazanov in Pitsunda, at the film house of creativity. Mikael Leonovich, a big fan of water skiing, tried to teach Eldar to ski. Nothing worked out, but they became friends. One day Eldar was sitting and humming the song “The train will go to Tikhoretskaya,” and he noticed in passing that this folk song would be included in his new film “The Irony of Fate.” “What kind of talk is this! - Tariverdiev was indignant. — This is not a folk song, and it has an author. This song is mine...” Mikael Leonovich really wrote it a long time ago
before when Rolan Bykov staged his first performance at the Moscow State University Theater and he needed a song. Then even Volodya Vysotsky performed it. Eldar was amazed that this song had an author, and invited Tariverdiev to read the script for “The Irony of Fate,” according to which he was going to direct the film...
“When I read the script for “The Irony of Fate...”, I was very surprised. The genre did not fit any definition. For me this film is a Christmas fairy tale. The fairy tale is that we all - regardless of age - are waiting for a prince or princess to fall from the sky (without any effort on our part). Beautiful, charming, loving, who will understand us as no one has understood us before. This is a fairy tale (perhaps it comes true for some, but I think for few). Everyone dreams about it and always thinks about it with special warmth and kind irony. The film was made for the New Year, it was a special New Year's order from television, so everyone said that the film should have memorable songs - verses, with simple words. And then they “created a conservatory, romances”... And even such complex poetry. This will ruin the picture... Eldar Ryazanov turned out to be a wonderful comrade. We defended back to back. Although I admit that I myself felt fear. The success of songs from “The Irony of Fate...” admit. became a complete mystery to me." (From the book “I Just Live” by Mikael Tariverdiev).
~ From Vilnius you returned to Moscow, and for several years you had a secret affair, right?
I began to live a double life. A terrible fear that I could lose my child literally haunted me. I was afraid that it would be taken away. What then, in a sense, happened. Apparently, our fears are materializing. My son, who later lived with us and whom Mikael Leonovich treated as his son, left us at the age of 13. As a result of work carried out, among other things, by his father... But that was after. And then for some time, and quite a long time, we lived a double life, but this had its advantages. When a relationship is secret, it develops naturally and no one interferes with it.
“We came up with our own world. And they closed it with a secret. We felt so good. We even have our own New Year. Even when we couldn’t meet him together, on December 31st we moved all the clocks in the house four hours forward. They played the videotape “The Irony of Fate...” and the New Year began. This was the real New Year...” (From the book by Vera Tariverdieva “Biography of Music”)
When people quickly come into the light of God with fragile feelings, many try to influence them. There are always people in our lives who try to influence them. For the first time I came “into the light of God” in Sukhumi. Ashot, the boat driver, agreed that we would stay in his unfinished house on the outskirts of the city, near the lighthouse. I flew out of the Moscow slush into a warm, gentle night. October, fading Abkhaz summer. Small shiny lonely eggplant in the garden. Striped mattresses brought from the House of Creativity. In the morning the sun unceremoniously peeks into the windows without curtains. We didn't want to be apart anymore...
But you need to know Mikael Lenovich! He is a man who absolutely did not accept pressure. And he resisted. And if he didn’t accept, he could have done exactly the opposite - out of a feeling of protest. This led to consequences that were not always good for him. He could have done something in the heat of the moment. He had a completely furious temperament. Can you imagine what kind of willpower he must have had in order to so brilliantly outwardly restrain his hypersensitive nature?!
~Was he that impulsive?
How! In public he was, of course, reserved. Calm. But with loved ones... One day, I don’t remember now, why, he came and said, that’s it, God is against us. He tore off his cross and threw it away! Then Evgenia Semyonovna, our housekeeper, found this cross. He blamed himself for a long time... He was not a churchgoer. But he was always a believer. Mikael Leonovich was baptized in adulthood, of his own free will, in the Armenian Apostolic Church. His Christian view of the world is a completely conscious and mature feeling.
~ What was he like in the family?
He was, of course, the head of the family. But this is the most natural state for me.
“In a family, there can always only be one person to blame. Don't you understand that this is very convenient? There is no need to figure things out, sort things out... This is how we derive the formulas for our life together. It's always my fault. And I never argue with this. There is, of course, an element of play in this, which we both enjoy and without which everything can become boring. And boredom is impossible. Moreover, in a striking way, Mikael Leonovich is always right. We didn't have to get used to it. adjust ourselves to each other. Everything was adjusted a long time ago.” (From the book “Biography of Music” by Vera Tariverdieva).
This relationship formula is extremely comfortable. He became the man who shaped me. After him, other men are abnormal for me. I am a woman of his size. And for me, existing in another structure is simply impossible.
~ That is, you rather had a father-daughter relationship?
No, it’s just that everything was present in our relationship - daughter, father, mother, woman, man - we had the fullness of the relationship. In the morning he left, he always had his shirt and tie ready, his bag folded - a pipe and all his pipe accessories, tobacco... I really liked being his woman. I really liked our life. I liked to cook and take care of him. A woman, if she loves, enjoys it. If she doesn’t love her, her life irritates her. This is the law. In a sense, he was my ward, just as I was his.
In everyday terms, he was a completely normal person. Adequate, very sober in his assessments, wise, but at the same time naive. Because it's clean. And at the same time he is special. In everything. He is different. Unlike anyone else. Very vulnerable, sensitive. And in relationships, it was also important for him to maintain distance - he himself maintained it, but he also wanted others not to cross it, too, this line in relationships. I couldn't stand familiarity. Protected himself - inside. In general, it is worth looking at his photo to understand that he was incredibly identical to himself... Trusting like a child. I give him medicine, he drinks and jokes, saying that she can poison me. And then he adds, I can’t imagine how I lived without you? And this was also true. When we lived together, he often repeated these words... I remember the incident. We're home. Evening. Let's have dinner. Everything is calm in nature and in the soul. And suddenly Mikael Leonovich becomes incredibly anxious. He says that just now, somewhere nearby, a person literally became ill. And I think he was not mistaken. He just had the finest attunement to the world.
~ Okay, but did the guy have any shortcomings?
For me - no. And for me he is the ideal man. By the way, he believed that I had no shortcomings either. Although... There is one. Mikael Leonovich is a terrible neat freak who always demanded perfect cleanliness throughout the entire house. Pedantic... But I don’t, I have “creative disorder” on my desk and in my closets, this is not my favorite, but somehow inevitable state. And he couldn't come to terms with it. And then one day he swept the usual mess on my desk onto the floor. Could not resist. And I allowed chaos to remain only in my closets, which are closed...
~ What did he love?
If we talk about some kind of household structure of his way of life, he loved a lot. He loved to read. He loved good literature and poetry. And he also loved to read... instructions for various devices and carefully followed them. If a translation was needed, say, for his favorite cameras, he always asked someone to translate, and then we all
the translations were saved and filed. Unlike him, I hate instructions. And he also loved to brag about... me. He boasted that I learned to cook well from cookbooks. But this was such myth-making. And everything that I know how to cook - satsivi, lobio, dolma, khash - I cook solely on a whim. Well, I have this ability - if I try a dish at least once, if I like it, I have a rough idea of how to cook it. And Mikael Leonovich preferred Caucasian cuisine to all others. When people ask me what he likes...
What I eat most, I always boldly say, is meat. He couldn't live without meat. It's funny, but he liked pork chops. If there were pork chops, he could eat them every day...
~ Let me ask differently - was he loved?
Of course, he talked about his previous relationships and women, marriages and novels. Once he even told Mirra Salganik, his sworn sister, and me about this, and in a highly artistic way, as if summing up his personal life. And with a great sense of humor. He labeled all these stories as “the search for a quiet haven.” It was so fascinating and even funny that I suggested that he record this story on a tape recorder and make it a chapter in his book. He was very indignant: “Who do you take me for? I’m not Yevtushenko to make such things public?”
he had a very unusual appearance. It seems to me that one could fall in love with him just for his appearance. But he considered himself ugly. There were cases when, say, he was not recognized. For example, in Berlin we go to a photo store. People have no idea who he is. But immediately everyone rushed to him
They surround, surround, he attracts everyone to himself like a magnet. It bears the stamp of originality. In his favorite house of creativity in Sukhumi, where he visited for many years (he went to Sukhumi as a child), he lived there for two months or more, and wrote many works, he was simply adored. When he arrived, everyone came running, and I was always surprised: why does he go to Sukhumi? We somehow crossed paths there when we couldn’t travel together yet, and it was strange to me that he, having a choice between Pitsunda and Sukhumi, was going to Sukhumi. Then, when I started traveling with him, everything became clear to me: this was a place, a house in which he was expected, welcomed, loved - completely sincerely. Vartan came running: “Leonych, here is your lamp, extension cord...”. His room was waiting for him; he received the feeling of warmth that he so lacked in the outside world here. And this was extremely important to him. Georgians, Armenians, Abkhazians - all lived as one friendly family. Mikael Leonovich wanted to buy a house there. We came and looked, this was in 1991. .. But, thank God, there was no money, for this we would have had to sell the apartment on Iksha, and we simply didn’t have time...
~ Have you ever wanted to have a child with him? You know, we didn't think about it. We had no time (laughs).
I have a son, Mikael Leonovich also has a son. One day he and I came to the conclusion that we were not the best parents. We had our own world, we were so focused on each other that we didn’t need a third one at all. We really didn't need it. We had a great time together.
~ And now don’t you regret not having children?
No, because I could give all my time to Mikael Leonovich. Then no one knows what the children will be like. As Mikael Leonovich half-jokingly said, we were unlucky with our children. No, of course they are good, but I can’t say that they are very close people to us. They have their own destinies, their own world. They are not inside us, understand? They are. It just is. This is a rather difficult question. Apparently, when something is given to a person from above, something is taken away through another. It seems to me that there cannot be too many close people. It happens that people find spiritual closeness in children or parents. Sometimes it seems to me that Mikael Leonovich and I are “of the same blood.” It's hard to explain, but it's true. According to some human ideas, we may not have been together for very long, 13 years, but I will say this: we were together so tightly and concentratedly that it was not 13 years, but much more.
~ Why do you think your relationship with your son didn’t work out now? After all, he left you?
Vasya had a wonderful relationship with Mikael Leonovich. Vasya partly became his child for him. They did not live together for long with Karen and his mother, his first wife, singer Elena Andreeva. Although he raised Karen and took part in his fate, Karen never became a child with whom he rushed around like a sack. Sometimes it seemed to me that Vaska was closer to him. Vasya is a very flexible person by nature. And if we appeared somewhere together, blond Vasya and Tariverdiev with his, in the words of Andrei Voznesensky, “the profile of a brilliant saiga,” everyone around immediately began to talk about their similarity. And we laughed, they had nothing in common externally. But while Vasya lived with us, he even got his movements from Mikael Leonovich, he copied them like a child. I remember they made an agreement. Mikael Leonovich tried to teach him to read. So they decided that, they say, the high parties agree that for the read, for example, 200 pages, it is allowed
so many computer hours. If Vasya gets a two or three, then the time is reduced. A very funny, touching agreement. And serious... They followed him.
In general, boys were especially drawn to him.
They felt in him such a masculine principle, which is often lacking even in those boys who had fathers. At the age of 13, Vaska, like all normal teenagers, began a period of rebellion. He skipped school for ten days, we found out about this after the fact and began to have moralizing conversations with him, to which he burst out: “I want to live with my father.” I'm hysterical. And Mikael Leonovich says: “We cannot prohibit him from doing this, it would be wrong. But don’t worry—they don’t walk away from love. He will definitely come back." And he was right. Vasya left. He didn't come for several years. We saw him, of course, but rarely. And he actually returned to our lives after Mikael Leonovich left. Now Vasya is in India. He was found there by the guys from Channel One, who are making a film about Mikael Leonovich. My son spoke about him as a close, living, dear person, and that the best time was our life together. What a pity that he didn’t understand anything then, Vasya admitted bitterly. In general, no matter who Mikael Leonovich came into contact with in life, he always left a mark on the other person...
~ Tariverdiev was still much older than you.
Did he teach you something, so to speak?
Certainly. How to put it more precisely, let alone principles. There was a lot to do in the newspaper. I tried not to do anything I didn't like. But one day I wrote a review about the Moscow Autumn festival and mentioned one essay in a positive way. Mikael Leonovich got terribly angry with me: “How can you, you treat him completely differently?” he asked. He was very upset with me. But I couldn’t stand it when he was offended by me and was in such an internal conflict. I remembered this lesson and never did it again. He categorically did not accept lies and falsehood. I remember Nikita Vladimirovich Bogoslovsky pursued him so that Mikael Leonovich wrote an article about his symphonies. But Mikael Leonovich didn’t want to, but Bogoslovsky got it so hard that Mikael Leonovich asked me to do it. I wrote, but under a different name, it was impossible to refuse Bogoslovsky...
By the way, in 1974, after the release of the film “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” Bogoslovsky “from the bottom of his heart” came up with a joke that cost Mikael Leonovich too dearly. He almost had a heart attack. Later Bogoslovsky admitted to “his own humor.” It was about a telegram, which, having signed the name of the French composer Ley, Bogoslovsky sent to the Union of Composers and in which Francis Ley allegedly accused Tariverdiev of plagiarism.
“.. Everyone who was not too lazy read the telegram. Events rolled like a snowball: Mikael stole the music. “But, friends, you know the music for this film, compare.” (From the book “I Just Live” by Mikael Tariverdiev).
“The story of the telegram became a dramatic lesson for him. He learned the price of popularity. It is unlikely that popularity, without such a turn of events, could somehow spoil it. He never needed her in her status manifestations. He needed her as a sign, as confirmation of his relevance, understanding, as an answer to
~ How did he write music?
He always wrote only what he heard inside himself. Most often this was in the summer. It was important for him to find a topic, and then he worked freely with it. A new order appears, and he suddenly asks anxiously, what if I don’t write? I always tried to calm him down: “Mikael Leonovich, you have already written so much, well, take the old topic...”. And this somehow calmed him down. Sometimes he falls asleep, and in the morning: I dreamed of a topic, I have a solution. It came in a dream. He did not betray himself in anything - in the sense of his destiny. Except, perhaps, for the only time - the case with the ballet “The Girl and Death”, when a few days before the premiere at the Bolshoi Theater the ballet was filmed, and he was terribly worried. This story took place in 1987.
This is some kind of test that he had to go through and suffer what he suffered. He himself spoke about this story exactly like this. Because he agreed to the alterations, he generally agreed to stage the ballet, although he was warned that a real struggle was going on at the Bolshoi Theater. Its essence was completely alien to him, and intrigues interested him little. All that mattered to him was music in its purest form. He tried not to pay attention to rumors and warnings that the ballet might not happen... Many years before that incident, he actually abandoned the first studio recording, because the conductor with whom he was to work began to teach him how to record correctly score. And, despite the great desire to make a recording, Mikael Leonovich simply slammed the door and left. They later apologized to him and asked him to return. And then he admitted with all frankness and mercilessness to himself: “I so wanted this ballet to happen that I compromised with my conscience, but I shouldn’t have done that...”.
The message heard... He was a very convenient object for popularity and its constant manifestations - rumors and gossip. Elegant, handsome, talented, with such “non-Soviet” habits and hobbies as water skiing and boating, an athlete, a socialite, appeared in the company of beautiful women, smoked a pipe.” (From the book “Biography of Music” by Vera Tariverdieva).
“Of course, I heard about this very real war that is going on at the Bolshoi Theater. But I never considered it possible to take one side or the other, and I had no idea that the war was so bloody. But it seemed to me: The Bolshoi Theater invited me! And instead of behaving as always: here is the score, not a single note has changed here, if you don’t like it, goodbye, I’m ashamed to say, but I so wanted MY ballet to be staged at the Bolshoi Theater that I began to remake it... And everything became more banal... I myself ruined my ballet. And when I realized that this was death for me, I simply said: “Goodbye!” I don't WANT to know you! Neither the Union of Composers, nor anyone, I don’t know you.” But for a long time, several years, I came to my senses and regained my condition. A person, a normal person, cannot live in the condition of others. He can live in his own state, which he understands, then he lives normally.” (From the book “I Just Live” by Mikael Tariverdiev),
~ Vera, as far as I understand, you were ready for him to leave, he had been ill for a long time...
You never expect this and you don’t believe in it. But we already had this topic... Now I know that he felt his departure. After the operation in London, he joked that now his heart was made from the skin of the Shuttle, so strong. Somewhere in April at night he began to play the piano. I was so surprised because he hadn’t played the piano lately. And he looked at me in a special way and said: I say goodbye to my piano.
In the summer we flew to Sochi to see Kinotavr. We arrived at the airport, close people met us there. Together with Oleg Yankovsky we climb the ladder, and Mikael Leonovich has such a hard time walking the steps of this ladder. And I remember so vividly how Oleg looked at him... a little scared, because he was already feeling very bad then. We arrived in Sochi, and it was completely raining there, and it was so sad, and we didn’t go out anywhere, once - to the beach. And then Seryozha Ursulyak took us to “Akter”, where we had a ticket; it was uncomfortable to stay at “Kinotavr”. We had return tickets for July 25, I bought them a month in advance. And we had a flight at 16:00, and at 6 in the morning it happened... And we flew away on this plane. Together.
The viola concerto, which he wrote in 1993, three years before his death, is a concerto of departure. This farewell is about how the soul parts with the body. I am simply convinced that this is a chronicle of what the soul experiences when it finds itself THERE. This music always makes a very strong impression. The concert is a departure, and the Trio - the latest work of Mikael Leonovich - is a flight of the soul to the new, also THERE. She has already broken through. and this is her view of what she sees. When I realized this, I was shocked. And what I understood correctly, I have proof. When I wrote my book, I was very immersed in his music. I wrote that Mikael Leonovich as a composer was born in 1957, when he wrote a cycle of poems by medieval Japanese poets “Watercolors”. I analyzed this cycle. And now I’m writing the last chapter, quoting Mikael Leonovich’s favorite book “The Master and Margarita”, and at the end I conclude that “fate has come true, and the circle is closed” with a quote from the Japanese cycle: “Like a wanderer I am dressed, ready for the journey. My path disappears in the boundless waves...” And then something hits me in the head. I think I'll take the notes. I look, and at the end, where the last phrase of the Trio is, there is the last line of the cycle. The hair on my head began to move. For me this is a SIGN.
He never had any bad thoughts towards anyone. He called his book "I'm Just Living." He lived, preserving in himself that purity that gave him the opportunity to write the same pure music. And hear what he was given to hear. He was on a mission. And when he completed his task and wrote his last music, he died. His music, to use Merab Mamardashvili’s definition, always contains nostalgia—nostalgia for a distant homeland. To the distant homeland, which is “THERE”. We all came from there...
“In recent years, he often had the same dream. It's like he's floating in the sea. The sea takes him far away. And the shore is not visible. It was a sad dream. The sea was a fun day. At night, when I dreamed of it, it became sad. Because it was a different sea. In his music, whose time has not yet come, he is alone. However, he is always alone, a person who is self-determined within himself. Because he is alone with the world...”
