He Had Performed in Siberia and Factory Cafeterias : Refusenik Pianist Plays Moscow Again

Until he sat down at the keyboard Tuesday night, piano virtuoso Vladimir Feltsman was not absolutely certain that he would be able to appear for his first Moscow concert in more than eight years.

For Feltsman, 35, had not been allowed to play in the Soviet capital since 1978, when he applied for permission to emigrate.

Before that, he had been a rising star in the Soviet musical world. He had given recitals at the Grand Hall of the famous Moscow Conservatory. He had even been allowed to go abroad on concert tours.

It is not unusual for would-be Soviet emigres to be deprived of position and standing. Feltsman acknowledged, though, that the Ministry of Culture has allowed him to perform in Siberia, at such places as Omsk, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk.

At times, he said in a recent interview, he was asked to play at factory cafeterias during the lunch period--a considerable comedown for the winner of the grand prix at a 1971 piano competition in Paris.

On one occasion he traveled from Moscow to a Black Sea resort for a scheduled concert, but when he arrived he found that his performance had been canceled.

“We have no posters--Moscow didn’t send us any,” he said a local official told him. He caught the next train back to Moscow.

On another occasion he was asked to play at Spaso House, the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Moscow, only to discover minutes before the concert that the piano had been vandalized. Emergency repairs were made, and he went on as scheduled.

So it came as a surprise when, on April 10, the state concert agency asked Feltsman if he would appear at Tchaikovsky Hall, where Moscow’s most celebrated artists perform.

The invitation gave him little time to prepare, but Feltsman accepted. He dedicated the concert to other Muscovites who have been refused permission to leave and to friends in the West who encouraged his musical ambitions.

A large crowd of fellow refuseniks and friends from the U.S. and other diplomatic missions filled two-thirds of the hall’s seats. The empty seats, according to friends of Feltsman, represented tickets that were never put on sale. Dozens of people stood outside, begging for spare tickets.

Feltsman, welcomed by tumultuous applause, played an all-Schumann program.

The audience shouted “Bravo!” and called him back four times, until he played a Rachmaninoff prelude. More thunderous applause followed, and he returned for a second encore, Beethoven variations.

Afterward, backstage, Feltsman was mobbed by admirers and surrounded by flowers.

“I am happy the public still remembers me,” he said. “It’s a bitter joy when I remember all those years. . . .”

Earlier, Feltsman had explained that he wanted to leave the country so that he could arrange his own concert appearances and play wherever people wanted to hear him.

“I don’t want to be a doll in some bureaucrat’s hands,” he said. “That’s what caused me to make the painful decision to leave my country.”

After a moment’s reflection, he gave a harsher judgment on the Soviet method of dealing with performing artists.

“A country with a Ministry of Culture has no culture,” he said.