Discord in Land of Tchaikovsky

In Sunday’s Calendar, Stephen Wigler wrote that “the end of the Cold War, the collapse of communism and the dismantling of the Soviet Union may have been good for world peace. But they have been bad for music.” In examining the effect of Russia’s economic collapse on the conservatory system of musical training, Wigler visited the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where some of the world’s preeminent instrumentalists have trained, and found that rehearsal rooms go unheated and pianos untuned and salaries for teachers are shockingly low. In Part 2, Wigler looks at how some members of the classical music community are coping.

Not every musician in Moscow today is poor.

When you enter Vera Gornostaeva’s apartment, you remove your shoes. The Oriental rugs that cover nearly every square inch of the floors are to be trod only in slippers or in stocking feet.

Now in her middle 60s, Gornostaeva was never considered a major pianist. But her apartment is several times larger than those of more distinguished colleagues. The living room where she entertains guests does not seem diminished in size by two 9-foot concert grands. She is dressed fashionably, her hair is perfectly coiffed; she wears an emerald on her right hand, a diamond on her left and pearls around her neck.

Gornostaeva acquired her high standard of living--as well as her practice of making guests remove their shoes--through her frequent trips to Japan.

Other than “it’s a lot,” Gornostaeva will not say what she earns in Japan. But well-known Russian teachers are treated well by the Japanese, who pay their first-class air fare and living expenses, in addition to fees of about $2,000 to $3,000 for master classes, a dozen of which can easily be fitted into a three-week visit. Such visits also leave room for several private lessons at about $300 an hour.

She shows her American visitor an expensively produced, full-color brochure, whose cover, in bold letters, reads: “Gornostaeva: Pianist, Teacher, Publicist.” The brochure demonstrates an understanding of Western marketing techniques that some of her colleagues are either too old or unwilling to learn.

Gornostaeva says there are now enough “new Russians,” as the country’s newly rich capitalists are popularly called, so that she can teach privately in Russia and make nearly as much money as she does by going to Japan. The rich Russians she teaches “may not be the best [musically],” she admits, but she adds that the fees they pay subsidize “the poor students with talent” she teaches at the conservatory.

She rings a bell and a uniformed servant appears.

“Do you want some tea?” Gornostaeva asks.

A Relic of a Bygone Era

There are no servants in Oleg Boshnyakovich’s apartment. In fact, as the octogenarian pianist explains apologetically, there isn’t even any tea.

Still, he wants to offer his guests something. A visit to the refrigerator in his kitchen, with its buckling linoleum floor, turns up nothing except for a few eggs, some moldy cheese and a half-filled bottle of sweetened cherry juice.

This is probably the first you’ve heard of him. But several well-known pianists--Evgeny Kissin and Vladimir Feltsman, among them--insist that Boshnyakovich ranks among the greatest pianists of the last 50 years.

In Japan, the recent reissue on CD of several of the pianist’s old LPs has turned him into something of a celebrity. The CDs, which have received enthusiastic reviews from Japanese critics, have become among the best-selling items on the Japanese classical music charts.

He earns no royalties from the sales, but he is nonetheless thrilled.

“I have received many invitations to go there [Japan],” Boshnyakovich says, as he and his guests sip their drinks. “I would like to, but I’m too old to travel so far. Besides, the pain in my hands does not permit me to play much.”

Nevertheless, the pianist--who suffers from a heart condition--must climb up and down six flights of stairs in his apartment building, which does not have an elevator. He has a voucher for treatment at a sanatorium 30 miles outside Moscow and has been on its waiting list for almost a year.

“It’s overcrowded, so I’m not too hopeful about getting to see a doctor,” he says.

His tiny, three-room apartment is as grim as his situation. The grand piano in his living room leaves scarcely enough space for visitors. Wooden framework shows beneath the crumbling plaster walls, which are bare except for faded photos of his parents, his teachers and friends, such as the late Sviatoslav Richter.

The 107-year-old piano needs major repairs, something Boshnyakovich cannot afford on his teaching salary of $118 a month. However, he’s proud of his ancient instrument, a Bechstein he bought when he was a young man. Bechsteins, he says, were the favorite instruments of Brahms, Artur Schnabel, Dinu Lipatti and Richter.

“Richter loved this instrument,” Boshnyakovich says. “Whenever we had parties here, we couldn’t keep him away from it.”

“Would you like to hear me play it?” the pianist suddenly asks.

He sits down to play the first of Chopin’s G minor nocturnes.

The instrument is out of tune and Boshnyakovich’s arthritis has left his technique a little unsteady.

But the phrases emerging from his fingers are as beautiful as ever. It is playing that evokes the values of a bygone era, reminding the listener why music--and not just in Russia--needs the Russian past.

Preserving Culture in Difficult Times

A few days after the Tchaikovsky Competition, Mikhail Ovchinnikov, the Tchaikovsy Conservatory’s rector, sits in his office, discussing the future of Russian music education.

“The future of our conservatories depends on the future of Russia itself,” Ovchinnikov says. “Russia is in the most difficult times, but it wants to preserve its culture.”

The rector seems nervous. He’s expecting an important foreign delegation.

“Will you excuse me for just a few minutes?” Ovchinnikov asks his American guest, as his secretary ushers in a group of seven Japanese, all of whom wear tags identifying themselves as representatives of the Kawai Piano Co.

Ten minutes later, the door to the rector’s office opens. Ovchinnikov, now wearing a big smile, walks out and bids farewell by shaking hands with and bowing to his guests, bowing most deeply to the oldest member of the group.

“Do you know who that was?” Ovchinnikov asks, as he brings the American back into the office. “That was Mr. Kawai himself.”

No wonder the rector’s glowing. Kawai has just given seven new concert grands--worth about $500,000--to the conservatory.

While the Russian government is supposed to supply 33% of the conservatory’s budget--in Soviet days it was 100%--in reality it is much less than that and it is dropping as precipitously as the ruble.

Since the revolution, Russia has had no tradition of private support for the arts. When Ovchinnikov talks about raising money, he generally refers to sources outside Russia, usually Japan or the United States.

The Japanese have a high regard for Russian culture generally, for its music specifically and most especially for its pianists. It’s not surprising that Kawai should want Russians to be seen and heard performing on his instruments. Another reason for Japan’s interest in Russia’s conservatory system is that many young Japanese musicians now study in Russia. In an attempt to raise money, Russian conservatories have opened their doors to foreigners, who pay $7,000 a year.

But Japanese corporations have been less generous to the cause of Russian music than they were earlier in the decade--when, for example, the Pioneer Corp. completely underwrote the 1990 and 1994 Tchaikovsky competitions at a cost of nearly $10 million.

The chief reason for the drop in support has been the weakness of the Japanese economy. But another reason is Japanese worry about crime and incompetence in the management of Russian cultural institutions.

The most serious case of fiscal mismanagement involved the Central Music School. Twelve years ago, it was obliged to vacate its old building, a few blocks from the conservatory, and move to a distant neighborhood, an hour away by subway. The relocation was supposed to last only two years, but the renovation money disappeared. The old building itself was sold to a private developer--the school never saw a kopeck from the sale--who turned it into a number of profitable shops.

“Ten years after we were supposed to have returned,” says Central School director Sergei Usanov, “we’re still in a building located more than an hour away from the conservatory--a building in such terrible condition that its facilities make those of the conservatory look good by comparison.”

According to Usanov, the Central School needs $9 million to $10 million for a new facility and new instruments.

“That’s really not so much, and the work could be completed in five to six months,” he says. “We have dozens of extremely talented children who would benefit by it.”

Street Musicians Dot the Landscape

One of those talented children might have been the tow-headed boy, about 8 or 9, who played his violin in the Okhotny Ryad Metro station located beneath Tverskaya Street, across from the Kremlin.

In Soviet times, street musicians were never seen--not by tourists, at least. Playing for money in the street was begging. That was not only unseemly and supposedly unnecessary in communist society, but also not something that the privileged Russian musicians needed to do. Now Moscow, like other large cities, is filled with street musicians--particularly at subway stops.

The young violinist may have had the best location in the city. Tverskaya is the avenue where “new Russians” shop for the latest Western fashions and wealthy tourists stay at hotels for $300 a night or more. Moreover, Okhotny Ryad is the Metro stop closest to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Every day for almost a month last summer, thousands passed through it on their way to the Tchaikovsky Competition. It was then that the boy performed.

He was no ordinary street musician, but an authentic prodigy. He played Bach partitas, Paganini caprices and Kreisler morceaux with cold-eyed aplomb. And--like the somewhat older musicians a few blocks away at the competition--he drew a crowd. Appreciative Russians and foreigners stuffed his cap with ruble notes, deutsche marks and U.S. dollars.

He also was no innocent. Under the watchful eyes of what were perhaps adult accomplices or parents, he applied the same sleight of hand to his finances as he did to his fiddle. Although the boy could have used a gym bag to carry away his nightly earnings, he never permitted his cap to become more than half-filled.

He was entrepreneurial as well as musical, both the Artful Dodger and Oliver Twist. And, for better or worse, he may be the future of music in Russia.