I adore you, YouTube. What would I do without you?
While searching for some interpretations of a piece I've been trying to steal time to work on ~ Tchaikovsky's Dumka, Op. 59 ~ I came across some incredible clips that are making me completely... verklempt.
First, I stumbled upon a recording of one of my old Russian piano teachers, Evgeny, performing Dumka in concert just this past August. I studied with him for around three years, and he was such a lovely, lovely man and teacher. However (and I feel really weird and awful for writing this), whilst there are some sublime moments in this performance, I also feel he completely massacres it in others by taking far too many inappropriate (I think) liberties with the tempo, especially in Part A ~ the opening sequence. (Is that horribly sacriligeous and mean?) However, when his left hand reiterates that main theme and assumes melodic responsibilities while his right provides the harmony (at counter 1:15 on the player), the overall effect is simply heartstopping... and absolutely my very favourite part of the piece to hear and play. Despite its seeming restraint, the principle theme's overwhelming sense of tragic austerity is magnified in juxtaposition to the delicately lush accompaniment in the higher registers. And Evgeny's tone quality in this piece is, as always, just gorgeous.
The thing is, I first stumbled upon this piece (as a student of Evgeny's, ironically!) when I was writing a classical and indie music column for the university paper. My first classical interview and review piece was with Lars Vogt, a warm, humble, bright, and mind-blowingly musical German pianist whom I consider one of the greatest living today. (He'd just come away from winning second place at the ultra-prestigious Leeds Piano Competition.) Anyway, as was my custom, I bought a few of his CD's for research and delightedly discovered his recording of Dumka, which bleeds the soul with its intense blow of sustained, noble suffering. Honestly, his is still the best interpretation I've ever heard, and if you ever want to treat yourself to an amazing CD of breathtaking piano performance, get Lars' album of Russian pieces. A cool bit of trivia is that there's a very avant-garde, atonal sonata on there composed by his wife, Tatjana Komarova. (Isn't that such a cool name?)
But here's Evgeny's performance for your reference, just so you know the piece I'm talking about; as you'll see, it really is full of some gloriously divine moments:
Evgeny S. ~ "Dumka, Op. 59" by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
Well, inspired by finding Evgeny's larger-than-life and very muscular performance, I looked up my penultimately favourite teachers of all time, Boris and Inna, who'd moved away from Vancouver ~ after teaching us for seven years or so ~ to join the faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. (Due to their hard work and amazing talent, I won *tons* of competitions while under their tutelage. Their moving out east was, I think, the hardest blow to what might've been a professional career in performance; I wonder if they'd stayed, I'd have stuck with it ~ they were *that* inspirational and rigourous. With the exception of one teacher, I studied solely with Russian pianists, whom I find have this wonderfully dry, tragi-comic sensibility, distinctly passionate style, perfectionist attitude, and intensely expressive musicality. There's just something about the Slavic soul that just makes me *shiver.* Consider, if you will, the Kirov Ballet: Hello, Sensationally Exquisite Melodrama and Clean, Infallible Technique!)
Anyway, speaking of inspiration, Boris and Inna were a dazzling, wonderful, and fun couple who taught in their basement, and each brought their unique strengths to the collaborative table. They taught in a style that Maxim Vengerov has now made famous through his televised violin Masterclasses; they made pieces spring alive with stories and magic ~ full of dialogue, laughter, histrionics, and as much passion as an eight-year-old girl could understand. Their unerringly elegant sense of phrasing and exquisite tonal sensitivity were gifts they passed down to receptive students. And they were so musically and technically picky that you could go through an entire hour or hour-and-a-half lesson just working on three bloody little bars. It could make you want to *screeeeaaaam,* but you would eventually play those same three bars so beautifully in competition that adjudicators would sometimes ask you to come back down to the stage after your performance to play it again for their enjoyment. That was all due to Boris and Inna's efforts.
Of course ~ and this will sound far more risqué than it actually was ~ it was always such a thrill to be hitting the climax of a Chopin or Prokofiev piece or whatever, and having Boris or Inna nodding and conducting furiously with their hands beside you, panting, "Da! Da! Da!!! Oh, yes! Yes!!! Ahhhhhhh." It meant you were totally doing something right. And then they'd forget themselves and start babbling excitedly in Russian, realize they're talking to a little Chinese kid, then revert sheepishly back into English. Ah, my childhood.
(The last lessons I took with them was when I was 14, when they'd fly back from Toronto just to touch base with their old Vancouver students and offer lessons... at the rate of $75 an hour. Mind you, this was 19 years ago. My mother paid for six hours each time ~ two for the each of us three kids ~ even though we didn't have much money. That's love and sacrifice.)
Anyway, aside from teaching these days, Boris and Inna have created a concert series in Toronto called the "Off Centre Music Salon" at Glenn Gould Studios, modelled after the musical salons that were so incredibly popular in the Romantic era. Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, and a slew of other composers would rub shoulders with writers, artists, philosophers, academic intelligentsia and nobles at these house parties where everyone just performed and conversed for their own enjoyment and edification. In this age of glossy and gross hair and nail places, "salon" just had such a different significance then, eh?
Boris and Inna ~ The Off-Centre Music Salon Promotional Video
As an adult now, I really, really wish I could still study with my beloved Uncle Boris and Auntie Inna. The greater depth of emotional colour I now hold on my musical palette is something I wish I could bring to lessons with them. And I know it's been almost twenty years, but I'm kind of sad to hear their very cool accents softening; I looooved hearing their beautiful voices when I was a kid, even though I didn't always understand them. Nevertheless, it is so very good to see these two still going strong; they are an absolute blast.
(photo of me and my sweet Kawai taken by The Boy)
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