Valery Afanassiev: Silence
Se taire et écouter, pas un être sur cent nen est capable, ne
conçoit même ce que cela signifie. Cest pourtant alors quon distingue,
au del de labsurde fracas, le silence dont lunivers est fait.
Samuel Beckett, Molloy
Not one person in a hundred knows how to be silent and listen,
no, nor even to conceive what such a thing means. Yes, only then can
you detect, beyond the fatuous clamour, the silence of which the universe
is made.
Samuel Beckett, Molloy
(Translated from the Russian by the author)
Nowadays silence has become a rare phenomenon that is energetically
set upon by various machines, machine guns and the twittering of human
voices. Silence is out of our reach because we have forgotten how to
listen to it. As if brushing it aside, we fill in the pauses that turn
up here and there. Silence withdraws into itself, punishing us for our
nonchalant scorn. The instrumentalists who opt for fast tempos seem
to apprehend the absence of notes. All the time they move their fingers
or vocal cords to sidestep the chasms at the bottom of which there lies
the source of music, its eternal mystery. I often say that silence is
the foundations of music. Recently I found a similar thought in a work
of the writer who remains, however, beyond the scope of my usual readings—François
Mauriac. I was not surprised in the least: my idea is perfectly banal.
I am rather surprised that musicians do not express it in every interview.
All you have to do is guard against any noise without stopping to listen
to yourself and the world. And gradually music comes into existence.
Like nobody else, Emil Grigorievich knew how to worship and handle silence.
Even his way of speaking testified to this knowledge, for he often interrupted
his speech to let the people around him meditate on what had been said
and also listen to silence. Not only did he speak musically but music
literally spoke through his voice, his manners, his thoughts, it never
forsook him, not for an instant—a beautiful example of requited love.
Even in his jokes one could hear music—something akin to the technique
perlé which was one of his numerous fortes.
According to my Japanese
friend, there has been no pianist like Emil Grigorievich in the history
accessible to us. Indeed it is not difficult to reach such a conclusion
upon analysing all available recordings. No pianist seems to have had
such a command of the instrument, without insufficiencies and blind
spots. One of the giants in this field, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli,
did not have the dynamic range comparable to what I heard once at the
Big Conservatoire Hall. That night Emil Grigorievich rounded off his
programme with Liszts Spanish Rhapsody. I have never heard such a forte
either at the Conservatoire or elsewhere. Even the Berlin Philharmonic
under Karajans baton did not make the air resound so mightily. As for
the use of the pedal, Gilels only rival was again Michelangeli; and
only Rachmaninovs recordings disclose to us the inner essence of rhythm
so implacably, with the same determination. But, I repeat, no pianist
has had at their disposal all these qualities: the refined pedal, an
incomparable dynamic range that seemed to include both six pianos and
six fortes, the divine sound that had no counterpart in nature, perlé,
octaves, trills. I once asked Emil Grigorievich how to play trills.
He said they should be played slowly: even in trills one should be able
to hear silence, its serene, unruffled presence. Garrulous trills are
obnoxious. The way Emil Grigorievich practised the instrument also reveals
his intimate bond with silence. In contrast to Richter, who repeated
the same passage over and over again, he never made his neighbours wonder,
Will he ever drop with exhaustion? Whenever I go away from the piano
and sit down on a divan to hear the piece I am learning with the inner
ear, I remember my teacher, his habits, his sonorous silence. He taught
me to hear not only music but also life itself; or rather, he taught
me to hear music in life. I wish I could say there is nothing in the
world except music. Whatever happens in it is music. Even death is music.
Some maintain that Gilels was above all a virtuoso. He was a virtuoso
in the highest and noblest sense of the term, being different in this
respect—in all respects that is—from contemporary virtuoso pianists,
dubbed by promoters the athletes of the piano, who just play fast and
have no inkling of how the instrument should sound and how to use the
pedal. These so-called virtuosos are not acquainted with many components
making up the notion of virtuoso playing. And since they violate silence
as soon as they sit down at the piano—and before, and after—often their
fast tempos produce no effect. What these spectacular tempos boil down
to is a lump of notes you are supposed to like. These pianists do not
listen to the music they perform and consequently hear no silence in
it. One should play Gilels recording of Chopins Etude in F Minor, Opus
25, to learn what piano-listening amounts to, when demonstrated by a
great pianist. And what about the way he listened to Mozart, Brahms
and Grieg? Can one, upon the testimony of his recordings (and concerts),
affirm that he was the greatest musician among pianists, all the more
so if one put on the list of his composers Beethoven?
Many had the
feeling that Emil Grigorievich was a restrained, unnatural person. But
how could a man who played so naturally turn out to be unnatural in
everyday life? Why confide in strangers anyway? Our drawn-out conversations
which often lasted far into the night seemed to prove that I was no
stranger to him. Does music depend on the ways and characters of the
people who are professionally involved with it? Perhaps not: Wagners
example is sufficient to deter one from prying into composers lives.
When prying into Gilels life, however, one is sure to be struck by his
natural approach to everyday events—as if his musical style were spreading
around him. A lot can be said about his humanity, but I am prevented
from doing so by his own modesty, by his unwillingness to display his
generosity in public.
I cannot refrain, however, from revealing
a story told by his son-in-law, Peter Nikitenko. Several times a year,
Emil Grigorievich asked Peter to depose flowers on the tombs of the
composers buried at the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow. I know several
people who, upon arriving in a city they have never visited, rush towards
the nearest cemetery: they are tomb collectors. But those who can hear
cemeteries, their silence and music, are few and far between.
Moscow, November 17, 2003