Calm and unflappable, accustomed to rehearsing all day long, Konstantin Emelyanov does not at all try to restrain his laughter, talking about the procrastination inherent in artists or the habit of flipping through the feed of social networks. And while viewers and critics, who have been closely following the musician's career since the time of the Tchaikovsky Competition, of which he became a laureate, do not skimp on benevolent characteristics, Konstantin himself repeats several times during the conversation: “The main thing is to be able to set goals for yourself, but everyone is not at all what you need to strive for. " And if parallels from the world of modern culture may be appropriate here, it's time to say that by his example he shows that classical music is not about fashion, but about style. Calibrated, harmonious and precise, not pretending to be bright, but always bright.
On January 21, Konstantin Emelyanov released his debut album, entirely dedicated to the music of Tchaikovsky. On January 27, he will present it on the stage of the Great Hall of the Conservatory, where the record was recorded in the summer of 2020.
You have released your debut album, with questions about which I want to start a conversation. First, it was recorded on the stage of the Great Hall of the Conservatory. Secondly, it is entirely dedicated to Tchaikovsky, whose name the conservatory just bears. Did you immediately decide to write here, in Moscow, and on stage, and not in the studio?
Classical musicians often try to write not in the studio, but in concert halls with good acoustics or even cathedrals where concerts are also held, because a recording made in live acoustics is much more interesting. We did not immediately decide to write in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, initially we thought to make a recording abroad, but then, in fact, what happened happened - quarantine. I sat, sat on it, and then I thought: why waste time, you need to use the situation. And then we decided that it was worth again actively dealing with the issue of recording, and in the summer we did it. In Moscow, the Great Hall of the Conservatory is my favorite in terms of acoustics, and the place itself is so prayerful - my Alma Mater. Moreover, there is a Yamaha CFX grand piano on the stage, which I have played many times and which I know well. And when you know the instrument well, it always helps a lot,because you understand all its features, all the possibilities.
How did the album program develop?
The process was quite long. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was to record the Scherzo from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, transcribed for piano by Samuel Feinberg. My professor Sergei Leonidovich Dorensky really wanted me to record it, because this work is rarely played and there are few studio recordings of it. The professor told me: "Be sure to write it down while you are young." This is a very masterly composition, and he said that such things should be written down while the hands, as they say, are still moving as they should. Because at the age of 60, probably, such compositions cannot be recorded. Someone may, of course, but this is very rare. So I built the program around the Scherzo. Of course, a lot of albums with Tchaikovsky's music by the most famous performers have already been recorded, but somehow I thought, thought, and that's how I decided. The soul wantedasked - and the program was built around the music of Pyotr Ilyich, although at first the options were very different.
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Does it happen when choosing works for the repertoire that the emotional, when asked by the soul, can give way to a rational approach? Or is it always an insight, a bright flash, when it becomes clear that the composition simply cannot be in the program?
Second, this is how it always happens with me. For example, the album includes the cycle "Seasons" by Tchaikovsky, and this is just one of the greatest hits of classical music, an incredible number of performances exist. Of course, I took a certain risk, because when you choose such a famous piece, everyone knows every note in it. First, you begin to imagine and hear this music inside yourself, and it seems to be very familiar, but you understand that somewhere you hear something differently, and you want to let it all through yourself, with your own hands, with your ears. On the other hand, it is always interesting when you choose not so often performed compositions, it is always interesting for both the public and the music community. I tried to balance, so that there are pieces that are not performed so often, and along with them such hits, masterpieces.
In the case of masterpieces, are there any additional distractions? That everything has already happened, that you need to put in more effort?
Here everyone probably has a different approach. In the first stages, I try to play as I see and hear it myself. Of course, then there are moments when you are already working on the program and looking for some solutions, listening to different recordings. Sometimes you find something, sometimes you strongly disagree with something. But this is more of a balance. Because if there is no something of your own and this is all a set of cliches and cliches, no one will need it, because it has already happened a hundred times. But here the question of time is still interesting. It itself changes rapidly, and people change, and people's sense of time. I even judge by myself that a year passes and you already hear completely differently, feel completely differently. Accordingly, when you take up compositions, even if you yourself have played them many times before, very often everything is perceived in a completely different way. And your interpretation changes all the time.
Time really goes by very quickly. Along with the new years lived, experience appears, but does the freshness of impressions not go away?
I think about it all the time, because it is also associated with the so-called creative burnout. If we talk about the freshness of impressions, it seems to me that when you are younger, some emotions are brighter, sharper, but at the same time they are sometimes more superficial. And when you already have experience, you see some things that you simply did not notice before, and often this is something more valuable. As if you are going to another level. This year I completed my postgraduate studies, that is, it turns out that all my years at the conservatory are over. While you are studying, even if already in graduate school, you think: well, I'm still … little. And when you go out into free swimming, you begin to perceive yourself and everything around you a little differently.
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Does the sense of time change? For a musician, rehearsals for 8-10 hours a day are rather a constant constant under all changeable circumstances.
And I think about it too. If earlier I could sit for 9 hours, and if necessary, and more, when everything is on fire and I have to be in time, and somehow easily convinced myself that nothing, I had to continue to work, plow and plow, now the older I get, the more sometimes it is more difficult to overcome such laziness, which is still inherent in all of us. (Laughs.) On the other hand, you really gain experience, grow professionally, and if earlier it took 8 hours, now you will do the same in 4-5. Forcing yourself to work even in such a context is more difficult, although you still have to, of course. It seems to me that it is very important to set goals for yourself, they can be some kind of far-reaching, or maybe some kind of close ones. Whenever there is a specific goal, it is easier for me. That's when we all entered the conservatory, for example, there was a goal - to enter, and you live by it,nothing else exists for you, everything is subordinate to this. Then, I remember, everyone enters, half of the first course passes - and everyone seems to relax, because they do not understand what is happening, there is no more goal and a new one needs to be found. Such plans for oneself are very helpful in getting together and continuing.
From this answer, we can conclude that procrastination is familiar to you, right?
In general, it seems to me, for all creative people, one of the main components, where we are without it.
At the same time, oddly enough, procrastination can be quite effective. In the sense that you want to postpone some business so much, so scary or painful to take on it, that instead you start doing others. And it turns out that this sword hanging over you turns out to be a certain kind of motivator, an assistant. However, it also happens that instead of other things, the series is more fascinating.
Yes, yes, I understand. You’re learning a piece, you’ve been sitting on it for several days, but you cannot learn it, it’s hard, and this ability to switch over, to teach something else, for example, really helps. This, it seems to me, also comes with experience. Because the younger you are, the more you succumb to things like "everything, nothing will work, nothing will work." And you don't teach, and you wander around, and all these thoughts do not give rest. Now, in such cases, I just start to get distracted by some household chores. I begin to deal with the website of public services or with the tax office, for example. And I think: okay, okay, today I sell my soul to the devil.
Do you sell it to the devil of social networks from time to time? It seems that this is such a Sancho Panza during procrastination, her faithful companion.
We sometimes discuss with colleagues: when you are studying, things are going badly - and right there you start flipping through something … I try to fight this and often put my phone in airplane mode, turn off notifications so that there are no temptations. And I must say, this also has its own buzz. Apparently, the brain is really in constant tension, that there someone could write something that you have to answer. And when the phone is off, you worry less about it. It's like the time on the plane, when it's just for you. You can do nothing, you can watch a movie, read.
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Also, people - both on airplanes and after work at home - listen to music in order to switch and relax, but for a musician, rest is most likely silence.
(Laughs.) No, I definitely don't listen to music to relax, because it's simply impossible. If I have an interesting book that I really want to read, I usually sit down to read, but to be honest, often in those moments when I realize that my brain is not able to work at all, I think about Netflix and other such “gilties pleger ". I know that many musicians like to watch movies and TV shows - their brains rest.
TV series and films often immerse the viewer in how professional communities work, how people of various professions work: from classic detectives and doctors for the world of TV to, for example, chess players, if you take Queen's Move, one of the last TV series that the whole world. A lot has been filmed about musicians too. Are they interesting to you? How the life of the orchestra is shown, for example, or how the biography of the pianist is told.
It was very interesting for me when I was still in college. It is clear that in this sense there is some conventional classic - "The Pianist" by Roman Polanski, for example. But basically you look at it all from the point of view that everything is unrealistic and most often has little to do with reality. And now it is more interesting for me to learn about other professions. With literature, by the way, everything is different, it is always very interesting to read works that are somehow interconnected with music. Hoffmann's works are very close to music. For romantic music, specifically for Schumann's music, this is a very important author. From the latter, literally in the summer, I finally read The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hess. I have been planning it for a long time, this is a very significant book for musicians. And everything is really so intertwined there that music is one, if not of the characters,then the dominant elements in the narrative and its construction. Also, of course, Thomas Mann and his "Doctor Faustus", but this author is not very close to me.
Let's get back to work. How to seek and find the line between your own author's interpretation and the composer's will, what he wanted and already said in the score?
Often the very personality of the author and what he put into the music are so self-sufficient that you don't even have a special opportunity to do something of your own with it, so that it would not be some kind of unnecessary conjecture. By analogy, it seems to me like a sculpture. Let's say a European classical sculpture: it is perfect, and you have a very small opportunity to go somewhere beyond this perfect form. Unless, of course, you want to deliberately cross everything out and ruin it. There is, of course, music, which, on the contrary, is like a white sheet. And there are great composers whose works are thought-provoking, to create more personal interpretations. And this happened to me more than once: I came as a listener to a concert, listened to the composition and realized that I did not like it at all, the music did not touch me, and that was all. And then suddenly I hear the same piece in a different performance and it seems to me that I want to play it, that this is incredible music. That is, there really is a moment that somewhere more depends on the skill of the performer. And again, everyone is different. Despite the fact that we are all taught, of course, to be universal performers so that we play all eras, it is still completely impossible. And the most outstanding performers of the 20th century, whose recordings we listen to and whom we admire, most often realized that it was impossible for one person to perform all the compositions of different eras and schools at the same high level. They were not greedy, they understood: this is my composer, and this is not mine. And you can even see that some performer has a huge number of recordings by some composers and practically no others. It's no coincidencejust something closer to you, coincides with your sense of time and space. We are not omnivorous after all.
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And who is currently among the composers so close to you?
I think more about who is not very close to me yet. Naturally, these are brilliant composers, but it is precisely the inner click that does not occur. Let's say I don't want to play Scriabin at all. I do not promise, maybe in five years I will record an album with his works, but not yet. Or, for example, Franz Liszt. I have performed some of his compositions, there is one that I dream of, I really want to play. But here is all the rest of his huge heritage of piano literature - for some reason I have no attraction for him. I understand that it’s not mine, and I don’t want to break myself, nothing responds.
We are almost always surrounded by external sounds. Even on trains, there are some constant jingles that precede informational messages. And restaurants, shops are trying to "create an atmosphere", sometimes make it louder, brighter. And the taxi …
The taxi is terribly annoying, I always ask you to turn it off. But there were times when the drivers argued: "No, I just want to listen to this." In general, there is a professional deformation, because I like it when I go somewhere or go to something, so that there is simply no music. If I went to a cafe and something is playing quietly in the background, I just don't pay attention, but if it's some really intrusive or loud music, it's difficult for me. When we go somewhere, to some institution with fellow musicians, then if we go in and hear live music or something like that, we just go out and move on in search of a quiet place. It's just that you really get tired of it.
What about contemporary popular music? Here the taxi is just a good example, because something new is constantly playing there. Can you roughly imagine what kind of performers they are, both Russian and foreign, whose songs are now played on the radio?
To be honest, I have little idea what is happening there. No, of course, I see and hear some names when I go to Facebook, but most likely I will not remember or recognize a single song. Basically, all my knowledge of music, which is outside the classics, remained somewhere at the level of the 2000s. While I was still in a regular school, there was a TV at home and something was slipping there.
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Musicians always feel the audience when it is located or, on the contrary, distanced. Is it necessary in the second case to somehow fight this, try to "win" the audience?
It is definitely impossible to fight this, although usually everyone starts, I know from myself. If you go out and feel that you are not going straight, you are absolutely not in contact with the audience, usually a reflex is triggered: you immediately begin to persist, give in, do some not very good things to try to captivate the audience. But in my experience it never works. In this situation, you need to bend your line, and it works better. But the public is sometimes completely incomprehensible. It happens that you come somewhere, play a concert, and it is really successful, but the reaction of the audience somehow does not correspond to expectations. And it happens that you play, and it seems that today something is unsuccessful, it doesn’t work, and the audience accepts it as if it was your best concert. And sometimes you just don't understand why this is so. Indeed, it is very important with what attitude people come, and, of course, in different regions it is different,it is felt very much, even within the country. And in different countries, of course, also in different ways.
Is there any kind of interdependence due to the fact that it is more difficult to surprise and conquer the public in Moscow and St. Petersburg than in the regions? There are more venues, more concerts, the posters are full.
Here, oddly enough, no. When you go somewhere to the North, there is a prejudice that this is a cold region and, most likely, the audience will be more Nordic. People there are, in principle, colder, more restrained, it is somehow connected with the mentality, with the climate. But it is often quite the opposite. And, to be honest, I used to try to build some kind of model in my head, that if I go to these regions, the audience will be like that, and in those it will be different. But then I realized that it absolutely does not work. You just go to the city, and they accept you with a furore, and then you go 100 kilometers from it and do not understand what is happening. It seems that he played no worse, but there was no reaction from the audience. The logic is that if you somehow coincided with the audience who came to the concert - in the sense of time, acoustics, in such non-verbal things, then there is a contact.
You said about the mentality. If you look at the stage, the musicians, do national traits and characters influence the manner of playing, in the broad sense of the word, the school?
It seems to me that now everything is so erased - all the boundaries. We are not talking about the last year, of course, for obvious reasons, but if we take the 20th century, as soon as the world became open, everything began to mix. And a huge number of our teachers went to work abroad in the 90s, some returned, some did not. Plus, there is a migration process all over the world. I myself went to master classes abroad, many study in parallel here and there. Plus the recording industry, its development with the advent of the Internet. We learn from our teachers, but we also learn when we listen to great performances - this is a school for any musician. And the more entries, the more opportunities to learn. However, in terms of mentality, of course, there are some things that are ineradicable, distinguish some from others. For example, the South Korean music school,there has been such a big surge in recent years. You come to any competition and see a huge number of pianists from South Korea of a really very, very high level. And they still have a different mentality. They have amazing performance, and it seems that things like procrastination are not about them. Here he will sit and repeat this 200 times until it is perfect. After all, we have such that … well, a mysterious Russian soul and sometimes something is possible somewhere, well, you know. (Laughs.)After all, we have such that … well, a mysterious Russian soul and sometimes something is possible somewhere, well, you know. (Laughs.)After all, we have such that … well, a mysterious Russian soul and sometimes something is possible somewhere, well, you know. (Laughs.)
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But can you compensate for this with emotions?
(Continues to laugh.) Yes. Earlier there was such an opinion that if a performer is from Asia, then he is very technical, virtuoso, but not very emotional. And lately, it seems to me, this has already become so mixed up that it has become more of a stereotype. I think that after a certain number of years, if everything goes well again, there will no longer be national schools, they will become rather conditional.
Today, the boundaries between genres, editions and the fact that if earlier after the concert the audience discussed it rather out loud, and music critics wrote detailed reviews, now everyone can express their opinion in a conditional post on Facebook, are still blurring. And on the one hand, there is much more content, and, on the other, there is less criticism in its usual sense. Have you noticed this?
Texts appear constantly, but earlier there really was more of a diverse criticism, full-fledged critical articles in which the authors draw attention to some advantages and disadvantages. And now it has largely come to the conclusion that "I like this person, so he is doing well, but this one does not like it, so everything is bad a priori for him."
Are you trying to distance yourself from this or, on the contrary, is it sometimes interesting to watch?
It is impossible to distance yourself from this only if you disconnect from social networks, from the Internet, so as not to see. All the same, after all, it catches the eye. Naturally, I will not sit and search on purpose. I have a dad, he is like an SMM manager who googles everything and sends it to me. (Laughs.) If there is an interview, review, announcement somewhere, I immediately receive a link in WhatsApp. There have been cases that it would have been better if I had not seen some articles, but nothing. I am trying now to treat this somehow easier, however. But this is normal: roughly speaking, the more views of a video on YouTube, the more comments and opinions there are. What is important for me is that I do not try to set a goal for myself so that everyone will like it. It seems to me that this is the most wrong way. If you try to please everyone, if this is an end in itself, then most likely you will not please anyone, but first of all yourself.
The RBC Style editors would like to thank the Yamaha Artistic Center for their assistance in shooting.>