26.03.2015

“I’m a happy person”

An interview with Elena Matusovskaya, Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation and Mariinsky Theatre concert-mistress, who will be appearing at the Concert Hall on 27 March


– Elena Konstantinovna, you have a famous surname – are you related to the poet Matusovsky who wrote On a Nameless Hill, Moscow Nights and Lilac Mist?
– No, it’s just the same name, but his daughter Elena and I share the name. There were even certain curious things – she was an art historian and when one of her articles was published many friends began to tease me. I never knew Matusovsky but they say he saw posters with my name and he wondered who I was.


– How did you get into the music world? Was anyone in your family a musician? Or were you taken to a music school and it just developed from that?
– My father studied for three years at the conservatoire and although he eventually graduated from the polytechnic he really had a passion for music. Sometimes he would come home from work and go straight to the piano in his coat and hat. From my early childhood, less than a year old, I would hear beautiful music: the inventions of Bach, Chopin’s mazurkas, Mozart. Basically I had no alternative. My father died during the siege and when the war finished I wanted to become a doctor. My mum told me I should be a musician – “That was your father’s advice.”


– How does the musical education you received compare with that of the present, what things do you see today in working with singers?
– Yes, singers come to my class, but whereas back then vocalists were almost considered fools then now it’s a different generation, it’s professionals that come. And with regard to my own training in the profession I was lucky, I had the wonderful teacher Nathan Yefimovich Perelman. What I do is everything that he taught me, it’s approaching the instrument, it’s imagination, it’s depth. At the same time he always focussed on simplicity, “not to tie it up in pretty bows.” His aphorisms from the classroom became famous and were turned into a book – In the Piano Class. I also have strong memories of my second teacher Boris Orlikovich Nakhutin who worked with many famous singers.


– Have you ever regretted the fact you became an accompanist and not a concert pianist?
– Never. I really love my work, I adore it, and so I consider myself a very happy person. I’ve been working for over half a century and I never find it boring when I come to class. Every lesson with anyone brings something new. I really love classroom No 314. The walls remind me of all the singers that have been there! There’s a specific aura, and even looking out of the window onto the Kryukov Canal is simply marvellous!
I also have no regrets about my choice of profession because it has two sides – there’s chamber music which I really love, I’ve had a great many concerts with wonderful singers (and such programmes!), and there’s opera – but there the scale is different, the sound comes across differently. I consider myself a coach and that’s more than a concert-mistress and so I can let myself meddle with some things. Basically I think that singing is a mystical thing. Great singers have written about the art of vocals, they do so today, but you can’t explain it, you have to show it.


– I’ve come across musicians who are of the opinion that you can judge a person and not just a performer by the way he or she sings and acts. What do you think – how closely connected are a person’s character and the quality of their performances?
– I think it’s all connected, and very closely. But that’s the case with chamber music rather than opera. The performer conveys the music and how they see it, how they react to it, that’s how you can see their personalities. I consider that a pianist, an accompanist, is an equal partner in the process – for example that’s been written about by Gerald Moore in his memoirs. Did Schumann compose his cycle Dichterliebe just for the voice? It seems to me it’s more for the piano. With regard to my fellow opera concert-master colleagues I believe them to be heroes because all of the work with a singer lies on their shoulders right up until the orchestral rehearsal.


– You have performed an incredible amount of music, but tell us about your personal tastes, sort of “likes and dislikes”. Do you have a favourite opera or a favourite song cycle?
– I like every composer without exception up to Mahler, I really love German music. I love Russian romances. With regard to Tchaikovsky it’s impossible to know how to play it – it has to be simple but it has to be deep and expressive. He’s the kind of composer that if you make a wrong move the performance turns into formalism or maybe even vulgar. So you have to think it through. Tchaikovsky was symphonist and so you have to mentally orchestrate his piano music.
I’m probably old fashioned. We’re supposed to love Wagner, but I don’t like him. With regard to contemporary music it’s like the romance But I’m Sad, My Soul is Quiet, I regard it speculatively.


– I know that you love more than music – you adore animals.
– I love all animals and worry about what’s happening to them. I’ve had pets – a wonderful parrot who spoke in monologues and two dogs. I hate seeing homeless dogs and cats or seeing dolphins being killed. It strikes you to the very soul, neither more nor less. If I could I’d build a huge shelter for all the animals and look after them myself. Unfortunately I can’t do that at present. Zweig wrote the novel Impatience of the Heart, and it’s impatience of the heart that I feel about that.
Speaking with Arkady Rumyantsev

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