Grigory Sokolov Biography

But perhaps no one, even the most insightful professionals, even his teachers and teachers teacher suggested that a great pianist of the second half of the XX - the first half of the 21st century was born before our eyes. Grigory Sokolov and his aura ... Alexander Yablonsky victory of the schoolboy Grisha Sokolov at the third competition of Tchaikovsky was, of course, sensational.

Not only is there a Leningrad, but also a student of the ninth! We, of course, were fading for Grisha, although many of us - but not me! If not Leningraders - the patriots of their city - then Muscovites, for sure, were rather disappointed with Sokolov’s victory. Waiting for Dichter's victory. He was simply not taken seriously. And because he is young, and, most importantly, because he is a Leningrad.

That is an old, old rejection, rejection by the capital of any phenomenon from the banks of the Neva. Since the long -standing Leningrad business. Already from the first round, an open ill -will have been revealed in relation to it not so much professionals as an income -music and official press. These passages of the criticism or the official editions of the performance on the first round about all - with details, about Sokolov - not a word that it does not exist; This bias, which is generally inconceivable in the competition, when the second and third tours are ahead, this atmosphere of arrogant neglect and discredit did not affect the level of the performance of the highest level, amazingly even, from the “nerd” to the third round of Grigory Sokolov at all stages of the competition.

This boy, a bit of a fuse, as he remembered at that time, turned out to be a real fighter. In the capital of Russia, he does not speak. He does not act in Russia, making - making - exceptions for his hometown once a year, although in recent years it could have been covered, temporarily, this outlet for Leningraders and specially coming from Moscow of sincere fans.

It is amazing how the ability of the Motherland to repel the best sons has been progressing recently. The other wonderful, unique musician did not cross her border for a long time - Evgeny Kisin. When the winner was announced among the pianists, there was a flurry of delight and, at the same time, some confusion, some kind of disappointment or bewilderment. However, the sensation was strange, quiet.

Local significance. They said that at the first prize, Sokolov was insisted by the chairman of the jury of the pianists Emil Gilels. This is not so: Gilels better than anyone understood the degree of talent and skill of the boy, the only one predicted his great future and “did not hide” his foresight, but he was not taken alone.

For the first prize, G. Sokolov voted 16 members of the jury, for M. Dichter - 3, for E. Auer - 1. But in folk opinion the main merit or wine was attributed to Gilels. In the "Our Pianistic clan" he was idolized. His opinion was irrevocable. Someone, on the contrary, poked in the back of the great musician an umbrella when he walked after the announcement of the results of the competition for the passage of Tchaikovsky’s hall; They say they threw tomatoes at the exit.

I have not seen this, but the fact that the passions of the “pros” and “against” Sokolov or Dichter boiled serious, that's for sure. We - Leningraders and "Gilelsyans" - rejoiced. However ... however, something prevented himself from surrendering to a full jurisure. Klibern, Oglon - and suddenly a boy of Ty years old ... were amazed at Sokolov’s talent, more - his excellent equipment, that is, they talked more about Liya Ilyinichna Zelikhman, his teacher indeed, outstanding, about the unconditional victory of that direction in the Leningrad and Soviet performing, to which the winner belonged.

Naturally predicted a wonderful professional future. To have time and not to be late, to get into that brief historical moment of our history that formed his spiritual world - not only nature and the Almighty took care of this, but the individuals who defined us as a nation, our culture in the broadest sense of this concept - “culture as a cultivated environment of cultivated personalities”, in contrast to it; “Ours” means “Russian”, but, first of all, Petersburg; The creator of our idea of ​​the beautiful, about harmony as genuine freedom, the creator of that taste of freedom, the embodiment of which he himself was.

This moment of the beginning of the century in the December of the year - a moment of awakening and inflammation of the knightly sense of honor, the cult of personal dignity, sensation and awareness of the self -worth of the personality and its estate, who escaped from the centuries -old bonds of the boyar kicociality and who was concerned about the good of the Fatherland, as the only worthy goal of being; A moment of attempt to achieve the utopian ideal of aristocratic nobility and the purpose of the nobility as the highest spiritual pastor of Russia - attempts by the doomed year interrupted captivating illusions, but a moment of maximum approximation to this ideal, this moment gave the spirit of freedom, genuine aristocracy and dignity that Pushkin managed to breathe in.

Was he born fifteen earlier or later, would he be a great poet? What was the ingenious Lermontov or the talented, noble Baratynsky, or Batyushkov.Perhaps better than the latter, and better than many others. We would be different. Rassadin is right. An exaggeration in comparison of personalities not only in scale and archetype of artists, and in comparison of the eras. Exaggeration, but not distortion.

Born Grigory Sokolov, even ten to fifteen earlier or later, he would still be a great pianist, the deepest musician; Powerful - one of the most significant figures of world performance - but he would be different: another would be his human appearance: no better, no worse - to others; Others would be our “relationships” - the performer and the listener, our expectations would be different, we would be others.

And the point is not even that Sokolov could have other teachers, peers, although this is important: he has the teachers - L. Zelikhman at school and M. Halfin in the conservatory - were not just outstanding, but uniquely correlated with his gift, individuality, maximally related to all his appearance. It would not be the main thing: that rare success of the coincidence of one chance-birth-on the other-unexpectedly, unexpectedly incident in our history; Two principles: subjective and ...

also subjective, otherwise you can not call objective laws the social development of Russia is not subject to. This is a happy coincidence, which miraculously woven from the diverse flaps of the era x, "which was on its mature, this double surprise of fate gave, as a result, such objectivity as our ideas about the purpose of art, about the beautiful, about what the taste is, is harmony." It is said about Pushkin Art.

I will repeat about Sokolov. For this is not an exaggeration, not a stretch. You can't say better. In every sense. And in the sense of the general cultural state of society, its fantastic concert life, in particular, by the abundance of great guesters - such a “starfall” was not in the entire post -war history of the country: from the arrival of G. Guld to the occupation of Czechoslovakia and not only concert life.

And purely professional. Born Grigory Sokolov ten to fifteen years later, I repeat, he could not help but become a great musician, but he would be different. He would not have learned from Leah Ilyinichna Zelikhman. She left early, at 61. It was th. Samaria Ilyich Savshinsky, the head of that direction of the Leningrad piano execution, which is rightly called the “school of Nikolaev”, but, most importantly, the indisputable professional authority and the bearer of that aesthetic guideline, if this word applied to him, he never “oriented it”, he simply was just without which our musical life was unthinkable, and not only among students and colleagues, was gone.

But among the huge number of musicians of Leningrad. Born Sokolov fifteen years earlier, everyone would be alive and even much younger. The atmosphere would be different. Dead and deadly. There would be no air for life. Grigory Sokolov G. Sokolov was born in a year. In m cockroaches, he was dead, and he was put in a box for a while next to the eternally alive. So Grigory Lipmanovich found the atmosphere of fear and horror, but did not taste it, did not soak it by virtue of his infancy.

The Kafkian world was edited, reformatted. He did not take such a phantasmagoric forms. They began to return. It turned something fresh. In different families, they reacted differently to this. I must say that the intelligentsia was less perspicacious than ordinary people. My mother cried on March 5. All the neighbors came and, forgetting centuries -old strife, sat, hugging, on my mother’s bed it was in the morning, and sobbed.

The coming housekeeper of our relatives - a typical village illiterate working woman - reacted differently: “Did he burn? Well, glorious, the dog is a dog death. ” Adults talked about this in bewilderment, scared and whisper. However, as far as I know, the population of Leningrad was closer to the people than Muscovites: there was no such general grief and madness as in the capital.

They told how mourning rallies took place in the unions of writers or composers, at the Research Institute, Moscow universities: the speakers of both sexes went to the rostrum, opened their mouths and began to sob. Sincerely, uncontrollably: “But how are we without him?! Our poor children! For what!?! There was no such mass hysteria in St. Petersburg. Most were not so much even in grief as in fear, a familiar stick -up fear: no matter how much it is worse.

It could not be worse - nowhere. It cannot be worse in principle. But our people are “optimist”: “Maybe, maybe! There was no Stalin, but there was Beria, Malenkov. True, soon the main Chekist was liquidated. Malenkov fell in love in the village: he facilitated the hardships of the collective farmers, allowed him to grow cattle in personal farms Khrushchev then selected cattle; In lines, in the market, in baths about him they spoke as a saving, in some huts Malenkov’s photograph hung next to the icon.

The nation did not think and does not think even in the 21st century of its existence without a god, without a leader, plowing ... But then the anticipation of horror gradually began to dissipate. In many families, but not in the majority, the death of the main gardener caused quiet, and sometimes loud joy. We came to visit with wine, congratulated.Then there was an article by Vladimir Pomerantsev “On Sincerity in Literature”.