Andrey Volkonsky biography

Close Volkonsky Andrey Mikhailovich - composer, harpsichordist, pianist. The biography of Andrei Volkonsky was strikingly different from the biographies of all his Soviet colleagues. If only because few of them could boast of such a pedigree. In the family coming from the Rurikovichs themselves, there was, for example, the prototype of Prince Bolkonsky Sr.-Grandfather Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Sergeyevich Volkonsky.

Another remote relative of the future musician avant-garde-the mistress of the famous literary salon Zinaida Volkonskaya-was dedicated to poems by Baratynsky, Pushkin and Mitskevich. Andrei's parents left Russia immediately after the October Revolution. Father, a baritone singer, sang on different European scenes, using a pseudonym so as not to throw shadows into the princely surname.

In the year, when Andrei was born, the family lived in Geneva. Here he will begin to make music - first at home, then at the Geneva Conservatory, he will have time to learn one year in the Russian Conservatory in Paris, but he will come to the USSR with his family. So parents, always belonging to the pro -Soviet part of emigration, will respond to the post -war call of the authorities to the exiles to return to the historical homeland.

Volkonsky promised assistance in search of housing and work, but his father will soon be exiled to Tambov with a mocking formulation “in the place of former residence” - before the revolution in the Tambov province there was one of the princely estates. Andrei himself miraculously manages to leave with aunts in Moscow, where he will go to a music school, and then to the conservatory.

It is not inclined to recognize the authorities, later he will notice that the training at the composer faculty was considered his teacher, Laporin was considered little in life. But Volkonsky takes out records with Schengberg’s notes and books on serial technique, independently searches for his way. Volkonsky will not end the conservatory, not wanting to retake exams on the history of the CPSU, which will not prevent him from becoming a member of the Union of Composers, to be executed, to receive a lot of orders for films for films and performances.

The writings of a young avant -garde is often played by Maria Yudina. Known as extravagant acts, it precedes the performance by a phrase that confuses the author himself a lot: “This work, like the works of Dante and Shakespeare, will live for centuries”, or warns the audience that Volkonsky’s works are difficult to understand the first time, and therefore it will now play them twice in a row and asks not to be applauded in the middle ...

In the year, the Volkonsky plays several times in the small hall of Leningrad. Philharmonic: Sonata for Alta and Piano with Fedor Druzhinin and piano Musica Stickta in the same program with Beethoven, Stravinsky, Kenex and Weburn. Nevertheless, the general public Volkonsky is better known not as the author of dodeconon opuses or soundtracks for the comedy “Three Plus Two” and to the Detective “Dead Season”, but as an old music artist, the harpsichordist, organist, creator of the unique vocal and instrumental and the NSMBRAGEL NSEMBEL.

I went to all rehearsals. Intentionally, or by accident, the musician releases another episode from his biography, which, long before the creation of Madrigal, reflected his passion for old music. In the year, Rudolf Barshay gathers the first Moscow chamber orchestra in the country, in which Volkonsky plays on the harpsichord. Together with the "Barshaevists" the musician first appears on the stage of the Big Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic in the year.

Their cooperation will continue for long. Already in m, right during the tour, the harpsichordist leaves the orchestra. In the Great Hall, Volkonsky will speak again in the year: Major Bach with a well -deserved team under the direction of Gennady Rozhdestvensky plays the key concert. Famous musicians support Volkonsky and willingly collaborate with him. The prompting of the young composer is included in his programs by the harpist Vera Dulova, the quarter named after the committee.

With this ensemble, Volkonsky debuts in the Small Hall named after Glinka on May 10, as a performer of two piano quintes - this is the premiere of the composition of the year and the jar. Up to a year, 66 concerts of the musician will take place here. He plays solo harpsichord evenings-French and English suits of Bach, Goldberg Coming, as well as Scarlatti, Ramo, Coopers, performs Bakho sonatas for cello and harpsichord with Daniil Sharn,, representing joint programs with Nina Dorliac, ancient music is immediately indicated as the main preference.

Only in rare concerts is it combined with the opuses of contemporaries, among which there is also a composition of Volkonsky himself - the sonata for Alta and piano at the evening with Rudolf Barshai, the prime minister of the vocal cycle of “Simaza complaints” for the soprano, English horn, violin, Alta, xylophone, viberon, tambourine and harpsichord, which was performed by Lydia Davydova, author and author, author and author, author and author.

Artists of a honored team under the direction of Igor Blazhkov in April of the year. The artists of both philharmonic orchestras participate in his ensemble programs. In the winter of the year, Andrei Volkonsky arrives with the new composition of the ensemble, which received the status of the standard team of the Moscow Philharmonic and the name “Madrigal”.The ensemble "Madrigal" in a concert on January 31 of the year.

Sitting on the left - Lidia Davydova. In the lower picture behind the body - Andrei Volkonsky. Shostakovich already on the first visit of Madrigal gives six in the Philharmonic!

The success of the Volkonsky ensemble was grandiose, interest in unknown music and its performers was incredible. Already in May of that year they again give four concerts, and in the near future the Madrigal programs go not only paired, but also with triple dates, and repetitions collect crowded halls - small and large. The ensemble "Madrigal" and Andrey Volkonsky.

Rome, year. Volkonsky and his ensemble are opened by the previously unknown layer of music of the European Middle Ages, from which the surname of Pacelrina, Berda, Frezcobaldi or Monteverdi is known themselves. Programs are divided into blocks built according to the geographical and chronological principle: Germany from the time of the Reformation, England from Shakespeare, Italy from the time of the Renaissance ...

In a year in several concerts, Madrigal musicians represent Russian music of the XIII -XVI centuries - anonymous spiritual hymns. Only their names - “Individuals of Cherubs”, “Uniform Son”, “It is Worthy” - sound a sharp counterpoint of the surrounding reality. Volkonsky himself feels this dissonance more and more. At the end of the spring of the year, his last performances will take place: in the Big Hall on May 19, with the Leningrad Chamber Orchestra of Lazar Gozar, he performs four clavier concerts of Bach, in the Small Hall on May 21, two harpsichord suits of Cooper and two piano mozart sonatas are rare for Volkonsky case, and on May 25, at the evening, the sonata and the trio, acts as a pianist in Ensemble with Oleg Kagan and Natalia Gutman with a program from Mozart and Beethoven.

At this time, he is already preparing for emigration: the New Year Andrei Volkonsky will meet in Geneva. Subsequently, he admits: "I made two mistakes in life: the first is a return to Russia, the second is a new emigration to the West." Somewhere in another interview, he will explain this idea: with all the censorship prohibitions in Moscow, the musician felt among like-minded people united by the common cause, in the West he was alone.

Having lived for some time in Switzerland, Andrei Volkonsky settled in France. He composed, although not as intensively as in his young years. I tried to create an ensemble like Madrigal. For two years, he recorded the entire “well -tempered clavier” in the harpsichord. He wrote the book “Fundamentals of Temperations”, published, including in Moscow in the years, in which he formulated the results of his theoretical research.