Happy birthday Stuart!

[Wes]

On the topic of Russian art and economy, stuartr speaks, quite authoritatively, from his experience in Vladivostok.

I've never been there and have traveled to very few places outside of Moscow. The view from the capital is just a little more promising than from Vladivostok. Capitals always tend to skim off a lot of the money and talent that inevitably passes through them, and Moscow is no exception. The country is huge and a new version of federalism is still under construction now that the former basis of federation, the Communist Party, is out of power. Responsibility for most of Russia has been abandoned by the center--unless something at the edges defies its authority.

Here in Moscow, the residents that enjoy the arts, from high culture avantgardism to the cheesiest of cynically invented pop marvels, can usually get to them. (To put it in perspective, a five-symphony concert series might cost less than $10, but that's about half of a month's pension in Moscow. On the other hand, the major rock groups from the West play for $65 and up for a stadium, and they sell out. All these kinds of events are well-attended.) There is a good deal of corporate underwriting of events performed by local and imported talent. All the big acts of the world come through here, it seems. There is a local, more than competent jazz scene. Ethnic acts are available. Above all, the respect for high culture is still alive, fading no doubt, but still alive.

The tastelessness of New Russians is definitely here, and it is a huge influence but not yet the dominant one in Moscow.

I'm still impressed by the large of number of young people, teenagers and younger at symphony concerts. The teenagers are sometimes carrying musical instruments but more often are there without parents and with some friends. The youth in general still thinks exposure to classics of all kinds is a good thing that is bound to improve something in one in some unspecified respect.

If there were adequate funding, then arts here would bloom. But the window of opportunity is closing. Already performing artists that can work outside Russia do so and make a few appearances here out of charity and gratitude. This means that generally only the language-based art is still really comparable to what it had been in Soviet times. The writers and actors have had fewer options to flee. The teachers are probably not being replaced because their profession is one of the worst-paid in Russia; therefore, the conservatories will not be able to crank out large quantities of talent for much longer.

So, a long-winded introduction to a sort of answer for you, Audio Redneck. I could mention a jazz (but very classically oriented) pianist named Danil Kramer, a jazz saxophonist named Sergey Butman (definitely plays a lot in the West), a classical composer named Vladimir Martynov (but he's patchy, sometimes offering good, complex things and too often the most irritating brand of minimalism, e.g. "Darf ich" on Gidon Kremer's disc "Silencio"; his good stuff seems not to have made it to disc), an early music group called the Ensemble of Ancient Music led by Tatiana Grindenko. There are many more that I could name (if my memory were better). Their availability in the West is something I don't know about, but I am glad they are here.

On the whole, though, stuartr may well be pointing to the future of Moscow. It's just that Vladivostok has arrived there first.

 

[stuartr]

Yes, my statements about Russia should all be prefaced:
"I'se from the backwoods, if'n ye don't know!"
Moscow and Petersburg are quite different. If you want a city for museums, Petersburg can whoop the ass of all but the greatest cultural meccas -- NYC, Paris, London and Berlin.
There definitely is a bleeding off of talent as well -- good musicians and visual artists simply make more money in the West.
I think Vlad is a little more culturally spare than most of western Russia -- it is hard for people to get all the way out here....seriously 9,000 km from Moscow, 9 hours and 500 bucks on the plane. Artists would rather hop the 2.5 hour flight to Rome and make 4 times the comission. Even Yaroslavl had a much better symphony with much better traveling musicians.

I tried to buy a copy of Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues today, and the girl at the cd shop laughed at me! She really did. I asked her where I could find it, and she said Gorbushka (the cd market in Moscow). I **** you not.
Anyway, there is one nice club here though, so that is good at least.

 

[Wes]

Nasty enough experience, stuartr. Gorbushka is no more, however. It's been tidied up into a covered shopping area for electronics so that Luzhkov could claim to be cracking down on intellectual property pirates.

If you were not leaving so soon, I'd offer to mail you some discs. The Opus 87 Preludes and Fugues played by Tatiana Nikolaeva are on sale here in several places. But I think the mail won't work quickly enough for us to be certain you'll get them by July. Have you ever tried mail order within Russia from www.ozon.ru?

 

[stuartr]

I have been -- I actually bought my panasonic 780 there...before I had talked to you long enough to make a Moscow head-fi meeting feasible (that would have been fun though...).
In any case, I have not tried mail order -- I actually receive my mail through the diplomatic pouch, as the Fulbright is quasi-official. This sounds much grander than it is however, especially after the anthrax scare. I received a Christmas card that my friend has sent me in the beginning of November at the end of March! Sometimes things take two weeks, sometimes two months. I did a cd exchange with wab, and he got his cds in 4 days (I sent them DHL), and I had him send them to the pouch (that is Netherlands to DC to Moscow to Vladivostok) -- needless to say, this beaucracy is not the most efficient way to do things. I got my cd from him about a month and a half later. The CD was worth it though! It is kind of infuriating. In any case, I have two friends who own a cd/dvd shop, so I might ask them if they have it, or could order it. I would do mail order to a regular address, but my apartment is not really too conducive to receiving mail -- it has those clunky mail slot things at the bottom, but I have never seen a mail man or anything like that...I think it would be a big risk.
As for the op. 87's, The nytimes recommended TK's second version (I guess she has three) last week in an interesting article on Shostie...but they also recommended Ashkenazy. I think I will go wtih TK though, as even though she is a nut case, she was the one they were dedicated to, and that means a lot to me.

 

[DanG]

I have the Nikolaeva cycle -- not sure which version, but it sounds quite good. If you play the piano you should also try to play the preludes and fugues -- some of them are technically difficult and can be quite fun.

I was only in Russia once, and that was last June... but both of my parents lived in Moscow until the early 80s and so most of what I know about the changes to Russia are from them. It's hard to find what my mom affectionately calls "Russian ice cream" which we weren't able to get anywhere in Moscow... I still don't know what the hell the difference is supposed to be. There are lots of crappy American-style dance clubs and in every underpass you can find people selling pirated copies of Western software and music.

Lots of things changed -- much is modernized (read: Westernized) and much has been lost, but many opportunities have opened up again. One of my favorite movies was a Russian TV movie version of Bulghakov's Sobachye Serdtze (The Heart of a Dog) which premiered in 1992, I think. Before that date, this sort of anti-communist and extremely anti-pc film would not have been allowed to air (yes, American political correctness is what precedes Communism). The film Kafkhazney Plenneek, released in the US under the title Prisoner of the Mountains is also a film from the 90s which was nominated for the Academy Awards and was a wonderful film.

When I was in Moscow, one of my dad's old Soviet friends got tickets for us to an underground drama production of Bulghakov's Master and Margherita. I've not seen too many plays, but this one was by far the best, beating by far the pop-"culture" of America's Broadway. It was, in fact, a reading of the entire book on stage in five hours with not a word added, removed, or edited. It was quite a strain for me, as an American, to understand everything, but I managed.

I've only been to St. Petersburg once, but I've been to NYC many, many times. And St. Petersburg's art galleries are collectively FAR better than New York's. Especially when you consider that Russia's been building its collection for centuries and the very Nouveau Riches you guys denounce are the ones buying whatever costs a lot for New York. On the one hand you have good purchases, but then you have your modern "art" and your Egyptian leftovers and corpses.

Plus, many Russian masters are not well known outside of Russia and thus great artists like Vrubel are not represented in American museums. They prefer to take Soviet propaganda art because it's so inane as to look good.

Okay, enough ranting, especially on your birthday thread. I hope you will be in better health for your next birthday.