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Yuri Kasparov, the Stalker
On 21 May 2008, composer Yuri Kasparov, profes...
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Yuri Kasparov, the Stalker
On 21 May 2008, composer Yuri Kasparov, professor of orchestration and composition at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music, received the Ordre des Arts et Lettres. This decoration was awarded to him by Stanislas de Laboulaye, the French Ambassador to Russia, during a ceremony at the French Embassy in Moscow. His work to help French music be known in Russia and Russian music be known in France has therefore been acknowledged. A task that was started by Edison Denisov, his friend and professor.
Yuri Kasparov :
« I remember one of the famous phrases of Lenin : « If this work of art does not help to build the Communism, its nothing »
Pascal Ianco (Les Editions Le Chant du Monde) :
« According to the Soviet authorities, what mattered in music was not so much what it was worth intrinsically as its ability to be used as a medium to channel the propaganda, the political message a little bit like todays advertising music. The aesthetics of official Soviet music was neo-classical. It was not actually without any interest and the way it was written was not without qualities, but of course, it was not the ultimate goal of the Soviet Union composers who belonged to the avant-garde to write such music. What mattered to them was essentially to find a new language so as to express a new sensibility. And for them, music was nothing less than the object of its own meditation ».
Yuri Kasparov :
« Things began to change in 1964, the year when Sun of the Incas, Denisovs famous piece, was composed. The score reached France and Boulez had access to it. And the following year, in 1965, it was premiered here, in Paris. I think its Maderna who conducted it. »
Les Editions Le Chant du Monde :
« The Soviet audience was deprived of avant-garde Western music until roughly the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is the reason why Yuri Kasparov and before him, his professor Denisov, did all they could to initiate and sustain the exchange between the East and the West. Thus, some Western scores could reach Russia and, similarly, some avant-garde Soviet composers scores could « go over » to the West. This is how we got to know for the first time the pieces of composers such as Schnittke and Goubaïdoulina who are well known in the West today. »
Paul Méfano (composer, conductor and founder of the Ensemble 2e2m) :
« I got to know Yuri Kasparov at a time when the Wall had not yet fallen. Those young Russian musicians deeply strove to know what we were writing in Europe, all this with regard to a world which was still very, very different a musical landscape which was still related to a Khrenikov kind of post academicism »
Les Editions Le Chant du Monde :
« Yuri Kasparov embodies very well this musical union between the East and the West. He is obviously a composer whose sensibilty is eminently Russian, which is a very strong, very enduring musical nature, a one which is not lacking in excentricity, from a Western point of view at least. However, this sensibility is constructed and structured by the speculative and formal spirit which contemporary Western music requires.
Thus, Yuri Kasparov was honoured by the French Government and was received as Chevalier in the « Ordre des Arts et des Lettres » for this work as a « cultural smuggler ». He initiated this work of transmission along with Edison Denisov at a time when it was rather dangerous to devote oneself to this kind of activity. It was indeed a discrete, even secret, activity. »
Yuri Kasparov :
« I have tried to follow the steps of my professor, to follow Denisov. Denisov was a European composer who was in constant, close and friendly contact with composers such as Boulez, Dutilleux, Xenakis He tried to disseminate Western music in Russia. It was absolutely necessary because Russian music was very conservative. Still today, in our music schools, the most modern period we study does not exceed the beginning of the XXth century. Not beyond that. I try to follow Denisov, my professor, to disseminate Western music and first and foremost French music, in Russia and Russian music abroad.
Exchanging is very important and so is disseminating the works throughout different countries. This helps us all. »
Les Editions Le Chant du Monde :
«The Editions le Chant du Monde have also had the privilege to help the East meet the West, as we both publish Edison Denisov and Yuri Kasparov. For us, it was really like working to bring closer the two separate parts of a unique body : a musical Europe, from Brest to Brest-Litovsk, which could exist thanks to the work of composers, publishers and performers. It is therefore a Europe which music reunified, and borrowing a major thought in Dostoievsky, one which is very dear to Yuri Kasparov, a Europe which was reunified thanks to beauty. »
Yuri Kasparov :
« I believe Beauty saves the world »
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