The Press
Vital Stahievitch: in the West one is almost like a pop star
Vital Stahievitch has recorded a new CD with three Prokofiev sonatas in Holland. Is classical music getting less popular? How is the life of a Belarusian musician in the West? Natalka Babina is talking with Vital Stahievitch.
Nasa Niva: You are living in Holland for already some years. Did you ever wish to amputate your nationality, as Eva Vieznaviec wishes to do?
Vital Stahievitch:This issue is important to me. Nowadays, in the world of imaginable identities, when people like to deny their national specifics, I am perhaps a rather old-fashioned person. For me my background, my nationality is very important. It has an influence on everything I am doing. When I was working on Prokofiev’s sonatas for the CD I understood how important national identity was for this composer. He was really a universal musician, a cosmopolite, but nevertheless he linked himself with the Russian music tradition. That was the reason for him to come back to Stalinist Russia from emigration. His wife was sent to labor camps there, he was heavily criticized in the official press, - but he could not but come.
NN: How do you see your future? Do you also wish to be in Minsk, like Prokofiev in Moscow, or is it possible now to live in Amsterdam and to feel yourself a real Belarusian?
VS: The situation now, luckily, is not so dramatic. Today one can travel in real or virtual world without any problem. I am always intrigued by the idea of parallel times. When you travel, you feel very well the endless possibilities of time’s development, and you feel that only few of those are being realized. Music is the art that is closely related with time. My dream is to be able to travel in time, as really as possible.
NN: Einstein proved that it is possible.
VS: Great composers are also proving that it is possible. Music exists in time, but also beyond the time. Every performer may express in music his own life now, - but also enter the flow of the time of the composer, try to enter the mind of that epoch.
NN: What do you express in the music that you perform?
VS: I wish to minimize the external effects. I don’t wish my figure to prevent people from perception of the music. It would be nice if the public would be listeners, and not so much observers. The task of a pianist is to look carefully to the score, to try to understand the idea of the composer. It is not necessary to jump over the keyboard like a monkey.
NN: Could you compare the public in Belarus and in other countries?
VS: In western countries the public is very spoiled. There is a certain consumer attitude. “I like it or I don’t like it”. The artist is something for sale. Classical music is getting less popular. Consumer society is free to choose what it likes, and often this is not good for the art. You walk out on stage and you are seen as a pop star. It is important how you look like, or how do you behave on stage. But this has nothing to do with music. On the other side, western public is well educated. You are being compared with the greatest pianists. I like to perform in small towns, also in Belarus. Especially people in Brest seem to be very warm.
NN: You say that classical music is getting less popular. But at the time of Beethoven, whose concertos you play, his music was only available for the elite. Now much wide society is listening to it.
VS: Jose Ortega y Gasset said that the idea of art for elite was diminished in the 20th century. It is difficult to know how it was in reality at the time of Beethoven. We can only imagine it. But for sure at his time his music was not available for as many people as now. But today the choice is more and more seldom in favor of classical music.
NN: What do you think about the concert life in Belarus today?
VS: Compare to the Soviet times the concert life became poorer. Then world famous musicians were more often in Belarus. Today it is more local.
NN: Even if there is not much money there are lots of performers like Kirkorov giving concerts regularly. And it is likely that Mr. Lukashenko would visit such a concert. But it is difficult to imagine him visiting concert in conservatoire.
VS: But it is very possible to imagine Mr. Lukashenko in the opera house.
NN: Really? Is he an opera fan?
VS: That I don’t know. But he was often at opera or ballet concerts. Therefore I wouldn’t make statements so quickly. We can remember historical periods when the state tried to make people’s tastes higher, perhaps in an unnatural way. But these were exceptions. The situation in Belarus is rather natural now. Simply, there should be a choice what to listen. Then the life would regulate everything itself.
NN: Is there any state financial support of any kind of music in the West?
VS: There is some. I think that the most outstanding and worthy orchestras of concert houses are getting support from the state. But in general everything gets regulated by the market.
NN: What kind of music do you prefer as a performer and as a listener?
VS: I am more in favor of Romanticism. But also I play Haydn, Mozart, and contemporary composers. And I rather listen to the academic music too.
NN: Where in Belarus is it possible to hear you?
VS: I perform every year in the Philharmonic in Minsk and in other cities. My recordings can also be found on my website.
NN: Are you making some financial profit by playing?
VS: Yes, that is my source of living. My life is rather modest at the moment, but I hope to become richer with my professional growth (laughs).
"Nasa Niva", 04.09.2008
Translated from Belarusian