Photo: Megaq, entrance photo - Vladimir Lavrischev/www.leonidfedorov.ru
"Not a single raven from all sides!" - we yelled at Fedorov's concerts for the past ten years, and now the song “Head and Leg” can be yelled at any rally: “And I, it seems, can’t be silent, the skin on my shoulders bursts from silence. I forget familiar names. Feeling under turns into feeling on!” Only this will no longer be a rally, and the truth is that Leonid Fedorov is an incredibly apolitical person. Home. He writes his terrible songs to the words of Ozersky, Vvedensky and Khlebnikov at home, and we talk in the kitchen.
Is today Thursday a fish day or are you fasting?
(Lida, wife and producer of Fedorov, takes out of the refrigerator and oven different fish- fried, steamed, salted).
We are doing such a diet, the second time already. The first day - only buckwheat porridge, the second - only boiled chicken, the third day - kefir or okroshka. Without bread, vegetables are possible. The fourth day is fish, but for some reason today is Monday. You won’t believe it - every day a kilogram of weight goes somewhere. The fifth day is vegetables, the sixth is a holiday, that is, fruits. It’s good in the morning, in anticipation: oh, you think, chicken, but by the evening you can’t look at this chicken, complete disgust. And the next morning you expect porridge like manna from heaven. Very strange sensations from food, you know?
What are you reading now?
I was reading a biography of Michelangelo, and it struck me that with his great wealth he lived always on wine, cheese, bread and olives. This is what I mean by diet. You can still sit on bread and cheese for a week, but for the rest of your life - it's impossible to imagine. Vasari writes that the already very old Michelangelo, having been engaged in the Vatican Cathedral, having spent many years on mosaics, in the end took and smashed everything with a hammer. Was a normal guy.
We read Martynov with Lida as soon as he writes something new. It is impossible not to agree with him that there is a stratification and delimitation of people in circles and parties, even within the same profession. We went to Silvestrov's 70th birthday at the Rachmaninov Hall, and I realized that this is a very narrow circle, a party where everyone has known each other for a long time. There are many different circles in music. And in the movies you can't count them. There is no single cultural space, communication, air is not enough. Everything has been replaced by a TV or a bunch of glossy magazines. Understand? Where can different people gather? Nowhere. The last in music who held together perfectly different people, was Kuryokhin. At some point, he managed to include everyone in his process. The same inclusion, but on a global scale, was made by the Beatles. Millions took up guitars, myself included. They still lived in a common cultural layer for all, in this common air it didn’t matter who did what - classical, jazz, whatever. And now, the funny thing is, they are not at all interested in what is happening in the neighboring musical party. Free jazz players don't fit in with populists, there is no cooperation.
Kuryokhin was the last in music who kept completely different people together. At some point, he managed to include everyone in his process. The same inclusion, but on a global scale, was made by the Beatles
When they still sang in the villages, they were free jazz in pure form, every day grandmothers pulled a new note, new drawing melodies were given out depending on the weather and mood. And now you will find such only at your concerts.
I read about Mozart and Beethoven that they didn't use sheet music, they constantly improvised, at all performances. What we have left in the notes are all the pale imprints of their rampage. A pianist played in the first part, and Beethoven himself came out in the second part and improvised. The notes meant nothing to them. Now you can record everything, record a concert, but then every day everything was new. If we consider their notes to be precious, then it is impossible to imagine their playing. Cool guys.
Well, after all, keeping silent about you and Auktyon, what really struck you in that legendary music from the times of the Leningrad Rock Club when you started?
Bashlachev's apartment. When they let me listen to his cassette, it didn’t seem to me at all. But the concert... I remember that feeling. As if from under the ground, from under his chair, a column of flame and unearthly fury beat. Physiological sensation of a clot of energy. Half an hour of a hurricane - words and three chords are not important - and you see a simple kid with fixes and blood on his hands. Absolutely amazing, like no other energy. Vysotsky was still boring us with some thoughts, but here there is no thought. It was a squall and an earthquake. And since then, I have never felt anything like this, with anyone. No, there were many concerts where some rockers rocked the hall, but I understood that this was the sound. But Bashlachev did not have a word that struck me, not a sound. There was a stream, fiery lava, gap-grass. And then I watched the video - no feeling, just remembering the presence at that concert. I still don't understand how this is possible.
I once had a sound device examined my health. Clicks clearly localized in the head come from the stereo headphones, and the computer with the system feedback according to the reaction of the brain to thousands of clicks in the entire volume of the head, he makes a diagnosis. So, the buzz from this electronic diagnostic "music" greatly exceeded all the pleasure that I once received from the German "Tangerine Dream". Do you think electronics will replace live instruments?
Not sure. Rather stay live music. This is most likely different genres. You see, it's like poetry - in any case, they will exist in literature. The impact of these musics is different, they have different spaces. It's like comparing a book with an electronic reader, you always want to turn the paper in your hands more than the reader. But you can no longer go anywhere, extract all the sounds and music from the computer, download books. In Google" museum program, so I spent three hours yesterday at the Uffizi without getting up from my chair.
I barely pulled him out of there, - says Lida, - my head was already spinning to look at the pictures, but he still won’t come off, he breaks his eyes.
Do you go to real museums of the world together?
We love it, yes. It was not always like this, but about ten years ago canvases and paints suddenly pulled us. In January we were in Madrid Prado.
Do you go to the theatre? At the presentation of the Wolfgang album at the Central House of Artists, you arranged a pure theater with a dozen ancient Mosfilm chairs and half a dozen ancient wooden radios, not to mention Vika Tolstoganova on stage and a cartoon on the screen.
Rarely. Last time went to a performance by Martynov at the Boyakov Theater. Here my great-grandfather was absolutely theater man, People's Artist Monakhov, founder of the BDT and its superstar. In Alexei Tolstoy's "Walking Through the Torments" young ladies run to Monakhov. In the cinema, he is remembered for the role of the landowner Troekurov in Dubrovsky. At the age of sixty-three, in 1937, he married a young, seventeen-year-old beauty, and she poisoned him. Some people think that the NKVD could not do without it. Like this luxurious life. He was a friend of Benois and Gorky. (“You don’t have to follow in his footsteps,” Lida remarks.) He started with verses, and ended up with Don Carlos in Alexandrinka, he simply became a great artist. True, under Stalin, after 1929, all his roles dried up and began to give away clerical work. Great-grandfather for me and theater, and its history. And when I saw him young in the photo in my memoirs, I was stunned - the spitting image of my father. The language and style of his memoirs are exactly what I would write myself. Moreover, the whole situation and people are very similar to current affairs. It's like nothing changes.
Bashlachev did not have a word that struck me, not a sound. There was a stream, fiery lava, gap-grass
I look at the photo of your great-grandfather and see you as part of the coupletists of the early "Auktyon".
I say: nothing changes. Here is a story about Chaliapin. One fashionable actress refused to perform at the Monakhov Theater, and the tickets were all sold out. In order not to go broke, Monakhov invited Chaliapin, who said: "If you drink with me, I will sing for free." And Monakhov says: “I can’t, the ulcer.” However, they still drank, but the super bass did not appear on the stage, because the great-grandfather offered to go to the girls instead of saving the box office.
How many times have your songs appeared on TV? Let's count: twice in the eighties, zero times in the nineties, a couple of times in the two thousandths. I mean Garkusha with the song “I was born under a hood” in the film of the Teacher “Rock” of 1987, the same year of “Burglar” Ogorodnikov, again with Garkusha, “ Music ring" in 1989, "The Road" in "Brother-2" in 2000, "There will be no winter" in "Boomer" in 2004. No doubt, the films are noble, but ... Oh, I forgot, on the radio a couple of songs from the people's favorite "Birds" were played in 1995. Not rare?
Well, we went to Dibrov three more times, to different programs, after which they closed. Is it a coincidence or something. I attended all such programs only because my friends asked - Oleg Garkusha, Vova Volkov, for example. If it were not for my friends, I would never have appeared on the screen anywhere. I'm kind of alien to TV. My friend, Lesha Agranovich, the director of all sorts of spectacles, ceremonies and presentations, always thinks that this is the time - and he will promote me there, into the light. So, a few years ago, he invited us to perform at one of the first Golden Eagle award ceremonies, where the three of us were me, Volkov and Tatiana Grindenko. And we were the only ones cut from the record.
Do you remember the Musical Ring program? In that memorable "Ring" in 1989, the audience reacted to the AU in the same interesting way as to Kuryokhin's quite Oberiut lecture "Lenin-mushroom" in Sholokhov's program "The Fifth Wheel".
When we entered the Leningrad Rock Club, by the way, we were suspected that we were mishandled Cossacks. There were already groups without pathos, so to speak. " strange games", For example. Everyone kept us as strange, we didn’t care how the Komsomol members perceive us. Honestly, over the past twenty years, my desire not to shine anywhere, not to hang out, has only grown stronger. I won't speak for everyone else. You see, in the eighties, when we just started playing, of course, we wanted recognition and all sorts of fame, but we quickly cooled off. There were many opportunities to appear in the box thoroughly. But when I started talking to people from there, I didn't really like it. Not people, but the whole atmosphere of what is called show business. So I merged with TV, began to somehow abruptly refuse offers. Social circle and interests were clearly not mine. That is, it was boring, dreary and it is not clear why. I didn't like the results of rare appearances on TV. Why shine there when there is still no music industry in the country. There is earning money, but there is no quality of the product at the output. And then, in the eighties and nineties, it was all the more a kindergarten. Were musical ideas- theirs, not theirs, it doesn't matter. And when you realize that, having spent a lot of effort and time on the implementation of these ideas, you will have to turn everything into a booth, into a product that is digestible for the viewer, you choose something else: you do only what is interesting. So I methodically did this interesting thing. It would be interesting for me to do something with the directors I know, maybe they with me, but we have our own business, it's hard to find time.
So you like the director of the film about Landau, because you starred there?
There were shootings of Stalin's Moscow in Kharkov, these hundreds of people in the clothes of the thirties, it is so unlike anything, not projecting, but an experiment, in fact, not just a show of mummers. Of course, when both a person and his ideas are liked, there is an understanding that he will not make the film below the expected level. Igor Voloshin, Ilya Khrzhanovsky - they are approximately on the same wavelength, we talked a lot. Not really common interests, but we are in the same space, despite the fact that we are different. It used to be that other directors offered scripts to read, asked if they liked it, if it was great. I had to say that it was not great, because I did not want to go back, go down to the basements, waste time. This feeling of lower flight and level is inherent in everyone, that is, those projects where I could have participated ten years ago are now in no way suitable.
At the age of sixty-three, in 1937, my great-grandfather married a young, seventeen-year-old beauty, and she poisoned him
All the people from the "Auktyon" somehow inadvertently, accidentally picked up for joint creativity. For example, a man with operatic vocals, Sergei Rogozhin, appeared in Ozersky's field of vision at the Institute of Culture and immediately sang at the AC; a disco dancer came, as they say now - a representative of the lifestyle contemporary dance, Vova Veselkin - and immediately made a crazy duet with Oleg Garkusha. Never had a clear plan for what the AU should be like?
Yes, unplanned economy. But we were ambitious, we wanted everything at once. The people gathered are not quite ordinary, but this is fate. As in Garkusha's poetry, "a boy, like a boy, was born under a cap." These moments cannot be explained, it happened, and that's it. In that country, we simply did not have the right to perform, only at dances. When I quit my job after taking two days off work, my parents told me I was crazy because we only played at the rock club five times a year and for free. They enjoyed the stage and the sound, that's all. But since 1988, there have been opportunities for, so to speak, not a free drive. Garkusha and Bondarik, cautious people, worked in their offices until 1991 or something.
And when did you meet Sergey Kuryokhin?
Somewhere in 1985, but Garkusha was more familiar with him, he actively participated in Pop Mechanics. As soon as Kuryokhin saw Garkusha in the "Auktyon", he immediately took him into his hands. We had mutual friend, Firsov, here we sometimes met with him, especially in the last years of Sergei's life. You see, Kuryokhin generally influenced everyone and everything, but the rest had no less influence. "Aquarium" as a musical phenomenon influenced me much more than "Pop Mechanics". "Pop Mechanics" was a product of that atmosphere. It was for us a normal visual embodiment of what is happening around. Brought the goat to the stage, brought folk artists in the role of janitors, well done. Some special aspiration, cries of “ah!” we did not have. You see, at that time it was in everyone's head. I was always more interested in music, I would be too lazy to take a goat, but he easily embodied this general collective madness. The show was purple for me in the Auktyone too. Ozersky wants a performance - please, let him do it. Miller wants to put some kind of suit on me - come on, if it's not too tight in it. We did not invent anything, everything was taken from the atmosphere of that time.
In the completely Soviet, but good film of the Teacher “Rock”, the idea was visual - to show troublemakers-troubadours unbearable to the state as quiet, useful to society “cogs”: a simple stoker Vitya Tsoi, gentle dad Borya Grebenshchikov, a slender dance teacher Anton Adasinsky, affectionate projectionist Oleg Garkusha and so on. And what was Tsoi in reality, for example?
Choi is amazing, his fate is amazing. Not a stoker, but rather Lermontov. He achieved gigantic popularity without any media at all. When he appeared on television, he was so famous, such an idol that it was PR for the TV, and not for Vitya. Everyone without exception knew about Tsoi. Once we played in "Pop Mechanics", in August 1988, in Alushta. We arrived in a crowd, all the pop mechanics, there were fifteen of us, including me, Garkundel, Gasparyan. The first day was completely wild: they didn’t want to put us in a hotel, we slept in some kind of wooden pioneer camp, nobody needed us. In addition, there was a scandalous concert. But the next day, Tsoi arrived, who had already done the “Blood Type”. And in a magical, dramatic way, everything changed at once. We were put up in the best hotel, we went to the special beach. Fans crowded around from all sides, shouting: “Choi!” More Africa - Sergey Bugaev was wildly popular after the movie "Assa". Nobody knew Kuryokhin at all, especially us, and Tsoi sounded from every tape recorder, kiosk, tavern and nook.
The show was purple for me in the Auktyone too. Ozersky wants a performance - please, let him do it. Miller wants to put some kind of suit on me - let's, if it's not too tight in it
Your duets with Volkov and Ozersky can only be heard in small clubs. What, too lazy to hang posters on fences, to collect some kind of "Olympic"?
Well-u-u ... And why, and why? I don't think it needs to be done now. It's not about the posters, you never know different Vasya Pupkins hanging over Tverskaya. There is some inner feeling of how many people can listen to this music, who really needs it. I understand why Tsoi could gather half a million people. And what are we, with what songs, in fact, could we go out: “I can’t and can’t be like everyone else”? (Laughs.) I do not think that now with Vvedensky and Khlebnikov one can be the idols of the country.
When did you meet Vladimir Volkov?
Volkov always knew. But we didn't know each other personally until 1997. I was far from the music that Volkov played, far from any free jazz and other things. Somehow fate brought him together, at the funeral of Kuryokhin. Vova spoke about his "Volkov-Trio", and then our first record came out - "There will be no winter." When it was recorded, I was in great doubt whether this record should be released. It was even for us a strange and unusual sound production. The approach to music was rebuilt. They chose an experiment, so what the ten of us have been doing for the past ten years could not help in any way, this is a completely different activity. I know perfectly well that my close friends, that is, the entire Auktyon, do not need this, it is not in their area of interest. It's not about who to sing to the verses, Khlebnikov or Khvostenko. The point is this. All discs recorded with Volkov are absolutely one-time things. Recently, Vova and I listened to a piece of "Besonders" and realized that now we would have done it completely differently, but only five years have passed. You see, this is inserted into the context of time, it could only be recorded instantly. Volkov is absolutely mobile - he got ready in half an hour and arrived. We whistled something and we sit quietly at night playing, he quietly plays the double bass so as not to wake the neighbors. With a large AU, this was not possible then, but it is already possible now. Everyone already understands, gathered and felt. Suddenly it became clear how to record without rehearsals, without hundreds of takes, how to record the very givenness of time in time, at this very minute. All AU discs were made traditionally: we whole year rehearsed songs, quite painfully, and then quickly wrote everything down. Therefore, I was never happy with the result: what was invented never turned out on the record, and I could not understand why. It suddenly dawned on me that only what happened in the studio itself turned out, unexpectedly, lit up in the process of recording itself, and not at rehearsals that lasted a year. “Dweller of the Peaks” turned out because not only everything that was invented in advance, but also the insights of different people on the recording itself, immediately fit in. But still, there was an invention. And all the work with Volkov is pure improvisation, without duplicates. We just try three - usually - options and choose. So? Not this way? Here he is! He is such a. And that's all.
Watch the video of the interview with Leonid Fedorov and Dmitry Ozersky
| To my world |
Like it should something to regret, but somehow does not regret. Of course, everyone does nasty things, but I never did them on purpose.
I like play music. But it seems to me rather stupid to make work, a routine, a profession out of this.
Public in my understanding does not participate in creative process. Relationships on stage, playing music - for me there is salt in this. But this: “Hello, friends, hello, Moscow” - I don’t understand this.
I am sorry spend time learning languages.
At the end1980s- in the early 1990s, the most terrible thing was here - this coupon system, it was forbidden to play ... At the same time, we somehow treated everything easily, with pleasure doing our job, without having the right to do so. But I have absolutely no nostalgia. Everything was so vile around, so false.
The main thing for me for the concert to take place inside. If this does not happen, then no matter how good it is, for me it is bad. And vice versa, it may be unsuccessful externally, but if everything coincides inside, then it’s normal.
Vvedensky- He is organically mine. When I made records of his poems, I realized that I could easily sing the entire two-volume set.
Lately I don’t read anything at all, except for biographies or books about art, about religion, diaries of people who are interesting to me. Novels, most poems - I just can't bring myself to. It seems to me that all this is pointless, wild.
Some small tasks puts art in us.
In Russia the music industry never came into existence, which everyone hoped for, since we have capitalism. Garkusha recently told me that there are five hundred rock bands in St. Petersburg. In the days of the rock club, we were, I think, fifty-fourth. Well, maybe there were a hundred bands in the whole city. And now - five hundred! Where is it all? They are playing somewhere. This is what I don't understand.
Internet is a tool that you can use in any way you like. Most tragic event what could happen in the country, happened - this is Beslan. In moral terms, it is comparable to war. And they talked about it, well, for a year. And then nothing. What is the use of this flow of information of yours? It's all chatter. It's just that now it has become more extensive - not ten of us are talking in the kitchen, but we are 500 people. We are discussing some garbage: Medvedev, Putin. The bullshit is complete! Nothing to do with real life it doesn't have. Here Beslan has - to our today's life.
Well come to your concert 10 thousand people. And you hit them. And then what?
global challenge does not require large physical strength She needs more attention. From the little things you can brush aside, and the global task will keep you.
When you take any poem by Khlebnikov and you start to enter it, you understand that he solved global problems. Understandable or incomprehensible, interesting to you or not, they are initially so huge that we even have no one to put next to us.
I remember at one of Kuryokhin's concerts, in Oktyabrsky, a boat swayed on chains over the stage, in which Alla Pugacheva sat and knitted. And she didn't make a sound.
Kuryokhin said, that music is a momentary thing. Absolutely agree with him. This is similar to what Joyce wrote about. He was sure that all the greatness, all the buzz of the writer must be sought in notebooks- it is in them that the inspiration that has just visited him. Everything that is more successful or unsuccessful then splashes out into the finished work, it is no longer the same.
There was a moment when I was taught notes, but I honestly forgot everything and I don’t even want to get into it.
Direct speech is gone not only from literature, but from life in general. I would look into the eyes of that poet who will now write "I loved you, love can still be ...". We have forgotten how to say: "I love you."
Western history about the impoverishment, the freezing of religion - not even religion, namely God - I don’t like all this at all. After all, there is nothing in return - only bleak and dull despondency. And I don't understand what it's really good for.
We live in an absurdity. We just don't get it, but it's true.
From the biography: Leonid Valentinovich Fedorov was born on January 8, 1963 in St. Petersburg - Russian rock musician, leader of the Auktyon group. Over the past 20 years, Leonid Fedorov has rightly earned a reputation as one of the leaders of independent rock music in Russia. A native of St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), in the 80s ... Read completely
Leonid Fedorov, one of the oldest rockers in Russia and a member famous group Auktyon reacted very unexpectedly to the interview. Until the moment the recorder appeared in his hand, Leonid easily communicated, talked a lot about himself and asked questions himself, but as soon as the recorder appeared in his hand, he ... suddenly became shy. Holding the guitar on his knees, he, as if embarrassed, picked it with his finger and answered questions, sometimes losing touch with the above.
Andrey Pomidorrov: Will we ever hear new songs from "Auktyon", will there be new albums?
Leonid Fedorov:
I hope (laughs). There is now one proposal, if everything ends well, then we will write in America.
A.P.: Why in America and not here?
L.F.: Because there are musicians who offered us to record. I don't know if they've heard of them - John Zorn, saxophonist, Mark Ribot, guitarist "wet". Zorn is probably the best saxophonist in the world.
A.P.: But what about Rubanov?
L.F.: And he will also be, it was the offer to "Auktyon", not to me.
A.P.: Why do you have concerts in America so often, several times a year?
L.F.: No, we went somewhere once a year. Now it somehow happened that they played in cool places.
A.P.: Almost all projects separate from "Auktyon" you do together with Volkov. Why did the choice fall on him?
L.F.: A very good musician, and as a personality amazing. There are few such people in Russia, and in the world, I think. There is no one to even compare him to. Well, maybe only Starostin.
A.P.: At one time you helped the Leningrad group. Now you are impressed by what this team is doing?
L.F.: I produced the first album of "Leningrad", helped them to record. Yes, I don't care anyway. Then it was interesting, unusual. Then there was a little and the composition of the other. Sang Vdovin.
A.P.: And for Lately did you like any of the performers?
L.F.: Here is the only thing that I liked - this is the group "Inside" and Nino Katamadze.
A.P.: Periodically, when they write in the news "Auktyon group", they add "Petersburg". Do you like this word and love Peter?
L.F.: I was born and lived there until 2002. How can you not love him?
A.P.: And now you live in Moscow?
L.F.: Yes, and I like Moscow, by the way, too.
A.P.: And you live in the capital, because you are closer to everyone musical movements?
L.F.: No. Because my wife is from Moscow, my son is studying there. Well, somehow it happened. For the most part, we are there. In general, it is difficult to say where we live. Most of the time we drive.
A.P.: Do you have vacations, like sometimes groups do?
L.F.: There are, but rarely. We try, but somehow it doesn't work. It just happened in the last year. I broke my spine in the summer and spent two months lying around. True, I wrote the album "Besonders", just at that moment, so as not to die at all (laughs). We once in our lives went to Tunisia, the second time we wanted to go to Montenegro. We have a friend there, but on the first day I broke my spine.
A.P.: Do you welcome any active sports?
L.F.: Yes, I would welcome if there was time. And so free time will turn out, I'd better lie down. Old age is exhausting. Yes, and a little time. In addition to concerts, there are also recordings of albums. Last year we recorded two records. A lot somehow.
A.P.: Songs from latest albums would be great as a soundtrack to a play. Do you have offers to write music for a film or play?
L.F.: There were no such proposals that would really cling. And not much freedom. It’s much easier for me when they just take the finished song and insert it somewhere. When I specifically write, for some reason I don’t get into what I need. For example, I wrote "There will be no winter" for one girl, and she was eventually afraid to take the song. But then she sounded in three other films.
A.P.: I heard it only in Boomer.
L.F.: In addition to "Boomer", there were other films. Yes, this album is generally the whole movie dispersed. I don't like what's going on in the movies now. Nothing remarkable has been done lately. But the only thing I like is the movie "Four". Sorokin's script. His for a long time we were banned until he received the Grand Prix in Amsterdam. Although it is still banned. This movie is like nothing else. Now at least they began to shoot better, five years ago the cinema was generally terrible.
A.P.: And how do you like "Boomer" and "Brother"?
L.F.: I don't like. We were friends with Balabanov for some time, I told him so in his eyes. In fact, he has good film though not finished. And even in this form, he is awesome. An actress died there. He released it unfinished. Actually, after I saw this film, I met him. But "Brother" ... all the same, the Americans shoot better. I liked Bodrov, I met him shortly before his death. He made me strong impression. Genius actor. Well, as for the director's move… I don't understand it.
Leader of the "Auktyon" group Leonid Fedorov told"Discourse" about the "archaists" Anri Volokhonsky and Alexei Khvostenko - figures whose works occupy important place in his life and music.
- A month ago (March 19) the poet, translator Anri Volokhonsky, with whom you have friendly relations, is 80 years old. In 2012, Anri Girshevich was awarded the Andrei Bely Prize "for his outstanding contribution to the development of Russian literature". How did you meet? What is your vision of the figure of Volokhonsky in the context national culture?
“I think he is at least a giant. It’s hard for me to say more precisely, because he is my friend, and I have been friends with him for twenty years, and maybe more. Khvost introduced us (Alexey Khvostenko. - Y.V.), and I don’t even remember in what year, it seems to me, in 1990, or 1991, at his suggestion we stopped by to visit Henri, then we often went to Germany, came to him, he lived in Munich then, we have been friends ever since. You see, it is difficult for me to talk about his place in literature and culture. During these twenty years we did with Volkov what we did, we have a lot of ideas, and I have other works that I do with Henri. For me, he is not only important, but probably one of the most important people.
Leonid Fedorov and Alexei Khvostenko. Photo: Konstantin Hoshan
- In 2012, the publishing house "New Literary Review" published a collection of Volokhonsky's works in three volumes, and this, in general, turned out to be some kind of "internal" affair - for its own, for a narrow circle of specialists.
- Yes it is. On the one hand, Henri is the author of the hit "Under the blue sky", but few people know that he, in fact, is the author of this song. Among other things, he and Khvost created an important cultural layer, while in our country everyone loves such, let's say, conceptual or ideological things, but they absolutely, it seems to me, turned out to be torn off. Maybe it was not for nothing that they left: Tail was generally a “man of the World” - he did not belong to anything, he was absolutely free, Henri left more meaningfully, did not want to live here, not even to live, he did not want to live with these people and therefore did not want to exist neither in one nor the other ideology. They left a long time ago and, therefore, it seems to me that Grebenshchikov is one of the few who knew them, including me. We met them indirectly through Seryozha Kuryokhin: he told my friend, and my friend, when we went to France, told me about Khvost. Actually, this name didn’t say anything to me, I didn’t hear or read it, much less. Now we can already say that these are classics - that one, that the second. But it is difficult for me to judge how much they have any influence: I am not engaged in literature. Maybe for some youth, but this generation is further, you know better, in fact.
- In the multi-volume anthology "At the Blue Lagoon", compiled by Konstantin Kuzminsky and dedicated to the unofficial literature of Moscow and Leningrad, Anri Volokhonsky and Alexei Khvostenko are presented as a group of "Archaists". It is likely that the traditions that were inherent in them - these various medieval, baroque genres, are no less significant for you. Not by chance new album may have unexpected connections with the texts of Alexei Khvostenko in the album "Romances", written to the works of the same Alexander Vvedensky?
- It is difficult for me to say something about this - probably because the same people do it. How, why did we work with both Henri and Khvost - although it can hardly be called work? To be honest, since then I have not met people so relaxed and free - free, including from all kinds of conventions, but at the same time - not unbridled, that's what's amazing. I knew people who were free from conventions - some kind of punks, they were brutal, tough, and Henri and Tail are very smart, educated people And it's not school education. Volokhonsky is generally an encyclopedist, he likes to study texts, it is very interesting to talk with him about things relating to absolutely any texts of any era. He has a very sober, precise mind, he speaks intuitively in some cases, but there are many things that he specifically knows because he has studied and is studying them. He is rational, destroys the myths that people have. One of the revealing moments: Henri says that Pushkin could not write the line “Three girls under the window were spinning late in the evening”, because, in fact, “under the window” could not be spun: “by the window” you can spin, and Pushkin was very an exact person and he would not write like that. Surely it was "shit", of course, or "talked", so Henri says that such a stupid word "spun" is not Pushkin's, but obviously corrected. There are many such things, it is interesting to analyze such places with him, and not only in Russian texts.
- It was amazing, their union "A.H.V." how they understood each other.
– Surprisingly, because they are also very different. At first I became friends with the tail, we were very close, he did not treat me very well, and he seemed to me such a scribe - then this changed over the years. They are so different, even in temperament. Volokhonsky, for example, is a very private person - without any hesitation, he just never liked to be in public, while he does not refuse interviews, he can calmly talk on any topic. Khvostenko was, on the contrary, public. In the field of knowledge, he, of course, lost to Volokhonsky, but at the same time he was creative, such a passionary: everything was interesting, he loved music very much, unlike Henri, who was calm about music, Khvost was interested in cinema and much more than Henri, to a greater extent degrees - literature. Volokhonsky considers Khvost an absolute genius, and I am glad because Khvost was my friend.
– If you look at your work, especially at this moment, then one gets the impression that you are closer to working with the texts of Volokhonsky than Khvostenko.
- I'm just curious and the further, the more interesting: there are so many unusual things. At the level at which he translates and writes, I don't think anyone is working. Now a book of liturgical texts has been published - this is a rather strong blow and there was a resonance. Some of the texts were written a long time ago and these are exact translations into Russian, they have a special sound and abroad, in Paris, in my opinion, these translations are already being used. It seems to me that Henri translates, for example, Kabbalah with the same success. It always treats this or that document as text, the most important thing is that it displays it in a very high level, a classic example is Lady Dai.
For Henri, any text is important, any worthlessness is always elevated to the rank of very important, and this is the unusualness. It's interesting because you immediately have a gigantic range that...
– More than a mediator.
- Certainly. No, we do not have such people at all, working in such a range, namely literary. All, you know, people of art, they love themselves. But here this is not at all, plus what Volokhonsky does, he does based on concrete knowledge, not in the way that “I’m translating psalms” came into my head. His translation of the Psalms is the most accurate translation into Russian from Hebrew, not revised, I have read. What I really like about him is that he always has self-irony, but at the same time there is dignity - this does not prevent him, as a person, from treating himself with dignity. And the same for the rest.
Under the cut is my interview with musician Leonid Fedorov. It is musical, highly specialized and completely devoted to a question that interests me: the ratio of spontaneity and artificiality in the process of creating music. In other words, is music born or produced?
The question is not idle. 99% of all the music we hear is produced. And in industrial order. Music is the thinnest, airy fabric of social reality, molded like dumplings, packaged, packaged and sold in supermarkets in the same way. It's not bad. It just is.
This question, in response, gives rise to a host of others. For example, does music need to be done at all? Is it necessary to deal with the design of the song, if it is possible, so to speak, “the song itself”? As a product of spontaneous intuitive experiences of the author. Does the song need an arrangement? Let me explain the context. At one time I was running around with this idea, I quote myself from an old interview from the site:
“... The ideal song exists in its purest form. By her own. The song "cry", the song "prayer", the song "laughter". In order to pull it out in a song, in order to convey its ideal content, you must first learn to ignore its form. It doesn't matter what arrangements will be in the song. It doesn't matter how it's made. Moreover, what to sing about is also not important. You can sing about anything and play as you like, but you will not pass a single gram useful information. Most of the songs are done this way, we constantly hear them around us, that there is nothing in them, they do not exist at all. Perhaps there was something there when the author saw the song, but in the further process of composing (composing words, arranging, etc.), the author killed it. No need to "compose", you need to pull out. They've been there for a long time. Therefore, the main thing is not in the question "how", but in the question "why"? Why are you doing it? Why are you singing songs? If you yourself are able to answer this question, then everything is in order ... ".
Now I have a slightly different opinion on this topic, if anyone is interested, I can post later. But, this is not about me, it's about Leonid Fedorov.
The fact that the nature of the song is valuable in itself and does not need arrangements has long been known. Leonid Fedorov is a wonderful melodist, with his unique psychogenic delivery. The idea of the "death of composing", which he eventually came to, seems to me absolutely natural for his work.
"The end of the era of composers" - the concept of the composer Martynov. In many ways, it intersects with the concept of "death of the author" in modern philosophy. General terms- the era of victorious postmodernism, in which we all have honor here. In post-structuralism, as you know, the whole world, the whole universe is a text. In the concept of Martynov-Fedorov, such a text is music. But, there are differences between these two attitudes, moreover, of an ontological nature. In a conversation with Fedorov, I did not delve into this topic. It was important for me to get to know him first. principled position. He made it convincing.
This piece of the interview was taken before Fedorov's concert at the Podzemka club in Rostov, a week ago. A full-length interview, with other topics not related to this one, will be published in the February issue of the magazine "Who is the Chief".
"MAKING MUSIC KILLS MUSIC".
Tretyakov: - The other day you have a new album "Beauty". Where does this name come from?
Fedorov: - We recorded this album with Vladimir Volkov. This is like the final part of our trilogy "Tayal" and "Bezonders". Why Beauty? Well, probably because the music is beautiful.
T: - And in some way it is fundamentally different from previous works? From the same "Bezonders" to the verses of Vvedensky?
F: - There is no poetry in it at all (smiles).
T: - Absolutely?
F: Yes (smiles). There are texts. They were written by Andrey Smurov from Amsterdam and Artur Molev from St. Petersburg. Authors of the song "Bin Laden". But, this is not poetry, this is “anti-poetry”. Need to listen. It’s hard for me to say right away what is fundamentally new there. I try to do something new with every record. There are not many samples, more live music. This is not possible to perform live. At least for me alone. So we still do not yet imagine how all this will look live.
T: - After the death of the Tail, you somehow dropped out of participating in it creative heritage? I know that a tribute to his songs was planned, will you participate in it?
F: I don't know. I want to make an album based not on his songs, which everyone knows, but on his later poems, absolutely wonderful. Tail has a book "Verpa". I have an idea to make an album based on this book. I want it to turn out completely different, not for anyone similar tail. I think, over time, we will realize this idea.
T: - A lot of talk about the album recorded in America. Featuring Marc Ribot, John Medeski of MEDESKI, MARTIN & WOOD, trumpeter Frank London of The Klezmatics, saxophonist Ned Rothenberg. These are all the main musicians of the world for recent years ten.
F: It's all right. The album was recorded in New York. We are lucky to have such wonderful musicians playing with us.
T: - Is the music entirely improvisational, or are the songs pre-written?
F: - The songs were invented in advance, some of them were even played before at concerts. But, the whole thing was written spontaneously, right off the bat.
T: - Didn't Marc Ribot play with the keys to the apartment, like on the records of Tom Waits?.
F: - I don't know (smiles). I played the guitar and sang, and Ribot, by the way, also played the guitar. The album is currently in the mixing stage. How all this will be called, I do not know yet. There is an idea to invite all these musicians to play with us at the presentation in Russia. To make people happy.
T: - Leonid, many people who are familiar with your work only from the Auktyon group are perplexed - why your muse has changed so much. When did this happen and what caused it?
F: - I can say this, I'm trying now to invent as little as possible. These things happen on their own. They either happen or they don't. At some point, it was during the recording of the album "Bird", I realized that I was no longer satisfied with some kind of given, certainty in music. I don't like the specifics. I am most pleased with such “seemingly random” things, in quotation marks, because in fact there is nothing random.
T: That's what I wanted to talk to you about.
F: Here's the deal. All these years I had my own interest - I wanted my music to please, first of all, myself. And learning from own experience, I came to the conclusion that the less I think about what my music should be, the more interesting it will be for me. Now I'm trying to come up with tricks that would give as much freedom as possible to the people who play with me. So that my music could surprise and delight me. Therefore, on the one hand, my things are becoming more and more primitive, and on the other hand, the possibilities of music are expanding.
T: Are the songs becoming more open to interpretation?
F: Yes, exactly. Their form becomes completely open. Symphonic, or chamber - it doesn't matter. Music, in my opinion, initially, as an idea, should not carry anything superfluous, it is spontaneous. It is only later in the process of making music that you start to invent something, bring it in. And it turns out false. The idea expressed is a lie. When you start making music, it starts to lose its original magical properties. Becomes false.
T: - First of all, does she begin to deceive you personally?
F: Yes. I have been going to this for a long time. For a long time I could not formulate all this for myself. Before, I could not understand why? Why, for example, do I not like my song? We've been working on the song for so long and I don't like it. But just in the process of making a song, we lost its original properties. Lost the most important thing - the original argument of the song. Therefore, the concept of arrangement has been lost for me for ten years already. I don't do arrangements anymore, I don't like them. Moreover, I believe that arrangements are harmful. They are detrimental to music. Making music kills music.
T: - But it is precisely in the process of such production of music that the composer's activity lies?
F: - Although I love and respect many brilliant composers of those who were and those who may still be born and live, I, however, believe that composing is no longer a path. There are, for example, Bach, Beethoven, and there are pygmies. Both of them write music. Only the classics write in their own way, and the pygmies rub their priests against each other and music also comes out. In fact, the music of the classics and the pygmies, both of them are absolutely comparable. In this case, the whole meaning of composing is lost. For what? I don't believe in composing anymore.
T: - This is exactly what Martynov called "the end of the era of composers."
F: - And actually said exactly. Therefore, Martynov and I are now working together.
T: - In my opinion, such an interpretation of music is very characteristic of Eastern philosophy, with its purely contemplative intuitive approach to creativity.
F: I don't know. The East has its own way, we have our own way, I think.
T: - It's just that they talk a lot about these topics, and John Cage united all such interpretations. I think Martynov should love his music.
F: - I don't know, Martynov loves baroque music. Volkov too. It's not about who loves what. Everyone can reach this if there is a need. Music is one of the few arts that reflects the surrounding reality. What is the reality of what is happening around - such is the music. I'm only talking about adequate music here. Bach, Beethoven are adequate composers. There is inadequate music that does not reflect anything.
T: Give me an example.
F: - Any music that is now rushing from everywhere. All these "tattoos" and "nana" are not adequate music. The music that attacks us from everywhere is not adequate.
T: - And for example, Japanese "noise"? Is he adequate? The Ruinse, or is it Otomo Yoshihido?
F: - There is adequate music, there is not adequate, but there is still music of the future. Otomo Yoshihido is now my favorite musician. The Japanese are more than anyone else in the world focused on the future. I remember going to his concert. He came to Moscow, to the Dom club. My wife and I came to his concert and just lay on the floor. We were lying on the floor because I had never heard anything like it before. And the sound! Wherever you are in the hall, his music is such that when you hear it, it is as if you are sitting in headphones. Absolutely physical feeling that you do not listen to music with your ears, but it is in your head. I have never experienced this before or after. Never. Moreover, it is so powerful that, compared to Yoshihido, all the music that exists in the world is just beeping.
G: - I have a feeling that his music doesn't move at all. It seems to be concentrated in one point. Like a tree, it just grows from one place and that's it. Music of absolute peace.
F: - And the music should be at rest. It's not even that. The Japanese are a nation focused on the future, and in music they are again ahead of everyone because their music absolutely adequately reflects modern reality. But Yoshihido's music is already there, in the future. Can't reach her at all.
T: - Have you ever encountered an aesthetic freebie in such an approach?
F: - Such musicians cannot have any freebies. It depends on the level of the musician. I can tell such a story, Vladimir Volkov was once at the concert of Serge Ginzburg. As it turned out later, he was on one of his recent concerts. Well, chanson is a tavern and a tavern, thought Volodya. At that time he still knew English poorly, and Ginzburg led a concert in English. Ginzburg did not sing anything, did not play anything. He just talked and that's it. I did not understand anything, - says Volodya, - but for two hours I could not take my eyes off the stage. There was a feeling that this man was singing to me for two hours beautiful blues.
Now that's magic! If this is a master, then it does not matter what he will do. If the master is on, he cannot play badly. A freebie can only happen if you're turned off. And there is for real great masters, they do not allow freebies at all. They cannot afford it. Volkov himself is the same. When we wrote with him for the first time. We wrote, we wrote. Looks like they recorded all the songs. And then they began to write them down. And Volkov played in a new way every time, in each double he not only played well, but completely rethought everything. And I was just stunned by this approach. For example, I listen to all of his eight track options. And I understand that I can’t choose the one I need for recording. They are all so good. There is not a single extra note in them! And I just went crazy at first. I couldn't figure out what to do with all this? How to be? Such people simply cannot afford a freebie. They either play or they don't. But, no matter what they play, they turn on and that's it.
T: - But, there are unsuccessful concerts?
F: - Everyone has them if a person for some reason did not turn on.
T: - And where does the musician turn on? In the noosphere of Vernadsky? In some information space?
F: To the music.
T: What do you mean "to the music"? Does music exist on its own, or does the author include himself?
F: No, nothing like that. Not in itself, but in specific music. It's not about the exchange of energies, people like to talk about it often, nothing like that. Anything can be reduced to energy exchange. Music happens at a certain point in time. If you match it, in fact, if you are a musician, you turn on. An artist may not understand something, then he simply will not turn on, will not participate and that's it. Music and musicians may not be suitable for each other. Anything happens.
T: - I wish you a normal connection today.
F: Thank you too.
