I think this is a unique event in the history of recording-I mean changing conductors three times in one night. Anyway, the record was ready by morning. They made one single copy and sent it to Stalin.
Now, that was a record record. A record in yesing.
Soon after, Yudina received an envelope with twenty thousand rubles. She was told it came on the express orders of Stalin. Then she wrote him a letter. I know about this letter from her, and I know that the story seems improbable; Yudina had many quirks, but I can say this-she never lied. I'm certain that her story is true. Yudina wrote something like this in her letter: "I thank you, Iosif Vissarionovich, for your aid. I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country. The Lord is merciful and He'll forgive you. I gave the money to the church that I attend."
And Yudina sent this suicidal letter to Stalin. He read it and didn't say a word, they expected at least a twitch of the eyebrow. Naturally, the order to arrest Yudina was prepared and the slightest grimace would have been enough to wipe away the last traces of her. But Stalin was silent and set the letter aside in silence. The anticipated movement of the eyebrows didn't come.
Nothing happened to Yudina. They say that her recording of the Mozart was on the record player when the leader and teacher was found dead in his dacha. It was the last thing he had listened to.
I'm telling this story with a specific aim, which I'm not hiding. I'm not a militant atheist, and I feel people can believe as they wish. But just because a person has a particular set of superstitions doesn't prove anything good about him. Just because a person is religious, say, he doesn't automatically become a better person.
Stalin was superstitious, that's all. Tyrants and yurodivye are the same in all eras. Read Shakespeare and Pushkin, read Gogol and Chekhov. Listen to Mussorgsky.
I recall that Yudina kept trying to read to me from the New Testament. I listened with interest and without any particular trepidation.
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She read the New Testament to me and I read Chekhov to her: "Resolving everything through Bible texts is as arbitrary as dividing convicts into five groups." Chekhov went on to say, Why five and not ten groups? Why the Bible and not the Koran? And no fans of the Bible have ever been able to argue convincingly against Chekhov's healthy reasoning. Then why proselytize? Why all that pathos ?
No, I have nothing to say to ambitious men, and I refuse to accept any comments from them on my behavior. All these luminaries were willing to get along with me on one condition: to wit, that I join their ranks, and join without a murmur, without a single thought. But I have my own opinion of what's right and wrong and I don't have to.
discuss my opinion with just anyone. I often hear just such demands and I often feel like saying, "And who are you?" But I control myself, because you can't ask everyone anyway, it would take too much time and they wouldn't understand.
But I would like to clear this up once and for all. I maintain that I can only have a serious conversation, a substantial one, so to speak, with a workingman. That is, with a man who has worked hard in his life and accomplished much. I won't bother with these citizens who flit about, whether they're curly-haired or bald, bearded or clean-shaven, who are without any specific profession and have a prosecutor's ambition.
And it's important to remember that there's work and there's work, and not every job gives a man the right to take on a prosecutor's role.
For instance, if you've spent your entire life developing and perfecting the hydrogen bomb, you probably shouldn't be proud of the fact.* I would say that you would have a rather dirty work record. Rather dirty. And it's not too logical with such a record to strive to be a prosecutor, because you can kill one person with a cudgel but with a hydrogen bomb you can kill millions.
Participation in this astounding progress in the work of killing should frighten off decent people from the lectures of the participant.
But as we see, it doesn't, and as we see, it even gives the lectures an additional popularity and piquancy. Which proves once more that things are not healthy in our criteria for nobility and decency. Things
•A reference to aCademician Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov (b. 1921).
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are not right in that area. To put it bluntly, it's an insane asylum.
I refuse to speak seriously with lunatics, I refuse to talk to them about myself or others, I ref use to discuss questions about my proper or improper behavior.
I write music, it's performed. It can be heard, and whoever wants to hear it will. After all, my music says it all. It doesn't need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not worth talking to.
I am horrified by people who think the commentaries to a symphony are more important than the symphony. What counts with them is a large number of brave words-and the music itself can be pathetic and woebegone. This is real perversion. I don't need brave words on music and I don't think anyone does. We need brave music. I don't mean brave in the sense that there will be charts instead of notes, I mean brave because it is truthful. Music in which the composer expresses his thoughts truthfully, and does it in such a way that the.
greatest possible number of decent citizens in his country and other countries will recognize and accept that music, thereby understanding his country and people. That is the meaning of composing music, as I see it.
There's no point in talking to the deaf, and I'm addressing only those who can hear and it's only with them that I plan to converse, only with those people for whom music is more important than words.
They say that music is comprehensible without translation. I want to believe in that, but for now I see that music needs many accompanying words to make it understood in another country. I'm asked many stupid questions when I go abroad. That is one of the reasons why I don't like to go, perhaps the main reason.
Any obnoxious pest can say whatever comes into his head and ask you about anything. He didn't even know your name yesterday, the idiot, but today, since he has to earn a living, he manages to pronounce it. He has no idea of what you do-and he doesn't care. Of course, journalists aren't the only people in a country, but show me what newspapers you're reading and I'll tell you what's in your brain.
The typical Western journalist is an uneducated, obnoxious, and profoundly cynical person. He needs to make money and he doesn't 1 96
give a damn about the rest. Every one of these pushy guys wants me to answer his stupid questions "daringly" and these gentlemen take offense when they don't hear what they want. Why do I have to answer?
Who are they? Why do I have to risk my life? And risk it to satisfy the shallow curiosity of a man who doesn't give a damn about me! He didn't know anything about me yesterday and he'll forget my name by tomorrow. What right does he have to expect my frankness and my trust? I don't know anything about him, but I don't pester him with questions, do I ? Even though he could answer my questions without endangering his hide.