For the first time I heard the stories of the avant-garde composer Nikolai Karetnikov in my own kitchen in the early 90s. Now, twenty years later, their publication has become an event not only for me and our mutual friends.
For the first time I heard the stories of the avant-garde composer Nikolai Karetnikov in my own kitchen in the early 90s. Now, twenty years later, their publication has become an event not only for me and our mutual friends. The observations, reflections and maxims collected in this book (it has two sections: «Theme with Variations» and «Readiness for Being») very accurately convey the feeling of fullness of life emanating from the author. Among the heroes of his short stories are Shostakovich, Galich, Sakharov, father Alexander Men. But these are not quite memoirs, although there are enough juicy, funny, dramatic memories in the book — about the grandmother, the singer of the imperial theaters, about the great conservatory teachers, about the characters of the Soviet establishment … In fact, this is an essay by an artist who lived a happy life in not the happiest time, in which the brilliance of the mind and bilious observation are happily combined with emotionality, who knows the value of thoughts and feelings and knows how to «melt» them into art. “Readiness for being”, as it turns out, is not at all guaranteed by the very fact of birth, it needs a lot of work.
ASTREL, BODY, 272 p.