The “Russian Seasons” Continue at the Roerich Museum

Photo: Ricky Katsova / KRiK Publishing House

In the Manhattan Museum of Nicholas Roerich, another literary and musical salon was held as part of the “Russian seasons»Organized by KRiK Publishing house.

One of the speakers in the literary part of the evening is the poet, translator and playwright Pavel Grushko, whose translations from Spanish and English are widely known throughout the world.

Pavel Grushko. Photo: Ricky Katsova / KRiK Publishing House

In his play, based on the dramatic cantata of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, one of the first rock operas in the USSR was staged, The Star and the Death of Joaquin Mureta, to the music of Alexei Rybnikov. The premiere of the play staged by Mark Zakharov was held in May 1976, in Lenkom. The performance with the participation of the then young Alexander Abdulov, Nikolai Karachentsov and Elena Shanina was a resounding success and became super popular. Two years later, the first disc was released, and in 1982, director Vladimir Grammatikov made a full-length film based on a rock opera. Pavel Grushko is the author of the art concept “Trans / Forms” (the theory and practice of literary translation as a method of reincarnation in various genres of art).

Photo: Ricky Katsova / KRiK Publishing House

The second writer is the poet and translator Jan Probstein, who today is one of the leading translators of Ezra Pound and Thomas Eliot. His book about the Russian poetry “The Spiritualized Land” is incredibly successful; its literary archive contains more than 500 publications in various periodicals in Russia, the USA, Europe and Israel.

The brilliant musician 3 immediately took part in the musical part of the program: the pianist Julia Zilberkvit, known on both sides of the ocean, who had previously participated in one of the evenings of the Russian Seasons at the Roerich Museum; winner of the First Prize and the Gold Medal in the cello specialty of the XIII International Competition. PI Tchaikovsky Sergey Antonov and violinist Artur Kaganovsky, several music albums with the participation of which were nominated for a Grammy Award.

The evening was opened by Julia Zilberkvit and Sergey Antonov. In a duet, they performed Schumann's fantasy for piano and cello.

Photo: Ricky Katsova / KRiK Publishing House

In the first part, Pavel Grushko and Jan Probstein read only translations from both English and Spanish. The Russian language included works by Borges, Lorca, Emilia Dickenson, and English metaphysical poets.

The readings of the translations alternated with the Schumann arabesques and the Brahms scherzo. In the first case, performed by Julia Zilberkvit solo, in the second - in a duet with Arthur Kaganovsky, who played the unique 1750 violin of the year by Niccolò Gagliano.

Photo: Ricky Katsova / KRiK Publishing House

Writers in the second part of the evening read their own poems. It was a very curious combination: the ironic romantic hero of Glushko’s poems and the strict philosopher-hero from the poetics of Probstein. In general, this complemented each other, and convinced in the most important thing: those present witnessed the poetic revelations of two outstanding masters, the meetings of two poetic worlds, who presented the poetic planets of unique strength and beauty to the gravitational field of Russian literature.

The central musical event was the elegy of Rachmaninoff. Both the work itself and its virtuoso performance were so impressive that all the 15 minutes, while this music sounded, the audience held, literally breathless. At some point, the feeling was created that even Nikolai and Helena Roerichs were listening to the music, looking from the portraits of the hand of their son Svyatoslav.

The last musical chord was Shchedrin's humor, which could not be better combined with Pavel Grushko's joke versibres at the end of the evening.

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