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The Note. Life of Rudolf Barshai, by Oleg Dorman (NF)
Rights sold: Russia – CORPUS BOOKS, Latvia – JANIS ROZES
The 90-minutes interview with Rudolf Barshai was filmed in the great musician's house in Switzerland, in 2010, shortly before the great artist's death, and broadcast on Culture TV Channel in 2012. One journalist mentioned his "unswerving feeling of implication in someone else's talent and happiness" after The Note opening night.
Born in Russia in 1924, Rudolf Barshai was the leading Russian viola player of his generation and an important conductor, particularly in the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. His scope of talent encompassed a celebrated career as a viola soloist, conductor and arranger, the likes of which may never be seen again.
Barshai knew Shostakovich's music on a very intimate level. He studied with the great composer, and often performed Shostakovich's music with the composer at the piano. They became close personal friends. He was also close with Prokofiev, with whom he discussed orchestrations to a stunning degree.
A master of the viola, Barshai was the founding violist of Moscow's renowned Borodin Quartet. When Stalin and Prokofiev died - on the same day in 1953 - the quartet was ordered to play at both funerals. They were ferried back and forth between the two gravesites in an ambulance, Barshai remembered.
In Russia, Barshai performed chamber music with many greats, including Sviatoslav Richter, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Emil Gilels, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Leonid Kogan.
In 1955, he founded the Moscow Chamber Orchestra dubbed by Shostakovich "the greatest chamber orchestra in the world", which he led until 1977. In 1977 Barshai left the Soviet Union for Israel, where he was named music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra.
Barshai brought to the west a significant knowledge and understanding of Russian music, appearing with symphony orchestras around the world, including the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony. In the 1980s Barshai held conducting posts with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in Canada. At his death in 2010, he was conductor emeritus of the Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan.
Barshai was a serious, studious musician who shunned promotion, avoided interviews where possible, and concentrated solely on the interpretation of the composer's score. Indeed, the only sign he gave of being aware of his image was a hair clip that he used during performances.
Among his accomplishments, Barshai recorded a complete cycle of Shostakovich symphonies, and in 2000 completed and orchestrated Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony, which had been left unfinished at the composer's death. Barshai worked until his last days, finally finishing what he considered a lifetime achievement: arranging J.S.Bach's The Art of Fugue.
Movie trailer (English subtitles):
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Don Domino (The Zero Train), a novel by Yuri Buida (1994)
Rights are handled on behalf of Editions Gallimard
Rights sold: China - Thinkingdom Media Group, France – Gallimard, Germany - AUFBAU, Italy - ATMOSPHERE LIBRI, Norway – Aschehoug, Russia - EKSMO, Spain – Automatica, Turkey – Dogan, UK/US – Dedalus (as The Zero Train)
Russian Booker prize nominee
The action in this novel takes place in a remote train station in the far reaches of Russia. It relates the life of the inhabitants who watch each night the passing of a train bound for some mysterious destination... A lot of comparisons have been made to try to capture the essence of this short novel – Kafkaesque, Beckett with trains, you get the picture. And whilst these may be true to a degree, it is only a small degree. Buida has his own voice and his own approach. Indeed, like all good writers he has subverted everything without once straying from a path which anyone can follow. Most importantly, he has taken what many term Socialist Realism and used it to cast a blisteringly clear light on Stalinist Russia. That this would call to mind both Kafka and Beckett (and many more beside) is inevitable.
If that is his style, his subject is both simple and infinitely expressive, with a life beyond the episodic tale. A railway line is built along which travels the Zero Train. At intervals along the track there are stations and sidings, workshops, and all the life that is lived by those who maintain all these facilities. We are given glimpses into the long, bleak, and brutal life of one such place. It encapsulates the Stalinist era, but it also lays wide open the human condition. Those who arrive at the beginning, young, with hope, are ground down through the years. Those that survive are little more than that. Survivors. Their lives have been devoted to the Zero Train, the purpose of which is a mystery. When the train goes, they must go as well. The whole book is a surreal tour de force. It sounds grim, and the realism spares no sensibilities, but at the same time it is a poetic work, and a paean to those whose whole lives were lived with the heel of the boot on their faces."The Zero Train is an imaginative exploration of Soviet history that stands on its own literary achievements. Oliver Ready's translation conveys with a sure hand the power and grace of Buida's supple prose. His style is at once lyrical and shocking. The norms of Socialist Realism -- prominent in the cultural hinterland that such translations expose to our view -- are manipulated with an angry bravado in this violent elegy for Ivan Ardabyev." - Times Literary Supplement
"The Zero Train by Yuri Buida is the most remarkable book I've read this year." - Helen Dunmore, The Observer (25/11/2001)
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