Interview Zaderatsky’s Forgotten Voice An Interview with Jascha Nemtsov by Alan Mercer t a recent event held at the Par- is-based headquarters of the “Association Internationale ADmitri Chostakovitch,” musicologist and pianist Jascha Nemtsov spoke about his recent world premiere recording of Vsevolod Zaderatsky’s monumental Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues (1937–39), following on from his “Shostakovich Days” Gohrisch premiere performance of the work in 2015. He also played the frst eight preludes and fugues of the cycle to the delight of the enthusias- tic audience. Te DSCH Journal spoke with Nemtsov before the event, and began by asking how he discovered Zader- atsky and his music. JN: As well as being a pianist, I am also a musicologist, and as such, I was asked by a very good friend, Manfred Sapper, chief editor of the magazine Osteuropa in Berlin, to write an article on composers in the Gulag: they were preparing a new edition dedicated to Varlam Shalamov. 1 I think that this 2 was published in 2007. And it was Vsevolod Petrovich Zaderatsky was born in the Ukrainian city of Rivne on December 21, through my research for this article 1891. The pianist and composer was arrested several times and spent time in prison and that I discovered Zaderatsky. Stalin’s infamous Gulag Siberian camps. He died, shortly before Stalin, of a heart attack in Lviv, Ukraine, on February 1, 1953 DSCH: Had there been any previous publications concerning Zaderatsky? the end of the Soviet Union he wrote fall of the Soviet Union, and since the nothing at all about his father, and as beginning of the new millennium he JN: Yes, there had, and they had all far as I know, was not able to promote has been very active in promoting his been written by his son, Vsevolod his father’s music very much. I met father’s works, with several editions Vsevolodovich, who is now 81 years one of his former students from the published in Moscow and in Lvov, old, lives in Moscow, and is still active Soviet era, who’s now in her sixties, Ukraine. Te frst substantial articles as a professor at the Conservatory, and she told me that, although she on Zaderatsky were published in the teaching musical theory. Although he had studied with Professor Zader- magazine Sovetskaya Muzika, over is an infuential person in the musical atsky for some considerable time, he three issues, with the result that this life of the Russian capital now, and never once mentioned the name of turned out more like a biography than still writes a great deal, right up until his father. But this changed with the an article based on musical analysis. DSCH JOURNAL • Jan. 2017 • Nº 46 • 39 Zaderatsky’s Forgotten Voice • Alan Mercer very close as a structural idea to one of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke—and in the same key—but at the same time, it is not necessarily the case that he was infuenced by Schumann. DSCH: Would you say that the con- text in which he wrote this work led him to want to pay homage to other composers? JN: Yes, and in a sense, this aspect is comparable to the cycle of Shosta- kovich’s Twenty-Four Preludes: afer a time of experimentation and afer consolidation, the composer comes back to the cradle, as it were, and to tonal language in a larger classical Jascha Nemtsov tradition. To my mind, this is the rea- son why Zaderatsky uses homages to DSCH: Is there an ofcial biography all I had known was that this was a several classical composers. of Zaderatsky? composer who had sufered in the Gulag, but when I saw his work itself, DSCH: Regarding the Prelude and JN: Yes, and again this was written by I was really surprised. And so the Fugue tradition, you write that Zader- his son: it was published three years question arose: should I study and atsky deserves a special place in the ago. He also published several literary play this music myself? And this was musical history of the twentieth cen- works by his father, who incidentally how I began work on the cycle of the tury: his cycle did predate those of was also a very gifed writer. Tere Twenty-Four Preludes which were Shostakovich and Hindemith. is an edition of his writings in Rus- written in 1934. sian, even though some of his early JN: Yes, but I don’t think Zaderatsky’s literary works were destroyed along DSCH: Did Zaderatsky’s son send adoption of the form was by chance. with his music when he was arrested you manuscripts? As a matter of fact, I have been think- in the 1920s. ing about this lately, in connection to JN: No, some of Zaderatsky’s works events taking place to celebrate 500 DSCH: You got to know the compos- had already been published in Mos- years since the Reformation in Ger- er’s son well? cow and in Lvov. many. One such event is an exhibition running at the Bach Museum in Eisen- JN: To begin with, it was difcult, DSCH: So back to your impression ach. Te exhibition is called “Luther, and I was only able to fnd a few ref- of the pieces—what surprised you Bach—and the Jews,” and for me this erences about him on the internet, most: the complexity, the originality, was a very disturbing event. Tere through his articles about his father. or the pianism? was a lot of press coverage, including I read then that the composer’s son an article in the German newspaper was still in Moscow and was teach- JN: For me, it was about individual Die Welt entitled “Genius with Brown ing at the Conservatory, and so one style. Inevitably, when you hear of a Spots”: it was an article about Bach. day, I telephoned and asked if I could new name that no-one knows of— Te article begins by stating that it is speak to Professor Zaderatsky, and to well, expectations are necessarily not now necessary to remove the “brown my surprise, I was given his private very high! One thing that struck me spots” from our culture and that “Bach number. So we talked, and I explained early on was Zaderatsky’s homages to is now also done.” Tey are actually that I needed material to further my other composers in his music, while trying to be courageous by criticis- studies. He was very pleased and told at the same time retaining a strong ing Bach as an anti-Semite. Tis is so me that he was happy that this work sense of his own personality—espe- ridiculous and also quite dangerous. was being carried out. He sent me cially in the Twenty-Four Preludes Te whole basis of this attitude is a great deal of material, including mentioned earlier where you can hear the subject of Bach’s Passions, which his article from Sovietskaya Muzika homages to Chopin, Schumann, and use texts from the holy scriptures. as well as several scores. I was truly Rachmaninov. Take, for example, the Tese people apparently would have amazed by the music when I saw it: F-major prelude: the movement is expected Bach to improve the texts 40 • Jan. 2017 • Nº 46 • DSCH JOURNAL Alan Mercer • Zaderatsky’s Forgotten Voice according to political correctness! It’s ridiculous, but I think it is also very typical of today’s Germany. So now I play this cycle by Zader- atsky, which is in a kind of dialogue with Bach, and I ask myself just why he wrote such a work when he was in the Gulag. And then why did Shosta- kovich write his preludes and fugues at the climax of the Stalin-led anti-Se- mitic campaign, and indeed why did Victor Ullmann use the name of Bach in one of his last compositions, the Variations and Fugue on a Hebrew Folk Song?3 Again, the fugue features in this work, and one of the subjects of the fugue is based on the name of Bach. Tis piece was written in the Ter- esienstadt Ghetto. And so all three The composer's son, Vsevolod Vsevolodovich Zaderatsky composers regarded Bach not only as a great composer, but also as a sym- because he was an excellent teller of frst, unpublished version, as for me bol for humanism, and of European stories. So much so that he was held it’s more pleasant and more appeal- culture as the culture of humanism. in high esteem, not only by his fel- ing to my eyes. In the case of Zaderatsky, I think this low prisoners, but also by the guards was the main reason for him to have themselves, who would also listen to DSCH: You also wrote about the chosen this form, clearly associated his storytelling. Zaderatsky was a very impact of Zaderatsky’s music never with Bach. When you refer to Twen- well-educated man and possessed the being performed in his lifetime: afer ty-Four Preludes and Fugues, you gif of communicating this knowledge he was released from the Gulag, his immediately think of Bach. So Zader- in a pleasant, accessible manner. So in music might have been published and atsky wrote his cycle because Bach was this way, he appeared to have been—to played, and his name become better for him a symbol of humanism, and I an extent—protected, which meant, known, but this didn’t happen, and he think it is most important to under- in particular, that as a privilege he remained almost unknown during his stand this.