Footage of worn out, old chronicles. There is a girl at the piano – it seems that here she is already at the conservatory, but with this height, one meter forty-nine, with this childish face, she looks like a “girl” even at ninety. Voice-over: “This is an unknown composer. The author himself, Alya Pakhmutova, is at the piano.” Teacher to a girl:
- – Well, okay, Alya. Isn’t your modulation too far at the end here?
- -Are you talking about this phrase?
- – Yes-yes.
- “Okay, I’ll fix it.”
The plot is short. What then? Everyone has their own way. After all, everyone, remembering Pakhmutova, going through her songs, begins to leaf through not an abstract “history”, but their own past. Everywhere you turn, it turns out that whatever Pakhmutova’s song is, it’s some page from a family album, their own life.
The thirties move to the melodies of Dunaevsky. Post-war – rather Solovyov-Sedoy. But since the fifties – Pakhmutova. That is, of course, there are many composers, both great and all kinds, and loved ones. But in order to sing a huge era, this is from the notes of a great composer, little Pakhmutova.
She also wrote works – like the Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat minor, which nowadays is performed more often somewhere in America. In the seventies they even staged a ballet based on her music at the Bolshoi Theater. What good does that do to us?
Why do we need to know and re-read how four-year-old Alya Pakhmutova was seated at the piano in Beketovka near Stalingrad by her self-taught father, who, in his free time from the lumberyard, mastered, in addition to the piano, the violin, balalaika and even the harp. Or about the fact that at the age of five Alya wrote the piano piece “The Roosters are Crowing.” That at the age of nine she played Mozart with her dad and sang in hospitals during the war (at the age of 13), playing the accordion.
What does it matter if Pakhmutova and Dobronravov were brought together by chance – in “Pionerskaya Zorka” on the radio: they wrote a song for the holidays for schoolchildren – about “Motor Boat”. Well, it happened and passed. Why does someone suddenly start remembering some stories from their life, about their vacations? Well, what nonsense.
Or what can be said today by the fact that a certain Italian (then ambassador to the USSR) was stunned by “Belovezhskaya Pushcha”, which was performed by the Big Children’s Choir of the All-Union Radio – so, according to him, only the Milan Children’s Choir sang the song Ave Maria, and nothing has he never heard better than these two songs? Sentimentality is everything from the day before yesterday.
Here’s another fact – about the fact that Pakhmutova did not want to write the song “Tenderness” at all (and for whom, for “the aunt who came to the market to sell meat”?). Then I saw in the footage of “Three Poplars on Plyushchikha” Doronin, Efremov’s eyes (“a great love has come that will not bring him happiness”), and from “Mosfilm” to a taxi I came up with a melody. Why are these details needed?
Still from the film “Three Poplars on Plyushchikha”. Photo: kinopoisk.ru
No, let’s be honest: what kind of film “Girls” was directed by Chulyukin once (in 1962)? Where is the truth of life? Why are we lulled to sleep with a false song about “good girls, cherished friends, friendly faces, sparkling cheerful eyes”? Can this outdated creation of the composer Pakhmutova compare with the power of a modern hit, which exposes the drama of today, the advanced era of silicon valleys – well, for clarity, compare these friendly old ladies with the heroine of our time, whose soul does not sing – shouts: “I’m pregnant, but this is temporary “. And even more: “You kiss me everywhere, I’m already eighteen” – but he, apparently, does not kiss, and behind this there is drama, Shakespeare. Sweetness is a thing of the past, all these politically incorrect white heterosexual “guys” who for some reason “would probably be bored in the world without girls.” Obviously, it’s a bygone era.
“It’s a shame,” said Pakhmutova, “that nowadays they don’t talk about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya except as a psychopath.” You can understand her – but what did she want? History is not what it really is, it lives in the imagination of advanced artists: if you don’t want to lag behind the times, imagine better. Not even like that: imagine using the right patterns.
Pakhmutova, by the way, also had this song about “Drink, children, milk, you will be healthy.” How can you deceive people with such cheerful optimism in our time? What’s most offensive is that they sing and sing. All around they are singing, humming – without realizing it – Pakhmutova’s songs. “He sings about something under the wing of an airplane” – well, of course, of course. “It will be hot in heaven.” “We believe firmly.” We no longer believe in anything. That is, they believe – retrogrades. Outgoing natures.
If you’re talking about songs, it’s better to sing in English. The “best (as they say) music project in the country” doesn’t really like the old-fashioned. Should Pakhmutov sing? – let it be the people who are somewhere on this side of the screen. And if it’s about cinema, it’s a copy of “Hollywood.” The generation is different, both viewers and filmmakers: history is taught from the film “Dylda”. “This” surrounding country should be seen only through the eyes of the film “Bull,” tailored according to the same absolutely “correct” patterns. The “film industry” reflects the atmosphere – just like the pop music world. Can’t you grow from this into truly great Russian art? Why? If the goal is to get Chinese Armani.
Pakhmutova’s songs, for all their simplicity, are a territory of meaning, ideological, personal. That’s why it catches everyone. The movie “Ilyich’s Outpost” was important not because it was on the shelf, but because it carried a charge of ideas that were important for two generations. They argued seriously about the songs. The ideas and plots of the films were discussed in schools, essays were written about them, and a wave went on. Rolan Bykov was overwhelmed with bags of letters after “Scarecrow”. It’s not a matter of nostalgia, not a longing for the past at all – but the songs, films, thoughts that were born in the minds of the audience, ultimately were not about dull anger towards one’s own country. They made me want to live. They were always about something more.
And today’s people don’t even make you want to live. It’s just that listeners, spectators, like fish on the shore, gasp for air – but there is no oxygen there. A large, genuine industry of music or cinema, oddly enough, is impossible without an illusion that would teach one to want to live. Not in an illusory foreign country, but at home, at home. Without this, without genuine illusion, without inspiration, neither a great culture nor a great listener-spectator will emerge. Hollywood dressing room – maybe.
“Merry Guys”, “Volga-Volga”, and the same “Girls” – all this is considered to be a passing art, untruthful, hiding the nightmare of such and such a regime. And yet, from all this, great cinema, literature, and songs grew. Paradox? Well, you just have to think about it – what is outdated. Osip Mandelstam’s favorite film was the ideological, brilliant film “Chapaev” – the poet went to see this film more than once. How so? Where can one apply the imagination of advanced artists who imagine life with the help of napalm?
That Alya Pakhmutova – in the old chronicle – does not yet know the word “hit”. She will simply write songs that everyone will sing. Yesterday, today. Yes, and tomorrow. In one of her interviews, Pakhmutova reasoned: “The point is not that pop artists are told: “Sing on purpose about dirt.” But it turns out that this is possible and profitable. They also say: “But freedom!” I don’t need this freedom. You know, why? If everything is allowed, then not a single boy will wash his neck, will not wash himself at all, will only eat chocolate and smoke from the age of three. You can write the song “Tango Cocaine”, “Kill My Girlfriend” or even “Kill My Mother” . But why is it being passed on? It means someone needs it.”
It is, of course, not about a “conspiracy” – it is about the state of the brain. About values. To judge, you first need to realize that for us as a society and a country there are vital values. So that the logic of laws, rules and everything that moves public life are based on a clear and understandable agreement: what is good and what is bad? Without this there will be no great songs or great art. Paradox upon paradox.
Source: rg.ru
