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B. Turchinsky
ORCHESTRA
Official magazine of the Hungarian and East-Central European Association of Band Ensembles WASBE AFFILIATE.

Listening to his music

“I would say the most important events in my life as a composer were the first performance of the “Holocaust- Requiem” in Kiev in 2001 (dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Babi Yar tragedy) and its performance in New Zealand later, in 2008, at the Night of Broken Glass 70th anniversary - at the commemoration concert dedicated to the events that led to the Holocaust tragedy. Besides, I would also mention the world premiere of the “Song of the Sea” at the Carnegie Hall (NY) and the performance of the symphonic picture “Wind of Yemen” by such perfect wind bands as “Tokyo Kosey Wind Orchestra” (Tokyo International Festival in 2004) and “La Armonica” (Buñol, Valencia, the “Mano a mano” concert in 2010)”.

This is the way the Israeli composer answered my question about the most important events in his biography.

In general, Boris Pigovat has such a deep and interesting personality that it is impossible to understand everything about him and his music having asked just one short question and having heard one laconic answer. So, I had to ask him much more questions.

The Consonances

“Boris Zelikovich Pigovat is a composer, a teacher, a Bar-Milan University doctor (2002), a member of the “Israel Composers League”. He was born in Odessa and studied at Gnessin Music College (Theory and Composition Faculty) and later at Gnessin Music Institute in Moscow (Composition class of Prof.N.I.Peiko)”.

This is the way wikipedia describes Boris Pigovat’s biography making a funny but noticeable mistake: the right name is “Bar-Ilan”, not “Bar-Milan” University.
The Israeli University of “Bar-Ilan” is not widely known despite being a rather famous and prestigious high school, but Milan – the high fashion and high art city, the so-called “Paris on the Apennines” – is sure to be famous all over the world – everyone has heard about it! That is why it is easy to make a misprint – the names of both cities sound pretty much alike.

This small misunderstanding provokes certain thoughts about different sounds, consonances and associations which are the basic elements of music, because music is nothing without these elements – without the pictures that its sounds draw in one’s imagination and mind. Each listener has certain associations of his own, and there is no way to explain them. This is where the magic of music reveals itself. Music doesn’t have to explain anything!

… Well, it sometimes does have to explain…just a little bit.

Once, inspired by the great clarinetist’s Giora Feidman’s breathtaking performance, Boris Pigovat created the piece “Tzfat” – a klezmer rhapsody for trombone and wind orchestra. The majority of readers in Russia might not know that Tzfat is a city in the North of Israel, where the annual Klezmer Music Festival is held, and this piece was dedicated to Giora Feidman.

A little later, Pigovat made an orchestration of “Tzfat” for violin and orchestra, which Feidman liked a lot and decided to perform (both ways – with string orchestra and with string quartet). The only thing he was asking for was to rename the piece – people outside Israel might not know what Tzfat is, that is why it would be better to name it due to the spirit of the music – “The Jewish Wedding”, as Pigovat did.

The spirit of music… Indeed, music does have a spirit of its own, and a rebellious one. That is what the wikipedia’s misprint made me think about.

So, he used to live in Odessa.

- Boris, how did it all begin? Who was the first to notice you would become a composer, who was the first to show you the way? It would be interesting to hear something about your first teachers.

As I was denied from Stolyarsky’s music school (I didn’t repeat the rhythm exercises properly), I entered an ordinary music school in Odessa – the music school #4, faculty of violin.

Well, one can’t say it was just an ordinary school, because it was headed by an absolutely unique person – Vladimir Danilovich Stakhovsky, a great music education enthusiast. The school provided composition classes, the senior classes had a chance to try to conduct the school choir (after having had a series of choir conducting lessons), and as for Stakhovsky himself, he had a Music Theory and Sol-fa group where, luckily for me, I happened to enroll. The amount of knowledge and skills we were provided there was equal to that of the first year Music college theory department classes.

It was Stakhovsky who persuaded my parents to allow me to try to enroll the Gnessin Music College in Moscow.

First Compositions

- Boris, did you create your first pieces while studying at the Music College? One should mention that in the USSR, if compared to other countries, the music colleges represented a real smithy of talents which was providing the orchestras with high-qualified and talented musicians and the music schools – with teachers. What memories do you have of those years?

The years at Music College had prepared me a lot. The knowledge and skills that I had learnt there helped me later at the Gnessin Institute (Academy of music) to spend less time preparing to Music Theory classes and exams and to concentrate on Composition, Orchestration (class of prof. N.I.Peiko) and Polyphony (which was taught by prof. G.I Litinskiy like an additional Composition course).

As an addition to my studies, I used to learn a lot due to the vivid concert life of Moscow. At my first two years at the Music College, my composition teacher was O.K. Eiges – a wonderful musician, composer and pianist (he gave up teaching later). As for my compositions written at the college, I managed to keep two of them – “The little Prince” and “Sonata-Ballada” (both were published later).

But speaking about me becoming a real composer, it happened due to my studies at the class of N.I.Peiko. I am happy to have been granted the chance to work with this sometimes very strict (sometimes even rigid) and critical teacher. Even now, while working on a new piece, I try my best to see it from his point of view and to leave out everything redundant or unsuitable.

Speaking about a noticeable success in composing while being a student, I should mention my cantata “Khatyn” for choir, piano and percussion. This piece won first prize at the All-Union Student’s Composer’s Competition. Besides, another important event happened in my life that time. While preparing the performance of my cantata, I asked percussion department students from Vladimir Pavlovich Shteiman’s class for help. Thus, I started to be “known” in this class and made percussion orchestrations for such pieces as “Plaintive Song” by K.Lyadov and the 4th part of “Capriccio Espagnol” by Rimski-Korsakov.
I wrote a piece for vibraphone for Volodya Kalabanov, one of the best Shteiman’s students that time. Being in Israel, I was surprised to know that it was used as an obligatory piece at one of All-Russia competitions later.
If it wasn’t for my contacts with the Shteiman class, the percussion parties in my partitions would look much different.



The world of wind instruments revealed, or the forgotten notes…

It seems to me I was a third-year student when the chair of composition and the chair of wind instruments decided to give us a task to write small pieces for wind instruments. I wrote a piece for trumpet (class of T.A. Dokshitser) and one more for tuba (class of V.N. Dosadina). These were my first steps in the world of wind instruments, which had been unknown for me before.
I don’t know where these pieces are now. I didn’t have a chance to make a copy that time,
I gave the original scores away, and I didn’t keep any drafts. They might still be found somewhere actually. It would be interesting for me to take a look at them now.

Being a fourth-year student, I wrote a one-movement concert-poem for sax and string orchestra (plus three trombones and tuba) and found the courage to ask the famous Soviet sax player Margarita Shaposhnikova to play it. To my surprise, she did agree! And she performed it in a superb way. Not with the orchestra though, just with piano.

The new and the old contacts

- So, you did gain some success while still being a student in Moscow, didn’t you? Tell us a little more about it. Do you still keep in touch with some Russian musicians, composers and conductors?

I have an old friend in Moscow – we made friends while being students. It is Vladimir Dovgan, who is both – an amazingly honest and kind-hearted person and a very deep, serious and sincere composer. I love his music very much; it makes you feel the sincerity of the author’s thoughts and feelings – a thing that is often missed in modern music.
Since I was living in Israel I'd established tight professional contacts with musicians from Saratov- Professor of Trumpet Class Saratov Musical Academy , a founder and the only musical director of the "Volga Band" Wind Orchestra, Anatoly Selyanin, conductors Arcadiy Shur & Kiril Ershov, as well as the "Brand Brass" Ensemble director, Oleg Abramov. "Volga Band" is a wonderful musical collective of a very high performance level. This perfect band performed most of my pieces for wind orchestra. And for "Brand Brass" Ensemble I prepared a chamber version of my orchestra piece "Dedicated to Marc Chagall", which they played in Russia and abroad.

My pieces have also been performed in Orenburg.

Due to the conductor Lev Arshtein (who is currently living in Israel), I managed to establish contacts with a group of very good musicians - Belgorod Philarmonic Society Symphony Orchestra. The have already performed my symphonic poem “A Song of Ascents”once and I am looking forward to our further cooperation.

For family reasons

- You happened to have spent a few years in Tajikistan, in Dushanbe. How did you get there and what kind of experience (speaking first of all about creative experience) did it give you?

How did I get there? As easy as a pie. Being a student, I married a co-student from Dushanbe, and after graduating from Gnessin Institute we moved to Tajikistan.
For twelve years I had been teaching, working as a consultant at the Union of Composers and even as the second conductor at Tajikistan TV and Radio Folk Instruments Orchestra.

What kind of inspiring experience did I derive from that period of life? I guess the main thing I learnt there was the ability to feel and percept the peculiarities of an unknown part in the world of music, in order to mix them with my own style later and make them a part of my being. I don’t think I would be able to write my “Wind of Yemen”, “Exile”, “From 1001 nights” and some other pieces if it hadn’t been for my experience there.

Rubber shoes for horse-riding

- In 1990 you repatriated to Israel. How did it feel at first? How do you feel in this country now?

I spent the first two years living in kibbutz Daphna not far from the Lebanese border. By the way, it is a magnificent place! We were learning Hebrew there, and it was the time when I started working at a shoe factory – I was making rubber shoes for horse-riding.
The country provided us with a certain financial aid, but we had to earn some money for our first mortgage loan. I was forced to work from 4a.m. to 4p.m. In fact, one should work 8 hours a day, but I was paid more if I was working overtime.
After my day at work, I took some time for rest and started composing. I wasn’t ashamed of working at the factory. It was clear to everyone that it was only for a short period of time and that I do it the way all repatriates do before finding their own path in this new world. There is no wonder one often says in Israel: “Any kind of work can bring respect for the one who does it”.

“This land helps the ones who love it”

- Indeed, in two years’ time I started working as a musician - Boris Pigovat continues his narration. The Ministry of Repatriation and the Ministry of Culture developed a special program on creating jobs for the composers from the former USSR. Special jobs were established at Israeli music schools for children – the so-called “conservatoires” (the word doesn’t have to do anything with the conservatoires in Russia! These education establishments are called “conservatorion” in Israel). This was the job for a “composer-in-residence”, as it was called, and I started working there plus accepted the job of a string orchestra conductor at the conservatorion of Kyriat Bialik - a small town in the North of Israel, not far from Haifa.
I am still working there. This orchestra is my creative lab. Nearly all of my pieces had been played by these kids first, and only after that they were performed by professional orchestras in Israel and abroad.
When I analyze all the pieces I wrote before immigrating to Israel, I can say only 6 or 7 of them could be compared to the things I wrote after the USSR collapsed. The only way I can explain it is that the new land, new reality and new atmosphere have made a huge influence on me, although I didn’t feel any musical influence during my first years in Israel.
For the first two years in kibbutz Daphna I had been out of touch with music centers and orchestras. However, even the things I wrote that time are much different from everything I did before: it felt like some bridges were burnt, giving vent to some new energy.

The pieces I wrote in Israel seem to have a different destiny. I’ve been thinking about it recently and according to my calculations, they have been performed in more than 25 countries by both Israeli and foreign musicians. It feels like this land helps those ones who love it; it makes people free, revealing and strengthening their hidden potential. One more thing I feel grateful to Israel for is that my Requiem “Holocaust” for viol and orchestra was written here, and I consider it to be the most important piece I’ve ever written.

In Israel, I acquired my doctorate at Bar-Ilan University. Prof. Andre Haidu was my academic advisor. I composed the oratorio “Jeremiah’s Lamentation” and defended the thesis “Melodic patterns in K. Penderecki’s Passion by Luke”.
I was finishing my postgraduate studies at Gnessin Music Institute in 1983-1986 with N. I. Peiko being my academic advisor. I wrote “Musica Dolorosa” for orchestra at the end of my studies there.


A young orchestra

- “The Orchestra” is a magazine for the ones who know and love wind music. That is why it is interesting to know how many pieces for wind instruments you have written.

I’ve written a lot of pieces for wind orchestra. All of them were created after 1997. Before 1997, I had a cold attitude towards wind orchestra. To me, it was an orchestra playing marches, quodlibets, song variations etc.
Things changed when I met a wonderful musician – Mikhail Delman, Petah Tikva conservatoire orchestra conductor. He was the one to show me the amazing world of modern wind orchestra.
Suddenly, I found out there is plenty of good professional orchestras which perform both – pieces for wind orchestra and wind orchestrations of such things as Debussy’s “La Mer”, Maler’s “Symphony #3”, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol”, Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Francesca da Rimini“. The orchestrations are so well-crafted that one doesn’t feel the lack of string instruments there. Moreover, some wind bands include not only basses (which are already common in many wind bands) but cellos as well. Such orchestras go under other names – “Symphonic Wind Band”, “Symphonic Band”, “Wind Symphony”. In fact, I started learning to orchestrate for such bands from scratch, I would even say I started thinking other way while working with such groups.

There is a great bulk of work for composers there, plus such orchestras feel a great need for original symphony works – emphasis on “symphony” – for pieces that could be really called “symphony pieces” due to their spirit, structure and level.

Originally, I used to write my pieces for the Petah Tikva Conservatoire Symphonic Band where I’ve been working as a “composer-in-residence” for 10 years.

This orchestra is a great creative lab for me, and I am happy to write for them.

Sometimes it seems like these guys don’t know the word “impossible”. The pieces I wrote for them were estimated by professional conductors later – e.g., Dennis Johnson who had been WASBE president for many years. The pieces were estimated due to the 6-point scale and rated “5.5+” and “6”. It was an “etgar” – a challenge for the kids, and they were accepting it and doing their best! Only after that were they performed by professional and University orchestras in America, Europe and even Japan (Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra at ACL festival in Tokyo, 2003).
I currently am a member of WASBE, too. As for the Petah Tikva children orchestra, I still work with them, they perform nearly all of my new things (except for the poem “Song of the sea” that I wrote specially for Dennis Johnson for his concert at Carnegie Hall and “The Idyll” that he has performed recently). I wouldn’t even say they are “children orchestra” – I’d rather all them a “young orchestra” instead. I can’t help admiring the way they work – they show amazing diligence and fill the music with their emotions. The orchestra has recorded 4 CDs in which you can hear my pieces.

Note

The Petah Tikva Conservatoire Symphonic Band is a laureate of many prestigious wind music contests and festivals. This orchestra regularly wins first prizes at various competitions in Israel and abroad, e.g. first prize in Kerkrade (the Netherlands) , Zurich and Interlaken (Switzerland), second prize in Valencia (Spain). The band held concerts in the USA (Chicago), Norway and Austria.
The conservatoire provides world orchestras with excellent musicians, such as M.Timoshin and A. Vainer (flute), Israel Defense Forces Orchestra soloists, All-Israel Young Musicians Contest laureates; S. Berger (French horn) – Frankfurt “Ensemble Modern” member, Sh.Bryl (clarinet) , who graduated from Lübeck Academy of Music and won the competition in Geneva in 2007, B. Kerzman (trumpet) – Staats Oper musician (Germany), M. Meerovich (clarinet) – Beersheba Symphony Orchestra soloist, and others.
This year, they work on the overture “Night on bald mountain” by Mussorgsky, “Ciaconna” from “Partita #2 in d minor” by Bach (orchestration by M. Delman), “Symphony #5” by G. Mahler (part 1) as well as on other pieces.

The band has a great support from the conservatoire directors E.Alon and the mayor of Petah Tikva Y.Ohayon.

The Saratov Band
Boris Pigovat has played a significant role in the life of “Brandt Brass Band”, the famous wind band from Saratov by writing a piece specially for them. Today, it is one of the most popular wind bands in Russia. “Brandt Brass Band” has won serious prizes at several international competitions and festivals. This is the only 10-members brass band in Russia.
As the band was planning to take part at the “Brass festival” in Germany, Boris Pigovat made a chamber version of the “Jewish Rhapsody” (“Dedicated to M.Chagall”) for them. The world premiere of this piece took place at the festival’s final concert.
The musicians from Saratov felt the peculiarities of Pigovat’s style at once – they couldn’t help noticing the brightness, emotionality and originality of his music, created under the influence of Israeli melodies.
«We are working on creating new common compositions and hopefully, we will please our spectators with Boris Pigovat’s brand new pieces next season - Boris Pigovat’s colleagues from Saratov say. – At first, we got acquainted with his music. We heard a lot of his works at the “Volga Band” Jewish concert. We were impressed by the depth of this music! At the same time, we realized we could show our technical and musical skills with the help of his works. Strange as it may seem, we have never met this composer in flesh. However, we often communicate by e-mail and by phone. He is interested in our news, and we try to perform his piece “Dedicated to M.Chagall” (that he wrote for us) practically everywhere. Pigovat is in high demand not only in Israel. We discuss our further cooperation, we wouldn’t want to play something primitive – we crave for the global things this author creates!

Israel, Germany, Music

- You have dedicated a great bulk of music to the Holocaust. What does it mean for you? Why do you feel for this tragedy? I should say that I was deeply impressed by your “Babi Yar”, by the beauty and the psychological depth of this music. The influence of this music is great: it makes us, who hadn’t experienced that terror, shiver and numb.

- I would say that tragic topics represent an eternal topic in the world of art and an endless source of inspiration for composers, musicians, artists…


An extract from a newspaper:
“The Babi Yar commemoration evening organized by the embassies of Israel and Germany took place in the National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine. The guests had a chance to hear the Requiem “Holocaust” written by the Israeli composer Boris Pigovat”.

- Our embassy decided to organize several intercultural projects, dedicated to the anniversary of these dreadful events, - Israeli ambassador in Russia Anna Azari told us. It turned out that the embassy of Germany was also going to arrange a concert those days. We decided to unite our efforts and thus we turned it into an intercultural event with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by Roman Kofman, the viola soloist Rainer Moog from Germany; besides, the Requiem “Holocaust” was written by the Israeli composer Boris Pigovat, and the symphony “Yellow starts” – by the famous Russian composer Isaak Schwartz.
Boris Pigovat didn’t conceal he was touched by the fact the world premiere of his Requiem would take place in Kiev. He confessed that he was feeling an enormous pain while working on this piece, and this pain has penetrated into music. He had been working on it for a year and a half, and it was a real torture taking into account that Babi Yar had become a grave for his close relatives murdered by the Nazi on September 29, 1941.
He made the structure of his work similar to the one of a traditional Catholic Dead Mass and its character similar to a special Memorial Prayer (“Yizkor”) which is dedicated to 6000000 victims of the Holocaust and which is recited in the synagogues four times a year according to the Jewish tradition. That is why the Requiem “Holocaust” combines two religious traditions – the European one and the Jewish one.
“The requiem “Holocaust” has a great future! The piece by Boris Pigovat is very complicated and yet not pretentious; at the same time it is simple and yet not primitive; it is the kind of music that comes from the heart!” – thus were the reviews.
As it was with the Saratov musicians, Boris Pigovat established contacts with maestro Roman Kofman by phone. Later, Boris came to Kiev and was present at all the the National Philharmonic Society Orchestra rehearsals.
The Israeli composer has highly appreciated the work of his Ukrainian colleagues. “Their warm attitude toward my music is very important for me. I felt their attitude the moment I heard the way they were performing my “Requiem” – said the composer.”
The ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany Dietmar Stüdemann emphasized:
“Our intercultural meeting showed that we understand each other very well and that thus we can build a cultural bridge uniting people from different countries. Music knows no borders, it needs no explanations and it possesses a great emotional power”. Many heads of other states were present at the event. After the concert, some spectators came up to the conductor Roman Kofman and the composer Boris Pigovat to thank them face-to-face. The most repeated words and phrases that evening were “great, wonderful!” and “This is just amazing, thank you for introducing this music to us!


The version for Giora

-Tell us a little about your contacts with the famous clarinet player Giora Feidman, who is known to be the best klezmer music performer.
- It all started around ten years ago, when I first met the great clarinet player Giora Feidman and he gave me his CD. In fact, this was the end of our communication. At least he couldn’t recall it when I met him seven years later. And to me, listening to his CD was a revelation. Under the influence of his breathtaking performance I wrote the piece “Tzfat” - a klezmer rhapsody for trombone and wind orchestra. As it was already mentioned, Tzfat is the place where the annual Klezmer Festival is held.
The reason I had chosen trombone was obvious – the Petah Tikva Consevatorion had a very good trombone player that time – I’m talking about Dotan Dor. Later, I made one more version for violin and string orchestra. Giora Feidman knew nothing of this piece, we hadn’t met each other for 7 years.
Then, when we met three years ago, I showed him my version for violin and string orchestra. He liked it a lot and decided to play it.
Apart from the wish to rename the piece due to its spirit, he also asked me about a thing most composers seldom their permission to – Feidman wanted to improvise instead of playing the slow introduction I wrote. Today, this piece exists in two versions – the basic one and the “the version for Giora”. This is the way the score is entitled, to avoid being confused with the other one.

Struck by an obvious thing

While reading Boris’s answers to my questions, I suddenly was struck by an obvious thing.
A great number of both musicians and other talented people also did not succeed at enrolling in the schools they had chosen and yet became famous later!
One should mention the way Pyotr Solomonovich Stolyarsky, the headmaster of the school Boris Pigovat didn’t enroll in, was searching for new talents. Had Boris enrolled in his school, Stolyarsky would have surely played a great role in his future! And Pigovat’s life would have gone a slightly other way, he could have gained even more success…
Stolyarsky was a wonderful teacher. He was “bringing children up” in a musical way. He used to say that a good fabric needs a good tailor”.
Unfortunately, this tailor didn’t get the chance to work with such delicate, although a little “rough-textured” fabric as the little Borya Pigovat was…

Not for the sake of rewards…

- You are a laureate of a great number of many prestigious Israeli and international contests and competitions. Tell us something about your awards, please.
- Well, I wouldn’t say I have a “great number» of them. While living in the USSR, I sent my piece for trombone quartet to a contest in Hungary and got an “Honors Diploma”. In fact, I won the third prize, because the first prize wasn’t awarded to anyone. Being in Israel, I was twice awarded the ACUM Prize (ACUM is similar to American ESCAP) and the Prime Minister of Israel Award. These are all of my prestigious awards so far.
Endnotes
The list of Boris Pigovat’s works includes: the oratory “Eichah” (“Jeremiah’s Lamentation”) for reciter, soprano, choir and orchestra (2001); Symphony #1 (“The Memorial”) for symphony orchestra (1987); Symphony #2 for string orchestra (1989/90); “Musica Dolorosa” for chamber orchestra (1987); “Jerusalem” – a fantasy for symphony orchestra (1993); “Tachanun” (“Supplication”) for symphony orchestra (1996); “Massada” – a poem for symphony wind band (1997), “Dies Irae” – a poem for symphony wind orchestra (2001); “On Mount Sinai” – a poem for symphony wind band (2004); “Four Fairy-Tales” for symphony wind band (2005); “Nigun” for string orchestra (1996); “Toccata” for string orchestra (1997), “Sonata for piano” (1988); “By the rivers of Babylon” for choir a capella (1991); “Prayer” for violin (or viola) and piano (1994); “Shulamit” for flute, bassoon and harp (1996); “Wandering Stars” for harp (1999) and many others.
Boris Pigovat has created so many different pieces! However, he defines only some of them as his favorite. Why? Surprisingly, he cannot answer this question himself. To understand it better, one needs just to listen to his music!