Incident in a concert hall

When I was a student in Moscow, with my friends, we often listen music in the Grand Hall of Moscow Conservatory or in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. The advantage of the first one was an occasional chance to slip past the ticket booth, pretending to be a student of the conservatory (all student IDs looked the same). The advantage of the second one was its location right next to an underground station and in the area of the city, where we happened to visit often anyway. That’s why we listened music in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall more often than anywhere else. And the tickets in those days were many times cheaper than now.

The organ player Garry Grodberg played then in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall very often. The most popular of his numbers was Toccata and Fugue in D minor, by J.S.Bach. He performed it with a lot of drama – with powerful attacking first few phrases with long pauses between them. It sounded very impressive. If the toccata was not included in the concert, the audience inevitably requested it for an encore. And Garry delivered to the expectations and received the greatest ovations for that.

One day we noticed a new for us organist playing there and we decided to attend. His name was Grunenwald, I think. It is possibly was French organist Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, but I am not sure. In my memory he was an Englishman. With my friend (it was either Igor Terekhov or Alexander Derevianko, I do not remember exactly) we were sitting in the third row – not the best location in that hall, because the sound “flew above the head” there.

That’s why to book a place in the orchestra was easier than in the first amphitheater, where the floor was coming up and the sound was the best, especially for listening an organ or a symphony. We looked there and saw Garry Grodberg – exactly in the middle of the fourth raw of the first amphitheater – the best place to listen organ in the hall.

Grunenwald performed very well. Most of the pieces he played we had not heard before. When the program came to an end, the audience, which had been conditioned by Garry, requested the famous toccata.

Grunenwald looked at Garry (everybody knew it was his star number). Garry smiled and nodded approvingly. We gasped admiringly observing the gentlemanly exchange of two great musicians and brushed up ourselves for hearing the familiar piece and for comparing the new foreign interpretation with the well established (in our mind) the Soviet one.

Grunenwald started playing and we did not hear what we expected at all. There was no the first powerful accord or dramatic pauses. It was toccata as many other of Bach – great music, but not particularly special among other Bach’s music. The audience applauded politely, but without much enthusiasm.

That was the first time we started suspecting that Garry exaggerated for the sake of a bigger effect in front of the wide audience, not particularly engaged in academics of music.

Many years later, when with our daughters we visited the best western music schools, I confirmed this suspicion. In Germany and in Great Britain, there are many musicians who interpret Bach in the same manner Garry did.

Nobody says it is wrong. But I also heard less dramatic and more even style of playing the Bach’s music, when the stunning Bach’s constructions reveal themselves gradually, pulling in the unsuspected and careless listener – step by step, round by round – into the harmonious depth, from where, once you are there, there is no return back. But it is probably matter of personal taste and preferences, so I leave it at that.

Many pieces by Bach, Vivaldi or Mozart I listened and will listen many times. They are always with me, and Toccata and Fugue in D minor is with me too. As well as the memory of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, and of Moscow, and of my friends – many still alive, but some gone already. I remember them all.

Q: What is a string quartet?

A: A good violin player, a bad violin player,
a failed violin player, and someone
who hates violin players.