It was back in my high school days when I happened upon this book in the crowded, winding aisles of the now gone and much lamented Cliff’s Books in Pasadena. Facing out from one of the shelves in the music section was A Certain Art by Nicolai Malko, a name I had only heard about days before when discovering the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, in the course of which I heard about his leading the premiere of his Symphony No. 1. That was enough to compel my purchase of the book and his reminiscences of his one-time conducting pupil did not disappoint. But what also imprinted on my memory were his memories of the other distinguished figures he had known, names who by the time I picked up the book in 1996 were only names in textbooks. The warmth and erudition which radiated from the book’s pages ignited my curiosity about Malko, not just as witness to musical history, but as an actor himself with a vital role to play in its development.
Just a few weeks before his death, Malko thundered his objections to what he perceived were the excesses of the German conducting school in a letter to a friend, dismissing their “passion for philosophizing” as mere “verbosity.” There was none of that in his discography. His conducting was lean, muscular, direct, nervy; evincing a sensitive ear for timbral contrasts and tailor-cut phrasing. “Verbosity,” much less fascination with metaphysical fog projected upon music were utterly foreign to Malko’s art. Forget about the purported “meaning” of what you are about to listen to, he seems to say—just listen to the music.
The next few weeks will mark a triumvirate of commemorative anniversaries key to Malko and his legacy: the 95th anniversary his baton first introduced Shostakovich to the world, the 60th anniversary of his death, and the 55th anniversary of the publishing of his book A Certain Art. Originally conceived as his memoirs about his teachers and musical life in pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg, the book’s scope was augmented further with other unpublished personal writings assembled together by George Malko, the conductor’s son, who also was tasked with translating it all into English. Leafing through the pages of A Certain Art, one feels the direct voice of Nicolai Malko come through as if no intermediary were involved—an admirable feat of translation.
George Malko kindly took the time last month to converse with me about his father’s life and book. He continues to be deeply involved in the dissemination of his father’s legacy; it was immediately evident in our talk how important Nicolai Malko remains for him.
George Malko (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Néstor Castiglione: There are no reprints of A Certain Art currently available are there?
George Malko: Well, it’s been out of print since it’s first printing in 1966. I own the rights to it.
N. C.: How did this book come into existence?
G. M.: In the introduction, I wrote that my father had always intended to write a book called My Teachers. Primarily Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov, and Anatol Liadov. There were also others at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, but those were the main three. He began writing sketches. Then at one point he began working with Prof. Elizabeth Green, who had been an important force at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Many conductors studied with her and she published several books based on my father’s book, The Art of the Baton, which is his basic book on how to conduct. She had suggested putting together that was more about his than just his teachers. So he had the sketches and then he wrote about his pupil, Dmitri Shostakovich. I thought of working through his sketches about his teachers, then going to where he became the teacher. I later met John Willey, the Editor-in-Chief of William Morrow & Co. because he published the late Australian author Morris West, who was a close friend of my wife's late sister and husband. So I finished the manuscript of A Certain Art and then called and sent it to John Willey. To my delight he said he wanted to publish the book, asked for me to get more photographs, and over a very long lunch I personally negotiated a contract. I have never remembered what I had for lunch, but I got the book published. My father never really had an opportunity to get into [writing the book]—this is just my personal opinion. The sketches about his teachers are very good, and the time he spent teaching in different places, the transitional years from the October Revolution, and all that. But it’s not quite the book he wanted. He never saw the finished book. He would’ve liked it, I think, but he never saw it.
N. C.: What was the extent of your involvement in bringing A Certain Art to print?
G. M.: I speak, read, and write Russian. So I translated it. I looked at the original, made corrections, edited the whole thing, and gave it structure. As a writer myself, I had had some experience, but this was a good opportunity for me to structure things even more. The basis of the whole thing is structure. Did it have it a beginning, a middle, and an end?
N. C.: How long did this process take?
G. M.: I don’t recall now. Some months. You know, it was maybe four or five months.
N. C.: Has it been available to readers outside the English-speaking world?
G. M.: A version of the book was published in Denmark. Another version, which included an introduction by his former pupil [Issaï Ezrovich Sherman (with Lev Nikolayevich Raaben)] was published in the Soviet Union. The title was [N. A. Malko: Memories, Articles, Letters]. So a portion of A Certain Art was used there with a selection of letters to and from famous people in the music world. There’s a young musicologist in Moscow who has spent the last three or four years putting together a long article about Prokofiev and my father. She’s tracked down 43 letters from my father to Prokofiev and has permission from me to print them. They are a treasure trove. But I’m not about to translate them into English myself or anything like that.
N. C.: Has there ever been talk of reissuing A Certain Art?
G. M.: No. I exchanged a couple letters with Julian Barnes about it after he published his novel about Shostakovich. But that was just for clarification. Because the review [for his The Noise of Time] in the Times Literary Supplement talked about how Shostakovich came from a well-off middle class background. I pointed out that my parents used to feed Shostakovich. Hardly the mark of a well-to-do middle class family. He was burdened at a young age with the responsibility of caring for his family. Playing the piano in the movie theatre and all that.
N. C.: I understand that your father and Prokofiev had a close friendship. Did they maintain contact after his return to the Soviet Union?
G. M.: They saw each other. He appeared as my father’s soloist in Prague, Copenhagen, and other places. My mother saw him in Prague in 1937. He said: “What city shall we see each other again?” I never checked the chronology at the [Serge Prokofiev Foundation], but was always taken with the story that when he was in California, Walt Disney approached him. My understanding is that Disney said he always wanted to animate Peter and the Wolf, and Prokofiev said go ahead it’s yours. Years later, after the war, [Lina Prokofiev, his first wife, and her sons] ended up in California. They had very little. A Disney representative tracked her down and said I have something for you. It was a royalty check, a huge royalty check, that according to her saved them.
N. C.: Your father came to California a number of times, I am reminded. Despite his enormous work here in the United States, his career, at least judging by his recordings, seemed to center on Europe.
G. M.: We came to America when World War II began. So his European career was interrupted. We settled in Chicago. I was a very small child. Because he got a job there teaching. He conducted there as well. He came to conduct the summer concerts at Grant Park, which he did for 15 years. But once the war was over in 1945, he immediately resumed his European career. Then he began recording intensely. At the end of his career as music director in Sydney.
N. C.: Was your father able to resume regular contact with the Soviet musical world after the Khrushchev Thaw?
G. M.: He was invited back to the Soviet Union in 1959 and conducted six concerts. His pupils gathered to see him. It was very intense emotionally. One of them, Sherman, is the one who edited the Russian collection of his writing which was published in 1972. My father used to get a telegram every year from Shostakovich celebrating the premiere of his First Symphony. So there was that kind of thing. But when Shostakovich came to this country [in 1957], my father knew there was no way they could see each other. It was a very orchestrated political trip at the time.
N. C.: St. Laurent Studio in Canada has an extensive series of your father’s recordings. Are there any more Malko recordings extant?
G. M.: St. Laurent Studio’s series comprised 19 CDs. That’s everything that exists. There are some airchecks there. But they got everything. Yves St. Laurent and I spoke about what I had in my library. He just called me on the phone. I made available what he could use. His transfers are wonderful.
N. C.: One of their covers has a tantalizing photo of your father speaking in front of a television camera. Any idea what that was for or whether the kinescopes survive?
G. M.: None of those kinescopes survived. Not to my knowledge. My guess was that he was simply asked to appear on the BBC. That’s it.
N. C.: Do you still have Malko’s personal papers in your possession?
G. M.: My father’s musical library—which included letters, signed photographs, and all that kind of stuff—was acquired by Mstislav Rostropovich. He intended to put them in the house he bought on the embankment in St. Petersburg, where he wanted to have a room consecrated to my father. But he died, then his wife [Galina Vishnevskaya] died, then it all went into storage.
N. C.: Your father’s legacy continues to exert a potent influence on Russian conducting today does it not?
G. M.: I think what’s more telling are not his conducting students who went onto their performing careers, but the one particular pupil who ended up teaching at the Leningrad Conservatory: Ilya Musin. He became a tremendous influence on Soviet conducting. Valery Gergiev once talked about how he saw himself as the latest in a direct line to Rimsky-Korsakov. That it went from him to Musin, to my father, to Rimsky-Korsakov. He represents the consistency of that tradition. Temirkanov has also talked about that. He’d always visit my mother when he came to this country and tell her, “I always considered myself a grandson of Malko.” She was always flattered by that.
N. C.: With all the changes that have occurred since Malko’s death in how we perform music, how we listen to it, do you believe his legacy still has something to say to listeners today?
G. M.: His words, his art still have relevance for today, absolutely. No question about it. I believe it’s a question of how directly can a listener, the audience experience the making of music by an orchestra. If the conductor can give that to the conductor, it works. You know that there’s conductors who get in the way of the music. A lot of words will clutter the performance. I think the danger is going from appreciating his art, to writing a review. It’s very risky. Although the reviews have been great. Like [Jay] Nordlinger’s, who reviewed that double-disc volume of my father’s recordings in EMI’s Great Conductors of the 20th Century series. It was wonderful to read.
N. C.: As wonderful as reading A Certain Art.
G. M.: I would rather suggest to just listen to what my father recorded and not worry about what he wrote. Because if they enjoy how he makes the music, they’ll come to the words later.
Nicolai Malko (right) mugging it up with Vladimir Horowitz in Copenhagen, October 1933. (Photo courtesy of George Malko)