“The Difference Between Quality Art and Crap”

I was chatting with Vladimir Feltsman last Spring about PostClassical Ensemble’s 2017-18 immersion experience, “The Russian Experiment,” when the conversation took an unexpected turn.

I had broached the topic of “cultural community,” and invited Feltsman to compare musical life in the US with the policed Soviet musical milieu he fled in 1987.

We agreed that Western musical life, whatever its virtues, embraced no musical community of culture comparable to what Soviet Russians enjoyed in adversity.

“I’m trying to do what I can to help my younger colleagues,” Feltsman said, referring to the “Piano Summer at New Paltz” festival he founded more than twenty years ago. “In order to be successful, they try to copy the most successful people at the moment in the music business” – people who were not “inspirational characters. . . . We all know their names.”

I recalled a conversation I once had with the pianist Benjamin Pasternack, who is of the same generation as Feltsman and myself. Pasternack and I agreed that there was a time when pianists of international consequence were famous for a reason – but that today it’s become a “crapshoot.”

“It is,” Feltsman agreed. “Absolutely. It’s a different artform. It’s a different market, and we know that the market dictates whatever it needs.”

I requested that our conversation end on a more optimistic note.

So Feltsman added that he hoped “that people, after being satiated with youtube snippets of ‘The Bumblebee’ [millions of hits and counting], would eventually come to understand the difference between quality art and crap.”

This exchange was filmed by Behrouz Jamali, who expertly documents many PostClassical Ensemble events. Behrouz produced a film, “The Russian Experiment: A Different Perspective On Soviet Musical Culture.” “The Difference Between Quality Art and Crap” is an excerpt.

To watch Vladimir Feltsman extol the forgotten Soviet composers of the 1920s, click here. To watch Behrouz’s entire film: here.

Part two of PCE’s “The Russian Experiment” comprises (1) an Oct. 16 concert featuring Vladimir Feltsman and PCE members performing works by Roslavets, Mosolov, and Protopopov (whose Second Piano Sonata is a major find); (2) the Soviet silent film classic The New Babylon with Dmitri Shostakovich’s score performed live on March 30 and 31; and (3) pertinent film screenings at the National Gallery of Art.

For information: postclassical.com