From the book of the Professor of the Komitas State Conservatory Of Yerevan — Shushanik Babayan «Egon Petri». Yerevan, «Komitas» publishing house, 2020
The idea of an essay by a pianist, and professor at the Komitas State Conservatory Of Yerevan Shushanik Babayan about the outstanding German virtuoso Egon Petri arose when getting acquainted with the manuscript of a unique documentary evidence of his visit to Armenia. We are talking about a lecture delivered by Egon Petri at the Yerevan State Conservatory in 1926. For various reasons, this document remained in oblivion for a long time. It was discovered by Professor Shushanik Apoyan, a musicologist and historian, who until the end of her days in her studies of Armenian piano music consistently strived to achieve the integrity of the picture. The discoverer of many unknown or forgotten names and facts in this field, she found the lecture manuscript in the archive of her first teacher Yevgenia Khosrovyan. Almost simultaneously, the idea arose to once again turn over the pages of existing reviews, articles, and reviews — Moscow, Leningrad — combining them with a lecture and the facts of Egon Petri’s stay in Armenia.
As you can see, we are referring to events that took place about 90 years ago, and yet, I think, it makes sense to recall the tour and stay in Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Georgia, Armenia of this major pianist «who had a significant impact on our entire pianistic class » (Heinrich Neuhaus) of those years (the 20s — 30s).
There is no need to enumerate all the names of the great pianists in the symbolic row of the spiritual relay, we only note that Egon Petri’s teacher Ferruccio Busoni belongs to their number.
We will have to present the Yerevan State Conservatory in 1926-27, that is, at the very beginning of the journey, and at the same time recall the musicians, founders, and first organizers of professional music in Armenia.
Egon Petri’s tours in the territory of the former Soviet Union from 1923 to 1937 have a special history. It was the first major foreign musician to visit a new country. His visits were accompanied everywhere by wide creative communication — open lessons, lectures, conversations with prominent musicians of that time, etc. — in which another side of Egon Petri’s talent, a thinker, «the sage of pianism» (Grigory Kogan), was manifested — exceptional erudition and encyclopedic knowledge with a rare ability to accurately and aphoristically express thoughts.
The pianist’s playing, his perfect skill, clearly developed convictions and principles in the field of pianism made many great musicians of that time take a fresh look at many things in the technique, the art of piano playing.
It is noteworthy that we do not always remember the huge, carefully thought-out work of Ferruccio Busoni on editing all the piano works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which he performed together with Egon Petri and Bruno Mugellini. In particular, Egon Petri also
participated in the creation of Ferruccio Busoni’s famous version of «The Well-Tempered Clavier».
In our time, Urtexts, which opened up the possibility of direct study of the author’s sources, we sometimes fall into the other extreme. (Joseph Szigeti spoke about «urtext snobbery»). But the editions of outstanding performers contain original ones based on the deepest knowledge of the author’s creativity, and style, and, we note, on a thorough study of the author’s manuscripts and their various versions.
The lecture by Egon Petri was first published in the monograph by Armen Budaghyan «Anna Mnatsakanyan in documents, statements, photographs» (Yerevan, 2017).
Armenian pages
The concerts of Egon Petri in Armenia in 1926-27 are an exceptional phenomenon, and from a certain point of view, perhaps surprising. An outstanding world-class pianist, «the best student of Ferruccio Busoni, one of the best performers of the century of works by Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, a brilliant virtuoso, refined, intellectual musician of the extraordinary power of influence», toured three times (!) in a small country where a professional musical life with educational centers, centers of culture, etc. was only in its infancy, and concert life was episodic, not representing a generally accepted cultural and musical existence.
So, the first philharmonic society (currently The Babajanyan Concert Hall of The State Philharmonia of Armenia), in those years the «House of Culture», (it was there that Egon Petri’s concerts were held), was opened in 1925.
By the time Egon Petri arrived, the conservatory had been five years old — from the beginning of the activity of The Music Studio, organized by Romanos Melikian in 1921 (since 1923 it was renamed the «Conservatory».) The Opera House, which most accurately testifies to the professionalism of musical culture, did not exist then; its opening took place in 1933.
For Armenia of the twenties, a state of chaos and devastation is characteristic (as, indeed, for the entire territory of the Soviet Union). But even during the period of economic confusion, Armenia did not lose its charm, and the appearance of the ancient, biblical (Osip Mandelstam), beautiful country conquered and attracted forever everyone who came at that time.
Shortly before Egon Petri, in 1924, Alexander Spendiaryan (Spendiarov) arrived in Armenia. Later, in 1930, Osip Mandelstam and his wife came to Armenia. Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote that in their southern travels, they visited Tiflis (Tbilisi), Crimea, and Armenia, but it was Armenia that became the country to which she later dreamed of returning. Here, «after a long silence, «poetry» returned to Mandelstam.» But they failed to come again because, in 1934, Osip Mandelstam was arrested.
In 1926, one can already talk about the professional musical life in Yerevan with its characteristic signs: the organization of a choir, a symphony orchestra, and ensemble music, including the creation of one of the highest forms of a chamber ensemble — a quartet (the first
concert of the quartet took place in August 1923). It is also surprising that in 1924, in the most difficult years for Armenia, the idea of creating a symphony orchestra arose. And this is in the absence of everything necessary for an orchestra: instruments, notes, and a certain number of professional musicians…
The conductor, composer, art critic, and pedagogue — Arshak Adamian, was the initiator and organizer of the first symphony orchestra. The arrival of Alexander Spendiaryan (Spendiarov), in turn, accelerated the formation of a symphony orchestra, and on December 10, 1924, the first symphony concert of the conservatory dedicated to the works of Alexander Spendiaryan (Spendiarov) took place.
Egon Petri came to Yerevan for the first time in March 1926. It must be said that in the same years, but after Egon Petri, in December 1926 and 1927, another student of Ferruccio Busoni, Leo Sirota, came twice with concerts, and in May 1927 Alexander Borovsky (Borowsky), a student of Anna Yesipova.
The initial stay turned out to be the longest and was distinguished by a variety of creative communication. In addition, the most interesting testimonies and memories remained from the first meeting of the pianist with Armenian musicians; it was during this visit that he gave a lecture on piano technique at the «young» Yerevan State Conservatory.
We would like to draw attention to the intense concert regime of Egon Petri’s tour: daily (March 4-6) concerts in Yerevan at the newly opened The State Philharmonia of Armenia — the House of Culture. March 7 — a trip and a concert in Leninakan (now Gyumri), a city with long cultural traditions, a famous major bright creative figure — composer-ethnographer Nikoghayos Tigranian, who at that time lived and worked there. In addition to evening recitals, Egon Petri had meetings and daytime concerts at the conservatory.
And, of course, it is necessary to say a few words about those whom Egon Petri met when he arrived in Armenia, and communication with whom (by the way, many of them spoke German) prompted him to come to Yerevan twice more in 1927, because the meeting with people often determines their attitude to an unfamiliar country.
First of all, this is the second director (since 1924) of the conservatory, Arshak Adamian, a bright personality, memorable for his eccentricity, and breadth of knowledge — a musician, a scientific philosopher, and an esthetician.
It is possible that Egon Petri met him earlier, in Berlin, where Arshak Adamian listened to lectures on philosophy and studied at the Stern Conservatory (Stern’sches Konservatorium).
Arshak Adamian organized Egon Petri’s meetings with teachers and students at the conservatory, at the same time offering to give lectures on piano art. Note that it was difficult to get to Egon Petri’s concerts, all tickets were sold out, and Arshak Adamian agreed with Egon Petri that the students would sit right on the stage.
Egon Petri played a chamber music concert in an ensemble with Armenian musicians at the conservatory. There was only one rehearsal, according to one of the participants — cellist, later the famous composer Artemi Ayvazyan, which is easily explained: there could not be
more rehearsals due to time constraints in the extremely busy concert schedule of the German pianist. In his memoirs, Artemi Ayvazyan wrote: “My partner overwhelmed me with the class of his performance. But he was generous and even praised me. There was only one rehearsal and I left spellbound.” Edvard Grieg’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45 with Hovhannes Oganezov, Anton Rubinstein’s Sonata No. 1, Op.18 in D major for cello and piano with Artemi Ayvazyan, Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44 with the quartet of teachers (H. Oganezov, D. Soghomonyan, A. Kotliarevsky, A. Ayvazyan).
It can be noted that the concert with the symphony orchestra Egon Petri, just as in the next visits, did not play. Although the symphony orchestra existed and performed quite successfully, there was no experience of playing with a soloist, and the orchestra’s repertoire was still very small. The first performance of the soloist with a symphony orchestra took place in a concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven (1827 — 1927) in March 1927, when the Piano Concerto No 4 in G major, Op 58 was performed. The soloist was pianist Nina Musinyan.
Egon Petri’s lecture on piano technique at the conservatory was translated by pianist Anna Mnatsakanyan, one of the founders of the Music Studio, later the first head of the special piano department, professor, a well-educated, intelligent person of European culture: she graduated from the Geneva Conservatory («Conservatoire de Musique de Genève»), as well as the Stern Conservatory (Stern’sches Konservatorium, Berlin) according to the class of Martin Krause.
Anna Mnatsakanyan’s meeting with Egon Petri also had its own history, and the beginning of their acquaintance should be attributed to the years when she studied at the Berlin Conservatory (from 1907 to 1911).
In 1927, Egon Petri came to Yerevan twice — in January and November, with large-scale programs, as always, including works of various styles. There were also monographic programs: for example, both November concerts were devoted exclusively to Franz Liszt. Unfortunately, only the authors are listed on the posters, but even a simple listing of the names of the composers gives some idea of the amount of music performed: Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt, Nikolai Medtner, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Johannes Brahms, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
There are few pianists in the history of pianism whose brilliant performing arts are illuminated by equally vivid reflections on music and the art of piano playing. Although Egon Petri, unlike his teacher, did not leave any articles or books about piano art, his inclination to this kind of activity is obvious and manifested itself spontaneously, by chance — in conversations, open lessons (Master Classes), lectures given in Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Armenia, etc. We can say that he inherited the literary gift from the teacher.
In essence, Heinrich Neuhaus was right once in his self-critical words, emphasizing both sides of Egon Petri’s talent «Of course, I can neither show nor tell what such a huge virtuoso, the best student of the great Busoni, as Egon Petri can do …».