Eleonora Stepanyan

(1926-2012)

Associate Professor at the Yerevan State Conservatory after Komitas

The following biography is written by Eleonora Stepanyan and presented here in the first person. The text material was kept by composer S. Aznauryan, who edited the articles by Eleonora Stepanyan, and published them in the magazine «Yerazhstakan Hayastan» magazine (arm: «Երաժշտական Հայաստան», eng: «Musical Armenia» magazine): 2004 No. 1, 2005 No. 1, 2007 No. 1 and 2008 No. 2.

I was born in Tbilisi on May 26, 1926. My parents were great music lovers, they especially loved opera and never missed a single performance since school, they knew many arias from operas, and my father, Arkady Sergeevich Stepanyan, also sang Armenian folk songs, which he heard and fell in love with while living in one of the villages of Nakhichevan.

In the apartment next to ours lived a pianist, a music school teacher, who, after a long break, decided to attend the Tbilisi Conservatory part-time. Our neighbor played the classics and studied all day. The other neighbors did not know what to do, but for me, it was bliss. My two older cousins studied at the music school with Evgenia Chernyavskaya, and I knew their entire repertoire.

From 1930 to 1934 I attended the French kindergarten of Bezhanbek. My taste was formed there; basic literacy and knowledge of the Russian language were mastered. We sang a lot and spoke French, and also did gymnastics to music. Our teacher Pitoeva, whose family owned the buildings of the Philharmonic Hall and the Rustaveli Theater on Golovinsky Avenue (now Rustaveli Avenue), lived for a long time in Paris and even had Liszt’s autograph. Pitoeva herself played the piano and violin.

In 1934, I entered Russian secondary school No. 43 and, at the same time, the first grade of music school No. 1 at the Tbilisi Conservatory. From the third grade, I moved to the fifth, from the fifth to the seventh, and from the seventh, bypassing the preparatory year, to the first year of the Music School.

During the years of studying at school and college in the class of the famous teacher Yevgenia Vasilievna Chernyavskaya, I regularly performed in open concerts two or three times a year. The concert on January 27, 1941, in the famous Rustaveli Hall was special. There were such celebrities as E. Petri, M. Polyakin, Y. Flier, E. Gilels, Y. Zak, L. Oborin, and Oistrakh. I played the Mendelssohn Concerto (the second piano part was performed by Sylvia Leighton, who was also a student of Chernyavskaya).

I was very fortunate with my teachers. During the war years (1941-1945), the “golden fund”, that is the teachers of the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories, was evacuated to Tbilisi. Among them was the famous pianist, composer, and professor at the Moscow Conservatory Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser — editor of sonatas by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Chernyavskaya invited me to take private lessons with him. I wrote another article about the working methods of Goldenweiser. I played many works with him, including Preludes and Fugues by Bach, Sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven, and Individual Pieces and Etudes by Czerny, which were played from different notes with the same fingers. In 1943, while studying at school, I graduated with honors from the 1st Music College.

In 1944, after graduating from school with a gold medal, I entered the Tbilisi Conservatory after Sarajishvili to the class of the head of the department of special piano, Professor Valentina Konstantinovna Steshenko-Kuftina, a favorite student of Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld.

In January of 1949, there was a competition in Tbilisi, at which I was awarded a prize signed by the chairman of the jury, Heinrich Neuhaus. On June 12, 1949, having passed the state exam in my specialty, I graduated from the conservatory (the last state exam in Marxism-Leninism was scheduled for June 16).

Professor V.K. Kuftina participated in the piano exam. She accompanied me in the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Concert Fantasy. I brilliantly passed the exam: Goldenweiser, the chairman of the examination committee, invited me to his class, at the graduate school of the Moscow Conservatory. He offered to prepare a program for participation in an international competition. Late in the evening, friends came to our house with congratulations, but such a rosy start to life suddenly turned into a nightmare. At midnight there was a knock on the door, people came in and said: “Get ready. You are being evicted from Tbilisi.” In response to all the questions about what was happening, we heard only one thing: “You will find out everything on the spot.”

On the night of June 13-14, 1949, many Armenian families from the three Transcaucasian republics were deported to Siberia, to the Altai Territory. We were in shock, so those who came collected a bale of bed linen and two suitcases: one with dishes, the other with clothes. Leaving in trust the apartment and the home stuff to a neighbor, we once and for all left the house where I was born, where I was baptized, and where I studied… This was the end of the first stage of my life.

The same fate befell my father, who was working in Rustavi at that time. He was exiled to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, to Igarka (Arctic Region). That was already his second exile (in 1937-1947 he was repressed and “released for lack of evidence of a crime”).

I could write many volumes about the six years of our exile… Instead of the laureate diploma promised by the department, I received only a certificate stating that I had been an excellent student all the years. All state exams were passed with excellent marks, but the issuance of the diploma was delayed due to “failure to pass the exam on Marxism-Leninism due to departure.” The leadership of the Tbilisi Conservatory (headed by Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser) applied for the KGB (Committee for State Security, the main security agency for the Soviet Union) with a request to return me and allow me to take an exam in Marxism-Leninism but it was rejected.

We traveled to Siberia for twenty days in cattle cars, twenty-three people in each. After distribution, my mother and I ended up on a sheep farm in the Rodinsky district of the Altai Territory. In three months I learned how to stack hay, clean silage pits, build formwork houses, and much more. Finally, on the good advice of people, I wrote a letter to Barnaul, to the Altai Philharmonic about my desire to work with them. There was a great need for pianists, and they sent me there.

We lived in a rented apartment in the house of the Stupachenko family. Without a piano, I had to learn to play on my knees or a table, and only in the Philharmonic could I check whether I had learned it correctly. During all six years spent in Barnaul, I worked from eight in the morning till midnight with short breaks for lunch: at the Philharmonic – as a soloist and accompanist; at the Glazunov Music School – as a teacher, accompanist, and illustrator; at

the Altai Regional Drama Theater (after the departure of Vache Hasratyan) – as a head of the musical department and pianist. I was very popular and loved.

In 1954, my father was released, and he came to Barnaul. And a year later, “in the absence of charges,” both my mother and I were rehabilitated. Leaving Barnaul in May 1955, I brought two suitcases of posters, programs, reviews, and characteristics; the school management expressed “Gratitude” to me and put it in my file.

In Tbilisi, I passed the exam in Marxism-Leninism and, with a six-year delay, received a diploma with honors signed by Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser. The second stage of my life was left behind.

In Kislovodsk, where I went with my parents after the exam, I met the director of the Ordzhonikidze music school, V.V. Gorshkov. He invited me to work as a teacher and accompanist. I accepted the offer, and in August we went to Ordzhonikidze, just in time for the entrance exams, in which I participated and accompanied the applicants. There was a friendly, warm atmosphere in the school. Teachers with high education were required to give solo performances annually. I immediately bought the “Rȍnisch” piano and finally began to practice on the instrument, and not on the table. It was incredible happiness!

On March 4, 1956, I gave a solo concert, which was very successful. After this, the conductor of the local philharmonic orchestra, Pavel Yadykh, in the presence of the orchestra members, said: “Eleonora, please give me a list of concerts that you would like to play. I will be in Moscow in the summer and will bring all the scores.” It was the dream of my whole life, but I regretfully had to refuse, since my mother was drawn back to Tbilisi (and later I built my whole life the way she wanted and where she wanted…). I left Ordzhonikidze in tears… Thus ended the third stage of my life and began the fourth.

In Tbilisi, I worked for seven years in three music schools: 1st, 2nd and Kultprosveta. I performed in seven thematic concerts.

In 1963 I moved to Yerevan. The management of the Yerevan State Conservatory readily hired me, since I had considerable work experience, many excellent characteristics, a diploma with honors signed by Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser, and a prize at a competition signed by Heinrich Neuhaus. It was the period of entrance exams. For eight applicant pianists, I played the second piano part in the Concertos of Beethoven (No. 1 and No. 3), Liszt (No. 1), Rachmaninoff (No. 1), Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn (“Capriccio Brilliant”,) and Kabalevsky. And thus began the fifth stage of my life.

At the conservatory, I worked as an accompanist in string and vocal classes.

My first solo concert in Yerevan took place on March 29, 1969 (in the first part I played works by Chopin, in the second — Liszt). Since then, I had solo concerts every year. Between 1969 and 1986 I performed seventeen solo concerts.

In 1973, I participated in a concert dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Aram Khachaturian. On that unforgettable evening, I played his new Piano Sonata, Poem, and Piano Concerto (accompanied by a second piano). I sent the poster to the author. Aram Ilyich was very pleased and wrote me a letter, which I gave to the Aram Khachaturian House Museum.

During these years, my performances were dedicated to French (Godard, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saens), Russian (1970 and 1971; Mussorgsky, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Balakirev, Lyadov, Glinka, Prokofiev, Shostakovich) and Armenian music (A. Spendiaryan, N. Tigranyan, G. Chebotaryan, E. Mirzoyan, A. Arutiunian, E. Abrahamyan, E. Baghdasaryan). I

included in the program virtuoso works by Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt (concert for his 175th anniversary), Chopin (some concerts dedicated to his 165th and 175th anniversary), and Schumann.

Over the years, I have toured with violinists Anahit Tsitsikyan, and Ruben Aharonyan, and singers Isabella Aydinyan, and Karine Babayan.

In recent years I have been teaching at the general piano department. My students take part in department concerts and give solo concerts.

I am thankful for everything in my life.

Eleonora Stepanyan
July 2007

Let us add that Eleonora Stepanyan wrote the articles “My life in music”, “Valentina Konstantinovna Steshenko-Kuftina” («Yerazhshtakan Hayastan» No. 1 (12) 2004), and “Grigory Romanovich Ginzburg” («Yerazhshtakan Hayastan» No. 1 ( 16) 2005), as well as “Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser”, “My friends Aram Khachaturian and Otar Taktakishvili” («Yerazhshtakan Hayastan» No. 2 (29) 2008), “Yevgenia Vosilievna Chernyavskaya”, “Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus”, “Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser”, (collection of educational and methodological works, issue 5, Yerevan, 2008).

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