Вера Дулова. Воспоминания. Статьи. Документы

The harp was the center of Vera Georgievna’s universe. She chose not to have children because she knew it impossible to combine them with such an all-consuming career. We, her students, were her children. She knew all the details of each of our lives-our family histories, our interests, our friends. We were always in her home, her apartment that so resembled a museum. She had antique furniture, antique Russian china, paintings and souvenirs from foreign countries. She also had a grand piano and two beautiful Lyon& Healy harps (which in Russia was a great rarity.) In her dining room she had an enormous table at which all her students, the students of her husband and a great number of guests (usually musicians and performers) could sit comfortably during one of her lavish and delectable dinners. (Her housekeeper was also a phenomenal cook!)

Her favorite students and those who were getting ready for a competition lived with her in one of her dachas in the Crimea or near Moscow. She often gave intensive lessons for free during her time off. But generally, her lessons were conducted in the Moscow Conservatory, in a large classroom, which contained a grand piano, two cases with Style 23 Concert Grand Gold Lyon& Healy harps, and the chair in which she sat. She often sat at one of the harps, as opposed to the chair, and played scales and other exercises in unison with us. That was how every lesson began. She sometimes played practically our entire repertoire from memory. It seems to me that she memorized everything she ever played. Her repertoire was enormous. It was fascinating to play with her, to watch her hands and listen to her sound, for which she was so famous. Her sound was strong and beautiful, and it sang. It was interesting to listen to her interpretation, to try to play in unison with her. She never insisted on her interpretation of a piece when it differed with ours. Vera Georgievna also liked for us to come to each other’s lessons. Thus, instead of a regular 50-minute class, we were able to spend several extremely interesting and productive hours with her each week.

We played a lot of interesting and diverse music; Russian as well as Western classics, modern pieces by contemporary Soviet composers who took their inspiration from Vera Georgievna and wrote music for the harp, as well as pieces by contemporary Western composers whose music was often unavailable in the USSR. From every trip that she took abroad, Vera Georgievna would bring back sheet music. She made a great effort to educate us about the «international harp world» to which we had no access because of the «Iron Curtain». She brought back photographs, slides and records, and would often talk about her friends abroad as well as the young harpists who were our foreign peers. It was in her house that I first heard the recordings of M. Grandjany, N. Zabaleta, P. Jamet, L. Laskine, S. McDonald, and other exceptional Western harpists. Her closest friends were P. Berghout and her former beloved teacher, M. Korchinskaya.

Phia Berghout would invite Vera Georgievna to attend the «Week of Harp» in Queekhoven, Holland, every year, and she would be allowed to bring one or two of her students with her. In 1971, Vera Georgievna chose to take L. Muster-Snegiryova and me. We were the first to perform the duo, Polka, by Balakirev-Shostakovich. Vera Georgievna told us the story of the piece thus:

She and Shostakovich had been friends for a long time. In the 1920’s, the two of them along with a few other young musicians were sent to school in Berlin. (Max Saal had been Vera Georgievna’s teacher there, and she always spoke of him with great love and respect). At the inception of World War II, Vera Georgievna and Shostakovich found themselves together again when they were both evacuated to Kuybyshev. Shostakovich was awaiting the premiere of his Seventh Symphony and was quite nervous. The thing that made him feel most at peace was writing music, and since he was unable to work on anything serious, he said to Vera Georgievna, «Let me do something for you, at least let me transcribe some music». Vera Georgievna had long since wanted to transcribe Polka for two harps, and so she asked him to do that for her. Later she lamented, «Why didn’t I ask him to write an original piece for the harp? Afterwards he was always so busy that I never dared to ask him». In 1971, when we were in Holland, we played Polka from Shostakovich’s handwritten score, since it hadn’t yet been published.

Of course, none of us would have gotten to the Holland Harpweeks without her because the government would let very few people travel abroad. But for Vera Georgievna, the doors were always open. We would even receive financing for our trips. A few times she would bring students with her to harp festivals in Gargilesse (France) that were conducted by another «international friend» Pierre Jamet.