Alexander Rosenbaum interview. Alexander Rosenbaum: “there are three things that I cannot imagine: the transition from life to death, the infinity of space and how you can caress a man’s body”
Meeting for you. Alexander Rosenbaum: “The artist lives for the public”
Dear ones, a gift on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of “Red Star” was a performance at the editorial office of the famous artist of the art song Alexander Rosenbaum. Having flown to Moscow for television filming, Alexander Yakovlevich dropped in directly from the airport to see the military journalists with his usual guitar...
Alexander Yakovlevich, your audience is, without exaggeration, the whole country. You equally easily find contact with the audience both in a soldier’s club and in a prestigious concert hall...
I always go out to the audience with an absolutely, as Zhirinovsky says, unambiguous position: these are the people for whom I live. I had a music teacher who loved to repeat a wonderful phrase. I remember it for the rest of my life and try to follow it: there are no bad spectators, there are bad artists. Of course, the difference between, say, an academic audience and a school, student, factory, or “zone” audience is huge, they are all different. It is much easier for me, so to speak, to take a soldier on conscript service or a worker somewhere in a workshop during a lunch break, so to speak, right away than the audience of the Academy of Sciences. Much more psychological effort is required here, this is understandable. But my attitude towards listeners - any listeners - is the same. The artist lives for the public - no one will need us.
You have always spoken very harshly about power...
I still speak harshly. And not from the outside, not as someone who came down from the mountains - but as a citizen of this country. And, as a citizen, I just want the state to respect me. A great country is not one that has great open spaces, but one that respects its citizens. And a citizen respects the laws of the country that respects him. This kind of country can be called great. Today, if we proceed from these criteria, our country is not great at all. The authorities do not respect us, their citizens. And I do not like it. You can survive everything, you can tighten your belt, you can understand the situation, you can delve into it... But there are lies at every turn. Three days before the August collapse, the president tells us all on TV: if we hold on, everything will be fine. For what? Or from the same TV screen they tell me: unidentified planes are flying over our homeland. I’m going to the unit to see the pilot guys, I go up to the girl, she’s playing in the sandbox, and I ask: where’s dad? She says: “Dad flew to Sukhumi. That is, the children know who is flying and from where, but they tell me that there are unidentified objects.
In general... Previously, I could somehow define the country in which I live, put it into some category. Well, at least say that I live in a camp. Socialist. But today I simply don’t understand what category to include this absolutely powerless structure.
Alexander Yakovlevich, has it been more difficult to write in recent years? We have all changed...
I don’t know, I don’t know how to write differently. My soul has remained the same, my understanding of the problem, my principles are the same - no one will ever turn me away from them, they were the same for me at twenty-five years old, and they remain the same today. Maybe I've gained more experience...
Swim. And don't be afraid
catch a cold, get sick.
Age is understanding
Like the only miracle
on the ground.
On my table the cocky one
port wine
Transformed
to a respectable Cahors.
Age is joy
for friends,
Those who failed to transform
into enemies.
Who are you and where are we all?
Whose friend are you and who are yours?
Age is an expectation
At the end of earthly existence.
Death, of course, is humanity
But what kind of things do you and I have?
Age is a state of mind
Conflicting with the body
This, of course, I could never have written at twenty-four or twenty-five years old. If only because I fully understood it right now. But at the same time, I don’t feel my age at all. Sometimes it’s even strange: you go out to the public, and at least half of the audience was born after you wrote your first songs. I somehow can't believe this.
Alexander Yakovlevich, your first songs are a cycle of Odessa works. Was this an important stage for you?
Undoubtedly. After all, it was these songs that brought me to people. This year, by the way, all my Odessa works are 25 years old. Plus or minus a year. Of course it's a stage! I came up with this Semyon, got into his skin, breathed this air, I completely got into these characters. It was an amazing time, student life, when you could transform well. I had the appropriate gait, manner of speaking, and gestures... Well, however, there was no fingering at that time. And everything worked out very easily. I still can’t understand how this happened to me, but I wrote without stopping. In twenty to thirty minutes I could write a song. “There’s a stir on Gorokhovaya Street”, “Semyon’s Wedding” - entire dramatic canvases, with all the terminology. But now you can go and buy the book “Blatnaya Music” or “Blatnaya Jargon”. And then... “Gop-stop,” by the way, I wrote during lunch, for exactly one plate of cabbage soup. I left the lecture and came home. Mom put me a plate of cabbage soup, I took a notebook - and chopped this soup with one hand, and wrote with the other. Then he quickly sang music - and the music there, by the way, is very decent. And all this lasted about thirty minutes maximum. Where did it come from? I think someone was guiding my hand. I generally believe in a higher mind. I don’t know, maybe it’s aliens, maybe the canonical Lord God is a grandfather with a gray beard, maybe some other substance, but a higher mind exists. And I’m just sure that he was guiding my hand. Because if a twenty-three-year-old young man came to me now and brought these works... I would, of course, believe it, looking into his honest eyes, but doubts about the authorship would certainly arise.
Alexander Yakovlevich, is it true that you started your creative activity under a different name?
No. It’s just that for seven months while I was working in a rock band, I had the pseudonym Ayarov - Alexander Yakovlevich Rosenbaum. In order to separate my solo life from my activities in a rock band. And so - I was Rosenbaum, I am Rosenbaum and I will be.
What do you think of modern patriotic songs?
For me, the concept of “patriotic song” is very loose. And “Boston Waltz” is also a patriotic song. And “Duck Hunt” and “Capercaillie”... You see, “nail” patriotism does not interest me. That is, talking about a patriotic theme with slogans is a futile task. Well, let's stand up, hold hands and say: “No to war!” It's a good phrase, right? Or “Peace to the world,” also a wonderful phrase. But you can’t build a good, sincere song on slogans. We are already so spoiled by slogans that they cause a feeling of rejection in us. I believe that the patriotic theme needs to be approached sincerely and sincerely. At the level of instincts, perhaps. And then everything will fall into place, everything will be fine. Today we are afraid of the word “patriot”. I do not know why. And I consider myself a patriot.
- Alexander Yakovlevich, your performances are very energizing. What is the source of your personal energy and inspiration?
Have you seen the audience at my concerts? When the public treats an artist this way from the first step on stage, all journalistic reviews with a plus or minus sign have no meaning. When you see such an attitude from the audience, you also want to give them something, if you are an honest person, of course. To put it mildly, I don’t like artists who say: “I’ll give you my art now!” I never give art - I talk to people. There is no need to give anything, because the public buys the tickets themselves. I get my inspiration from people's attitude towards me. In medical terms, saprophytism must occur. If I haven't forgotten biology, it's when two organisms feed on each other in order to survive. What happens between the audience and the artist is pure saprophytism.
- That’s why you always turn on the lights in the hall at the end so you can see the audience’s eyes?
Yes. For me, this is not a concert, but a meeting with each other, a meeting of like-minded people and people who breathe or want to breathe the same way. An energy field moves through the audience, and the lights on help everyone feel their brotherhood.
- What kind of music is close to you as a listener?
Anything that has a melody is a musical thought, regardless of the genre. And meaningless, brainless music like “tms-tms-tms-tms-tms” is absolutely not close to me.
- What can we expect from your work in the near future?
I started with rock music, so expect that. (Smiles.) At the last concert in Kyiv, I already played some works of a clearly rock and roll nature. Rock and roll is not only a dance, but also a unique style, way of life and thinking. “Gop-stop,” by the way, is also rock and roll.
Best of the day
- What should a real man be like?
Definitely not gay. We basically have all the jokes on this topic. Fortunately, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, by and large, have no time for this: everything that is happening in Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg and large cities does not apply to Kamenets-Podolsk or Tyumen. People work there - they have no time for this. But on the opposite topic - about the so-called machos - they don’t joke at all and don’t write poetry. Once I was driving through one of the Siberian cities, and at the Sports Palace they hung a huge, huge banner, in our opinion a poster: “City-wide macho competition.” (Smiles.) Then I wrote a parody poem on this topic. As they say, wherever you spit, there are solid machos everywhere, but there is a very shortage of men. In general, this is very funny, because it is all serious, and everything that is serious is not serious and funny - even funnier than what is not funny.
- Alexander Yakovlevich, you had a birthday in the fall. How do you usually celebrate?
This time, as often happens, in the family circle, with only the closest and dearest nearby. Mom, dad... But this time mom was at my birthday for the last time. She died in October. Mother, father, wife, children, grandchildren - everyone.
- Please accept my condolences... Let's return for a while to your Ukrainian childhood.
Lived in the village of Vinnytsia region, Gnivansky district. Naturally, I was not there all the time, but every summer for two or three months. And so for ten years, probably, in a row. Those very times when a child remembers everything very well, everything is absorbed very well, so for me Ukraine is my father’s home.
- Do you have many friends in Ukraine?
There are many good comrades, but I can count my friends on the fingers of one hand. And they are all in St. Petersburg.
- In one of your main song calling cards, you dreamed that “autumn dances the Boston waltz for us.” What are you really dreaming about?
More often? Believe it or not, it's war. An absolutely grown-up war, it doesn’t get any more grown-up. I've been to them a lot, and I know what it is, unfortunately.
- You have revealed different philosophies in your songs. What is stronger - the philosophy of loneliness or love?
It's good that you didn't ask what was more important: poetry or music. (Smiles.) Although, of course, this is an old question and needs an answer. After all, the author of these lines: “Not even a rustle is heard in the garden, everything here stood still until the morning, if you knew how dear the evenings near Moscow are to me” is not Pasternak, not Shakespeare, not Mandelstam, not Akhmatova and not Tsvetaeva (author Matusovsky. - Auth.). But these are brilliant poems for brilliant music, and in total the result is a brilliant song - a completely separate genre. I have very little pure poetry, I mainly work on song, so I value my non-song poems.
- How do you come up with them - poems and songs?
A musician is only one who hears the word, a poet is only one who is in harmony with the music. I can tell you more. (Smiles and lights a cigarette.) First an angel descends. He checks if the door is closed, if there is enough coffee, kicks out the guests, puts the glasses away, takes out cigarettes and a pen, puts them on the notebook. I don’t bother him, he’s a very talented guy, when he grows up, woe to the nymphs who live in youthful carelessness. Touching the shoulder, with a wave he relieves fatigue and, unknown how, revives the dead strings. He hums a tune, corrects an inaccurate rhyme, unobtrusively strokes the dog lying next to me, places my fingers on the frets of the half-worn fretboard, without taking his gaze off me. Walking past the keys, he inadvertently presses a couple of notes, I, of course, remain silent, let him frolic, the obnoxious child, but how I want to pull his laughing lock of hair... With a flashlight, I searched for these sounds for three sleepless nights. The angel knows about this, he was initiated into my secrets by the one whom the winged naked children serve. The sheet is covered with writing. And the magical stars melt. The night passes, and my friend leaves me at dawn, winking goodbye, pulling back the window curtain, the boy quietly flies up to the heavenly palaces of heaven. How a song is born, only God knows. I'm not involved in that. Ask God about it...
Alexander Yakovlevich Rosenbaum - Soviet and Russian singer-songwriter, singer, composer, poet, actor, writer, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, People's Artist of the Russian Federation. On February 6, 2013, the artist gives a concert in Ulyanovsk, at the Gubernatorsky Palace of Culture, and we invite Ulyanovsk residents to get acquainted with a short interview.
...In a few hours, the anniversary concert of Alexander Rosenbaum “...Already passed fifty dollars after childhood” will take place in Ulyanovsk. A few hours before the concert, I managed to meet with a former emergency doctor, and currently with a famous Russian singer of original songs.
- Alexander Yakovlevich, what does the concept of “good original song” mean to you?
For me, an art song as an understanding of the genre is one thing, but as a song itself is another. Agree that the Beatles' songs can also be considered original, because they have authors. But we understand by this term a bard’s song. And I believe that authors working in this genre are, first of all, poets. But they also have to think about the melodic line, because if they don’t do this, they have no future. In general, bards are, as a rule, very sectarian people.
Many young boys and girls constantly come to me and say: “Alexander Yakovlevich, here we show our creativity at some amateur song competition, but they tell us: “This is jazz, this is not ours.” But it’s not the guys’ fault that they live today, in 2013. The song genre is not at all that easy, writing a good song is extremely difficult. And Vysotsky, and Okudzhava, and Galich became themselves only because they knew the form, size, understood the meaning of the verse-chorus, ballads, and correctly felt their work intonation, guitar, and music.
You worked as an ambulance doctor for many years. What did this profession give you, and was it easy for you to start life again?
If we roughly take the level of my songs as 100%, then if there were no medicine and ambulance in my life, my songs would not reach higher than 50-60%. Because medicine for me is my life. I was actually born and raised in a medical ward, and since many of my relatives connected their lives with this profession, we always had a real resident’s room at home.
And medicine is also psychology. I don’t know whether this is good or bad, but five to ten minutes of conversation with a person is enough for me to find out everything about him. During calls, I had to communicate not only with the patients themselves, but also with those around them. And when I ran to the fifteenth floor (because the elevator, when there was a call to the fifteenth floor, for some reason, as a rule, did not work) and entered the house of a seriously ill patient, and at the same time they told me “wipe your feet,” it was clear to me: either No one dies in this apartment, or a person hated by everyone dies. This little touch makes it clear what medicine has given me, a thinking person. And that’s why I write about you and me in all my songs, because our thoughts are approximately the same. Love for a mother, unless you are a freak, is the same for everyone. A man desires a woman in the same way, however, he courtes and expresses his desire, depending on his intelligence, in different ways. Maybe I’m talking exaggeratedly, and all this is not for high calm, but, nevertheless, it is a fact. And I am very grateful to both medicine and the ambulance service for the fact that I not only had them, but also remained in my life to this day.
And to the next journalistic question - “do you regret that you once left medicine” - I always answer: “No, I don’t regret it.” Because I found my place in my life. Today I madly miss my former profession, and when in some city I see an ambulance passing by me, I see it off with a longing glance, dreaming of jumping into a carriage and going with the doctors to see a patient. There are a lot of creative and thinking people in medicine, not because they are smarter than physicists or journalists, but because they are close to people, to their diseases, to their situations. Not only tragic, but also joyful and happy. There are, for example, situations when, due to an abnormal amount of sugar in the body, a person falls into an unconscious state right on the street. But thanks to the intervention of doctors, the “completely dead” man gets up and goes home. And those who watch this think that the Lord God came and did everything, and people have a great feeling of happiness.
-Are you happy today?
Absolute happiness does not exist for a thinking and seeking person. Yes, I, like all people, have moments of happiness. But I can’t call myself happy, because in my life there are a lot of things that cause me sorrow and unhappiness. And here I am no different from other people. However, I believe that the main happiness for a man is to find himself in his profession. And no woman, no family can help him if the man is not satisfied with his work. In this regard I am happy. I bring myself maximum pleasure because through my work I bring pleasure to a huge number of people.
How do you think an artist should perform to make people who come to his concert feel happy? And how do you feel about your colleagues’ statements that you need to give your soul to people, not your profession?
Some of the artists say: “Now I will give you my art.” There is no need to give anything to anyone. Once, when I invited a woman to my concert, where I would work, one journalist grinned: “Well, Rosenbaum will work.” Yes, I go on stage as if I were going to hard plowing. But I like this very plowing because I’m with people on it. It's hard work that I have to give to people. Give with your soul, head, legs, arms and liver. At the same time, the artist does not need to beat his chest, since the people themselves feel everything. And the concert process is mutual.
When they ask me where I get my strength, I say: “Only from the gym.” And when an artist says: “The public is a fool, let’s go and give them our high art,” and something about the preparedness or unpreparedness of the audience, I don’t understand it. What is a prepared audience? My concerts are attended by doctors, students, workers, military personnel, regional committee secretaries, beer sellers, etc. And all these are people. But as soon as the artist begins to identify people with the crowd - “people are eating, that means everything is fine” - everything ends for him.
For example, I hate the term “star”. From the point of view of the Hollywood understanding of stardom, we had only one star - Lyubov Orlova. But I personally would like to someday be called not a star, but an Artist with a capital “A”. Well, I won’t deserve it with a big one, then at least with a small one, but as an artist. This is the highest reward when people coming towards you do not strive to rip off your sweater, which you put on just to be torn off, but say: “Hello, Alexander Yakovlevich. How are you feeling?". This is the highest thing that can be achieved with the hardest work and with love not for the crowd or the public, but for each individual person.
This is especially important today, when people have started going to concerts for a lot of money. Going to a concert today with the whole family is literally worth a lot. And when I receive notes at concerts with the text “we had a choice: buy trousers for our son or come to your concert with the whole family” - do you know what a joy it is to read such a note?..
Konstantin Salmin
Since the readers of our LiveJournal unanimously voted FOR posting interviews with famous people (only one respondent didn’t care, no one was against), I will periodically replenish the “interviews” section with communications with people, and the articles will be both fresh and old - this also interesting. I will mark the year, of course.
I managed to communicate with Alexander Rosenbaum quite recently - he came to Khabarovsk at the end of May (regular readers of our LJ probably remember the photo from the concert and the enthusiastic review that I posted then). By the way, late spring concerts in our city are already becoming a tradition for him. Both for the performance and for communicating with a truly great man (even though he himself denies it), we must thank the Art Project concert agency. In general, in my deep conviction, Alexander Yakovlevich is the kind of person to whom it is even wrong to ask questions; it is more correct to just sit in a corner and listen to his reasoning: sometimes harsh, uncompromising, but very wise. So I did. That is why all his statements are in the first person, without unnecessary journalistic words.
It's easy to be like Rosenbaum. It is enough to have an oval face type, be bald and wear a mustache and glasses. I have such doubles in every city. What's funny is that they come on stage to give me flowers. But they walk, looking not at me, but at the audience - will the audience appreciate their undoubted similarity!
I sing the Boston Waltz at every concert because I respect my audience. You see, when I start “On a carpet... made of yellow leaves... in a simple dress...” and hear the reaction of the audience, I understand how much people need it, and I get excited too.
The most “live” music is on vinyl. You can put the same song on a soulless CD and on a record and feel how different it will sound.
I spent six months in contact... Yes, yes, “from call to call” almost. I'm disappointed in this, there are too many flooders there. But now I know exactly what I would like from my official website. I will update it.
I love all animals except flies and mosquitoes. And I love snakes. I still fulfilled my dream by going on a hike with Makarevich and holding an anaconda in my hands. I respect Volkov, but I haven’t communicated with them. In general, a person has only two friends - dogs and horses. And I believe that the owner of a horse can only be the one who grooms it, feeds it, and works for it. And the one who boasts that they gave me a horse and doesn’t see it is not the owner. They gave me these herds, so what?
An artist should not stop in his development. In theory, I could choose twenty songs and perform with them even until my death and I would be received with a bang. But I try to include a couple of new compositions at every concert. You need to grow in every sense: both creatively and technically.
My most popular songs, hits... A good word, by the way, is a hit, I wrote it literally in half an hour - in one breath. Poetry is easy for me. But somehow it didn’t work out with prose. I tried it about twenty years ago, then the next morning I read it and was horrified. Maybe someday I’ll sit down to write my memoirs, but now it’s too early for me.
I listen to any music - jazz and rock, as long as there is melody. In Russian songs, I would like to see the text from poems. As for the performers... I really like what Leonid Agutin and Anzhelika Varum and Kristka Orbakaite are doing. I myself “supervise” some performers, so to speak. Seryozha Trofimov is an example of this.
You ask me about culture, but you, the press, are responsible for it. You must educate people by preserving speech, allowing them to read the right things, smart books. I do this too - for my part.
Politics was a lesson for me. I learned a lot from my “deputy” and did what I thought was necessary.
A half-hour press conference was not enough to ask all the questions to listen enough to such a wise and interesting person. And even photographers, who, as a rule, only watch the first couple of songs while photography is allowed, stayed for the entire concert and also furiously applauded Alexander Yakovlevich. In conclusion, I would like to give one more quote, from the concert, which has been concluding Rosenbaum’s performance for many years:
I have been ending a concert with these words for many years now, not because my vocabulary is poor, but because they fit perfectly. If I were Edita Stanislavovna Piekha, I would say: “I love you!”, But I’m not her and therefore I’m just telling you that I respect you endlessly. Respect is a manly thing. Not saying goodbye!"
