VADIM NOVIKOV:
A BIOGRAPHY AND COMMENTARY
by Professor Dr. Inessa Svirida*
Translated by Anastassia Novikova

*As per the wishes of the author, this commentary is reproduced below exactly as received by ITG for this project. It is without edit or vetting of any sort.

The disc in your hands was recorded by an outstanding musician, whose activity has been aimed at establishing the trumpet in Russia as a solo instrument and making it a constant and equal participant in concert life. This way Vadim Novikov is promoting the inclusion of the Russian trumpet school in the number of the most significant trumpet schools in the world. Novikov’s own performing activity, decades of work as a Professor at the P. I. Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatoire and his persistent efforts as the founder and President of the Russian Interregional Trumpet Guild have contributed towards this.

Novikov’s deeply individual manner of musical performance, his innovatory teaching and purposeful social musical activity became the tripartite foundation, which gave him the opportunity to overcome tradition. Such a high class musician-intellectual as Gennady Rozhdestvensky saw Novikov as an ‘outstanding soloist’ and a ‘leader of the community of Russian trumpet players’, as well as appreciating him as a musician, who has adorned the operas and ballets, which Rozhdestvensky conducted at the Bolshoi Theatre.
 
Novikov’s performance is characterized by a special feature: along with technical agility in all sound ranges accessible to the trumpet, the sound he attains is rare in its beauty and suppleness, which shows both in technical virtuoso pieces, such as the Toccata by Martini and in cantilena, such as the Vocalise by Rachmaninov, a masterpiece of Russian musical lyricism. The performing art of this master gave aesthetic pleasure to the listeners from many countries, including Russia’s neighbors as well as France, Britain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. The rich abilities of the musician himself, as well as the possibilities his instrument, are conveyed on the CD.
   
The beginning of Novikov’s orchestral activity was unusual – in his student years he unfailingly played the first trumpet in the conservatoire orchestra, with which the famous Igor Markevich held his legendary three-month conductor’s seminar (1963), which in its turn influenced the paths of many future conductors, with some of whom Novikov were to play later. Along with this, for more than twenty years Novikov played in the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre (1964-86), where he performed the main solo trumpet parts of the opera and ballet repertoire, led by major orchestra conductors, such as  Y. Svetlanov, G. Rozhdestvensky, Y. Simonov, A. Zhuraitis, A. Lazarev, Y. Temirkanov… On numerous occasions he has performed in the Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Barshai in Russia and abroad.

At the same time as working at the Bolshoi orchestra, Novikov also started teaching trumpet at the Musical College of the Conservatory. In 1979 he began his work at P. I.  Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory, which he continues to do as a leading professor to this day. Some of his youngest pupils are at the ?entral Music School affiliated with the Conservatory.

Class concerts of this outstanding pedagogue always assemble a full audience and astonish with the density of their programs (one of which included an anthology of trumpet concertos from XVII to XX century, accompanied by a student orchestra) and the high level of all of their performers. This does not prevent the most talented of them from exploring their individuality – Novikov’s method allows the achievement of both. It is not coincidental that an announcement about a class concert at the Tchaikovsky Hall appeared in the journal of the International Trumpet Guild (2011). Novikov’s pedagogical principles were reflected in the numerous masterlasses he held in Moscow, Minsk, Kiev, Salzburg (Mozarteum), London (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), Birmingham (the music faculty of the university) and several Italian conservatoires. He has delivered many lectures revealing the method behind his teaching for Moscow trumpet teachers.

Novikov has brought up several generations of pupils. Graduates of this professor are soloists of major Russian orchestras (three of them work, as their professor did, at the Bolshoi). They also teach at higher education institutions (Russia, Sweden, Germany, South Korea, the USA), developing the principles of Novikov’s school, which have allowed them to become prominent musicians themselves. Some of them have won first prizes at prestigious international competitions, having fought against representatives of the leading trumpet schools of the world.

The idea of the solo trumpet, realized by Novikov through his performance practice, stems from the possibilities of the instrument itself. The task of demonstrating this in the historically formed European repertoire, including Russian music, defines the multifaceted contents of the disc, which, in its turn, reveals itself in the process of listening. However, the pieces are not presented in chronological order. Here they are arranged in a sequence of artistic images. ?ontrasting or complementing each other, they allow the listener to make a kind of pilgrimage through musical eras, through the world of sounds created by them. On this journey the manners of individual composers are given attention, as well, as they are highlighted by the performer in relief. The Toccata by Martini and the Adagio by Albinoni reveal two sides to the baroque epoch, the love of festivities and the thought of memento mori. A special suite representing psychological moods prevalent in nineteenth-century music seems to unfold out of Tchaikovsky’s works (the Sentimental Waltz, the romance When day reigns and the Neapolitan Dance). The twentieth century is represented not only by works of western avant-garde composers, such as Enescu, Honegger and Hindemith. Rachmaninov, ‘the most Russian composer’, is here too, with his deep Vocalise, where the hero is striving but not finding the way towards the light, and the tempestuous, purifying Spring Waters.

The range of musical imagery begins with the Concertofortrumpetandchamberorchestraby Giuseppe Torelli – one of thirty he wrote for the trumpet, his favorite instrument. This recording, made in 1958 by the 'Melodiya' company, when Novikov was still a student at the music college affiliated to the Conservatoire, has already become archival and is highly signifying in the history of Russian solo performance. The given recording presents the first performance in Russia of a solo trumpet piece from the Baroque period. This was a time when the Baroque era was little recognized in Russia, and was just in the process of being discovered, even though the Baroque era played a large role in the history of Russian culture. Novikov was the first in Russia to perform Baroque music for the trumpet in a public concert. He played these concerts with the organist Boris Romanov at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow (1970) and in 1971 in Minsk and then in Tallinn at the international Festival of organ music. And so began his collaboration with organists, among whom are such masters as A. Fisseiskiy, A. Parshin and A. Shmitov, as well as the French player Annick Chevalier and the organ, in combination with which Novikov’s trumpet has acquired particular power over the audience.
 
Novikov was the first to include Baroque style pieces in the curriculum of the trumpet class of the Conservatoire, having simultaneously published two compendiums of Baroque sonatas and concertos, as well as the concertos by Haydn and Hummel (for the E trumpet in his edition). By doing this he introduced the use of high ranged instruments into Russian practice, which he himself commands beautifully (the recordings of Martini’s Toccata on the piccolo trumpet is on this disc). As a student he played Haydn’s Concert on the trumpet in C at the International competition in Helsinki, where he received the gold medal in 1962.

The disc comprises both well-known pieces and those brought to life again by the performer, such as the Prelude by Feodor Goedicke, the father of the famous Russian organist. Some of these are well known works in the trumpet repertoire, including the Legend by Eugene Enescu, written with the brilliant knowledge of the possibilities of the instrument, which Novikov’s performance masterfully demonstrates. 

However, the main trumpet staple piece for performers has become the Sonata for trumpet and piano by Paul Hindemith – a truly philosophical piece. This piece is difficult technically, too, and requires particular physical endurance from the performer. Only listening to it many times could reveal the layers of meaning introduced by the composer and read by the performer. The recording of 2011 presented here is the pinnacle of Novikov’s musical maturity. Novikov performed this sonata for the first time in 1962 at the aforementioned competition in Helsinki and then at the related concert at the Small Hall of the Conservatory in Moscow, so his repertoire breakthroughs concerned contemporary music, as well. Nowadays those breakthroughs are performed by his pupils, who are playing complex works by Arthur Honneger, André Jolivet and Henri Tomasi.

Although some of the pieces presented on the disc were not written for the trumpet but for voice or for other instruments, Novikov performs them without any adaptation and fully reproduces the author’s original, which does not preclude him from giving the music his own interpretation. This happens with the famousaria from Mozart’s Queen of the Night. It is, for the most part, freed from the dramatic role-play aspect of the operatic aria. Contrary to the opera libretto, in Novikov’s interpretation the evil ‘prickly’ motifs do not triumph in the aria - Mozart’s music sounds heroic in its pure and almost inaccessible beauty, as if overcoming world evil. It was precisely the struggle of these two elements that Mozart implied in this opera, which has many subtexts.
These recordings were made in different years. However, they possess the quality of wholesomeness, which characterizes Novikov as a great musician. His manner is always academically strict and seemingly reserved but, at the same time, emotionally saturated. Novikov is both capable of reproducing, in slightly faded tones, the half-forgotten wistful melody of the Sentimental Waltz, interrupted by bright splashes of memories, as well as broadening the palette and painting with a powerful brush such a monumental fresco as Hindemith’s Sonata.
 
Novikov’s disc, together with his pupils’ successes, raises the hope that his dream of establishing the trumpet as a solo instrument is becoming a palpable reality.  By 2002,  Novikov’s achievements in the Russian music culture were marked by the state award of the Meritorious persona in the arts.  Novikov’s school of solo trumpet playing, whose principles are being transmitted by his pupils throughout Russia and, has taken a leading place in the process of creating the tradition of Russian solo trumpet performance.

Having welcomed the work on this disc, Professor David Hickman, one of the prominent American trumpet players and pedagogues and President of the International Trumpet Guild for many years, wrote to Vadim Novikov: ‘The trumpet community in the United States and the rest of the world are becoming aware of your incredible musical abilities, and there is a deep interest in having your … compact disc released.  Your reputation as a Professor at the Moscow Conservatory is excellent, and it would be fantastic if you were to produce a CD of major trumpet works by Hindemith, Honegger, Enescu, and perhaps Russian composers. This disc would be a tremendous asset and an inspiration in the trumpet world. It would also favorably characterize Moscow Conservatory and the art of the trumpet in Russia’.

It is this very disc that you are now holding in your hands.

Dr. hab.  Prof. Inessa Svirida
Translated by Anastassia Novikova