Stradivarius
Albert Maman
“Even the most demanding score in Occidental music(…) is nothing but an incomplete row of signposts waiting for the musician to seize the direction. Music is inseparable from improvisation, from openness to time. Most of all, music is inseparable from freedom”
Olivier Revault d’Allones
Concert Hall year 2014
Poster: 1 ) part : Concerto of Mendelssohn E-re-minor
2 ) part : Concerto of Alexis Llioukine
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“Stradivarius” is the story of Schmuel Filder , virtuoso violinist, born in Odessa (USSR).
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1968: The Prague Spring.
Soviet troops invade Czechoslovakia.
With numerous artists and dissidents, Schmuel demonstrates in Moscow’ Red Square, an act of resistance towards the political and totalitarian system. Arrested for dissidence and treason, Schmuel is condemned to 20 years in the soviet gulag.
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Siberia gulag 1970
Schmuel still has his violin at his fingertips.
He has lost nothing of his skill, but he his no longer a freeman.
On his way to the barracks one day, Schmuel is attacked by some fellow prisoners.
A group of gypsies rush to his aid.
Joska, one of the younger gypsies, becomes Schmuel’s friend after the fight is over.
They share the same passionate love for music that expresses the voice of the people.
Alexis Lloukine becomes the camp commandant. An ex-officer of the Red Army and a former People’s Commissar, he’s as cold hearted as any other prison warder.
Yet he loves music …Borodine, Tchaïkovsky, Shostakovtich, Beethoven…and Mozart.
Alexis composes music in his free time and dreams of conducting an orchestra.
Since many of his prisoners are musicians, Alexis forms a small orchestra with his mistress Tatiana, at center stage playing the piano.
Alexis immediately recognises the talent of Schmuel and Joska the gypsy.
But he asks for nothing less than robotic precision,and tolerates no deviation from sacrosanct score.
Joska, however, hails from the gypsy culture and cannot read music. When Joska improvises freely during a rehearsal, he signs his own death sentence. Alexis will stand for no music that smacks of life and liberty.
Only Schmuel, thanks to his immense talent, is the one of the orchestra members whose work pleases Alexis.
But everything separates these two men.
Everything will set them against each other …
One work of music: a concerto composed by the Commandant…
…A concerto given wings through the interpretation of the jewish musician in the years after his liberation …
…A musical theme developed across 20 years by two radically different artist… Both in love with the same woman. For one man, it is a cry of passion…and the second man transcends his desire in a soaring hymn to freedom and love of music.
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2014 Back to Concert Hall…
Schmuel plays…
Several dissonant chords as the musician raps his bow across the violin strings. He bows to the public …(Silence)…He adjusts his violin, presses it carefully against the hollow of his shoulder…He takes a last look at the concert hall, now bathed in shadows…The first, desperately bittersweet notes of the concerto fill the room.
Eyes closed as he plays, Schmuel flashes back to the images of his past…
…that is when he sees Tatiana.
Schmuel hardly dares to look at center seat in the fourth row.
…Tatiana the mistress of Alexis the camp Commandant.
Yes, but it is to her in part that he owes his life
What is she thinking now?
What is her mind at this precise instant as she listens to the concerto for violin and piano composed by her lover Alexis Lloukine, arranged by the jewish dissident Schmuel Filder, and dedicated to the memory of Joska the gypsy…………
Copyright US -DC Washington
SACD (France)
Copyright of Russia