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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
I have never in my life met such an extraordinary person as Filipp Moiseyevich Herschkowitz, nor am I likely to ever again. He was a man of sharp intellect and great learning; and he combined a deep love of true art with a merciless irony, which was directed at everything and everyone around him. His clever remarks, serious as well as humorous, would instantly become anecdotes that would go round the whole of Moscow. He lived in a minute oneroom flat with his young wife Lena and their cat Kisik, and could barely make ends meet. They refused to make him a member of the Union of Composers, Muzfond would have nothing to do with him, and those who could have helped to support him, or even just lend him some money steadily, became fewer and fewer in number. He would spend days poring over a volume of Beethoven sonatas, a Mahler or Schoenberg score, making ever more unique discoveries, which would one day, he thought, go to make up a book – his life's work.
1 Institution offering subsidies, medical aid, etc, to musicians, (tr.)
2 Lïterally, Herschkowitz refers to himself as a mere ‘shoe-horn’ and Webern as the ‘heel’ being squeezed into the shoe, (tr.)
3 Nevertheless I'll name those who had contact with Herschkowitz, as far as I know. They were the composers A. Volkonsky, E. Denisov, A. Schnittke, S. Gubaidulina, N. Karetnikov, A. Lokshin, G. Zinger, M. Meyerovich, A. Muravlev, V. Silvestrov, L. Grabovsky, V. Artyomov, A. Vustin, V. Shoot, V. Suslin, E. Firsova, B. Frankshtein, L. Gofman, the musicologists M. Drushkin, N. Fishman, Y. Kholopov, M. Tarakanov, S. Vekshtein, A. Ivashkin, the performers O. Kagan, N. Gutman, L. Isakadze, I. Morughetti, T. Alikhanov and others.
4 ‘The tonal sources of Schoenberg's dodecaphony’ and ‘On an invention of Johann Sebastian Bach’. The editorial board of Uchenzie zapiski tartuskogo universiteta refused to publish the third article, on Arnold Schoenberg's Suite for piano. (D.S.) Note also his ‘Some Thoughts on Lulu’ in The International Alban Berg Society Newsletter, No. 7, Fall 1978. (Ed.)Google Scholar .
* Musikverlag Hans Sikorski apparently plans to publish Herschkowitz's Four Pieces for cello and piano. (Ed.)
5 Soviet visa office (tr.)
6 Herschkowitz never forgave Yury Kholopov, who in his book on Webern, which came out in 1984, did not even include his name in the list of Webern's pupils.
7 Letter of 6 June 1989.
8 From ‘On an Invention…’
9 There is no Russian word for ‘toe’ – the word for finger is used, (tr.)
10 From a letter of 16 July 1982.
11 From a conversation held on 28 July 1980.
12 From a letter of 8 April 1988.
13 In the original German: ‘Jest’ and‘locker’.
14 From a letter of 16 July 1982.
15 ‘On an invention ofjohann Sebastian Bach’.
16 ‘The tonal sources of Schoenberg's dodecaphony’.
17 ‘On an invention…’.
18 From a conversation held on 28 July 1980.
19 Conversation of 31 January 1983.
20 ‘The tonal sources…’.
21 Letter of 20 December 1984.
22 Conversation of 2 August 1982.
23 ‘Tonal sources…’.
24 Conversation of 2 August 1982.
25 Conversation of 4 October 1983.
26 Conversation of 31 January 1983.
27 From a letter of 16 July 1982.
28 Conversation of 8 October 1982.
29 Conversation of 28 July 1980.
30 Conversation of April 1970.
31 Conversation of 8 October 1982.
32 Letter of 16 July 1982.