“The festival welcomes the proposal of mayors Giorgio Gori and Emilio del Bono to suspend the concerts of pianist Denis Matsuev,” such a non-standard announcement appeared on the website of the international Pianistico festival in Italy.
Exotic, right?
Usually in announcements of theaters, concert halls and festivals, it is customary to welcome something completely different - for example, that the public will soon be able to enjoy the performance of one or another star.
Denis Matsuev is an absolute star.
But in his case, the venerable Italian audience is invited to welcome the prospect of an empty stage.
Rejoice, venerable ladies and gentlemen, that you will not hear the works of Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
Please get great moral satisfaction from this news!
I don't know if this is the most moral satisfaction for the visitors of the Pianistico festival in Italy.
But who exactly got it was the visitors of the Bashmet festival in Moscow, in which musicians from Italy also performed.
Please note: it never occurred to anyone in the Russian capital to cancel their performance.
And thank God it didn't!
Read what musical curiosity pleased Moscow with its visit.
I quote from the RIA Novosti website: “Songs of tenors (cantu a tenore) are among the oldest performing techniques.
In 2005, it was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage by UNESCO.
According to popular belief, the songs of tenors appeared among the Sardinian shepherds hundreds of years ago, the voice of su bassu imitates the muffled lowing of a bull, sa contra the bleating of sheep, and sa mesu oche the howling of the wind.
Usually I write about politics, and not about music at all?
Right.
For those who have not yet understood what exactly I am talking about, I will clarify: this time I am also writing about politics.
True, in view of the delicacy of the topic, I do this not directly, but with the help of hints.
And one of these allusions sounds like this: lucky viewers in Moscow witnessed the "artistic bleating of sheep."
But the unlucky spectators in Italy (yes, yes, I am sure that it was they who were unlucky, and not Denis Matsuev) indirectly also witnessed the “bleating of sheep”, devoid, however, of any artistry.
Despite all my efforts, I still got pretty rough?
I'm afraid not without it.
But is it possible to write about ugly deeds using only beautiful expressions and formulations?
Before, I was firmly convinced that it was possible.
But now I'm not sure about that anymore.
However, it is still possible that it is beauty that will save the world.
Here is another message from RIA Novosti that appeared on the news feed on the same day as the news about the cancellation of Denis Matsuev's concert in Italy and about the concert of Italian musicians in Moscow: “Exhibition VKHUTEMAS: Avant-Garde Laboratory, 1920-1930s” in New York, postponed due to the situation in Ukraine, resumed work after the reaction of students and teachers dissatisfied with the delay ... On January 5, a few hours before the opening, the exhibition was postponed "without guarantees of its resumption".
The school then received letters of objection from 750 scientists, teachers and students.”
If this kind of good news is possible in the very center of cancellation culture, which is the US, then it certainly is possible in Italy.
And the sooner this happens, the better.
At the beginning of this week, I also joined the high culture - I visited an exhibition in the Moscow Manege and came across a real symbol of a bygone era there in the form of a clipping from the newspaper Pravda with the famous article "Muddle instead of music" about Dmitry Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District ".
Here is what, among other things, was written in this directive material of the main organ of the Soviet press on January 28, 1936: "Lady Macbeth" is a success with the bourgeois public abroad.
Is it not because the bourgeois public praises it because this opera is chaotic and absolutely apolitical?
Is it not because she tickles the perverted tastes of the bourgeois audience with her twitching, noisy, neurotic music?
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Modern Western adherents of the culture of cancellation (can this phenomenon really be called a culture? The term “lack of culture”, it seems to me, is much more suitable) do not express themselves in such a style.
But there is essentially no fundamental difference between what they call for and what is written in the article “Muddle instead of music”.
It's just a matter of stylistic differences.
We are living in such an interesting time.
Western "advanced liberals" are de facto adopting political technologies from the Stalinist period of Soviet history.
Of course, modern Western cancellation culture is nothing more than an ugly growth that sooner or later will wither and fall away.
Dmitri Shostakovich deservedly occupies today a place in the host of giants of the world musical art.
But the article "Muddle instead of music" without laughter through tears is absolutely impossible to read these days.
I believe that Western cancellation culture will suffer a similar fate.
It would have happened sooner!
And then there is no longer any strength to endure, I will call it that, "not very artistic bleating of sheep."
Even the bleating performed by the sheep themselves sounds much more musical and harmonious.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.