IRON LADY HEART OF GOLD

Cellist Natalia Shakhovskaya was one of the most influential pedagogues of recent times, teaching in both Russia and Spain. Oskar Falta examines her life and hears from some of her former pupils about her exacting teaching style

IGOR GROSSMAN

The Russian cellist Natalia Shakhovskaya (1935–2017) was one of the 20th century’s most prominent advocates for the cello. Keeping a low profile, partly because of the Soviet era’s political restrictions but also due to her own integrity, through her pedagogy she extended the lineage of the Russian cello school into our times. Although for most of her lifetime she stayed in Russia, where she became a teaching celebrity, her Moscow studio attracted cello students from all corners of the world. Her influence spread even further when she became a professor in Madrid. The list of her students includes many leading cellists, such as Boris Andrianov, Fernando Arias, Suren Bagratuni, Pablo Ferrández, Carmen María Elena González, Truls Mørk, Alexander Ramm, Kirill Rodin, Denis Shapovalov, Daniel Veis, Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Shakhovskaya’s own daughter Olga Galochkina, to name but a few.

Her life was, in all respects, far from a walk in the park. Born in Moscow into a family of medical doctors, she was orphaned at the age of five – her father died while the Russo-Finnish War was raging, and her mother perished in unexplained circumstances in service at Providence Bay in the Soviet Far East. It was Shakhovskaya’s grandmother who finally brought her up and saw to her education.

When the Second World War broke out, her nursery school was evacuated from the capital to a village near Krasnoyarsk in south-central Siberia, where access to music was practically non-existent. In her own words, ‘There wasn’t even a harmonica to be found, let alone a piano.’

COURTESY OF THE PRAGUE SPRING FESTIVAL

Upon returning to Moscow in 1943, Shakhovskaya started having piano lessons. Aged eleven, she was accepted on to a course at the capital’s Gnessin Academy of Music to learn the cello with David Lyubkin and, after his death, Alexander Fedorchenko. In 1954, she went on to study at the Moscow Conservatoire in Semyon Kozolupov’s class. The year 1957 saw her gain first prizes at three different USSR-wide competitions. Two years later, she got her first teaching job at the M.M. Ippolitov-Ivanov State Musical Pedagogical Institute and started a postgraduate programme at the conservatoire, still under Kozolupov’s tutelage, switching to Mstislav Rostropovich’s studio in the second year. Her line of competition successes continued with the All-Union Performers’ Competition in Moscow (first prize) and the International Dvořák Cello Competition in Prague (second prize), both in 1961. Shakhovskaya crowned her studies by winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1962, the very first time the cello was represented as a discipline there.

From then on, she toured as a soloist both nationally and internationally under the batons of Kurt Sanderling, Kirill Kondrashin, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Aram Khachaturian and Maxim Shostakovich, among others, and taught at the Moscow Conservatoire.

When Rostropovich was about to leave the Soviet Union for exile in 1974, only a handful of loyal friends went to bid him farewell at the airport; Shakhovskaya was among them. Such an act of support for a dissident artist didn’t pass unnoticed: as a consequence, Soviet authorities drastically limited her performance opportunities during what was artistically the most fertile period of her solo career. Luckily, she was allowed to keep her teaching position at the conservatoire, eventually succeeding Rostropovich as head of lower strings.

As time went by, Shakhovskaya became the most soughtafter cello professor in Russia, with the majority of prospective conservatoire students wishing to join her studio. Regrettably, her popularity provoked professional jealousy in her colleagues, who in 1995 wrote a letter containing slanderous allegations against Shakhovskaya in an attempt to oust her from the institution. Her students then handed an ultimatum to the rector: if Shakhovskaya left, they would leave with her. However, it had got to the point where Shakhovskaya was compelled to make her own demand: that she be allowed to teach exclusively from home, as she did not wish to see her colleagues again. The year 2000 saw her return to the conservatoire, where she was granted her own department, and around the same time – on Rostropovich’s recommendation – she commenced her other most significant teaching tenure: at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. She also served as a competition juror throughout her career, at the Tchaikovsky (from 1974), Rostropovich, ARD, Prague Spring, Witold Lutosławski and David Popper contests.

Following the example of her mentor Rostropovich, Shakhovskaya was an avid contemporary music advocate and consequently a dedicatee of several new works: Sofia Gubaidulina’s Detto II (1972) for cello and chamber ensemble, Knipper’s Concerto-poème (1970) for cello, strings and percussion, Tsintsadze’s 24 Preludes (1980) for cello and piano, and Sidelnikov’s Symphony-Sonata (1982) for cello and piano. She also performed modern Western works previously unheard in the USSR – especially notable was the Soviet premiere of Barber’s Cello Sonata (1932), with Maria Yudina at the piano.

Notwithstanding her success as a highly acclaimed performing artist, it is Shakhovskaya’s teaching output that remains her most enduring legacy.

‘THE’ PROFESSOR

Unlike many other students of Rostropovich, Shakhovskaya never defected to the West, thus helping to uphold the Russian tradition in its cradle. On the other hand – albeit later in life – she finally managed to export her pedagogy abroad, subsequently leaving a lasting mark not only in Russia, but also in Spain. When Paloma O’Shea, founding president of the Reina Sofía School of Music, asked Rostropovich whom she should hire as cello professor, he reportedly answered: ‘You have to get THE Professor’ – it was Shakhovskaya he had in mind. And although bringing her from Moscow to Madrid was no less difficult than bringing the mountain to Muhammad, Shakhovskaya agreed to take up the post at last.

Well into her late seventies, she still kept a very busy teaching schedule. In addition to thirteen students (including three postgraduates) in her home base of Moscow, she taught ten in Madrid, flying there on a monthly basis. She always stayed for one week and taught almost from morning till evening, giving each student four to five lessons in total. With an interpreter at her disposal in classes, language presented no barrier.

Shakhovskaya teaching via an interpreter at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid loma

PHOTOS KIRILL BASHKIROV

UNLIKE MANY OTHER STUDENTS OF ROSTROPOVICH, SHAKHOVSKAYA NEVER DEFECTED TO THE WEST, THUS HELPING TO UPHOLD THE RUSSIAN TRADITION IN ITS CRADLE

Former students describe Shakhovskaya as strict and straightforward, while at the same time extremely kind and generous. One could say she personified what is colloquially known in musical circles as the ‘Soviet school’ – not in terms of a national school, but in terms of a highly disciplined lifestyle demanding complete dedication and self-sacrifice to music, which became a means of spiritual refuge in times of restricted political and personal liberties. As hard as she drove herself, Shakhovskaya expected nothing less from her own students, as recalls Shapovalov, who studied with her in her Moscow class between 1992 and 2000: ‘Quite often I had lessons that made me want to give up the cello altogether. Before the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1998, her exactitude made me practise for 11 to 12 hours a day – which I considered quite useful after winning the first prize, but I wouldn’t recommend that my students do the same.’

TEACHING PRINCIPLES

Wieder-Atherton spent two and a half years at Shakhovskaya’s studio in Moscow in the early 1980s. Prior to that, as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, she became intrigued by the sound of Russian string players and grew interested especially in the vocal quality of their legato. While in search of this sound world, she observed several contrasting features of right-hand technique between the two realms: the French and the Russian. ‘I feel that the French had developed a bowing technique that was more conscious of finger action, whereas the Russians were more concerned with the whole arm.’

Perhaps the most visually striking difference Wieder-Atherton observed in the case of the Russians was a deeper bow grip, involving a different placement of the thumb – at the throat of the frog (see image above: note that exact thumb placement and flexion depend on individual hand morphology), rather than in the indentation where the frog meets the bow stick. This bow hold is possibly influenced by Rostropovich, and dates back to his teacher Kozolupov, or even further back in the history of the Russian cello school. Without providing any details as to its origins, Wolfgang Boettcher and Winfried Pape point out in their book Das Violoncello (1996) that this way of gripping the bow comes in useful in case the thumb gets overstrained and, given that the hand lies at the bow’s extremity, it allows the cellist more easily to use the entire length of the bow hair. Many well-known players, including Mørk, Frans Helmerson and Maria Kliegel, adopted this bow hold. Ramm, who studied with Shakhovskaya in Moscow from 2007 to 2012, confirms that although his professor herself placed the thumb on the frog, she didn’t insist on any precise position of fingers and thumb as far as her students were concerned: ‘Hold the bow in the fist, if you like... as long as it sounds right,’ she used to say.

Shakhovskaya works on bow grip with Sonia Wieder-Atherton

Learning works by heart was a prerequisite in Shakhovskaya’s class right from the start of the tuition. Bagratuni, who studied with her in Moscow from 1982 to 1989, looks back on his beginnings with her with humour: ‘I remember my first lessons vividly: I was almost thrown out of the room for using my score because I didn’t have enough time to memorise the last movement of Giuseppe Valentini’s Sonata [arranged and edited by Piatti] between Tuesday and Thursday – Ihad been too busy mastering staccato and ricochet. After that, I never used a music stand for any piece I was learning with her.’

Shakhovskaya’s students had to be ready to react spontaneously and adapt to sudden changes, such as alternative fingerings. ‘She often changed a fingering during the lesson and one had to get used to the new variant immediately,’ remembers Shapovalov.

For several decades, students at the Moscow Conservatoire have had to pass a technical exam in the first and second years of study, containing scales (including arpeggios and double-stops) and studies. ‘I don’t recall anyone from the conservatory who didn’t work on scales,’ says Bagratuni. ‘They still make up part of my practice routine today.’ This established exam was later brought to the Reina Sofía School of Music as well. Nonetheless, Shakhovskaya never advocated scales and technical exercises for their own sake and taught that technique must first and foremost serve a musical cause, as explains Shapovalov: ‘She never demanded that we warm up with scales, because each piece contains specific issues that can become exercises in themselves.’

With younger students, Shakhovskaya preferred working on smaller-scale works of lesser musical importance. This educational repertoire consisted of student concertos, such as Davidov’s Cello Concerto no.2 in A minor and Popper’s Cello Concerto in C major (formerly falsely attributed to Haydn), but also Baroque and Classical sonatas by Valentini, Locatelli, and Francoeur, edited and arranged in a romantic style for cello and piano. Studies by Popper and Piatti were regulars, too.

In order to prevent imitation, Shakhovskaya rarely touched a cello in lessons. Like Rostropovich, she taught more by word rather than demonstration. ‘She used incredibly precise language and could verbally describe very subtle things, be it technical or musical,’ remembers Shapovalov. Along the same lines, Wieder-Atherton adds: ‘She used to explain for a long time, repeat the words, use metaphors and images, put her hands on your arms to evoke specific sensations, but let you find the right sound for yourself.’ Madrid pupil Arias, who studied with Shakhovskaya from 2002 to 2009, concludes: ‘I think that all who studied with her for a substantial time period share a similar musical understanding, as well as a similar attitude to the cello – and neither of these two characteristics needed to be transmitted with an instrument in hand.’

‘SHE USED INCREDIBLY PRECISE LANGUAGE AND COULD VERBALLY DESCRIBE VERY SUBTLE THINGS, BE IT TECHNICAL OR MUSICAL’

Shakhovskaya with some of her former pupils Suren Bagratuni, Denis Shapovalov, Fernando Arias and Alexander Ramm

SHAKHOVSKAYA AND CELLO PHOTO MANUEL REY CASCALES

A ROLE MODEL

As the first female musician to win first prize at the Tchaikovsky, Shakhovskaya helped pave the way towards gender equality in the classical music world, setting a role model for her generation and beyond. It may surprise some – without giving the political regime more credit than it deserves – that female artists in Soviet Russia enjoyed parity with their male counterparts in most aspects of their lives and careers. Nevertheless, appearances can be deceptive, as double standards were common, as described by Wieder-Atherton: ‘Of course, women worked twice as hard as men. For example, Shakhovskaya would teach the whole day, come back home, cook dinner, iron and then practise with a hotel mute from 10pm until midnight.’

The intensity of Shakhovskaya’s positive and artistically inspiring impact on future generations is more than evident from a recollection shared by Arias: ‘Above anything else, we learnt from her a love and respect for music. She was an example of integrity and ethics in the profession, which can – like most demanding fields of human endeavour – have a dark side to it at times. With an extraordinary passion, she taught us to listen to our sound and create individual musical interpretations.’ Shakhovskaya faced life’s ups and downs with strength and determination. Although banned from performing at the height of her career, she didn’t surrender and – fortunately for her students – concentrated on passing on her precious knowledge. She was one of the true carriers of the Russian cello school into the 21st century, her teaching career spanning more than 50 years, until her death aged 81.

She died in 2017 in Moscow, leaving behind an indelible imprint on the history of modern cello playing.