(Originally published in France under the title Valentin Berlinsky — Le Quatuor d'une Vie)
Valentin Berlinsky was for 64 years the cellist of the Borodin Quartet. He survived the comings and goings of several colleagues over the years, as well as the difficulties of life in the USSR. One gets the impression that, for him, his musical colleagues and friends were far more important than the political system around him. His daughter said "My father was fanatically devoted to the Quartet. It was his whole life" and he admitted being "obsessed" — surely contributing to the result that the Borodin Quartet was considered by many to be the greatest quartet on earth.
So devoted were the original members of the quartet that they drew up a Constitution. A few of its clauses:
This fastidiousness was maintained over the years. His daughter said the players "scrutinised their bowings down to the last millimetre".
It is apparent from the book that Berlinsky's most admired heroes and friends were people like Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich — people as fanatically devoted to music, and as keen to share it, as he was. The quartet also had a close relationship with Dmitri Shostakovich, of whom Berlinsky said "his music is more than just music; he had a vision of truth and of the future." Maybe this is how it seemed to someone who grew up in the USSR. I think a truer picture of Shostakovich's attitude toward the future is the anecdote, told by Berlinsky, that Luigi Nono was offering to compose a piece for the quartet, to which Shostakovich replied that they should first play all 83 of Haydn's quartets, all 32 of Mozart's, all 17 of Beethoven's and all 16 of Schubert's, before playing anything by Nono. So much for the future. (Shostakovich also famously signed the letter in which dozens of Soviet musicians damned Stravinsky for being too modernist.)
So what was his attitude toward the Soviet system? The author writes that "Berlinsky believed sincerely in the Party, and believed that it was possible to create a better society than Western society, primarily through art".
By chance I read the book about John Cage around the same time as the book about Berlinsky. What a contrast! A devoted member of the Party who adored tradition (especially Beethoven) above all else and was willing to work every possible hour perfecting the performance of old music, compared to a West Coast iconoclast who found classical music (especially Beethoven) too "intentional" and whose music is often perceived as random and careless. Yet it's possible to see similarities. Berlinsky often said "you must start by working on yourself"; Cage was a living example of this. Berlinsky was most impressed by selflessness; Cage worked at removing the self from the compositional process. Berlinsky said we should teach young people to be demanding, that there is nothing worse than mediocrity; Cage was surely an example of the avoidance of mediocrity, the constant search for a better idea.
But somehow I think the two of them would not have hit it off.