Sergey Kuryokhin and Frieder Butzmann "StereoShostakovich oder Sumbur statt Muzyki", 1995

According to the information on Frieder Butzmann’s website, the Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow, and the Academy of Arts Berlin (Akademie der Künste) commissioned Sergey Kuryokhin and himself to stage a production in honour of Dmitry Shostakovich. The production was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death in 1995. http://www.friederbutzmann.de/videos/

The title of the performance “StereoShostakovich oder Sumbur statt Muzyki” translates as “StereoShostakovich or Muddle Instead of Music“. “StereoShostakovich” is meant to express Shostakovich’s capacity to adapt his compositions to political circumstances, while “Muddle Instead of Music “ refers to an editorial that appeared in the Soviet newspaper “Pravda” on January 28, 1936. Its full title is “Muddle Instead of Music: On the Opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District“ (Сумбур вместо музыки – Об опере «Леди Макбет Мценского уезда»).

Wikipedia gives the following summary:

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Lady Macbeth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muddle_Instead_of_Music

Butzmann writes that Kuryokhin and he wanted to present such diverse aspects of Shostakovich’s life as

… Sein Händel mit Stalin und seine ästhetischen Anpassungsleistungen, sowie seine Rolle in der Revolution und als Ehrenmitglied des Amerikanischen Instituts für Kunst und Literatur, als Deputierter des Obersten Sowjets, als Stummfilmpianist, als Filmmusikkomponist und als Fußballfan. […His quarrel with Stalin and his capacity to adapt his aesthetic views, his role in the revolution and as a honourable member of the American Institute of Art and Literature, as a member of the Supreme Soviet, silent film pianist, composer of film music and football fan.] http://www.friederbutzmann.de/sumbur.html

The fragments of Ingrid Molnar’s documentary on Youtube and my own memories let me believe that the performance was less a result of a close co-operation than of two different, loosely connected concepts. Molnar's documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZDh5I0Yzg0

Butzmann created the “plot” of the performance with text passages for “Stalin”, “Toscanini” (who had conducted the premier of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in 1942), “Robotnik” and himself as Shostakovich; they were read in German.

The “Petersburg” side arrived with four contributors: Sergey Kuryokhin, bassist Vladimir Volkov, with whom Kuryokhin had been performing since the early 1980s, and artists Oleg Maslov and Viktor Kuznetsov. Maslov’s and Kuznetsov’s performance had nothing to do whatsoever with Shostakovich; at best, it can be argued that Kuryokhin used it as “antithetical” approach to this performance, adding “random” pieces.

As a matter of fact, Maslov and Kuznetsov had developed their performance independently of Pop Mekhanika, as artists of Timur Novikov’s “New Academy”, an eccentric version of a traditional academy with a strong homoerotic component. This tendency became particularly manifest in Maslov’s and Kuznetsov’s “neo-academic costumes”, an amalgamate of Venice carnival masks (not worn during this performance) and Roman costumes – a centurion helmet and “centurion” string tanga. On stage, they would pretend to fight each other, almost naked, dancing with or embracing each other with strange poses – although neither was gay. Kuryokhin had “discovered” them earlier, and they had participated in two Pop Mekhanika performances the same month: Helsinki on September 1 and the infamous “Pop Mekhanika No. 418” in Saint-Petersburg on September 23. On both occasions they had also been wearing masks of Egyptian deities, and they did so in Berlin, too. Another element that had been “adapted” from the previous performances was the figure of a hangman or executioner wearing a robe and a sharply pointed hood with eyeholes. Kuryokhin even wore the same blue shining jacket as in the those other September performances, and it almost looks as if he “recycled” some of his earlier ideas for Berlin.

Kuryokhin might have suggested adding the girls’ soccer team (of a Turkish Berlin football club), but he did not conduct them. A grimly looking coach stood at the back of the stage overseeing their ball-exercises.

We may assume that Kuryokhin was attracted by the idea of staging Shostakovich’s alleged "wilderness of musical chaos," but his contribution to the performance was limited. It did have some typical PM elements, yet it also had a plot and a dramatic composition, at least to an extent. “StereoShostakovich or Sumbur statt Muzyki” is therefore not a typical Pop Mekhanika performance, but if we generously include it into the list of PM performances, it belongs to the category of a “small Pop Mekhanika” with only four participants from Kuryokhin’s side. It seems to have been Kuryokhin’s very last public performance of this kind abroad and the penultimate PM of all: there was another “small PM” in December 1995 at the Saint-Petersburg Marble Palace. Two solo piano concerts in Miami in January 1996 were Kuryokhin’s last musical performances.

At that time of the Berlin performance I was less interested in Kuryokhin and more in Maslov’s and Kuznetsov’s theatrical play – I had portrayed them wearing costumes earlier in 1995. This is why I documented them in the first place. The pictures below therefore cover only a small part of the performance. Ingrid Molnar’s uncut documentary would help to come to a better understanding of Kuryokhin’s musical contribution to “StereoShostakovich oder Sumbur statt Muzyki”.

Hannelore Fobo, 2017