THE ART OF OLEG KAGAN
The history of the performing arts of the previous century is abundant with numerous outstanding musicians, whose careers have broken off at the peaks of their artistic powers – one could name such artists as Ginette Neveu, Miron Polyakin, Jacqueline duPre, Rosa Tamarkina, Julian Sitkovetsky or Dino Ciani. However, the epoch passes and only diocuments remain from it, among which we find, among other things, recordings made by artists who have passed away young, and the spinning material of time firmly connects their performance in our perception of time, which gave birth to them and then consumed them.
Objectively speaking, the era of Kagan passed away together with him. He deceased two days after his last concert, which was part of a festival organized by him in the Bavarian Kreuth at the height of summer of 1990 in the cancer section of a hospital in Munich, – as a rapidly progressing tumor was consuming the culture and the country itself in which he was born and had crossed back in his youth from one end to the other (he was born in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin Island and started to study in Riga), which had not outlived him for a long time. It might seem that everything is clear and in accordance with the state of affairs, however the case of Oleg Kagan is extremely distinct. He was one of those artists, who seemed to have stood above their time and above their epoch, both pertaining to them and turning their gaze simultaneously toward the past and the future. Kagan had the ability to connect in his art something which upon a first glance seems incongruous: a perfectionism of the old school, stemming from his teacher David Oistraikh, an strictness and objectivity of interpretation, which the trends of his time had demanded, and at the same time, a passionate aspiration of the soul, striving towards freedom from the constraints of the text of the musical score (this made him similar to Richter). And his constant interest in the music of his contemporaries, such as Gubaidulina, Schnittke, Mansurian and Vieru as well as the classics of the 20th century – Berg, Webern and Schoenberg – demonstrated in him not only an inquisitive researcher of new sound material, but a clear perception of the fact that without innovations of expressive means music, – and along with it the art of the performer – would turn into a precious toy of a museum value (what would he feel if he would glance at today's philharmonic concert programs, which have narrowed the stylistics almost to the level of the most desolate times of the Soviet period!). Now, after the course of many years, it could be stated that Kagan was saved from that crisis which the domain of Soviet performing arts endured after the demise of the USSR – when the sheer boredom of musical interpretations was presented as gravity and elevation, when in the attempts to overcome this boredom performances were given with the artists tearing their instruments to pieces on stage, attempting to show the profundity of the psychological conception, – even seeing in this demonstration of an element of political opposition.
Kagan had no need of all of these "props", being an entirely independent, profoundly thinking musician, his performing abilities being so boundless. He disputed, if one could describe it this way, with the most outstanding musical authorities, such as Oistrakh and Richter, on their own high level, proving his own case, as a result of which outstanding masterpieces of performance were created. Of course, one could say that the exceptional musical discipline, which allowed him to move forward in his art by an ascending straight line and the fundamental character of his approach to the musical text was instilled in him by Oistrakh – and in this he is certainly a continuer of his tradition. However, in the interpretation of Kagan in the same compositions that Oistrakh had performed, such as for instance, Mozart's and Beethoven's sonatas and concertos, one could find that most unfathomable altitude of soaring of thought and feeling, the saturation of sense of each sound, which Oistrakh never could have permitted himself, being a musician from another time period with different values, pertaining to his own time. It is interesting to observe that Oistrakh had discovered in himself that delicate finesse, when he began playing together with Kagan in the presently released recordings of Mozart's Concertos. In changing his role he seemingly continues his own tradition performing in ensemble with his brilliant student.
It is possible that it was particularly from Svyatoslav Richter, who had noticed the ingenuous young violinist at an early stage, that Kagan adopted this ultimate enjoyment of the essence of each articulated tone, which he conveyed to the public. However, unlike Richter, Kagan was at that extremely strict in his interpretations, never allowing himself to be swept over with emotions, and in his famous recordings of Beethoven's and Mozart's sonatas one could sometimes sense – especially in the slow movements, – how Richter yields to the strict will of the young musician, who paves his way smoothly and confidently from one pinnacle to another. it is needless to say what an extraordinary influence he exerted on the colleagues of his age, who had worked with him, such as Natalia Gutman or Yuri Bashmet, as well as on his pupils, who, alas, are few in number due to the short span of life, allotted to him by fate!
It could be that Kagan was destined to become particularly one of those musicians, who are not formed by their epoch, but who themselves create the latter. Unfortunately, this presets itself only as a hypothesis, which could nevermore be verified. All the more invaluable to us is each bit of audio or video recording tape, which has imprinted the art of this outstanding musician. However, this worth is not of a nostalgic type. Rather, while it is still possible, while the 70's and 80's of the previous century have not once and for all become history, these documents should be perceived as a guiding line, leading to a revival of a lofty spirit of the Russian performing arts, one of the most brilliant exponents of which was Oleg Moiseyevich Kagan.
