Actually Sollertinsky was a great scholar who knew over twenty languages and dozens of dialects. He kept his diary in ancient Portuguese to keep it safe from prying eyes. Naturally, he was fluent in Ancient Greek and Latin.
And what do people remember about him now? That his tie was askew and that a new suit on him looked old in five minutes. Andronikov's nonsense made him ludicrous.
We were introduced three times and it was only on the third time that he remembered me, which is strange considering his prodigious memory. When something interested Sollertinsky he remembered it instantly and forever. He could glance at a page of Sanskrit and recite it from memory. Obviously, I didn't interest him very much the first two times.
That's understandable. The first time we met on the street and the
*Alexander Vasilycvich Gauk (1 893-1 963) conducted the premieres of Shostakovich's Third Symphony and two of his ballets. He headed the best orchestras of the Soviet Union.
t lrakli Luarsabovich Andronikov (b. 1908), literary historian, whose "oral stories" became extremely popular on radio and television; in them he brilliantly imitates the celebrities he knew, including Sollertinsky.
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s_econd time under truly ridiculous circumstances-at an exam on Marxism-Leninism. We were both taking the exam. He went in first and came out and scared all of us, saying that the questions were unbelievably hard. We almost died of fright.
There were a lot of us there, guinea pigs. We had only the vaguest notion of the science we were being tested on, and Sollertinsky announced that they wanted to know about Sophocles as an example of a materialistic tendency. He was just joking, of course. But we didn't even know in which ceµtury Sophocles had lived.
By the way, about Marxism-Leninism. Somewhere in the mid 1920s the conductor Gauk and his wife, a ballerina (Elizaveta Gerdt), were made Honored Artists of the R.S.F.S.R.,* a title that was considered an honor in those days and bestowed on only a few people. Gauk and his wife gave a series of receptions to celebrate. People came, ate and drank, and while they were at it, congratulated theiF hosts.
At one of the soirees, Sollertinsky and I were among the guests.
Good food and many compliments. Then Sollertinsky stood, glass in hand, and gave a toast congratulating the hosts on such a high honor and hoping that they would pass the test and be confirmed in their titles.
Gauk panicked: "What test ?" Now it was Sollertinsky's turn to be surprised. What, didn't his dear hosts know that first you had to pass a test on Marxism-Leninism? You didn't get the title until you'd passed.
Sollertinsky spoke with such seriousness that the Gauks didn't suspect a thing. They were both in a state of panic, for a test on Marxism-Leninism was no joke.
We calmly finished eating and drinking and departed, leaving the gloomy couple at the empty table.
Gauk was a rare specimen of stupidity; we used to call him "Papa Gauk," which sounded like popugai [parrot]. It's thanks to Gauk that the manuscripts of my Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies are lost.
And he replied to my feeble objections with: "Manuscripts ? So what ?
I lost a suitcase with my new shoes, and you're worried about manuscripts."
•The Russian SoViet Federated Socialist Republic, one of the fifteen republics of the U.S.S.R.
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Sollertinsky never prepared his jokes, he improvised. I was present at many of his improvisations, for we spent a lot of time together. He often took me along when he lectured. I sat quietly, waiting for the lecture to be over, when we would go for a walk. We strolled down Nevsky Prospect or went to drink beer at the People's House. It had marvelous attractions, including a roller coaster.
Well, at one of his lectures Sollertinsky was talking about Scriabin, whom he didn't like very much. He shared my opinion that Scriabin knew as much about orchestration as a pig about oranges. Personally, I think all of Scriabin's symphonic poems-the "Divine," and the
"Ecstasy," and "Prometheus"-are gibberish.
Sollertinsky decided to have some fun and to amuse me. And with a tremor in his voice he declared from the stage, "In the brilliant constellation of Russian composers-Kalafati, Koreshchenko, Smirensky, and others-Scriabin was if not first, then far from the last." And went on.
I almost choked on my laughter, but no one else noticed. Sollertinsky pronounced the names with such grandeur.
By the way, about Kalafati, Koreshchenko, et al. (there is no composer by the name of Smirensky). Once Glazunov asked me to sort out his sheet music, that is, to put all the Beethoven together, the Brahms, the Bach, and then file them all under "B." And the Glinka and Gluck under "G," and so on.
I came to his house and began going through the music. And I saw that under "I" were obviously misfiled a number of composers whose names began with many different letters.
They included Kalafati, Koreshchenko, and Akimenko, as well as Ivanov. I asked Glazunov why all these composers were under "I" and he said, "Because they are all insignificant composers."
Once at a lecture I heard Sollertinsky field a question from the audience: Was it true that Pushkin's wife had been a mistress of Nicholas II? Sollertinsky, without pausing to think for a second, replied, "If Pushkin's wife, Natalya Nikolayevna, had died eight years later than she had, and if Nicholas II had been capable of performing sexual intercourse at the age of three, then in that case, what my respected questioner is asking could have taken place."
As soon as I got home I made a point of checking Sollertinsky's 40
dates. He hadn't made an error, they were exactly right. Sollertinsky had a prodigious memory, containing masses of numbers.
But the idiocy of his listeners could give pause even to Sollertinsky.
He lectured at the Conservatory and there was always a question period afterward. Sollertinsky was invariably brilliant. One time a huge lummox rose and asked, "Tell me, who is Karapetian ?" Sollertinsky thought. A sensation-Sollertinsky didn't know the answer.
He said, "He must be a fifteenth-century Armenian philosopher.
I'll find out by our next class, comrade.,, The student rose at the next lecture and asked, "Tell me, who is Karapetian ?" "I don't know."
"I'm Karapetian," the student announced. The class tittered. Sollertinsky said, "Ah, now I know who Karapetian is. He's a fool."
This Karapetian was a tenor and had a reputation in his own right.
He was doing Eugene Onegin at the Opera Studio, singing the wellknown couplets of Triquet. The performance was under way, everything was going well, but when he was cued, Karapetian didn't open his mouth. The conductor started over but Triquet kept silent.
They rang down the curtain and the conductor attacked Karapetian backstage. "What's the matter, did you forget your words ?" "No, the tune."
(Much later I was at a performance at the Yerevan Opera House and a good-looking man came up to me: "Don't you recognize me?
Karapetian.")