Composer Dashkevich called for saving the Lenfilm music archives

“They are all in terrible condition”

Not long ago, it became known about a blatant incident on the territory of Lenfilm: a mountain of archival papers was thrown out there, among which scores with music for famous films were allegedly discovered. Among the victims, the name of Vladimir Dashkevich was named. The scores of his compositions for the series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson” ended up in a landfill. MK correspondents called Lenfilm and contacted Dashkevich.

Despite assurances from the studio that the scores were fine and only copies were thrown away, the famous composer believes that the priceless music archive is under threat. But first, let’s listen to the studio’s position. “We started checking, handed over all the folders with notes to the experts and found out what kind of documents they were. We hasten to reassure all concerned: the discovered scores are not the most valuable manuscripts of composers, but copies that orchestra musicians received when recording music for films. In the room where this took place in the 70s and 80s, several boxes with music folders were discovered. They are marked “store for 10 years.” But the notes miraculously survived until today.”

Lenfilm assured that everything was fine with the original scores – they had been transferred to TsGALI. And those who are busy with repair work in the Big Tone Studio, which is why they had to vacate the premises, were given instructions in case of such finds. But even if the folders turned out to be a trifle, the “bell”, of course, is alarming, since the value of the folders and boxes was established when everything had already happened. As in the joke: the autopsy showed that death occurred as a result of the autopsy.

So the anxiety of Vladimir Dashkevich (and the anxiety of other figures in the country’s musical art that remains outside the brackets of this publication) can be understood. “I’m trying to understand how things really are. The publication in the media spoke about the original scores,” says Vladimir Dashkevich. We ask him:

— Lenfilm insists that we are talking about copies, and with a limited shelf life.

— No one has ever made any duplicate scores. There were originals at the studio. Each composer, before receiving a fee, handed them over to the accounting department; Lenfilm was obliged to store them in the music archive. This is an important financial document. And the musicians again received not copies of scores, but orchestral voices. Copies were not provided for in the technological process at all.

– Is it possible to draw conclusions from the published photographs – what did the builders involved in the repairs take out?

— What I see in the photographs is a scattering of different notes that can be there. They are all in terrible condition. The resident who raised the alarm took one of the boxes for herself – on the notes there is written: “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Composer Dashkevich.” And there were twenty or thirty boxes!

What happens to the music archive at Lenfilm? What does “10 years storage” mean? There has never been such a figure! Sheet music is kept forever, like manuscripts and books in a library. Is it possible to write on a book, for example, Leo Tolstoy: “Destroy in ten years”?

The Lenfilm music archive contains the best music of Russian composers. There are about thirty scores of mine there – in addition to “Holmes” there is also “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, which has its own name on the score, “Winter Cherry”, “Heart of a Dog” and many thorns (director’s background materials) by Igor Maslennikov and Vladimir Bortko.

— Our source at Lenfilm said that the originals were handed over to TsGALI a long time ago.

— The Central Archive of Literature and Art will not take any notes without the consent of the composer. They also require an explanation of what they accept for storage. I never gave my consent to this. This is the first time I’ve heard about this and I’m almost convinced that it’s not true. They are confused about what they are saying. Before that, they wrote that they were going to keep everything at home. This is deceit. A huge archive with the best examples of Soviet and Russian music needs to be saved!