“Useful when there are no crutches in the form of a “picture””

Composer Evgeny Galperin, who, together with his brother Alexander, wrote music for films by Andrei Zvyagintsev, Kantemir Balagov, Francois Ozon and Luc Besson, has released a new album, Theory of Becoming. Boris Barabanov asked Evgenia Galperina about how it was for him to work solo and what it means to him to collaborate with the legendary record label ECM.

– Eugene, usually you and your brother work together, and only your name is on the cover of this album. How did it happen?

– Indeed, under our soundtracks we usually sign both, regardless of whose contribution is greater. And this album is my solo album, because modern academic minimalism is more mine. I have been going to this for a very long time. When I studied at the conservatory, I composed modern classical music. Then I became interested in auteur cinema, and in it I had enough space for experimentation. And now I have found something that I can talk about when there are no boundaries set by the film. This album had to sound as close to the acoustic form as possible. I can compare it with how in modern science fiction cinema they return from drawn characters to puppets. Our subconscious is more actively connected to what is done by human hands. So I worked a lot with acoustic instruments or acoustic instrument samples. And as a result, we got a kind of computer-enhanced, more voluminous reality of acoustic instruments. At the same time, the distance from the usual sound of a trumpet or cello to what is heard on the album is simply cosmic.

— What was the starting point in the creation of this album?

– After creating the music for Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film “Dislike”, the moment came when I realized that I had something to say, without cinema. When we were making Loveless, Andrei asked me to compose music without seeing the film or reading the script. He gave only a pitch: “The couple is preparing for a divorce. They swear, deciding with whom the son will remain. The child overhears this conversation. The next day he disappears, they will look for him throughout the film and they will not find him. That was enough for me. Subsequently, I began to work with other directors in a similar vein, even before the “picture”. Do you know that in France in most regions it is forbidden to water the vineyards with water, even in drought? If you water them with water, they become lazy and do not take root deeply, which means that the wine will not taste good, because it will not be enriched with the right amount of minerals. So it is useful for a composer in cinema when there are no crutches in the form of a “picture”. You are looking deeper.

– As far as I know, Andrei Zvyagintsev, despite his illness, is working on the next film. Has he attracted you?

— Yes, we are talking about future projects. He needs a few more months to return to the form he was in before the illness, but it can be said that he is already engaged in a new project. And I, thanks to Andrey, felt the right to do something independent.

— You released your album on the legendary label ECM. Music lovers idolize him, but at the same time, there is an opinion that ECM, especially in the jazz part of his catalog, is a kind of predictable standard. How did your collaboration come about?

— I understood that my new music was not like anything else. On the one hand, this is music that gives rise to visual associations, narrative music. And at the same time, this is a new sound, and it seemed to me that they would send me from everywhere.

– In the mouth of a person with your merits, “they will send from everywhere” sounds like coquetry. If they sent it here, they would take it elsewhere.

– I don’t worry about my music for the cinema, no one would have sent me with it. But it’s a different world, and I’m new to it. I started from scratch. I have never felt completely comfortable in either tonal or atonal music. Even while studying at the Paris Conservatory, I did not like the confrontation between these clans. I was kicked out of the conservatory when they found out that I was writing music for films, it was believed that this was prostitution. And today, after 15-20 years, there is a class of music for cinema. So I emailed the head of ECM, Manfred Aicher, because it’s the only label that has always taken under its wing people who don’t fit in. Surprisingly, Manfred sent a letter with a request to show my music, although he rarely answers, his taste is very individual, refined. I sent him almost the entire album and the cover idea. Again he answered very quickly: “Let’s make an album.”

You are right, there is an “ECM standard”. But the label developed this standard by taking on non-standard musicians. Before becoming a standard, Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea were non-standard musicians. The first meeting at the ECM office looked like this. I was driving somewhere on the outskirts of Munich and was preparing to see something solid, yet this is the office of a well-known company. I was already preparing to post a photo on Facebook in front of a building with large luminous letters “ECM”. Instead, I arrived at a small square where there was only a bio food store. I thought I had the wrong address, and I really didn’t want to be late for my first meeting with Manfred. Finally, above the shop sign, I saw a small ECM sign. I thought that maybe this is their warehouse, and the real office is somewhere else. I decided to clarify this, went up the stairs and saw Manfred in the corridor: “Oh, Eugene!” He took me to an office littered with sheet music and records, and the windows in the office were open, and behind them the cars on the road were noisy. ECM have been sitting in this office for 30 years, and they are sitting only because it costs them nothing. All money goes to music. Not to the office. Well, initially the owner of a network of vegetable stores was a shareholder of ECM. He allowed the label to settle in this building.

— But ECM also releases the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov.

— This ESM sympathy for Valentin Silvestrov has nothing to do with today’s agenda and the desire of the whole world to help Ukrainians. Manfred Aicher’s wife, an amazing cellist, has been performing Silvestrov’s works for many years. They put a lot of effort into promoting Silvestrov’s music on the European market. And now Silvestrov in Germany is literally being torn to pieces.

– In all announcements for your album, it is written “composer of Russian and Ukrainian heritage” or “Russian-Ukrainian origins” – “composer of Russian-Ukrainian origin.” How do you divide yourself between these two roots?

– The conflict between Russia and Ukraine began for me in 2014, but I really began to “divide” myself on February 24th. My father is Ukrainian (composer Yuli Galperin.— “b”), and my mother is Russian, from Chelyabinsk, where my brother Sasha and I were born. This spring, I realized that I had to somehow manifest my Ukrainian roots. I just couldn’t stop talking about it, seeing everything that was happening.

– In response to any criticism, musicians are often reproached: “Well, you worked in the country, fed from state funds, weren’t you okay? So what has changed?

– Since 2014, I have not participated in any film project that would be funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. “Dislike” by Andrei Zvyagintsev, “Dylda” by Kantemir Balagov, “Lessons of Farsi” by Vadim Perelman – in these films there is not a single state penny.

Let’s get back to the music. How suitable is the material of your album for performance at concerts?

— Unsuitable. The possibilities that acoustic instruments acquire thanks to the computer are very exciting and interesting, they allow you to create a new sound world. On the other hand, this music is “not playable” on stage. This is an overlay of several layers of absolutely free rhythms. At the same time, this freedom is completely controlled by me. This is chaos, which is controlled by one person. It takes a long time to control the chaos that 50 musicians (or even four musicians) create, and it eventually leads to the opposite result, to excessive control. And I need to have freedom, and at the same time, so that everything sounds the way I want. That’s what I’m interested in in music, but it’s also its limits. So I figured out how to present this music in the recording, but along with the video. In this form, we presented the album at the festival in Ghent and moved towards contemporary art, installation. A specially made video adds another reading to the music. Very cool video artists were responsible for it. Among them are Belgian Nicolas Provost and Russian actor and photographer Vladimir Mishukov. The last video we made was with the Polish director Jan Komasa, whom many people know from the film Body of Christ. Russian actor Yura Borisov starred in this video. This program is not for philharmonics. New music sometimes – though not always – requires new forms and new ways of playing. Spaces for 200–300 people with a large number of speakers would suit us so that the sound could “walk” around the hall, live. As long as I’m interested in it. But it’s quite possible that the next album that I would like to do with ECM again will have pieces for a more traditional live performance.