Lev Naumov,
My artistic Authority
My artistic Authority
Obituary by Anna Malikova
for Piano News
September 2006
The eminent Russian piano pedagogue Lev Naumov died on 21 august 2005 in his Moscow apartment. Pianist Anna Malikova has been his student and assistant for many years. She recalls her time with the great pedagogue.
As Naumov had been one of the important professors of Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he was given an official ceremony at Bolshoi Hall. It is our habit in Russia, that everybody gets a chance of a personal farewell at the open coffin. During this ceremony some colleagues of long years, students and friends and also myself, were in turn keeping death watch. The whole ceremony was accompanied by short performances of some of his last students, by words of rector Tigran Alikhanov and Alexander Sokolov, former rector of the conservatory and now Minister for Culture. While standing besides the coffin, memories of my life near Lev Nikolaevich passed through my head in quick motion. Liova - this nickname is what all his students and friends are using while talking about him - is for me much more than just my teacher. For many of us he is like a godfather and for all of us he is for sure our most important artistic authority.
Coming from Tashkent I entered the Central Music School in Moscow and had the big luck to become Liovas student at the age of 14 years. For me as a young girl he and his wife Irina Ivanovna - who also has died only recently - took momentarily the place of parents, and this relation did not change until the end of their lives. Several times a week I had lessons and countless times since the first years I have been at their house. Liova was my most important tutor at Central Music School as well as Tchaikovsky Conservatory. After I had finished both institutions and graduated with the Aspirantura (= master degree) from the conservatory, he invited me to be his assistant. Altogether I could for more than 16 years benefit intensely from him, which is a great gift and was for me artistically the most important influence.
During the daily conservatory life we were probably not aware of it every minute, but we all admired Liova a lot - until today he is our last moral and artistic authority. It is a fact, that Liova is one of the very rare type of man who is loved by everybody. I know that there are people who think that he is more naive than clever, more of a dreamer than realist. There is surely some truth in it. But it is even more true to acknowledge his unusual honesty and naturality, which together with humor, high intelligence and great charme mixed up to the most amiable character he had. Liova and Irina made it in a unique way to survive the daily problems, which made life difficult for musicians in earlier years because of political and actually because of economic reasons.
All facets of his character culminated in rich musical phantasy while teaching, which he gave limitless to his students. He never made a difference between classroom or masterclass, between students of his own or in masterclasses, between young pianists of greater or smaller musical talent. At the same time anybody ever made it to influence his independence with regard to what he thought about musical quality in examinations or competitions. By the way, to the latter he had a somewhat awkward approach: only rarely and with little pleasure did he sit on juries and often he looked at results with mixed feelings.
It is amazing to see what kind of success Liova had as a pedagogue. Although the education system in Russia is built to make such success possible: in the end, to use the given possibilities, you have to invest decades of devoted work, have to make a permanent effort, need a lot of talent as musician and pedagogue. There are only very, very few of his colleages worldwide who were able to produce a similar number of internationally successful students. In principle I would like to mention here names of students, because not many readers of this magazine are probably exactly aware of Liovas success. But it is not possible here - I had to mention 50 or more names, still without being able to provide complete information.
Today I am feeling secure as a human being and musician, knowing that it was Liova who influenced me more than anybody else. I am sure that most of my classmates are thinking in a similar way. At the same time, about this I am also sure, we all have in common a great feeling of gratitude for his devotion towards us, from which we all were able to benefit without limit.
It is impossible to imagine that he is not anymore among us. He is as present to us all as ever. Of course his standards remain unchanged for all of us, who are continuing to let them materialize in our artistic work. Naturally he is continuing to live in our thoughts and conversations, like it was the case in all the past years. Are we perhaps witnessing that a legend is just being born? Like Neuhaus has become a legend, which always was kept alive by Liova? Probably this is the case.
Big and official farewell ceremonies often have an unreal atmosphere, like the one described above. Official speeches can at times be a little helpful to overcome sadness. However for most of us it was not the case on this beautiful august day, neither in the conservatory, nor at the church nor cemetery. It was admirable how Liovas daughter Natasha and her son Alyosha were keeping their discipline: within only one year they lost father/grandfather, mother/grandmother, husband/father. But maybe now they just didn't have any tears left.
Anyway it gives us peace to know that we can remember Liova like he always was. On sunday 21 august he was having lunch with Natasha and Alyosha in a restaurant near their Moscow apartment, all three being in great mood. Two hours later, they were back home at that time, his heart simply stopped beating...
