IN QUEST OF THE LOST AZAN

Any anniversary involves some wishes - it is customary to begin congratulations with them. Looking through the banal list of wishes known to me and not only in my mind, I found myself in a stupor - well, what can you wish a person who has everything?! Even the ever-memorable categorical phrase "happiness is when people understand you" did not seem so undisputed - Alim was understood not only by loved ones, friends and neighbours - he was understood literally by the whole world. So, continuing to reflect on our renowned master of mugam, I suddenly thought - is it good when you are understood? After all, great art has always started from a lack of understanding, and there have been no exceptions here - from failure to understand that, provoking you from within, they initiate a painful search for reserves and resources for a struggle to convince everyone about the correctness of your attitude, the principles and laws you have created - and in this sense, the lack of understanding is much more "advantageous". The story of our hero Alim Qasimov is a brilliant example.

This is how a non-stereotypical person leads to non-stereotypical conclusions...

He is one of those who surprised. For real. There are a lot of attempts of this kind today, but very few can please the world and make the West fall for them. People like Alim Qasimov. To do this, you need something - and in addition to impeccable professional training, this is a special "planetary scale" and special space psychology ... It is a unique charge of force, magnetism, the one that makes the audience follow him - once and for all. And what you need as well is to ensure that your pulse beats in time with the pulse of the earth ...

He sings, and the feeling is that there is a chasm behind him.

He sings, and it seems that the universe was dumb before him...

His creative work is a convincing refutation of many of the provisions, including the geopolitical views of Kipling about the impossibility of interaction between the East and the West. Alim brought them together and he did very well! Amazed foreigners immersed in his element... stereotypical Western respectability and the always unpredictable East - I watched it myself many times during his concerts in halls and in the palace - "palace coups", as I call them. I am talking about tearful foreigners with eyes red from crying during the intermission ... "Mugam is spiritual food that comes from Allah - maybe, that is the case," so this is how Alim is trying to unravel the mystery of his own.

The subject of the perception of art in general and its impact on the human psyche is one of the little-known ones. That is to say we are talking about the fact that you carry on with your life and suddenly bump into a pillar! What causes people to lose consciousness near Van Gogh's sunflowers, why is there a first aid team on duty at Alim Qasimov's concerts abroad and who does the vestibular system fail when people watch Tarkovskiy's movies? I remember the words of the great director: "It (East - N.F.) is completely dissolved in God, in nature, in time, and it finds itself in everything again. It is able to discover everything in itself." It sounds like he wrote a reference about Alim.

The charm of his art - it is completely devoid of affectation and ostentation. His singing is moments of monstrous spiritual self-exposure. He sings and seems to expose himself to slaughter - he does it so openly and sincerely. The feeling after the show is that he has nothing left. Describing Alim's singing is a failed task. The lexical oxygen runs out annoyingly quickly, because what he does is on the verge of music, meditation and many other things that cannot be described. It is impossible to catch up with him emotionally, and one has to "take" him over with his mind. His art is a stout and shocking invasion caused by a logically inexplicable technique that returns his first-born origin to the world. Alim Qasimov is a cathartic and unique point of reference in our culture. He is a kind of flurry of energy, which reaches the audience and sweeps away all barriers in the way - linguistic, ideological, psychological and mental. While singing, he seemed to fall out of reality.

The "scenographic" organics of Alim: he pulls his nose, tugs at his earlobe, then, panting and impatiently, he moves his shoulders and neck - the collar suddenly becomes unbearably tight for him, and he feels very uncomfortable being here, as if to prove the famous beyt of Nasimi about suffocating frailty and the greatness of the human spirit that is unable to "fit in this world". Space is quite a normal place of residence for a genius...

"Genius" ... In my memory, Alim Qasimov is the first of our artists to earn this epithet in his lifetime - we normally award such compliments afterwards... We are no longer cautious with this epithet about him. There is no point in being cautious. Otherwise, how else can we explain the fact that his CD took first place, beating all world rating records, that February 2000 was declared a month of Alim Qasimov in France, and that not so long ago, he received a special certificate in Japan, confirming "the presence of healing power in his voice"? By the way, I wrote about his "mugam therapy" six years before the Japanese did, which makes me incredibly proud!

Behaviour in art is perhaps the most difficult question for a painter. If we take a look at art history, we will see that it is studded with such great examples. "Talent is always a scandal," said Yesenin. Alim confirmed the common scheme that talent inevitably passes through three stages: scandal, rejection and adoration. Unfortunately, this scheme is rarely violated, and very few live to see the final stage. As for Qasimov, he fulfilled this standard as one of the few people. So Alim is lucky. He was not recognized for a long time and was labelled so many times - and he did not particularly grieve as if he knew about the principle of the great Greeks: do your job, and come what may. There is a good saying: "The world always respects the interests of the person who does not respect its interests." And I also like this one: as long as you are interested in the opinions of others, you are their slave. And it's all about him - Alim. It is today there is the concept of "Alim Qasimov's school" and he has followers, but then ... there is a good saying - the pioneer was unlucky twice: first they do not accept him and then they pretend that this has always been the case. And today when we so eagerly talk about integration, we forget that there is a man among us who has long been "integrated", and he did so without any special effort - without the official determination and pseudo-patriotic rage.

He made many scratch their heads. Questions, questions ...

One thing is certain - Alim turned up at the right time in the right place - God does not make mistakes with the address - as if he shouted in the ear of humanity about the injustice that befell his people. He did what politicians, diplomats and economists failed to do.

Alim has no clearly focused audience. He sings, bringing people together regardless of their location and parameters of luck. He sings, turning people of different regions and even races into residents of one planet.

Alim is absolutely identical to the way God intended. Hence, the discouraging naturalness. Naturalness is the most difficult pose, and that's an accurate observation. Well, there is no pathos in respect of himself: "I am like a piece of paper taken away by the river - I'll go wherever it takes me... I never planned and prepared anything in advance ... God wanted and I succeeded... In any case, what am I doing? I just sit and sing..." And asked why I was sitting, I once said: "I just sing with my soul, and I don't need my feet for this."

He is a very funny man, Alim, well, he was simply born like that, and wherever he is, he brings a note of light madness into the situation. He is not afraid to find himself in an awkward situation and jokes so that no one detests his jokes - there is some kind of "secularism" in him, it is a gift. I also remember from our conversations with Alim: "The most important thing in a person is the ability to remain human no matter how famous and rich he is. That's when he can find happiness. I try to remember that."

He has a lot of achievements - we do not have to say how difficult it is to make the audience stand up! But the most important achievement of Qasimov is that his art gives a feeling of patriotism - not zoologically permanent, jingoistic or inertial. Patriotism can be different. I am talking about a different thing - the magical art of Alim Qasimov gives genuine, fierce and piercing patriotism, it is like being on the verge of the pain threshold - when you want to kneel down in front of your land, raise your hands to heaven and thank God for the fact that you were born here in Azerbaijan! You feel proud of your origin once again, and Alim presents this opportunity! He presents delight - substantiated and well-founded without additions, plagiarism and fraud, for which we take our hat off to him.

Making the world turn around at the mention of your name - how many people have done such a thing? Even a Californian cabbie livens up joining in the conversation. Recently, an acquaintance said: "Just imagine, after finding out that I was from Azerbaijan, he said - yes, I know, Alim Qasimov was born there! And he even played his CD for me."

How many people can charm the world - multiracial, multi-religious, not always well-meaning and well-intending? Alim Qasimov is known to all - from the seller of metronomes in London (Sabina Rakcheyeva, our renowned violinist told me) to the Pope in the Vatican. The latter certainly knows about him firsthand - he was at his concert...

"So?" - I ask every time he comes back from a tour. The answer is always the same: "I don't know - they clapped, maybe they liked it." And asked "Niy? narahatsan?" (Why are you worried?), he once said, I don't know, maybe because I haven't found myself.

Is it him who didn't find himself?!

In any case... let's wish him a quest - this eternal quest for something that cannot be found - just like it is impossible to grasp the phenomenon called "Alim Qasimov"...

Behind him there is a trail of polar opinions - from "spoiling of mugam" to "the golden voice of Azerbaijan". In this discordance, we can clearly hear the voice of the truth. And here it is:

They argue about him, and he sings. Sitting.

And the world applauds him. Standing.