A POLYPHONY OF PEACE AND COMPASSION

Arif Mirzayev is a well-known Azerbaijani composer and organist, Honoured Art Worker of Azerbaijan currently residing in Germany. He is known for numerous musical compositions that are actually his response to many of the tragic events occurring on our planet – “The January Passions”, “The New York Passions” in memory of the 9/11 victims, “A Sarabande to Lady Diana”, ”A Lullaby” for child victims of Khojaly, “The Kursk Passion” in memory of the victims of the Kursk submarine, etc.

He is an acknowledged artist known as the founder of the Azerbaijani religious-memorial organ and polyphonic music, as well as the sacrificial Islamic music. But he has also written vivid pop songs and jazz compositions once aired in popular Soviet programs such as “Musical Kiosk” and “Artloto”. Lev Leshchenko, Iosif Kobzon, Zaur Tutov, and Galina Ulyotova had repeatedly performed his songs back in the Soviet times.

Arif has been a member of the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan and Russia since 1979, as well as the honorary member of the new international music society named after Johann S. Bach in Leipzig, Germany. He is the one who had discovered the poly-stylistics in Azerbaijani music, when a single piece of music combines the tunes of different epochs and styles. The poly-stylistics, as understood by Arif Mirzayev, is actually represented through five musical formations: different combinations of the Azerbaijani music based on mugham improvisation and synthesized with the French and the German and Italian Baroque music, etc. The well-known composer will take part in the 8^th Uzeyir Hajibeyov International Music Festival very soon – organist Natella Guliyeva will perform the Second Baroque Organ Symphony “Uzeyir Hajibeyov” based on six variations of original themes of the great composer. On the eve of this memorable event, our correspondent met with the Maestro in Baku.

– Arif Abdullayevich, how was your first acquaintance with music?

–I first listened to and saw the organ when I was five years old. I was amazed me with its power and flexible sound. We had five children and each one of us played on a musical instrument but only me and my late older brother, the renowned composer and symphonist Musa Mirzayev had really made it into the music... It all started when my father moved from Lankaran to Baku, where he bought an eight-room apartment from a large German family. Each of the children in that family played a musical instrument. For a miniscule the price, they left two pianos, Bechstein and Linke-Berlin, a flute, a harp, a harpsichord, and a harmonium to us. There also were some sheets of Bach. As you can see, my love in Bach was not casual. I most liked the harmonium - I have used to use it to get the appropriate sound, which was stretching like nothing else, and this had got me terribly pleased and impressed. My first acquaintance with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor was when I had watched the Italian film “Prélude à la gloire”. There were many students living in our house, almost at each floor, who had been rehearsing Bach a lot. It was a real live Philharmonic. First, I had studied at the musical school for the gifted children. I wrote my first composition when I was a third-grade student there. Then, I continued my studies at under the tutorship of Khayyam Mirzazade. In 1974, I graduated from the Conservatory in the class of the great composer, Professor Gara Garayev. He had taught us to look for any “grains of wisdom”, so to speak, in the deepest layers of folk music. Furthermore, in order to improve my skill, I had moved to Moscow and later graduated from the Moscow Conservatory as an organist.

Sebastian Bach was my idol. I wrote “Organ Symphony in memory of Bach” to his 300^th anniversary. When I was writing it, my idol came to my dream and said I was on the right track, that I needed only patience. I was awarded the commemorative silver medal of international importance named “The Bach’s Legacy”.

– What else does tie you with Russia?

–I have lived in Moscow for 25 years. I am grateful to Russia for giving me this opportunity to be acknowledged, first time ever, at the all-Union level as a gifted composer and musician. My works had been published by the largest publishing houses; my music had been performed in the best music halls of Moscow and Leningrad, on the Central TV and the All-Union Radio. In 2000 and 2002, I was nominated twice among the top five composers of the country to be awarded the State Prize of Russia for “Organ Symphony in memory of Bach”, which had won international recognition at that time, and the Islamic mourning mass “The January Passions”. I am still a Russian citizen but I live in the German city of Fulda.

– How did you land up in Germany?

–I had been dreaming about visiting Germany since the music school and conservatory. I had felt obliged to pay a tribute to the Great Bach and bow to his grave. And since my art is connected to German classical polyphony and the Baroque music, it was just necessary for me. Besides, I intended to improve my musical skills. In the long term, it indeed helped me a lot –in almost 13 years, I have created two large volumes of solo organ music.

But I do not forget my native land and its people. I gave the first anniversary concert dedicated to the music of Azerbaijan in Berlin. I respond to a number of developments going on in Azerbaijan with my new compositions. “The January Passions” for choir, organ, orchestra and the two soloists is devoted to the tragic events of 1990 in Baku. I have composed symphonic play “Azerbaijan”, a composition in memory of Uzeyir Hajibeyov, a jazz concertino for two pianos dedicated to Vagif Mustafazadeh, which we had performed in duo and many more.

– There is much of a memorial music in your works...

– Well, I am a compassionate person by nature. In 1996, just before my first tour in the UK, I received a phone call from the Scottish organist Michael Call, who was unknown to me at that time. He told me that he heard about me from the Internet as a “wizard of memorial music” and that I would be playing at the premieres of my symphony in Edinburgh and York. He had made an unexpected request to compose a mourning play for organ in memory of 16 children and a teacher shot by a terrorist in the small Scottish town of Dunblane. So, I wrote that piece for Dunblane children during the day and called it “Lullaby”. It is composed in a way as if children were not killed but fell asleep. It turned out that “Lullaby” had been performed during the liturgical memorial service in Dunblane, which was attended by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles. There is a documentary by BBC, which has specifically mentioned that the Azerbaijani composer Arif Mirzayev had responded to this sad event by composing a dedicated memorial music.

– Why do they call you “Sebastian Bach of the East” in the West?

Because I have learned a lot from the great composer. Should our planet had suddenly sounded like an orchestra, it would have definitely played Bach. In his music, The Prince of Harpsichords and the King of Organists had expressed a sense of oneness with the universe, encompassing the creativity of musicians and poets of all generations.

Memorable was a concert at Westminster Abbey in 1996. This is the church of the Royal family, the burial place of the great people of England, which has a special aura and the largest organ in the country. Even Henry Purcell, the English Baroque composer, and Friedrich Handel had played there. Abbot Jonathan had told us that since the 15^th century, there was no concert, where would be performed such a large monumental work of a composer from another country, especially the composer of Muslim origin.

I am trying to synthesize the Azerbaijani mugham with classical polyphony in my organ works. They have sound layers of different cultures and eras – classical polyphony, German and French baroque style of the Italian Renaissance, as well as the Eastern mugham. I am trying to connect the East and West, Christianity and Islam because the music is a linking element in the development of spirituality of all peoples. You can hear the themes from Azerbaijani mugham “Bayati-Shiraz” in the organ symphony of Bach. The genius of Bach is that going nowhere, he could wrote Italian concerto, English and French suites using the Oriental motifs. Maybe he had heard them from Persian, Azeri or even Arab minstrels strolling in the streets of Germany and had rewarded them with thalers having been amazed by their music. I have been researching Bach and his works for 20 years and studying Bach's original letters at the Bach Museum in Leipzig for another 10 years. I have come to a conclusion that he had used “Bayati-Shiraz” in his magnificent “Toccata and Fugue in D minor”. In 1990, my Italian friend Arturo Sacchetti, the chief organist of Vatican, handed over the recording plate with Bach's symphony to Pope John Paul XI, which was later included in the music library of Vatican Radio.

As for calling me “Bach of East”, this term was first used by one of the greatest conductors, the late German Professor Kurt Masur. Back in 1990, the great Maestro took his orchestra to a tour in Moscow and Leningrad. By that time my organ symphony was so popular that the all-Union company “Melody” had released a separate edition of six thousand copies.

I had long dreamed to meet the professor since he was a great expert of Bach and lived in Leipzig – he was the chief playwright (artistic director) of the concert hall Gevandhaus. After his concert in the Great hall of the Moscow Conservatory, I had presented him a recording plate recorded by Melody from a large organ in the Polish church in Kiev, and the score of my symphony for organ. He gladly took my gifts and he promised to meet me after returning from Leningrad, before going to Germany. We met in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

He began by saying that a composer who composed this symphony had studied not only all the works of Bach but also the music of the Western Europe. On the other hand, he said, the composer had an in-depth knowledge of both the Azerbaijani music and the musical traditions of the Eastern Renaissance associated with the seven ancient modes of mugham.

“In general, having travelled all around the world, I had never heard anything like this”, he said. Then he added: “Mr. Mirzayev, before meeting you, I had reviewed the score and I can say it has been professionally written for organ. Thus, I have a logical question: why on Earth being gifted as a professional organist and improvising composer do you want your symphony be performed by other organists?! It seems to me that you should perform the symphony yourself. I would only say that you are the new Sebastian Bach of the East! And I wish you all the best”. I must note that Professor Masur is the King and the God of Music, so to speak, throughout the music world but especially in Germany. Whatever he used to say would immediately turn to be law.               

– This year, you were invited to the World Congress of Azerbaijanis. What are your impressions?

–As in many countries of the world, I am proud to talk about my homeland, that Azerbaijan is the only country in the world that has a State Committee on Affairs of the Azerbaijanis living in all countries of the world. This is all thanks to the All-National Leader Heydar Aliyev. Many people in Europe tell me that they are now more closely following the progress in Azerbaijan, especially after the Summer European Games held in 2015 in Baku. The news of Heydar Aliyev's death caught me in Germany, and we watched the funeral ceremony through the satellite. From an interview, I had recreated the image of the leader, his love of family. Then I wrote “Prayer of Sorrow to the Great President”. The intro of composition starts with a touching violin theme followed by President's portrait, sort of echoing sorrowful mugham improvisation, philosophical image of leader. The composition ends with a sad folk melody dedicated to the love for his wife, the late Zarifa Aliyeva. I have never composed music to any of the previous politicians such as Lenin, Stalin, or Brezhnev, as did other artists, poets, and composers.

It was performed many times in 2007 – partly during the Congress of Azerbaijani Composers, then in Stockholm (Sweden) in 2009 in the famous Blue Room, where a reception in honor of the Nobel laureates was arranged, then in the same year in the Grand Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in honor of my 65^th anniversary and, lastly, at a concert in honor of my 70^th anniversary in Moscow at the Catholic Cathedral.

– Why did you compose “Ilham-nameh”?

–In July 2011, I took part in the Third World Congress of Azerbaijanis, and was surprised to know that I am awarded the honorary title of Honored Art Worker of Azerbaijan. I wrote two letters of gratitude. In one of them, I have written that the score dedicated to Heydar Aliyev had already been performed three times –at the congress of Azerbaijani composers held in 2007 in Baku, then in the Swedish capital in the presence of high-ranked diplomats and in the Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg on my 65^th anniversary. And added that being a native of Baku, I did not have my own apartment. As a creative person, I need to visit my homeland often and breathe the air of Baku. On the second day of the Congress, I received a call from my friend Ilham Mamedov, an officer in charge of diaspora affairs, who told me that Mr. President presented me a three-room apartment near the metro station “20 January”. It was such a wonderful news since nobody had done this kind of favour to me ever before! Besides, I always wanted to compose something about the young President since we both had lived in Moscow for a long time and my friend, the famous director Ajdar Ibrahimov had much told me about young Ilham Aliyev because he often met with his father. However, now he is not young but a mature major politician!

In recent years, the government has implemented extensive reforms, built new roads, constructed a unique pipeline, the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and formed an absolutely new modern army. The first lady deals with health care by opening new clinics equipped with European technology. She is also doing a lot for the cultural development. Baku has been transforming into the most beautiful city in the world. Everybody understood that Azerbaijan is a worthy and equal partner of the European Union. Ilham Aliyev is a powerful diplomat, genetically continuing after his great father in the twenty-first century. And since I had to thank Mr. President, on the eve of his 50^th anniversary, December 24, 2011, I have decided to devote “Ilham-nameh” to him. The world premiere of this symphony works was on July 23, 2014 at the Gabala International Music Festival. I had gladly presented the score and a videotape from the premiere to the President through his administration. I was very happy when on the opening day of the Congress, he suddenly recognized me while welcoming the delegates. I thanked him and, after shaking his hand, I told him that I received everything. It means that he liked my music, and I am happy!

– The leading theme of your compositions is human suffering, loss of lives and other thoughts...

– The main idea in my works is a struggle against wars and terrorism, grief and suffering. I am trying to unite people so that they can demonstrate benevolence and tolerance to each other! My music calls for it! I devoted to this all my life. It is no accident the symbol of my works is the great Sebastian Bach with his sense of unity with the universe! My plan is to write an opera-ballet based on a well-known historical plot. It is a completely new genre for me.