"My birthday was celebrated in the military administration in Berlin."
He is called the best melodist of our variety. Yuri Antonov's songs have always been popular. "White Boat", "Mirror", "On Kashtanova Street". "There is no you more beautiful" knows almost everyone born in the USSR. But at the same time, he never felt himself a master. "I just worked, composed songs," - admits the People's Artist of Russia. On February 19, he celebrates his 80th birthday. On the eve of his birthday, Yuri Mikhailovich visited the editorial office of the Izvestia MIC and recalled his path to fame.
"Guitars, synthesizers and amplifiers were obtained from the Yugoslavs"
- How did music come into your life?
- My parents decided to send me to music school. To be honest, my father wanted me to go to the Suvorov School in Minsk. He had been a military man since 1940 and wanted me to follow in his footsteps. But I had no such desire. We had our own company in the yard. And, of course, sometimes I didn't want to go to music school. I just went with my friends to some construction site. I was a lover of truancy. Then teachers would say to my mother: "Why didn't Yura come to class yesterday?" - "Why didn't he come? I sent him!"
- At what moment did your love for music manifest itself?
-Most likely at the music school. Music school was just an obligation. I went as a disciplined boy, sometimes breaking the routine. And at the college, it was already serious music.
Composer and singer Yury Antonov.
I had a wonderful teacher, Karl Karlovich Pogodsky. He was a grandfather to me, you could say, so grown up. And the most interesting thing is that his wife also taught at the music school - her surname was Antonova.
So, leisurely, the school days went by, and I decided to create a small band. There were accordion, clarinet, drums and guitar. We with guys learned fashionable at that time melodies, songs. We didn't sing, but we accompanied pretty girls. I had a German accordion HOHNER, which my father brought from the front. He ended the war in Germany.
I know that my birthday was celebrated very widely. It was at the military administration in Berlin. My father was the deputy chief of administration of the Potsdam district there.
- Do you remember your first appearance on stage? Where did it happen?
- In the Belarusian State Philharmonic in 1964, in February. That same year I went on my first tour. It was in Novosibirsk. I've been tormented ever since(laughs).
- There is such an achievement in your biography: in Leningrad you gave 28 concerts in 15 days. Where did you take your energy and strength?
Composer and singer Yuri Antonov
-28 concerts in two weeks at one venue - the Olympic Center in Leningrad. It had a capacity of about 14 thousand spectators. We worked every day. We only had a couple of days off. I'm amazed how we could.... We didn't have any equipment back then, homemade guitar amplifiers. And how we sounded! People were clapping, everybody was cheering us on!
- How did you get the instruments?
- I traded them for money from foreigners. Mostly Yugoslavs. They had guitars, synthesizers, amplifiers. That's when I met Djordje Marjanovic. Musicians periodically came to the USSR, sometimes twice a year, because it was a good income for them. A lot of concerts, they were paid well. Then musicians from Croatia started coming. They brought branded equipment: amplifiers, Fender guitars. And my band was very well equipped. I worked in Grodno Philharmonic from 1983 to 1986, and I had a Roland Jupiter-80 synthesizer!
- At what point did you feel like a master?
Composer and singer Yuri Antonov
- I never felt like a master, I was just working, composing songs. You know, a song lives not only when it is written by the author and recorded in the studio, performed by someone, but it is also important to spread it. And this is already the mass media - television, radio.
"In terms of money I competed only with Tukhmanov."
- On the radio you sounded, but on TV you appeared quite late? Why?
Composer and singer Yuri Antonov
- The reason is that we were so hairy. Imagine, I worked in the ensemble "Dobry Molodtsy", at that time it was a very popular band. They were great musicians. We passed the program 12 times. First there was a commission consisting of the management of the State Concert Committee and the Ministry of Culture. They said that this or that song would not fit. And when we corrected it, the music began to fit, but they told us that we didn't look very good. The sideburns should be removed. So we put up with it for a while, and then we all cut our hair short. And we went to the next screening bald.
- Did the committee get a shock?
- And they said to us, "Well, we understand. But not to that extent!" We worked at the State Concert and we brought in a lot of income. Basically, it was stadiums and sports palaces. And the artist's rates were 12-15 rubles per performance.
The officials had to carry the ideology. Out of habit, they pressed - and they pressed us to the point where we shaved. You can't perform on stage with long hair, you can't be bald. But you can't give up either. In the end they found a compromise, and they didn't bother us anymore.
- When did you feel famous?
Composer David Tukhmanov
- I've always had a reserved attitude towards fame. The main thing for us was to work so that we could receive royalties from the All-Union Copyright Agency (VAAP - Ed.). Of course, they came very well. In terms of money, I competed only with David Tukhmanov. He wrote for everyone, and I wrote only for myself. That was the difference. We competed with him every month. One month he earns more than me, another month I earn more.
"The lyrics for the song 'From Sorrow to Joy' were nine years in the making."
- How do you write your melodies? How do they come to you?
- It's hard work. You sit at the piano, you hit the keys, you come up with ideas. You record it on a tape recorder. If you don't write it down, you can forget in 5-10 minutes what you came up with. The text is in front of you, you look at it, you write it one way or another, or maybe you postpone it for a week, a month or a year. That's what happened to me with the song "From Sorrow to Joy". The poem sat for nine years. Once in the restaurant of the House of Composers a man came up to me: "I am Boris Dubrovin, a poet. Can I give you my poems?" And he handed me a sheet of paper. I promised that I would try to write. I put it in my notebook and forgot about it. Nine years later, when I was looking through the sheet music, I saw a yellowed sheet of paper. There's a wonderful poem on it. I felt so uncomfortable, so many years had passed. So I wrote a song right away. And then I invited good musicians, and Vitya Zinchuk played solo on the guitar.
- Were you proud of your success?
- Well, actually, there was no time to celebrate, to be proud of victories in music. We were traveling around the country, giving four concerts a day. Or I sat and thought up songs. There was no time for my personal life or for evaluating my creative successes.
Singer and composer Yury Antonov (background) on tour in Sochi
Later, when I was living in Moscow, a life-changing meeting took place. My song "No More Beautiful Than You" became a very big hit in the Soviet Union. And somehow the poet Onegin Gadzhikasimov found me. He introduced me to a community of songwriters. They would come to the National Café for lunch every day and socialize there. Saturday and Sunday was a day off. Mikhail Tanich, Leonid Derbenyov, Mikhail Ryabinin - the main poets of Soviet pop music - were often there. They all offered me lyrics. And I, as much as I could, wrote songs.
- Looking at the lyrics, did you immediately realize whether it would be hip or not?
- No, it's impossible before you write a song, arrange and record it. It's quite a long process, and the hope is that there will be a popular song. We didn't say "hit" or "schlager" back then - a popular song. If it got on the radio, it was a success. To television, Song of the Year, an even bigger success. I had no time to celebrate this success, we were sitting on wheels. It was trains, airplanes, steamships all over our vast country.
- Do you remember the first time you went abroad?
- I do. It was Czechoslovakia, where I was sent from the Ministry of Culture. It was some kind of national holiday. But I was pleased to be there also because I was friends with Karel Gott. The musicians of his orchestra invited me to visit them. They lived 20 kilometers from Prague. We had a blast there! The whisky went well(laughs).
- What did Soviet musicians surprise foreign musicians?
- Soviet songs were very good, and a lot of them. Their creators, composers, poets, went through the Great Patriotic War. But the Czechs were interested in these songs only because, having performed them, they could come to the USSR on tour. Carl Gott was a star in Europe. To successfully come to the USSR, he also had to sing songs by Soviet composers. I didn't notice any special love from them. It's the same in Hungary. They taught, they came, they performed, and they had a good income here.
Composer and singer Yuri Antonov
We had purely friendly, human relations, no politics. That's why they received me so well. When I went to Budapest to see Janos Kosh in his posh house, I saw for the first time a machine that made ice cream. He poured the ingredients into it, and in 20 minutes there were all sorts of different things - pink, salad, with nuts. I bought a machine like that. I brought it back to the Soviet Union and surprised guests.
- You have an album recorded in Finland in English. Do you like the sound of your songs not in Russian?
- I was transported to Finland by International Book, an organization that had a request for my art in that country. They controlled all art: literature, music, painting. Polarvox was interested. I went. And we released two albums there: one in Russian and one in English.
I gained experience, I was satisfied. I worked with good musicians from Sweden and Finland. And the Englishman wrote the lyrics in English. Of course, my pronunciation is so bad. To sing in English, you have to know the language very well. I tried, of course. The president of Polarvox Music, Lena Juranto, practiced with me all the time. She told me how to do it. She was a very beautiful woman. It was nice to communicate with her.
"The song that we recorded with Grigory Leps will be released - I've had it for ten years."
- What has changed on our stage?
Singer Yury Antonov and singer Grigory Leps at a concert dedicated to Russia Day
- We've changed even more than they have. Because our variety has got freedom. No one commands, no one tells you what you should do, how you should sing and what you should sing. It's very good. Another thing is that you have to have a censor inside you. Not the one who sits behind a desk and types out a report, what Yuri Antonov did there, where he went, who he met. But the censor who tells you inside. He says you can't and you shouldn't. I have such a censor.
Young people are relaxed now. They perceive freedom as permissiveness. Dress however you want, tattoos wherever you want. There is no internal censor.
- What do you think of what's on the radio and television today?
- Believe me, I don't listen to the radio, I don't listen to music. But I know what's going on. Some songs I even like. Modern arrangements, performance skills. You shouldn't criticize young people. They are developing, they have their own process. Nothing will change from criticism. Those who do it badly will drop out naturally. And given my age, I am simply uncomfortable criticizing. I take it very calmly.
I have the right to advice, but why advise someone when they will figure out for themselves which way to go, how to play, what to write, if they have a brain.
- What are you writing now, what are you working on?
Composer and singer Yuri Antonov
- I'm working on restoring songs. I have a lot of songs that didn't make it to radio, television or Melodiya. I have prepared 30 songs for the jubilee concert. It will probably be in the fall. The process is going on, we work in the studio almost every day. I've made a very good move - far-sighted it turned out to be. Back in the day, when I was recording songs, I used to save all the tracks on hard disks. They had these big metal hard disks back then. And I've got about 100 of them. Almost all the songs. Some tracks had to be re-recorded: they didn't fit the time.
- Are there any new hits to look forward to?
- A song we recorded with Grigory Leps. I've had it for about ten years.
- How did you choose which song to keep for your repertoire and which one to give to another performer?
- I wrote only for myself. I never gave anything to anyone. The new time has become easier. First of all, we've all forgotten about concert fees. Everything is different now. Popular artists are quite wealthy people.
Composer and singer Yury Antonov at the Zolotoy Grammofon awarding ceremony.
Take, for example, countries that are not friendly to us. Everyone there is trying to make money. For what? Not just to drive a Ferrari. But so that if you need to record in good studios, you have money. Good musicians need to be paid. It's a very big expense. And the risk is even greater: whether the song will go or not, whether it will bring you the money you had to pay the musicians, the studio, the director, or not, is unknown. A man should earn as much as he puts into his business.
- Can't talent make its own way?
- It's very hard nowadays. If you have a bright talent as a guitarist, of course you are in demand. And singers, not to say that they are talented or not, they are just in the spirit of the times. There's no special talent needed. The vocals aren't great either. The arrangements are like twins.
Mine is a little bit different, there are more live instruments. The guitars are the main focus. That's what I'm more familiar with. At one time it was the basis of analog popular music.
- How do you feel about the fact that today music can be written by artificial intelligence?
Composer and singer Yuri Antonov
- No. Why would I? I'm at an age where I have little interest in whether the intelligence is artificial or natural. I don't really care. But I have heard a few topics that artificial intelligence has created. They're done quite professionally, but there's no soul.
And you can feel it. In terms of technique - yes, decent, in terms of sounds - nothing. But you need to write hundreds of thousands of such songs.
- Do all your songs have soul?
- Well, mine do. I'm not responsible for other people's songs.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
