"Come on then, step inside..." seemed to hang in the air. "Let's see what you're capable of."
Railway platforms, a bustling crowd, and a feeling of boundless loneliness in this vast, buzzing hive. I came here with a single dream — to gain knowledge about music, but Moscow was diverse and very treacherous, especially in the nineties. However, it turned out I had arrived for the long haul — for almost twenty years, which became my novitiate, a time of learning from true masters.
The first circle of my initiation was the entrance exam to the conservatory. I purposely applied to study under the master Vadim Alekseevich Novikov, a renowned teacher and artist of the Bolshoi Theatre, who had worked with Dokshizer himself. To me back then, those two names — Dokshizer and Sandoval — were like apostolic tablets. Fortunately, I later had the chance to study under Dokshizer, but that was much later and already built upon the skills I had acquired during my years at the Moscow Conservatory.
I remember it like it was yesterday: the echoing vaults of the Moscow Conservatory, the smell of old wood and polish on the parquet-covered floors. My wildly beating heart: whether from the anticipation of new knowledge or a new life away from home.
Before I went out on stage, a gray-haired, stern-looking man approached me.
"I heard your playing," he said. "Worthy! I wish you luck!"
One of the other applicants whispered to me:
"Do you even know who that is?"
"No," I replied.
"That's the legendary Volodin! The very gold standard for the sound in Svetlanov's recording of Scriabin's 'Poem of Ecstasy'."
"Oh, yes! I've heard that record many times from my father's collection. It's impressive music and a very difficult orchestral solo for the trumpet."
Turning around, I saw Volodin again. He straightened my collar and said just one phrase, quiet but weighty: "Play not the notes, but what is between them. That's where all the truth is."
Lev Vasilyevich Volodin was a great trumpeter whose name was a legend. The very same student of the renowned Eremin, who had raised a whole constellation of stars. Volodin's name was inextricably, almost mystically linked to the 1966 audio recording by Svetlanov's USSR State Symphony Orchestra (GASO) and the composer Alexander Scriabin. In 1966, Volodin recorded his famous solo in "The Poem of Ecstasy," and this recording became a textbook example, a true benchmark. It was said that Svetlanov himself, when conducting the poem later on, would give Volodin a two-week vacation before the next performance so he could tune in and enter that special state. Two weeks! Various legends circulated, but I think the conductor understood: performing such music requires something more than virtuosity. A key to another world was needed.
I was fortunate enough to hear this recording even before meeting the master, and it shook me. It wasn't just music. It was the cosmos being born out of chaos, a fiery vortex twisting you and carrying you away into other dimensions. A few years later, I myself was invited to assist in the trumpet section of GASO under Svetlanov's direction. True, my premiere never took place. I didn't pass the audition, and my place was then taken by more experienced colleagues led by the principal trumpet Yuri Vlasenko, who subsequently became my friend, and years later we met many times on the same stage in various programs.
But before that, I had the unique opportunity to speak with Lev Volodin about this piece. Unfortunately, a year after our conversation, he passed away. But I remembered our talk very well.
"You see, young man," he said, and his eyes seemed to look right through me at something intangible, "Scriabin wasn't just writing music. He was writing a score for the end of the world. He believed that sound could change reality. And believe me, I felt this on my own lips, so to speak."
I couldn't believe my ears and tried not to advertise this conversation among my peers. Of course, in my youth back then, I held unconditional respect for the maestro. But I managed to write down these thoughts, which over time helped me move forward, and just a year later I got my first official job in a Moscow orchestra conducted by Mark Gorenstein, where one of my very first programs featured a symphony by A. Scriabin. To me, this was no coincidence.
"So," Volodin continued, "'Mysterium.'
This wasn't supposed to be just a concert by Svetlanov's GASO. It was a ritual, an action designed to recreate the Universe. Historically, at the beginning of the 20th century, inspired by Blavatsky's theosophy, composer Alexander Scriabin came to believe that art was the key to other worlds. He conceived the apotheosis of his work — a seven-day performance in a specially built temple somewhere in the Himalayas. A synthesis of music, dance, architecture, light, and even fragrances. He described curtains of fragrant smoke, mirages born from light beams, architecture that itself 'dances'."
Seven days during which humanity was meant to experience the entire history of existence — from the creation of the world to the final ecstasy — a universal unity in which individual personalities dissolve and a new, higher race is born. The final chord of "Mysterium" was supposed to be the last sound of the old world.
The composer's death in 1915 cut short this insane and brilliant grand design. "Mysterium" remained merely a sketch, a score for an Apocalypse that never took place.
Many trumpeters, when playing this solo (and even the second tutti players), try to grope for this nerve every time. This portal that Scriabin wanted to open. It is difficult for human consciousness to grasp this because of fear. But to touch this is the greatest happiness for a musician.
Since then, listening to Scriabin or recalling that short phrase said to me before the exam, I understand: the truth is indeed not in the notes. It is in that transcendent, frightening, and beautiful world where geniuses like Scriabin tried to pave the way for us, and where great performers like Svetlanov and Volodin can transport us, if only for a moment. This truth hides in that mystical space between the sounds and the ether of the Universe.