Emil Gilels biography. Soviet pianist Emil Gilels
The name of Emil Gilels has long been inscribed in golden letters in the history of world music. This is not an artist, but art itself, the press enthusiastically wrote about Emil Gilels. Moscow discovered this musician in 1933. Then he, 16-year-old, won the All-Union Piano Competition.
The jury gave the young musician a standing ovation, because at the age of 16 he was already a world-class pianist. In 1938, his level was evaluated at a competition in Brussels. And among the fans was Queen Elizabeth herself. On the maestro's birthday, we decided to talk to his grandson, pianist Kirill Gilels.
Kirill, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of your great relative Emil Gilels. What anniversary events are held in honor of this event? How is the legacy of the great pianist preserved?
– In Freiburg, Germany, a magnificent festival was held (already the third in a row since 2012) with the participation of maestro Grigory Sokolov, Evgeny Kissin and George Lee. In Moscow, these days, an exposition is opening in the Museum-Apartment of A. B. Goldenweiser and in the foyer of the Tchaikovsky Hall. There will also be concerts, both at the Moscow Conservatory and the Philharmonic, and in many cities of our Fatherland and beyond.
This year, the Azbukovnik publishing house published a book by my grandmother, the wife of Emil Gilels, Farizet Gilels, My Gilels. Through the prism of love” (Collection of her memoirs and diary entries).
The legacy of the pianist is taken care of by his family - me and my dad, son-in-law of Emil Grigorievich. In addition to working with the archive and its digitization, we also deal with recordings of Emil Gilels' performances.
Emil Gilels said:
“My monument is my records: I will not be, but the records will remain.”
Our company "Melody" has made a fantastic project - a worthy box with 50 discs, including those with previously unpublished recordings! The German "Deutsche Gramophone" also pleased the listener with its collection of records. In general, the anniversary is just beginning - and many more events are waiting for us!
- How did Emil Grigorievich start studying music? Where did he spend his childhood?
— He spent his childhood in Odessa, which in those years was the center of cultural life, the course of which was not hindered by either revolution or war.
Emil Gilels began to study music very early - at the age of three. There was an old "Schroeder" in the house - a tool that immediately attracted little Mile. He was struck by the sound of the instrument and rhythms, especially attracted by the keyboard, which he barely reached with his small hands. His desire to "pick up" the sounds was so strong - not a day passed that "Mil" did not "play". This was noticed by the musicians who lived in the house.
- Emil Grigoryevich ever spoke to members of the government? Did he describe them in any way? Did you worry before such performances?
- Quite often, Emil Grigorievich took part in "government" concerts. Grandfather was outside the system of politics, so he did not comment on the "special" listeners.
I do not think that the social position of the listener mattered to him: Emil Grigorievich was guided by considerations of professional conscience and his understanding of the artistic mission.
- During the war, Emil Grigorievich gave concerts at the front and in hospitals, and in 1943 he performed in besieged Leningrad. Did he talk about it?
- I often told, including my father. About the concert and about the trip itself. As Stalin at the reception, going up to Emil, he said -
“Emil is a real hero. When he plays, the guns are silent.”
- What was the incident at a concert in Stockholm in 1968?
- This is a reaction to the entry of Soviet troops into Prague: Western listeners, as best they could, "boycotted" our artists. And it also affected my grandfather. At the request of the State Concert, the artist could not refuse to perform, despite the hooting and hostility of the crowd surrounding the Soviet diplomatic missions.
The same thing happened in the concert hall. Grandfather went on stage, stood for a moment, listened to the whistling and shouting, and left with dignity. The contract was complied with, the State Concert received the currency.
- When Khrushchev was removed, Gilels visited him. Did he say anything about it? Did he understand what it could threaten him with?
He was a man of principle and was not afraid of anyone. Of course, he understood everything. And moreover, not in connection with Khrushchev, but there were troubles. For example, when he rejected the State Concert's ban on the performance of Stravinsky's works. Then Emil Grigoryevich called Minister Ekaterina Furtseva and said:
“Maybe Debussy should also be banned, since Napoleon burned Moscow?”
- And what was Emil Grigorievich like in life?
— Honest, principled, sympathetic and modest. What a great grandfather! I remember how from a trip to Japan he brought me a typewriter (oh, what a typewriter it was!) And a marzipan banana and a peach.
Emil Grigoryevich never separated himself from people, he could, for example, calmly go to the store for kefir without feeling discomfort. At the same time, he could put any impudent person in his place, and sometimes only the glance of Emil Grigorievich was enough for this.
- They say that Emil Grigorievich appreciated humor. Any interesting stories related to this, you can tell?
— He loved good jokes and knew how to tell them. He did not like, unlike his colleagues, humor that offends a person, what my contemporaries call “trolling”. He loved academic literary anecdotes, historical situations.
- What were Emil Grigorievich's favorite composers? Whose works did he like to perform?
- He loved Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart and Brahms. In general, Emil Grigorievich performed music from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th - i.e. from Mozart to Brahms.
As for Russian music, he loved Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. A separate story is Tchaikovsky, whom Gilels performed in a cycle (I mean his piano concertos, all three).
One of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, Emil Grigorievich Gilels, has been an iconic figure in Odessa since childhood. Born in a huge family of an accountant (nine children), a red-haired, freckled boy experienced an incredible feeling of inferiority and loneliness among his peers. Fate gave him a piano, behind which there was a transformation into a winner, a virtuoso, a unique child prodigy, of which ambitious Odessa knew how to be proud. The first solo concert at the Opera House in 1929 and the victory in the 2nd All-Ukrainian competition for a young musician convinced the musical community of this. Stalin asked the young Gilels after his triumphant victory at the First All-Union Competition in 1933, where would he like to live: in Moscow or Odessa. Gilels, without hesitation, answered: “in Odessa”!
Jealous Odessa, shortly after Gilels moved to Moscow in 1935, responded with caustic verses:
“... Milka the Red
- Now he does not remember Odessa,
And he knows only London and Paris, and ... "
Indeed, in addition to the widest tours, all conceivable and unimaginable awards and titles were awarded and appropriated to him, he was regularly invited to the Kremlin, he was called the “ambassador of Soviet art” on the basis of the “socialist realism” of Russian art history. The rudiments of this to this day smell of “art history in civilian clothes”, when Gilels is left in the rank of “virtuoso” with his supposedly “healthy spontaneity and life-like veracity of performance”.
A.E. Orentlicherman, E.G. Gilels, L.N. Ginzburg;
N.I. Zosina-Sokolovskaya, S.L. Mogilevskaya, G.I. Leizerovich, ... 1930s
The glamorous shell of the life of the greatest artist contrasted sharply with his personal qualities, preserved from childhood - maximum restraint, if not gloomy, sometimes turning into gloominess, growing rather than decreasing over the years. The heroic virtuosity that made Gilels a triumph of the mid-twentieth century for a wide audience, natural and necessary in its extraordinary, uniqueness (like a circus trick), became for him - a real artist - a “skin” that needed to be changed, and it was very painful to change in the depths genuine artistic vision.
B.M. Reingbald and E. Gilels
The “conveniences” of rapid professional growth in Odessa on a virtuoso scale, first with Ya.I. Weaver, and then in the class of B.M. Reingbald (from whom he graduated from the conservatory in 1935), were replaced by the “difficulties of growing” in the Moscow postgraduate tour, respectively, by the artistic and philosophical heights of G.G. Neuhaus. Neuhaus himself spoke out unambiguously in an article where Gilels is represented as an “active member of the Komsomol”.
“The enormous pure pianistic talent of E. Gilels sets before him the high task of being not only a first-class professional performer, but also a representative of high culture,” Neuhaus wrote. Neuhaus expressed himself even more strictly a little later in the newspaper Sovetskoe Iskusstvo:
“Gilels is a musician… of a spontaneous order. His technical capabilities, his virtuosity are limitless. But along with great musicality, one feels the lack of a common culture in him, which, of course, is explained by age.
But is it just age? Much later, a close friend and colleague of Gilels, Professor L.N. Ginzburg assessed the contrast between the professors of Odessa and the teacher-artist G.G. Neuhaus: “This is completely different”, which was unambiguously deciphered - an artistic pedagogy of a different order! And this “transition” to a completely “different” level was very difficult for the musician, however, like Ya.I. Zaku, about which he, without hiding, spoke and wrote.
The appearance in the Neuhaus class of Svyatoslav Richter in 1937 and undisguised admiration for the new student caused E.G. Gilels an ambiguous feeling of jealousy and irritation, about which there was a lot of gossip. Everything turned out to be much more complicated and internally tragic for Gilels, because the purely worldly human (“too human” Nietzsche) and the truly artistic feeling of a brilliant musician clashed in him. This contradiction entailed the need to “shed the skin” of virtuoso well-being and cultivate new unexplored qualities of a musician, which by no means guarantee a cloudless future. The peculiarity of the current situation is such that the need for artistic “re-grafting” was painfully initiated by G.G. Neuhaus, but carried out on himself by Gilels himself. The stimulus of this “operation” was the musicianship of the young S. Richter, who “jumped” over the virtuoso boundary with self-didactics, in front of the Odessa professors, who did not notice this.
Now such a task has become a mature and famous artist in the most difficult conditions of public recognition and a host of various responsibilities. The titanic internal restructuring, carried out independently, reflects the brilliant rise of the musician's creativity, which raised him to the heights of the requirements of the merciless great teacher - G.G. Neuhaus, who has the names of Svyatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels in a single ranking.
Communicating with E.G. Gilels in February 1966, twenty years after he received the Stalin Prize and four years after the award of the Lenin Prize, had to observe the “transformation” of a human musician. His invaluable help in saving the Odessa Lutheran Church (kirkha) from demolition, in which Svyatoslav Richter's young years passed and in which Richter's father Theophilus worked as an organist since 1916, swept away all the difficulties of the "rumor" about the quarrel between Richter and Gilels. Gilels' first impulse was to inform Richter about the impending act of vandalism, which was replaced by an unwillingness to traumatize Richter's already painful Odessa past, in connection with the execution of his father. Meanwhile, E.G. Gilels included all his connections with the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia, the USSR Ministry of Culture in order to cancel the demolition of the German church authorized by the Ukrainian government, which is reflected in the letter drawn up with him.
text-align: center; margin-top: 10px; display:block; max-width: 533px;"> E. Gilels among the teachers of the Odessa Conservatory. 1969
Photo of Emil Gilels with a dedication of the Odessa Conservatory. 1978
A huge repertoire, recordings and a galaxy of outstanding students reflect the won aristocracy of the spirit of a brilliant musician who received the title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1954, an honorary member of the London Royal Academy of Music (1969), the F. Liszt Academy of Music (Budapest, 1970), the National Academy "Santa Cecilia" ” (Rome, 1980), but always remained the Great Odessa.
In Tchaikovsky Lane, 4, on the facade of the house where the pianist lived, a memorial plaque was erected to him and his sister Elizaveta (a famous violinist).
Yuri Dikiy, pianist and publicist
On September 2, 2016, on the occasion of the 222nd anniversary of the founding of Odessa, a new star appeared on the Avenue of Stars - in honor of Emil Gilels.
One of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.
Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1947).
People's Artist of the USSR (1954).
He began playing the piano at the age of five and a half, his first teacher was Yakov Tkach. Having quickly achieved significant success, he first appeared in public in May 1929, performing works by Liszt, Chopin, Scarlatti and other composers. In 1930 he entered the Odessa Institute of Music (now the Odessa Conservatory) in the class of Berta Reingbald (he studied special harmony with Professor N. N. Vilinsky), and the following year he won the All-Ukrainian Piano Competition, and a year later he met Arthur Rubinstein who commends his performance.
Fame came to the musician after his victory in 1933 at the First All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians, which was followed by numerous concerts throughout the USSR. After graduating from the Odessa Conservatory in 1935, he entered the graduate school of the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Heinrich Neuhaus. In the second half of the 1930s, the pianist achieved major international successes: he took second place at the international competition in Vienna (1936), losing only to Jacob Flier, and two years later he took revenge from him, winning the Isaiah Competition in Brussels, where Flier remained on the third place. Returning to Moscow, he began teaching at the conservatory as an assistant to Neuhaus.
During the war years, he took part in military patronage work, in the fall of 1943 he gave concerts in besieged Leningrad, after the end of the war he returned to active concert and teaching activities. He often performed with his younger sister, violinist Elizaveta Gilels (1919-2008), as well as with Yakov Zak. In 1950 he formed a piano trio with Leonid Kogan (violin) and Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), and in 1945 he gave concerts abroad for the first time (becoming one of the first Soviet musicians who were allowed to do this), toured in Italy, Switzerland , France and Scandinavian countries. In 1954 he was the first Soviet musician to perform at the Pleyel hall in Paris. In 1955, the pianist became the first Soviet musician to give concerts in the United States, where he performed Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov's Third Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, and soon gave a recital at Carnegie Hall, which was a huge success. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the most sought-after Soviet musicians in the world, spending about nine months a year at concerts and foreign tours. In 1973 he was awarded the Robert Schumann Prize (GDR). In 1981, after one of the concerts in Amsterdam, he had a heart attack, from which he never fully recovered, despite the fact that he returned to concert activity. The last performance took place in September 1985 in Helsinki.
From 1938 to 1974 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory (since 1952 - professor), among his students the most famous are Marina Mdivani, Valery Afanasiev, Igor Zhukov and Felix Gottlieb. He headed the jury in the specialty "piano" at the first four International Competitions. P. I. Tchaikovsky (1958, 1962, 1966, 1970).
He died on October 14, 1985 in the Kremlin hospital from an attack of diabetes. His death was unexpected, it was blamed on incompetent doctors who did not provide him with the necessary assistance in time.
He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
Pianist, teacher.
Born October 6, 1916 in Odessa. He showed musical talent very early: at the age of 4-5 he tried to reproduce everything he heard on the piano. He began systematic music lessons in 1922 at the Odessa Music Courses. At the age of 8, performing in concerts, he impressed with the ease of playing and confidence, clarity of rhythm. The extraordinary talent of the young pianist was noted by A. T. Grechaninov and K. F. Dankevich. From the age of 13 he continued his studies at the Odessa Conservatory with B. M. Reingbald (1930-35). Subsequently, he considered her his main teacher, called her "Teacher with a capital letter." In 1932 he played for the first time at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1933 he won the 1st All-Union competition of performing musicians and became one of the country's leading pianists. His playing was highly appreciated by D. B. Kabalevsky, J. V. Flier (he considered Gilels a world-class pianist), M. I. Grinberg. In 1935-38 he improved himself at the School of Higher Artistic Excellence at the Moscow Conservatory, with G. G. Neuhaus. Despite significant differences in the nature of talents and views on art, Neuhaus had a noticeable influence on Gilels.
Having successfully performed at international piano competitions in Vienna (1936, 2nd prize) and Brussels (1938, 1st prize), he began to actively tour abroad (previously gave concerts in the USSR). Gilels' playing struck the audience with courageous integrity, breathtaking virtuosity, the beauty of the piano sound, and a special energy force. Over the years, the art of the pianist, while maintaining these features, gradually developed. His extensive repertoire included music from the Baroque era to the present (with the exception of works by J.S. Bach, which were relatively rarely presented in Gilels' concert programs). He liked to play cycles of compositions, including L. van Beethoven's "Development of the Piano Sonata", recorded all the Piano Concertos by P. I. Tchaikovsky. His interpretation of the piano sonatas and concertos of W. A. Mozart, the piano concertos of L van Beethoven, I. Brahms and P. I. Tchaikovsky have become classics of world performing art. Many works were recorded on gramophone records repeatedly - in different periods of creativity (the recording of all Beethoven's piano sonatas and variation cycles was not completed due to the death of Gilels). The first performer of works by S. S. Prokofiev, A. I. Khachaturian, D. B. Kabalevsky, M. S. Weinberg. He performed in duets with Ya. I. Zak, E. E. Gilels, Eliz. G. Gilels and L. B. Kogan, in a trio with Kogan and M. L. Rostrapovich or S. N. Knushevitsky, with the Quartet. Beethoven and the Amadeus Quartet. In the last decade of his life, new features appeared in his manner - tragedy, philosophy, contemplative lyrics. I. Brahms and R. Schumann played a lot.
He treated pedagogical activity in a peculiar way: “When I teach, I teach like a performing musician: I empathize with the student. If something in his game does not satisfy me, I get nervous, burn out. A real teacher - a teacher by profession - is wiser than me: he does not need to think about the concert repertoire, he does not need to have it always ready. He is busy only with students, he can spend hours fiddling with them, finishing the compositions technically and emotionally. If the teacher is good, he is content with this ”(Quoted from: Barenboim L. A. S. 148). At the same time, he achieved a lot in piano pedagogy. In 1938-76 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory, educating such pianists as V. Afanasiev, I. Zhukov, O. Ivanov, M. Mdivani. From the students he demanded accuracy, purity, thoughtfulness of performance. He liked to compare a pianist with a surgeon, who on the stage is “responsible for the life of a work of art” (Smirnov M. A. S. 171). He paid significant attention to work on scales and arpeggios, considering it “the bread that you need to eat every day” (Ibid., p. 163). For the development of technique, he often used Brahms' exercises. Widely resorting to the demonstration method in the classroom, he demonstrated to students, mainly, not the works that they played, but contrasting or similar in character to them. When learning new compositions, he used a slow, “working” pace, which allows him to control every note and every musical line with his ear. Gilels' influence on the students was enormous. Gilels is the author of articles and memoirs.
He was chairman of the jury of the International Piano Competition. P. I. Tchaikovsky (1958,1962,1966,1970), member of the jury of international competitions. Belgian Queen Elizabeth (Brussels) and them. M. Long—J. Thibault (Paris). Honorary Member of the London Royal Academy of Music (1969), Academy of Music. F. Liszt (Budapest, 1970), National Academy "Santa Cecilia" (Rome, 1980). He was awarded three orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals. Laureate of the Lenin (1962) and Stalin (1946) Prizes. Hero of Socialist Labor (1976).
His sister is Eliza. G. Gilels, daughter - E. E. Gilels.
Incredibly talented pianist Emil Gilels, musician and virtuoso, man of the century, consummate master
The Soviet era is one of the greatest and most recent periods in the history of Russia, it is customary to praise it, it is customary to criticize it, respond with hatred or nostalgia, it is not customary to just be indifferent to it.
These were difficult years, years of uninterrupted struggle, great achievements, grandiose ideas and terrible tragedies, in seventy years the Soviet people experienced as much as other nations could not have experienced in several centuries.
In a short time, a new state was built from the ashes of the civil war and revolution, an unprecedented ideology was created, and a new culture was brought to life. It was a time of strength, courage, incredible dynamics and energy.
The Soviet era also found its embodiment in music, one of the “heralds” of its “sound” was an incredibly talented pianist Emil Gilels, a musician and virtuoso, a man of the century, an unsurpassed master, whose playing absorbed all the best that was in the "Soviet" sound of the classics.
Every great pianist, like every great composer, has his own sound, a signature style that makes him different from everyone else. Technique, manner of performance, inspiration, virtuosity - all these qualities come largely from the character of the pianist, his life views and preferences.
The “eccentric” Glenn Gould saw in music an inexpressibly deep spiritual beginning, which he sought to convey to the listener. Gyorgy Cziffra, a man of the hardest fate, as if fighting against adversity, played incredibly joyfully, lightly, helping others with his music to find the strength to survive life's upheavals.
Alexey Sultanov was famous for his "infernal" performance, penetrating the viewer to the bone.
And Emil Gilels - a serious, restrained, strong man, embodied a game that was harsh, dynamic, courageous, full of bright colors, a game that seemed to become a call to live and fight.
Perhaps Gilels' music made such a strong impression, among other things, because of the behavior of the virtuoso himself: Emil was always stern, reserved, absolutely unperturbed. He seemed to know that he was in complete control of the situation, his image and his game acted in harmonious tandem, making an indelible impression on the viewer.
“Milya Gilels is an outstanding child in terms of his rare abilities. Nature endowed him with wonderful hands and a rare ear, which is characteristic of those who were born exclusively for the piano playing, ”said Ya. I. Tkach about his young student when he was only thirteen.
Emil Gilels was not only an outstanding virtuoso with almost the best technique among Soviet musicians, and even musicians from all over the world of his period, he was equally a magnificent musician, capable of presenting the classics in his own strict but impressive manner.
Gilels' game was the embodiment of the Soviet era - powerful, restrained, harsh and courageous, full of dynamics and a passionate call to live.“The first thing that distinguishes Gilels is the masculinity and strong-willed intensity of the game. His performance is completely alien to sentimentality, mannerisms, effeminacy. The artistic thinking of Gilels does not know exaltation and pretentiousness. There is an excess of healthy energy in everything, naturally flowing from his nature ... This is realistic, life-affirming art, the art of a close-up, energetic lines and colors, ”other well-known virtuoso Yakov Milshtein spoke about Emil’s performance.
Gilels' game was the embodiment of the Soviet era - powerful, restrained, harsh and courageous, full of dynamics and a passionate call to live, create, create, seek and assert one's place in life.
This style of performance has not lost its relevance even now, when there are many directions of music pursuing the same effect. Oddly enough, Gilels' game could well surpass modern techno, RnB, dubstep and other "energetic" areas of music precisely by the ability to give a person the will to live, inner strength and energy.
Fortunately, Gilels' legacy has survived in live recordings, studio LPs, hundreds of materials transferred to modern media and therefore available to those who want to know what truly masculine music looks like.
minion of fate
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was born in Odessa on October 6, 1916, having seen the decline of the Russian Empire, the dawn of the revolution and slightly anticipating the Soviet era, which gave him worldwide fame.
Emil came from a Jewish family: father Gregory was a worker, mother Esther devoted herself to caring for the family and home. Both friends and Gilels' biographers note that he received a fairly good, but extremely harsh upbringing, his parents were rather tough people, which undoubtedly affected the character of the musician.
Having early felt a passion for music and a love for the stage, little Emil even encouraged children from neighboring courtyards to act out theatrical performances based on the plays he had written.
Even before completing his studies, Gilels became the winner of the first all-Union competition of musiciansGilels' first music teacher was Ya. I. Tkach, thanks to whose lessons, by the age of 13, Mil managed to show off his talents in public, giving a concert that ended with a standing ovation.
Then there was the Odessa Conservatory, where around the same years, despite the efforts of his father, a music teacher, the wayward, who also lived in Odessa, did not enter.
And the legendary Heinrich Neuhaus helped the young virtuoso to achieve technical perfection already in Moscow, and here it is worth mentioning Svyatoslav Richter again, because, despite all the outstanding successes of Gilels, it was Richter, the “obstinate” pianist, that Heinrich Gustavovich called his favorite student.
On the other hand, Gilels himself admired his talents, having met the virtuoso while he was studying in Odessa.
Even before completing his studies, Gilels became famous as an inspired interpreter and a brilliant musician, he became the winner of the first all-Union competition of musicians, and then managed to win several prestigious European competitions. And then there was only fame, success, recognition and a bright line of the pianist's life that permeated the entire Soviet era.
Wives and lovers
It would seem that stern and restrained, Gilels could hardly show his feelings especially clearly. However, his life story is marked by bright moments associated with women.
There were some tragedies - the maestro's first wife, pianist Roza Tamarkina, with whom he was brought together by the war years, when Gilels performed a lot around the USSR (including in besieged Leningrad), passed away early, leaving the musician, who had not passed the threshold of thirty years, a widower .
Emil Gilels passed away in 1986, but remained the country's most talented and revered musicianIn the harsh war years, Gilels also had a stormy romance with Bonya Girshberg, a Latvian Jewess, a communist who managed to serve time for active political work and lost almost her entire family in fascist camps.
Bonya and Emil met during the visit of the virtuoso to Kirov, where the emigrant, who knew almost no Russian, worked as a nurse with the rank of junior lieutenant. An ardent feeling flared up between them, which lasted for several years and affected not only these two, but also most of the famous musicians of that time, through whom Emil passed on his sensual and inspirational letters to Bonet.
The wedding did not work out - Hirshberg was "frightened" by the pianist's hard temper and could not connect her life with him, she married a military surgeon, with whom she happily spent the rest of her life. And Gilels no less happily connected his life with the poetess and enthusiastic admirer of his talent Farizet Khutsistova, who managed to leave us an amazingly systematized archive of more than 11 thousand documents about the life of Gilels.
Emil Gilels passed away on October 14, 1986 in Moscow, having survived the entire great Soviet era from A to Z, but, probably fortunately, without seeing the collapse of the country. He was a favorite of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, the most talented and revered musician in the country.