In this chapter I shall have to “return” to the barracks, because from there comes the beginning of my musical life. I was about 5 when my parents, and also Grandmother and Grandfather who lived in the Moscow region and relatives in Moscow, applying incredible efforts, bought a piano and sent it to Kiev. I remember well how I met, by the barracks, a truck in whose body stood an enormous wooden crate…. Can I now describe what I felt then? Joy, excitement, happiness, shock?!

I thought then that all the neighbours were glad too. The first night I could not fall asleep. When everyone was already asleep, I got up, slightly opened the piano lid and quietly touched the keys… No, no, I woke no one! I only touched…, and then I smelled. The piano smelled of fresh varnish. The next day I already did not leave it. I tried to play and pick out melodies “by ear.” My piano became a sight of our settlement, and also the pride of the whole family. I remember Mama said that the cost of the piano was 2 of Papa’s salaries. That impressed me, and I asked how we would live now and what we would eat. Mama sighed heavily… and was silent.

Once an “uncle” came to visit who supposedly understood music, and the parents naturally boasted, saying, look, the daughter can pick out melodies “by ear,” and I gladly played him something. And suddenly he began so categorically to declare that a child should not play “by ear”! This supposedly contradicted the rules of piano playing (the word “fortepiano” I heard for the first time from this uncle), that first one must learn the notes, play only from notes, enter a music school. And such playing “only spoils the child.” It was hard for me to understand his words, how this could spoil me.

And so, when I turned 7, I entered music school number 4 in the preparatory class. At that time there was a careful selection for music school; they sat an exam. One had to perform 2 songs, listen to how the examiner clapped his hands and repeat, sing the note that the examiner played. They “let” children into the auditorium one by one and conducted such an “execution” (I cannot call it otherwise!).

They asked me what I would sing. I announced: “A song about love. From the film Thirst”…. Here are the words of that song: “The night was with downpours and the grass in dew, about me they all said ‘happy.’ And I myself believed against my heart, we are two banks of one river.” Two men-examiners sat at the table opposite; it was hard for them to hold back laughter and they covered their faces with their hands. And the woman-examiner continued to “torture” me: “And what other little song will you perform for us?” The second little song was from the film Lights on the River. This was already a girl’s little song: “I’ll get up early in the morning, in the morning, I’ll tidy everything in the house, tidy. I’ll sweep the floors, wash the dishes… I’ll manage to do everything… I get fives, I get them. And I’m not afraid of the boys, not afraid. I can dive from a steep bank, if I want I’ll overtake anyone…”

That “I’ll manage to do everything” went through my whole later life. This was my first exam, and when I came out, saw Mama, I burst into tears, said that two uncles like bears had laughed at me! They accepted me! They told Mama the child had absolute pitch.

Twice a week an angry but beautiful aunt taught us to write notes in pencil in a special notebook For notes and to remember how these notes sound on the keyboard. It was very tense and boring to sit in the lesson and listen to how she poked at the piano one note at a time, then could “raise” any pupil and ask what note she had just played.

And then the individual piano lessons. One of the first works of the composer Kabalevsky “Now a birch, now a rowan, a willow bush over the river, native land, forever beloved, where else to find such a one?” — I played, a little, diligent girl, through tears… The teacher beat the time with her foot, sometimes with her hand jerked me by the right elbow, barked that I should watch my hands, not drop the elbows! (this was extremely important, the correct placement of the hands, of course, not for me, but for the teacher!) And for me… If I began to think about how my hands were placed, I could not play at all! But at home, when no one interfered, I could play with closed eyes, standing, dancing…

This terrible preparatory class lasted a whole year. At the end they already arranged an entrance selection exam into first class, but I don’t remember it. They accepted me into first class of the music school for ….. violin. My mama was indignant, overflowing with emotion. She tried to explain to the director that all our lives we had dreamed of playing the piano. That we have this wonderful musical instrument, which takes up a lot of space in our only room. All in vain! The administration had its own quotas. I think they took children “without an ear” for piano. On the piano one can be “without an ear,” not deaf, of course. Play from notes, be diligent, develop technique. But the violin is the queen of music! (that is what they told my resisting mama)

I remember I was “not against” beginning to play the violin. But my ultimatum mama said: “either the piano, or we drop music school!” …. So we dropped it! That year we moved to the khrushchoba together with the piano.

But to be continued!