War and disquiet with Grossman and Lipke

Two remarkable men, a Russian and a Latvian, share equal honours here for respective perfection of the work and of the life. Above is Vasily Grossman in the thick of it in 1945, and below is Žanis Lipke in 1977 holding the 'Righteous Among the Nations' medal which bears the inscription 'He who saves one life saves the world'. You'll have to read some way on to find out how Lipke did it.

First time round with Grossman's long-concealed Life and Fate, I stopped around the page-180 mark. Who were all these people zooming into sight around Stalingrad with very little in the way of introduction? When I read in translator Robert Chandler's introduction that many of them had already featured in a previous novel dealing with the earlier stages of the German invasion, For a Just Cause, published in 1952, which to this day remains untranslated into English, I felt we were being cheated, presented with Life and Fate as a self-contained entity rather than part of a diptych.

It's complicated. For a Just Cause, according to Chandler, doesn't stick its neck out against the Soviet regime in the way that Life and Fate so startlingly does. Grossman thought the latter might be published during the Khrushchev thaw. He was wrong. In February 1961 KGB officers came to his apartment to confiscate the manuscript and anything related to it. But Grossman had left two other copies with friends, one of which was smuggled out on microfilm to the west with the help of Andrey Sakharov, among others, in 1974, a decade after Grossman's death; the novel was finally published in 1980.

Though Grossman wrote Life and Fate with the benefit of hindsight, and compressed into 1941-2 a timescale which actually extends up to Stalin's big drive against Russian Jews with the 'Doctors' Plot' a decade later, he lived through the events it describes as a reporter (his war journalism will be my next reading once I've finished Elena Ferrante's tetralogy).

The most lacerating transferal of his own experience into that of the man who becomes the novel's main character, Jewish physicist Viktor Pavlovich Shtrum, is of the loss of his mother, who was sent to her death in Treblinka from Berdichev, which he reached too late. This is why the last letter of Viktor's mother in Chapter 18 of Life and Fate's first part is one of the most powerful of all literary testimonies to the horrors of the Holocaust; no wonder it has been adapted for the stage both as a monologue and within Lev Dodin's very selective Maly Theatre adaptation, which led me back to the novel.

The other sequence that I found almost unbearable is the strand following unmarried teacher Sofya Osipovna Levinton's journey to Auschwitz, and her poignant adoption of a Jewish boy who dies in her arms. Later stages deal with the tragicomic compromises of Shtrum, who finds himself suddenly of use to Stalin again when Russia needs to develop a nuclear bomb. The book, unlike (as I am led to believe by one who's read it) its predecessor, makes it clear that Stalin's horrors, not least the indelible mark of the 1937 Terror, scar people as much as Hitler's. As with the even-handed condemnation of Kuznetsov's Babi Yar, this is what made Life and Fate unpublishable in Soviet Russia.

Shafts of light are often extinguished, despite the profound Tolstoyan humanity throughout. Another seminal chapter is devoted to the manuscript of Ikonnikov, a so-called 'Holy Fool' in another German camp. He decries the inevitable corruption of the 'common good' principle and contrasts it with

a kindness outside any system of social or religious good...Even at the most terrible times...this senseless, pathetic kindness remained scattered throughout life like atoms of radium...This kindness, this stupid kindness, is what is most truly human in a human being. It is what sets man apart, the highest achievement of his soul. No, it says, life is not evil! 

Later, the army driver Semyonov is taken in by an old peasant woman who tells him she has seen good and bad on both sides. Khristya Chunyak is the embodiment of Ikonnikov's 'stupid kindness'.

There is a memorial in Rīga to another, real person who epitomises the personal good, Žanis Lipke. Not exactly an ordinary Latvian - stevedore, dockworker and smuggler, he had always been a stalwart left wing activist. But when he was working at a warehouse under German command and heard that Riga's Jews were being massacred in the woods near the city, he devised an elaborate rescue scheme to make sure that many of the Jewish workers did not return to the ghetto and certain eventual death at the end of the day - unnoticed, miraculously - but to various shelters around the city. His reason? That it was simply the duty of a human being. When circumstances became too dangerous for the escapees there he transported them across the broad Daugava river to his home in semi-rural Ķīpsala. 

There eight to 12 people at any one time were housed in a three-by-three-metre hole in the ground. All the family were involved in the task, including his wife Johanna, whose words and eloquent visage (such eyes!) are so movingly captured in an interview you view on a screen at the bottom of the new building's central well, 

and young son Zigfrids who stood guard above. As the numbers grew, Lipke arranged with a distant parish to shelter people in three farmsteads. He saved around 50 lives. None of the 25 people who helped him was ever betrayed. Later, when he was interrogated by the NKVD, he told his questioners that the Communists were even worse than the Nazis - the latter shot you while looking you in the eye, the other shot you in the back. Astonishingly, he wasn't carted off to Siberia for that. Pictured below, Johanna and Žanis in 1946, seated to the right with some of the Jews they rescued.

Ķīpsala is still a beautiful part of town with many wooden houses and much greenery, but the main reason for visiting is to see the stunningly-constructed memorial, created by architect Zaiga Gaile at the end of an alley with an almost hidden entrance (you only grasp the building properly on exiting at the other end).  Māris Gailis, businessman and former Latvian Prime Minister, and film director Augusts Sukuts wanted to make the tribute because what we usually hear is how Latvians welcomed in the Germans all too readily (as in Estonia, it was complicated; life under Soviet rule had been so harsh that many citizens thought at first the Germans would be more 'civilized'. They soon found out how wrong they were). The Žanis Lipke Memorial was opened in 2013, and it's a model in its restraint and simple artistry. In the opening ceremony, Shimon Peres echoed Grossman when he said:

I don't think I've ever seen a museum like this one anywhere in the world. It's special, it's different, it's deep, it's moving....I'm not sure that the majority of people are saints. But I'm sure there is a minority of people who are brave, who are right, who are just. And I do believe that this minority saves lives.

43,290 sing and dance in Riga

Just a quick post, with jaw still open, to show the grand finale of  the Latvian Dance Featival last night. Patriotism (as opposed to nationalism) can be a glorious thing. This is the only point at which there was no space to whirl after two and a half astonishing hours. 18,174 dancers from 739 dance groups from within Latvia and from the world diaspora, having rehearsed for the past five years, performing to an audience of a a mere 5,000. Over in the woodland stadium, 16,500 singers from 427 choirs were holding their dress rehearsal to an audience of 60,000 - another of that number are the lucky ticket holders for tonight (ourselves very honoured to be included - demand was ten times the supply, and tickets sold out within hours on the day of release). Our friends Kristaps and Artis will be participating. No wonder this is listed by UNESCO as a 'masterpiece of humanity'.

More in due course - too much to see and do right now.

From Albertopolis to Riga

Two Sundays ago, I was basking in the focused glory of the Latvian Radio Choir singing Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil (Vespers) at a late-night Prom (photo courtesy BBC/Mark Allan; the rest apart from the Vereshchagin painting are mine or taken on my camera in the case of the Imperial College shot).

On the following Tuesday morning, by pure serendipity, I happened to be in Riga, where my wonderful Latvian friend Kristaps took me to see St John's Church in the Old Town, knowing it was where the choir had recorded the Rachmaninov.

That Sunday before I could take off to Latvia and one of my favourite places in the world, Pärnu in Estonia, was quite a bit of work. First I had to prepare for and then speak at the afternoon Proms Extra event in the Imperial College Union just down from the Royal Albert Hall. Here I am, below, with one of Radio 3's very best presenters, Louise Fryer, and my New Best Friend (we hadn't met before), Royal College of Music doyenne and Taneyev expert Anastasia Belina, a very vivacious person. You can hear an edited version of the talk in the interval of the BBC Radio 3 broadcast of the main orchestral concert, with introductory chants from the LRC, for a while at any rate here - the Proms Extra slot starts at around 1:00:27. The choir's late-night performance of the Vespers is here.

Then I very willingly attended both Rachmaninov Proms and wrote about them on The Arts Desk - though the review had to be pieced together en route for Riga. The full Baltic experience of basking once again in the amazing performances of the Estonian Festival Orchestra players, both collectively and in chamber music, is covered here.

Kristaps packed such a lot in to the three hours we had in Riga before taking the coach to Pärnu at lunchtime that I can't cover it all here - another post will be necessary for the famous street of Art Nouveau buildings where the small publishing house for which he works is based. But I think we can justify two religious edifices and two places with a connection to a very famous composer. Our first interior was that of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Nativity, built between 1876 and 1883 at Alexander II's behest, two of its golden domes glittering through the trees here on a hot summer morning.

It became a Lutheran church during the German occupation of World War 1, and later a planetarium under the Soviets. Its lavish restoration was completed in 2000.

The faithful line up to kiss their favourite icons

and under this fresco of the Nativity,

painted by Vasily Vershchagin. There are two 19th century Russian artists of that name, and I hope it's the more significant one, if only for the stark contrast of his most famous image painted on the eastern battlefield.

I got quite 'bolshie' when ferociously asked by a headscarved lady not to photograph (I did so without flash, and saw no prohibitive signs): this is as close as I could get to a Pussy Riot act against the wretched Russian Orthodox Church of today, Putin's poodle and hijacked by a vicious leader.

Of course it's all impressive, but much more to my taste was the modest and more ancient artistry of St John's, founded by Dominicans in 1200 and taken over by the Lutherans in 1587.

Rebuilt several times, extensively so after a major fire in 1677, it retains its beautiful Gothic ceiling, the finest in Latvia.

Kristaps knew of my Wagner passion so he managed to get us into an apartment block on Brīvības iela which stands on the site of the young(er) composer's dwelling between 1838 and '39. Here he wrote Rienzi, which I have the dubious pleasure of declaring I've now witnessed live, or about half of it. The stained glass window dates from 1913

and there's a plaque plus a portrait in an alcove, too.

The present building is impressive, in any case, with its fine staircase.

Pushing it a bit for time before the coach (which we caught, eventually, but not at the coach station), K kindly detoured down Richard Wagner Street - all names undergo rigorous Latvian reworking -

to see the concert hall he frequented when it was an opera house, with its appropriate dragons. During his time in Riga, he staged five different operas and conducted another 20. In orchestral concerts he focused - no surprise - on Beethoven. There's more useful information on Wagner in Riga here.

The hall/theatre subsequently played host to other very distinguished figures (I leave you to make them out).

And so, speedily, back through the green belt and via the Opera House, to a scramble for the coach, which concerned my laid-back friends and taxi driver far less than it did me. But I'm a great admirer of the brinksmanship which wants to show the visitor as much as possible: I do it myself, much to certain folks' consternation.

Proud Europeans

Here are two reasons to be cheerful and proud about Europe in the week following the shock of the Conservatives' election win. On 8 May, actually just before Europe Day, the annual concert in St John's Smith Square with members of the European Union Youth Orchestra and singers from the Liverpool-based European Opera Centre celebrated Latvia's first Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It's also 25 years to the month since Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union/Russia.Violinist Kristīne Balanas, featured in the second photo above, was only four days old when that happened, but what a magnificent symbol she is of the musical values which are still so strong - stronger than ever, if possible - in that Baltic country. All images of St John's and the 12 Star Gallery in Europe House over the way by the excellent Jamie Smith.

Four days after the concert, one of the very best exhibitions ever to have graced the 12 Star Gallery opened in style. I think you can see that German artist Thomas Ganter is a delightful chap from the top shot above and the one below; everyone tells me so, and I have the pleasure of finding out for myself next week. He told J he had worked for a year on the portraits for UNKNOWNS, the show co-hosted by the European Commission Representation in the UK and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, thrilled at the prospect of what the venue stood for.

And the true Mensch he is can be summed up in two large-scale portraits which satisfy hugely on the aesthetic, moral and social levels. Man with a Plaid Blanket, a portrait of a homeless windscreen cleaner for which Ganter won the 25th annual BP Portrait Award, isn't in the show; it's currently in Wales and belongs to the Historisches Museum Frankfurt.

I long to see it in the flesh, as it were, because reproduction can only give a small idea of the scale and the finish, and the way the subjects in the pictures I saw come out of the canvas. I did see and wonder at the large (off-)centrepiece in the 12 Star Gallery, The Unknown Health Worker commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and contributed to The Art of Saving a Life. I presume Ganter wrote the text accompanying its reproduction in the booklet:

This painting represents those women and men in every country who do their best to reach families and offer life-saving services including immunization. The portrait is inspired by a photograph of a health worker in eastern Nepal, who was in the midst of climbing up and down steep hillsides in the Himalayas to reach all children with measles, rubella and polio vaccines. She carries the vaccines in the cold box slung on her shoulder. It can be considered a 'monument' for the unknown health worker, to appreciate their hard work and their importance for all of us.

I wonder how and where she is now.

On the same wall are seven smaller portraits of citizens Ganter invited in off the street to sit for him: a street worker, a nanny, a lumberjack, a gipsy, a twin, a chemist and a clown.

Another wall has family portraits, including Ganter himself in uncharacteristically fierce, Viking mode (see further up), while round the corner is an ink jet printed collection of heads from Ganter's sketchbooks,

a rather different work, Still Life with Fur, and the head and limbs of a man wearing a silver bracelet.

I couldn't attend the opening - I went to see the pictures last Friday, and will go again tomorrow, which is, alas, the last day - but I know those people below. That's the great Andrew Logan of Alternative Miss World fame, down for the 12 Star's 10th anniversary exhibition, and our Sophie Sarin back from Mali and shivering as I write in a basement prison cell for the sake of exhibiting her MaliMali fabrics at the House of Reform, part of Clerkenwell Design Week (more below). Sophie, incidentally, was the very first artist to exhibit at the gallery when the EU Representation lived in Storey's Gate.

This man is familiar, too: Vasily Petrenko in St John's Footstall after the 8 May concert, with three admiring graces. I guess he was partly there because of the Liverpool connection, but he also, of course, conducted the EUYO in one of the best concerts I've ever heard, at last year's Proms.

The concert got off to a spirited start with Suzy Digby conducting choristers of the London Youth Chamber Choir up in the right gallery in Artūrs Maskats' Midsummer Song for voices and percussion.

Could have done with more of them, but that was delicious. Balanas made a fine impression with fellow Latvian Ainārs Rubiķis conducting in Sibelius's light Op. 117 Suite for violin and string orchestra, but suggested incipient perfection duetting with soulful accordionist Māris Rozenfelds in Maskats' Midnight in Riga: such tone, such intonation! And it was fun to see them finally visibly warming, even smiling, to each other. Piazolla's swooning Oblivion rounded off that gem-like sequence. Shame there's not a shot of the two Latvians together, but here's Rozenfelds.

The young opera singers gave us the first scene of Sibelius's The Maiden in the Tower - wish we could have had it all - and a sequence from Rossini's Eduardo e Cristina, woven into the programme on the slender context that Sweden is its setting and Baltic countries were the theme. The pastiche opera with music from Ermione seemed more remarkable, on this evidence, for its cor anglais solo than for the vocal writing, but in the first aria the poised Héloïse Mas showed surprising contralto tones, very useful in Rossini.

I dare say that last year's Greek programme made for a more enthralling unity, but only because it was the best of a series at the very highest level. And of course we stood on both occasions, with some pride, for the 'Ode to Joy' theme from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Addendum: I seem to have given poor Sue a turn to think that our Sophie might have been locked up. She's been reassured below, but I might as well add a photo with the observation that while walls make a prison - the original use of the House of Reform in which Clerkenwell's Platform is housed - decoration makes a temporary home, despite the damp. Goddaughter Rosie May and I dropped in yesterday afternoon on our way to the ENO Carmen and I took pics, ostensibly for La Sarina's Facebook and Twitter pages, but I can't see those, so here's one of the better results of an ad hoc photoshoot commandeered by MaliMali's originator,  surrounded by her fabrics and with a super photo behind her of Dembele by the Bani river.

Worth repeating: all 12 Star Gallery and St John's Smith Square images by Jamie Smith.