Sayandeb Chowdhury spends a day with maestro Nikita Koshkin.

Calcutta, in more agreeable times, hosted global superstars and their work with abandon and discerning deliverance. From Marlon Brando to Loise Malle, from Marcel Marceau to Pete Seeger, from Pele to Maradona, from Che Guevara to Fidel Castro, this city has been the unlikely host of some the planet’s biggest names in arts, politics and sports. The city’s legendary enthusiasm, more than made up for its lack of cosmopolitan niceties. 

But in last two decades, with the gradual decline in its political, cultural and public life, the city’s urban atavism is showing. No wonder the little bit of activity in the sphere of high Western Culture that India sees, only an atomic part of it reaches Calcutta. So when the Calcutta (yes, not Kolkata) International Guitar Festival was launched on Wednesday with some of the most gifted Classical Guitarists of the world scheduled to make personal appearances, it was immediately hailed and rightly so, as an event of global importance which has our own city as the host. 

But the icing on the cake was the presence of Nikita Koshkin. Those who have heard his Usher Waltz, based on the iconic Edgar Allan Poe story the Fall of the House of Usher, know that Koshkin is not just another maestro of classical guitar but the definitive one at that and one who has single-handedly changed the music scenario not only in the country of his birth Russia but has been a very influential composer-performer for a whole generation of musicians and guitarists across the world. 

 “I started composing almost the moment I finished learning my music”, the portly and endearing Koshkin said, sitting relaxed on the stylish fourth-floor foyer of the ICCR Rabindranath Tagore International Centre on Harrington Street. Scholars have said that composer-performers who write primarily for their instruments furrows narrow but deep. And in this case, Koshkin has been compared with both Paganini, who pushed the technical limits of the violin as well as Chopin, who did the same for piano. Is Koshkin keen to expand the vocabulary of effects on the guitar? “I think there is a difference between me and say someone like Paganini. There was the violin before Paganini and after. But in my culture there was almost nothing as far as the classical guitar was concerned. When I began playing, in the ’70s, I had to effectively start from a scratch. So whatever I did, good or bad, it was considered a milestone. Had classical guitar had a tradition in Russia, my work could have been put into a continuum. But unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.” 

But it is not that he did not have influences. A big fan of both Russian maestros Stravinsky and Soshtakovich, he incorporated their work into his own. “Stravinsky and Soshtakovich yes and Prokofiev and of course the great Tchaikovsky. They were seminal influences on anybody doing any work in serious music in my generation. They were everywhere. I learnt a lot from them”. But then did he not also have a deep affinity for rock? “Of course”, he said, laughing a hearty laugh. “You know rock music was looked down in the Soviet Union. It was considered a meaningless miasma. So for a long time, it was difficult to get access to rock music. But finally, when we did, we could hear the best of them: Beatles, Rolling Stone, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd — the canon. I do not listen to rock music anymore but if I do, I go back to the masters. Those of whom I started with. It’s difficult to better them, isn’t it?” But did you play ever? A laugh again. A big and hearty one that pushed his eyes further into the well created by his big jaw and chubby cheeks. “You won’t believe but I have a photo that shows me playing the drums at some fest with an earnest badge of Komsomol (Soviet youth organization) stuck right in the middle of my right chest. I laugh at the photo all the time. But yes, rock must have had some rhythmic influence on me and my music”

But then the Soviet Union was known for its earnestness, even if it came at the cost of its citizens. “Well, they were different times and often difficult times but now we look at them from the prism of nostalgia. But one thing must be said. Classical music and other forms of high culture got immense support from the government. I have to hand it to them. See, mass culture needs no support. Mass culture has this hypnotic effect. But classical music, art, dance is serious and hence not always popular. So it needs support, which the government gave. But after 1990, after another so-called revolution, it changed radically. Classical music is now completely at the mercy of trends and appeal.” Did classical guitar have the same fate? Is it now dependent on patrons? Koshkin sat straight and said thoughtfully, “Ironically this is just the opposite. Since classical guitar did not have much of presence or dedicated followers, it did not come under the gaze of the government. We never got written about. In the Soviet Union, unless you are on paper, you are nowhere. So for us, the restrictions imposed on public life, in general, became overwhelming with no support from the government. We could not go to competitions, festivals or tours. We had no access to good strings or books etc. There was little scope to grow. Now its much better for us and perhaps as a sign of times, some of the top classical guitarists in the world, who have been winning competitions across the globe, are from Russia. I am so proud my wife is such an award-winning guitarist and I can completely rely on her with my compositions.” 

From time to time Koshkin chatted with the young French guitarist Gabriel Bianco, who joined the discussion and was sitting next to him. Gabriel had come down from the stage, having played, along with thirteen other international players, four compositions by city musician Debojyoti Mishra to great applause. Gabriel, said Koshkin, was one of his most favourite young players and who he wants to listen to if he gets a chance. In fact, Koshkin’s music, which includes many guitar ensembles and guitar works for both instruments and voice, has been performed by John Williams, the Assad Duo, the Zagreb and the Amsterdam Guitar Trios.

Koshkin, who studied music at Gnesin Institute (Russian Academy of Music) as well as at the Moscow College of Music, is also an esteemed teacher and repeatedly talked about how listening to younger guitarists gives him great pleasure and how he is looking forward, among other things, to listen to guitarists from this part of the world at the competition. Talking of local musicians, how does it feel to be in Calcutta and have the competition named after him? “Of course great. I never imagined that in India of all places they will name a guitar tournament after me. India has so many great musicians. It created some buzz in Russia that an Indian competition was named after me. They were very impressed. Personally, I think the performers of Eastern forms of music and culture are very very talented. And I am keen to see how the two forms, the two philosophies meet in the common genre of classical guitar. There can be magic. It just feels so great to be part of it all.”    

Compared to most from his country he speaks fluent English and has a happy air about his squat shape and wavy, salted hair. “ You know I was in the US for four months at a stretch and spoke English all the time. Back in Russia, a local porter delivered my baggage at home in the middle of the night. I woke up and in half-sleep thanked him profusely in English. His eyes popped out. My wife jumped and whispered, ‘ you are in Russia’… It was funny”. 

But had he not been a performer what would he be? Someone threw the question at him. The maestro turned and smiled, “a composer, a serious composer”, he said and vanished into the elevator. But did he leave behind strains from one of his famous guitar fugues? We thought as much.