Pianist Inna Faliks traces musical odyssey from Soviet Ukraine via Faustian fantasy
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Inna Faliks was 10 years old when she and her family became part of the diaspora, fleeing antisemitism in the former Soviet Union. Hidden in her luggage was a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, "The Master And Margarita." It's a retelling of Faust's pact with the devil through the lens of dictatorship. Faliks kept the book as the family moved to Europe, then to the United States, where she gained a reputation as a child piano prodigy and built a life teaching and performing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: Her new album features premiere recordings by five different composers and it's titled, "Manuscripts Don't Burn."
INNA FALIKS: The quote comes from an iconic scene in the book, "The Master And Margarita." Margarita walks into a room that's lit up by candlelight, and Satan is sitting there, and he asks her what she would like in return for serving as queen of his ball, and she says she'd like the return of her lover, The Master, who's been banished for his novel that was not approved by the regime. So when The Master returns, they want the novel back, but he says, I burnt it, and then Satan holds it up and says, no, manuscripts don't burn.
MARTIN: Wow.
FALIKS: It's got vampires and flying witches, and I just found all of that to be completely fascinating and engrossing.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "MANUSCRIPTS DON'T BURN")
MARTIN: Did this push you in ways that you had not pushed yourself before? Because technically, this demands quite a lot of different things.
FALIKS: The piece by Maya Miro Johnson, it's very wild. It asks a lot of things from me - to whisper, to hum, to go inside the piano and scratch the strings as if I were a cat...
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "MANUSCRIPTS DON'T BURN")
FALIKS: ...And that actually invokes this sound of fire maybe crackling in a fireplace, so that's the manuscripts burning.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "MANUSCRIPTS DON'T BURN")
FALIKS: The "Master And Margarita Suite" by Veronika Krausas is different.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "MASTER AND MARGARITA SUITE")
FALIKS: It's a multi-movement suite, almost like a baroque dance suite, and it's very elegant. It's restrained, it's humorous, a little bit like (non-English language spoken). That means it leaves things unsaid.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "MASTER AND MARGARITA SUITE")
MARTIN: You've had a really productive couple of years. I mean, there's this album, which is just now coming out, but you also published your memoir just last year. It's called "Weight In The Fingertips." It opens with this line.
(Reading) I knew I was a musician long before I knew I was Jewish, Ukrainian or a Soviet.
So do you think music has helped you kind of navigate and figure out who you are?
FALIKS: Absolutely, because I think that's my constant. That's my anchor. I was born in Ukraine, but I moved. I'm Jewish ethnically, but I'm not religious. Being Soviet - I am obviously not Soviet - I live in the United States, and the Soviet Union is no longer, so all these things shift and kind of redefine themselves, but the fact that I'm a musician doesn't redefine itself. That's who I am.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "VOICES: II. ALTER(ED) ZHOK")
MARTIN: This has been a very traumatic time for a lot of people who have roots in Ukraine. I'm curious about how you're navigating this period.
FALIKS: It's absolutely terrible, and when I learned that specifically Odesa was being bombed, it broke my heart. I had lost my mom very recently and I put on her vyshyvanka shirt - her Ukrainian shirt - and her red necklace, Ukrainian necklace, and I recorded a video of Beethoven's "Appassionata" and I sent it to Odesa, where I think it was put on all sorts of Ukrainian websites just with a message of hope and of love, and it felt utterly useless, but I - it felt like I had to do something, and I didn't know what to do. So, you know, being from Ukraine, Jewish, being in the States - yeah, that's a complicated identity.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "VOICES: III. FREYDELE")
MARTIN: And now we find ourselves navigating another conflict, where some feel their Jewishness is under assault. I'm interested in how you're navigating that piece of it, with the attack on October 7 - you know, the attack on southern Israel - and then the counteroffensive by Israel and it has roiled so many relationships, most specifically college campuses. I mean, how are you navigating that?
FALIKS: It's a deeply painful time. It's an unbelievable time that, frankly, I never thought I would see. To witness the hate that's enveloping the campuses, especially my campus, where I'm head of piano at UCLA, is beyond painful. I have never felt despair like I do now.
MARTIN: Do you feel that the art in any way - is the art still a comfort to you?
FALIKS: It's everything to me. It's absolutely a comfort to me, and I so much hope that it's a comfort to others, more importantly, because then it's really a comfort to me, when I know that it's making a difference - when I know it's just bringing joy.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "ARCHETYPES: NO II, HERO (VERSION FOR PIANO")
FALIKS: It's bringing processes - imaginative ones, thoughtful ones - where it draws people in - where it tells a story, and I think that's what will get us through.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "ARCHETYPES: NO II, HERO (VERSION FOR PIANO")
MARTIN: That's pianist Inna Faliks. Her new album is titled "Manuscripts Don't Burn." Inna Faliks, thank you so much for speaking with us.
FALIKS: Thank you so much, Michel.
(SOUNDBITE OF INNA FALIKS' "ARCHETYPES: NO II, HERO (VERSION FOR PIANO")
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