kaltenbrunnerpress - MY BEST FRIEND

ALEXANDER ZLATKOVSKY

A Musician by the Grace of God: On My Friend, with Whom Life Has Bound Me

There are friendships born of circumstance. There are professional friendships, friendships belonging to a particular period of life, and friendships sustained by shared interests. And then there is an entirely different kind of human bond — one that arises between two people and accompanies them through decades, across countries and historical eras, through distance, joy, and adversity.

For me, Alexander Zlatkovsky is precisely such a person.

Composer. Arranger. Music teacher. Pianist.

Yet to me, these definitions, however accurate, are not enough. Above all, Alexander is my closest, dearest, and most loyal friend — one of those rare people of whom, after many decades, one can say without the slightest exaggeration: this is a person whom I trust as I trust myself.

We are practically the same age. The roots of our acquaintance reach back to our childhood and youth. He was from Moscow; I was from Ashgabat. One might think: an enormous country, thousands of kilometres between us, completely different cities and different destinies. Yet human life sometimes creates its own roads — roads that cannot be found on any geographical map.

And so began a friendship that would continue for decades.

We grew older. Our lives changed. We created families. Children were born. Events occurred that neither of us could possibly have foreseen in our youth. We were friends not merely as two individuals — for many years, our families were friends as well. And therefore, looking back today, I can no longer separate Alexander from a significant part of my own life and memories.

These are not simply memories of the past.

They are part of my life.

Music as Destiny

There are musicians who have received an excellent education. There are magnificent performers who have mastered their technique. There are professionals capable of flawlessly reading the most demanding musical score.

But there is another category of musician — one that cannot be created by a conservatory, a diploma, or by any number of hours spent at an instrument.

These are musicians by the grace of God.

This is precisely how I have always regarded Alexander Zlatkovsky as a pianist.

When he sits at the grand piano, the familiar boundary between the human being and the instrument seems to disappear. The piano ceases to be a complex construction of wood, metal, strings, and keys. It becomes an extension of human hands, memory, and soul.

A true pianist is distinguished not merely by the ability to play the notes correctly. A well-trained performer can reproduce notes. A true musician must be able to feel what exists between the notes: the pause, the breath, the inner tension, the sorrow, the tenderness, the drama, the hope.

Alexander has always possessed this rare gift.

In his playing, I do not hear a demonstration of technique.

I hear a human being.

Perhaps this is why music became for him not simply a profession in the conventional meaning of the word, but a destiny.

He worked as a composer and arranger, taught music, and passed his knowledge on to others. And this, too, is profoundly important. Talent acquires a special continuation when a person is capable not only of creating beauty himself, but also of opening the road to music for others.

From the USSR to Israel

We belong to a generation whose lives were divided by history into several entirely different eras.

We were born and grew up in the Soviet Union. For our generation, the USSR was not a chapter in a history textbook — it was the reality surrounding our childhood and youth: our cities, our schools, our friends, our first hopes, and our earliest ideas about the future.

Then came a time of change.

Alexander left the Soviet Union and emigrated to Israel.

Emigration almost never means simply moving a person from one point on a geographical map to another. Behind that brief word lies something far greater: the necessity of leaving behind a familiar world, rebuilding one's professional life, and adapting to another country, another society, another language, and another cultural environment.

Israel became an enormously important and enduring chapter of his life.

He lived there for many years. There, his professional life continued. He worked as a composer, pursued arranging, taught music, and remained what he had always been — a musician.

In a certain sense, music became the language that a person does not have to change when crossing a national border.

Countries may be different.

Languages may be different.

But the keys of the piano remain the same.

C, D, E, F, G, A, B require no passport and never ask a person where he came from.

Music belongs to humanity.

From Israel to America

Later, Alexander's destiny took another great geographical turn.

Today, he lives in the United States of America.

His life has thus traced an extraordinary path:

USSR — Israel — USA.

Three countries. Three profoundly different social and cultural environments. Several historical eras contained within a single human life.

And yet, through all these transformations runs one unbroken line — music.

Addresses changed, countries changed, and the world around him changed. But what mattered most remained unchanged: the piano, creativity, and the inner need of a human being to speak through music.

There is something deeply symbolic in this.

For genuine art has little regard for national borders. A work created in Moscow may be heard in Jerusalem. A musician who spent many years in Israel may continue his creative life in America. And a person thousands of kilometres away from his friend may hear only the opening bars of a familiar piece — and suddenly the distance between them disappears.

A Friendship That Cannot Be Measured by Distance

Our destinies have long been geographically separated.

At different periods of our lives, thousands of kilometres lay between us. National borders changed. The Soviet Union disappeared. We found ourselves living in different countries. Years and decades passed.

Yet true friendship possesses an extraordinary quality:

it cannot be measured in kilometres.

One may see another person every day and never become truly close to them. And one may live on the other side of the world and still know that there is someone who needs only a single word from you to understand everything that remains unspoken.

For me, Alexander is precisely such a friend.

Over the course of a long life, I have met an enormous number of people. Some came and went. Others remained for several years. With still others, I was connected by work or circumstance.

Time has a merciless ability to test human relationships.

It removes accidental people from our lives.

It destroys relationships built upon self-interest.

It reveals the true value of beautiful words.

And at the same time, time preserves beside us those very few whose friendship does not depend upon position, money, country of residence, success, or failure.

That is why it is especially precious to me today to have the right to say:

Alexander Zlatkovsky is my friend.

Not an acquaintance.

Not a colleague.

Not someone from a distant past.

A friend.

In the deepest and most original meaning of that word.

The Man at the Piano

When I look at a photograph of Alexander sitting at the piano, I see far more than the image of a musician.

I see the decades that have passed.

I see our youth.

I see the Moscow and Ashgabat of an era that no longer exists.

I see our families, our conversations, our meetings, our joys, and our sorrows.

I see Israel — an enormous chapter in his own destiny.

I see America, where his life continues today.

But above all, I see a man who has preserved what matters most — himself.

And perhaps this is one of the greatest achievements available to a human being.

One can change countries.

One can change homes.

One can begin life anew on another continent.

But it is extraordinarily difficult, having passed through decades and trials, to remain faithful to one's talent, one's character, and the people one once called friends.

Alexander has succeeded in doing precisely that.

A Talent from God

I use these words deliberately.

A talent from God.

Because there are abilities that can be developed, but cannot be artificially created.

A person can be taught to read a musical score. The hands can be trained. Technique can be refined over many years. Harmony, polyphony, and composition can be studied.

But no one can teach the soul to feel music.

Either that gift has been given to a person, or it has not.

Alexander was given that gift.

And this is why I want the pages of KaltenbrunnerPress to preserve more than information about Alexander Zlatkovsky — the composer, arranger, teacher, and pianist.

I want them to preserve a testimony about the human being.

About a man of my own generation.

About the friend of my youth.

About the man whose family and mine shared a friendship over many years.

About a musician whose remarkable journey led him from the Soviet Union, through Israel, to the United States.

And, above all, about a friend whose loyalty has endured one of the most difficult tests that exists in human life:

the test of time.

Decades pass. Countries and historical eras change. We grow older. Many people become nothing more than names in old address books or faces in family photographs.

But true friends never become part of the past.

They remain part of our lives.

And if a person is fortunate enough to live a long and difficult life while preserving beside him even one true friend — someone with whom he can share his joy and his pain, his memories and even his silence — then destiny has already bestowed upon him an immeasurable treasure.

For me, one of those gifts of destiny is my friend —

Alexander Zlatkovsky.

Composer. Arranger. Teacher. Pianist.

A musician by the grace of God.

And my dearest friend — for practically the whole of our lives.