Polina Korobkova - flashbacks to perform: i [for M] (2020)

written for and performed by Dmitry Batalov
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First of all this project is autobiographical: I used to be a professional pianist for more than ten years of my life. Concerts, competitions and practising every day for around 8 hours used to be my routine activity. There is an old Russian piano-school tradition to begin playing the instrument extremely early, therefore I started when I was only three years old. No need to explain that I have a deeply personal relationship with the physicality of piano: the keyboard, the pedals, the touch…
When I was 15 I started having problems with my left hand. At some point I practised too much and, apparently, in the “wrong” way, so my hand was no longer competent for a “professional career”. I stopped playing the piano radically, just in one day. And I have never played a single note ever since.
Flashbacks to perform is my ongoing cycle of pieces: each of them is a ritualisation of my personal memories, flashbacks, fails and, in a way, pain. I’m trying to reflect on what / how is it like to play the piano from performer’s perspective; from my own, yet no longer existent perspective.
All pieces are based on other works from “famous” piano repertoire which I have played (or wished to play). I consider material not the sound itself, but rather physical or mental aspects of playing. How can one “compose” the touch? And how can a pianist “perform” the memory of a touch from another person?