Years ago, while performing Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives, I never arrived at the feeling that I managed to reveal the full potential of this music. I encountered a similar problem with Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations. These are works with boundless imagination, humor, agility; and yet, they are somehow overshadowed by their fragmentary and elusive nature, undermined by some of their reluctant and awkward characters. It is no wonder that both authors frequently omitted parts from these sets. Prokofiev would perform only certain selections as encores, and Rachmaninoff would often skip variations.

At some point it was suggested to me that the Prokofiev miniatures would be great material for a visual treatment. I had already tried to bring this material to the recording studio, and was equally skeptical of the result. It was hard for me to believe a video would be the answer either. Any director would be tempted to deploy the myriad of personalities in the Visions Fugitives toward a rapid, virtuosic montage, and I had no desire to pursue this route. I was afraid this would dissolve the music further into fragments, and create nothing more than a literal representation of a concert. I was compelled to find a way to make the music work in its entirety. My hope was to solve the dramaturgical challenge, to establish a longer arc of continuity that I kept missing in live performance, and this needed a different approach. The idea to pursue another kind of recording was born.

The musical programme of the resulting concert film includes Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives (1917), Rachmaninoff’s final work for solo piano, the Corelli Variations (1931), and John Cage’s meditative piano piece, In a Landscape (1948). The title, Vision Fugitive, is a nod to Prokofiev, but more importantly, to the poet Balmont, who coined the title of Мимолетности (in English, approximately ‘fleeting moments’ or ‘fleeting things’), and this was later translated in French as Visions Fugitives.

Thus, the programme became a movement through the 20th century. With Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff put together, a mirror formed in my mind - 20 Vision Fugitives, 20 Variations. I have always felt that both compositions were perpetually suspended, with no clear delineation of beginning nor end. The final Vision Fugitive, hints at resolution toward the key of the Corelli Variations - an oscillating C sharp tone, an indeterminate ‘A’ octave bass at the end, alongside a veiled d minor stacked above in the harmonics. The complementary meter of time, first in 9/8, then 3/4, further obscures the border and creates an implicit connection.

The coda of the Corelli Variations, presents a different thought. Much like the foreboding tam-tam sound is held and dissolves Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances into an abyss, the final fermata and chords of this opus are tied across the end bar line into indeterminate space. This is a small detail, nevertheless, I find it appropriate to imagine this as Rachmaninoff’s Plinian signature, an ending inscribed in the imperfect tense, signaling that the author “was making it” instead of “made it”.

There is something late-Beethovenian about the Corelli Variations. When Beethoven, in his late works, looks back toward early music, the childhood of European music, he creates a falling away of time, and expresses a link between his present and the depth of the past. Rachmaninoff is also engaging with an ancient theme, yet somehow, in the late autumn of his life, tries to step toward an unknown future.

Rather than end the programme in silence after the variations, I found it necessary to add a piece by John Cage, In A Landscape. The John Cage postlude is a complement to the unresolved Corelli - the transition brings no change in meter, dynamic, or harmony. Returning to the early 20th century, I remain in awe of the sheer diversity of thought - an endless array of aesthetics and art movements, a new rhythm of life, a silver age for poetry, as well as the dawn of modern photography, architecture, and cinema. To artists living during this time, the dialogue between disciplines must have been as essential as it was effortless. To consider how a world driven by seemingly endless ideas could be leveled by a few decades into a world adrift is a timely question. Fast forward and two world wars later, John Cage completes In a Landscape as a resident of Black Mountain College in 1948. Drawing extensively upon oriental philosophy, he pioneers chance operations and music indeterminacy, as well as paves the way for performance art. The stage is set for an entirely different cultural landscape.

In a Landscape originally functioned alongside a dance, and it occurred to me only after that what we had achieved in Vision Fugitive, with the choreography of camera, was indeed a dance, albeit of a different nature. I cannot remember the exact moment of deciding to do a single uninterrupted shot for the entire programme. I do, however, remember the intentions - with the momentum, intensity and breadth of the material, it became important to decelerate montage as much as possible to create a visual counterpoint. An enormous discipline needed to be imposed in order to achieve expression through limited means. I desired a closeness to the ritual aspect of performance, and distance from a concert broadcast scenario. Thus, the sense of space needed to be veiled as much as possible. I was striving to create a hypnotic effect that could create an overarching line, and eventually, the single floating image became the vessel for production.

The technical implications of such a feat were enormous. There were the practical considerations of a cinema camera, necessitating a steadicam design that would allow for maximum dexterity of motion, capable of uninterrupted filming for longer than fifty minutes; the physical exertion placed upon the operator and their ability to navigate the music and space without a score; the challenge of maintaining viewer interest, with light, lens, and piano being the only available devices; and the pressure on myself as the musician, to deliver a performance in a highly volatile environment, where an error from any party involved would necessitate a total stop and return to the beginning.

A system was devised. Several months of score preparation brought a feeling of what a camera choreography may look like - basic notions of what portions of music allowed motion and defocus, what moments needed absolute stillness and precision. Next, certain harmonies and motifs allowed accent lighting, and different transitions needed both motion and light in perfect sync. Then there was my first meeting with the brilliant director of photography, Andy Staples, an afternoon of listening to music. A few weeks later, a day to prepare the theatre, program light, and create an intercom system where an audio engineer could translate cues to the director of photography and lighting engineer - adjusting, anticipating, and responding to the music in real time, all coming together as a chamber ensemble. The following morning, a brief rehearsal, and in the afternoon, a result. Thus, Vision Fugitive was born.

It was toward the middle of the final take, at the end of the Prokofiev, that I remember catching a glimpse of the camera, and being struck by the physical demands upon the individual behind the lens. There was still much remaining to be played, and the concentration had pushed us all beyond exhaustion. And yet, there was a sense that we had crossed into a space of real daring, and this excitement was irreplicable. The music was dictating the construction of a cinematic form.

In our new iteration of modernity, the acceleration of image and information has inevitably found its way toward all aspects of creative output. In the conversations of the current media landscape, has everything essentially become a moving image? Through this endless multiplication of the same, a flood of images has rendered any kind of perceptive contemplation or closure nearly impossible. What can we do to confront this challenge? How can one truly hear music without contemplation or closure? Considering this context, it seems out of place to keep writing about a video that is a single shot.

In 1931, I imagine Rachmaninoff at his desk, in his modernist Villa Senar on the edge of lake Lucerne, completing work on the Corelli Variations and considering other problems. Just two years later, Alvar Aalto’s modernist landmark, the Paimio Sanitorium, would finish construction. I have the fortune of writing these words here. The year is no longer 1933, nevertheless, details of this aesthetic history and distinctly human vision have endured, and now are imbued with a hope for a new life and purpose. I sense a great void between now and then. On the crest of our digital age, we are removed from these ideals of harmony and nature, yet where else should we look to find the next burning questions?

Ivan Moshchuk // August, 2024

Director of Photography - Andrew Staples

Sound - Oliver Glynn, Caroline Siegers

Color Grade and Online Conform - Christiaan Meyer, Windsor Creative

Theatre Technical Manager - Liam Rudd

Head of Lighting - Adam Wileman

Recorded at the Royal Academy of Music, London, United Kingdom