Maestro is an Italian word meaning master or teacher. The term is most often used in connection with Western classical music and opera, as it corresponds to the fact that Italian terms are used quite ubiquitously in music.
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The word maestro is most often applied to conductors, but it can also be applied to other types of musicians – composers, impresarios, musicologists and music teachers or professors.
In Latvia, of course, there is only one person who is universally called a maestro.
This is pianist and composer Raymond Paul, who was 87 years old on the day of writing the comment.
Mr. Paul was born on January 12, 1936 and is identified on his birth certificate as Ojar Raymond Paul. In an interview, the composer remembered the following thing about it:
“Yes, I have one on my birth certificate. In Soviet times, those two names were not used. My mother, as a country person, used to scold my father for his middle name, and she once said that every country bull is called Ojars. She was a real country lady.”
Raimond Paul’s parents were factory worker Voldemar and housewife Alma. Their first son died at the age of four months from meningitis. Raimonds followed and his sister Edith, who is a well-known textile artist.
Little Raimondiņš started learning music at an early age. The father had decided that his son would not work in the factory, and he would need an easier way of life (many years later, the son would come up with the following opinion about it: “He knew how hard it was to work in a factory, but he didn’t even know how much work a musician’s career required unsuspecting”).
Raimonds Pauls studied at the musical kindergarten of the Riga Music Institute and then at the Spilve elementary school. In 1946, he started attending Emīlas Dārziņš music school in parallel.
In 1949, the primary school was completed and studies began at the Dārziņa Music High School. This was followed by studies at the Latvian State Conservatory, where the boy was taught piano by Hermanis Brauns, and composition by professor Jānis Ivanovs.
Besides that, music also took place at the home of the Paulus family.
When Raimonds was four years old, his father first bought him a violin and a little later a piano suitable for a child’s height for 600 lats, which was considerable money at that time.
One of Mr. Paul’s former teachers thought that no case tree would get there because the boy had such blunt fingers that it would be difficult to play the piano and especially the violin.
Raymond Paul’s website describes the following as follows: “Playing the piano cultivates strength of character, because only a strong-willed person can withstand countless repetitions and correcting mistakes.
“At the age of four, such determination is rare, so the father not only encourages his son to exercise with kind words. Pampering in this family na respect. Father’s word is law. If words are not enough, then a dunk will do.
“However, Paul’s stubbornness also forces him to train to overcome his teachers’ claims. He wants to prove it with deeds.
“While the other children are playing outside, Raymond plays scales over and over on his old piano with tears in his eyes.”
Needless to say, the teacher was wrong. After finishing the conservatory, Mr. Paul had the opportunity to go to the Leningrad Conservatory and study for a postgraduate degree, but he decided not to do so:
“I didn’t use it, which I later regretted sometimes. Maybe I would be a musician. Now I consider myself a musician, although I’m not ashamed of it.”
Personally, it is not very clear to me what the difference is between a musician and a musician, but it was probably not very important in the life and career of Raymond Paul.
In 1964, Mr. Paula became the artistic director and conductor of the Riga Variety Orchestra. In 1968, he was admitted to the Latvian Composers’ Union.
Shortly after that, Raimonds Pauls got to know the Minister of Culture of the Latvian SSR Vladimir Kaupuž, with whose help the new composer’s song “Liepājai” was included in the repertoire of the Song Festival of the Latvian SSR in 1970.
In an interview in 2008, Mr. Kaupuža recalled that he and his colleagues decided to adapt Mr. Paul’s song to the needs of the men’s choir and to call it “My City.”
“Without Paula’s knowledge,” said the former minister.
“This could only happen in Soviet times. Paul came to the rehearsals with skepticism, but the arrangement was so successful, the people loved Paul, and he experienced an unimaginable triumph.”
An even greater and perhaps even more unimaginable triumph in the conditions of the occupation appeared three years later, when Raimonds Paul composed the song “My Homeland” with the words of the poet Jānis Peters for the centenary of the Song Festival in 1973.
The song was not included in the holiday repertoire. It was released in a mini-album with two other songs as a tribute to the centenary of the Latvian Song Festival. The song was performed by Raimond Paul’s favorites Nora Bumbiere and Viktors Lapčenoks together with the Latvian Radio Choir.
At the 1977 song festival, “My Homeland” was in the repertoire. The choir had to sing it several times, and since then the song has clearly entered the golden fund of song festivals and Latvian music in general.
For many years, Raimonds Pauls worked at Latvian Radio as the leader of the radio and television light and jazz music orchestra, then as the editor-in-chief of the music program.
In 1986, on the initiative of Mr. Paul, the Jūrmala competition for young singers was established. The formal name was the All-Union Young Performers Competition, and 12 artists from the republics of the USSR took part.
Each participant had to sing one new song and one Soviet hit. The best ones made it to the final, where they had to sing an original song.
Rodrigo Fomins, aka Igo, became the first recipient of the main prize in the Jūrmala singer competition.
Many years later, Raymond Pauls would be instrumental in organizing another festival.
It was a festival that every year grossly and vulgarly violated the state language law, I will not mention it by name, and it is only and welcome that it no longer exists in our country.
However, I can mention Latvian radio’s massively popular and annual Mikrofona survey. The first was in 1971. The song “Mežrozīte” was performed by Zigfrīds Račiņš, the composer was Raimonds Pauls.
In 1972, the song was performed by Ojars Grīnbergs, composer Raimonds Pauls. In 1973, Margarita Vilcāne and Raimonds Pauls. In 1974, Bumbiere, Vilcāne, Grīnbergs and Viktors Lapčenoks … and Raimonds Pauls.
After 1971, there was a break in the Mikrofon survey due to ideological reasons in the USSR. However, already in 1976, the survey was held again. The song was “The Dumb Song”, the performers were Lapchenok and Bumbiere, and the composer was, of course, Raymond Paul.
In the first 11 Mikron polls, Mr. Paul’s compositions inevitably won the laurels. Only in 1984 did someone else come, and that was Uldis Marhilevičs.
Ojars Raimonds Pauls spent some time in politics. He was a member of the last Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR. After the restoration of Latvia’s independence, for some time the Minister of Culture and then a member of parliament in several convocations of the Saeima.
I won’t say anything more about it, because it is a fact that stage artists can make good politicians and MPs, but this is not always the case, and in this case it was not so.
Raymond Paul has done more in his 87 years than seven other composers combined.
He has composed music for several musicals, three ballets and more than 50 motion pictures, plus many more theater productions.
Personally, my favorite song by Raimond Paul has always been the already mentioned “Mēmā dzisma”, moreover, I like it better when performed by the Bet Bet group and not by Nora Bumbiere and Viktor Lapčenok.
I know that Raymond Paul and his longtime muse and wife, Lana, have been in a bit of trouble lately. I hope everything will be fine, and best wishes to the great maestro on his anniversary!
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