Oriented on making people closer

Among the manuscripts of Nury Halmamedov there is a page entitled "Works in cinematography", in the lower right corner the date and place of recording are indicated: "12.III.83. Ashgabat, hospital, ward 8, polyclinic 4". Nuri knew he was leaving. He summed up the results and started with film music.

The sheet is drawn into three columns with perfectly straight lines - of course, his hand is used to the straight lines of the sheet music mill for bead recording of notes. Each column has its own clear address with a list of works: "Animation". "Hood. movies". "Documentary". And my throat tightens – animation comes first. Yes, it was his special inner need – to write bright, life-affirming music for children, to create a happy childhood world. Nury’s own childhood world was irreparably crippled by war and round orphanhood from the earliest years.

Explaining his strong attachment to animated films, Nury Halmamedov said in an interview on television: "Animation is one of the most interesting types of creativity for a composer.. The music in the cartoon, like the heart inside us, is a "motor" that animates everything in the frame, humanizes..."

When Nury was already famous for his film music for the artistic canvases "The Contest", "The Decisive Step", "Magtymguly, found out that his friends, TV personalities Yevgeny Mikhelson and your humble servant Laura Stepanskaya, were going to shoot a cartoon, he did not hesitate to join the project. No one in this genre has worked in the national cinema yet. The "discoverers" did not possess any professional skills. Their main arguments were the long-decommissioned, inactive DEBRIE hand-held silent film camera, which has a time-lapse shooting technique, and a passionate desire to give Turkmen children their own, Turkmen animation.

The stormy search for a plot ended with the choice of a children's poem by the famous poet Kerim Kurbannepesov "Homeless Kongurja" with a touching story about a lonely puppy looking for a friend. The vicissitudes of the red-haired Kongurji were clearly "biographical" in nature, - the childhood of the film director mirrored the early years of the composer, - hunger, the devastation of war and round orphanhood.

The Halmamedov and Mikhelson families lived next door. We gathered in our apartment, there was no furniture in principle, but there was a piano of the old German company ROENISCH. Nury was a wonderful pianist, he treated the piano like a living being, took care of its sound, regularly brought a tuner, they tightened something in it and twisted it…

Soon, a literary script, a director's script, a pen-drawn storyboard of each plan and a music notebook with a song by Kongurji and the main musical themes of the cartoon were placed in the folder with the project.

Nury had the gift of hearing the whole orchestra, immediately wrote the score and paid great attention to the triumphant sound of the finale, the obligatory victory of good over evil. After long wanderings, sad encounters with indifference and betrayal, Kongurja will find a friend. They will be a brave and kind boy-podpasok Ashir. That was the name of Nury little son.

"I was lonely in my life, / I could not find a friend, / And now we are friends..." – Nury sang, sitting at the instrument. And his black eyes sparkled provocatively. Where is this priceless score now?! The artistic Council of Turkmentelefilm approved the project, and the folder with the materials disappeared into the protocol deposits.

The first Turkmen cartoon was enthusiastically received both in Ashgabat and in Moscow. Mikhelson told how, after congratulating him on such a good start, the chairman of the admissions committee remarked: "The music in your film is amazing, what melodic freshness, what original harmony ...".

They will have time to create eight paintings together, the last "Why a Camel eats a thorn" - in the fateful 1983, and will lay the glorious foundation of national animation, bearing the ideas of kindness, friendship and justice.

Nury was happy to take up children's feature films. The world of the child's soul was close and dear to him.

The famous actor Baba Annanov made his debut on television as a director with the film "Serdar". The action in the picture takes place during the civil war, which irreconcilably divided the people into red and white. The hero of the picture Serdar leaves the bloodshed in the Karakums, he must think, he alone is raising an eight-year-old daughter and is responsible for her life.

Baba Annanov, needing like-minded people, gathered us all into a production group. Being the editor of the film, I was finalizing the script, Mikhelson became the artist of the picture, and Baba was waiting for the main thing from Nury Halmamedov – sounding Karakums, transmitting the acute struggle of feelings and ideas inside the main character, creating a child's world in this truly heated situation.

I witnessed such a meeting between the director and the composer in our house: the leitmotif of the heroine Bahar Nury began to play with one hand while talking, and then turned to the instrument and continued with two hands. Baba abruptly got up and went to the veranda. He was crying. He also grew up an orphan, his father died at the front, his mother in the Ashgabat earthquake.

In the film, this melody of childhood will be led by violins. The girl is standing with her back to us under the rivulets of water - her father built a bath for her and she bathes, catches the trickles with her hands, puts a laughing mouth, freezes for a moment, listening to herself… And the beautiful world of life itself sounds around the girl to tears – the scorching sun, endless sands, iridescent drops of color, the beauty of a thin touching girlish figure…

The absolutely fantastic fate of Usman Saparov's film "Male Education", where the composer Nury Halmamedov. The plot is uncomplicated. The father of six children is concerned about the character of his only son growing up in the all-consuming love of his mother and sisters. He decides to send a second-grader to his grandfather, a shepherd, who lives on a remote pasture in the Karakums, for the summer holidays. That's where the "male education" of the hero takes place. Typical Turkmen family, Turkmen way of life, nature, Turkmen relations.

And the film became in demand on the world screen and brought real fame to its creator and the country. About ten grand Prix, main prizes, diplomas at International festivals of children's and youth films in Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal… Victory at the All-Union Festival in Moscow, the USSR State Prize.

The director pays tribute to the importance of Nury Halmamedov's music in the film. Usman Saparov writes: "Nury's music is like a bubbling spring. Listening to his music, you experience some new sensations, it opens up new possibilities that were previously hidden."

Nury Halmamedov, having absorbed the peculiarities of the national folklore melos, constantly studied and appreciated the peculiarities of world musical culture. In their interaction, mutual enrichment is the mystery of the sound of his melodies, which has become a musical term at home – "Halmamedov style".

In this regard, I will tell you about an event in which I personally participated already in the two thousandth years. A cultural program was planned at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan during the meeting of the Japanese government delegation, the delegation included the Japanese Ambassador to Turkmenistan with his wife and numerous embassy staff. We were preparing an evening to introduce foreign guests to the Turkmen cinema and decided to precede the screening of the film "Male Education" with a solo performance of Nura Halmamedov's vocal cycle "Unheard Songs of the children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" based on poems by Japanese poets of the twentieth century.

No one imagined that reserved Japanese people could express their feelings so emotionally. They explained to us, without relying on an interpreter, how shocked they were by the depth of the composer's penetration into the world of the Japanese soul. The ambassador's wife asked if it was possible to see the notes of Nura Halmamedov's vocal cycle and was happy to receive them from the hands of the composer's wife Gulsoltan Halmamedova.

Nury Halmamedov surprised many with the choice of poets for his vocal cycles. Magtymguly, Mollanepes is a genetic, spiritual union, but why Sergey Yesenin? Why Heinrich Heine? Why the interest in Japanese classics? Nury did not like to give interviews and was not going to answer such questions. One can only guess what meaningful and emotional power of poetic lines began to sound in his heart.

Deprived of Nury's childhood, Halmamedov could not help but feel pain for the innocent Japanese children who had died, who would never see the beauty of the world, play enough under a clear sky, or hear their native songs…

Japanese motifs rattled like Klaas' ashes in his Turkmen heart and resulted in a cycle of incredibly complex and beautiful romances. The composer wrote "Unheard songs..." counting on the vocal capabilities of the unique Turkmen singer Medeniyet Shahberdiyeva. A whole huge world of direct children's feelings and the joy of life. Destroyed. Not listened to.

How wonderful it is that this cycle, carefully and brilliantly taken into the repertoire now by a duo of contemporary performers – composer and pianist Mered Huseynov and his wife, actress of the Helikon Opera Theater Daria Huseynova, is constantly heard in the programs of the Moscow International Art Festival "Sounds of Dutar" named after Nura Halmamedov and on stage venues around the world.

The world of childhood is so beautiful and so vulnerable!

First of all, we are parents. We need to be able to keep him happy for those who are born.

Nury Halmamedov considered it his life's work.

Laura STEPANSKAYA,
screenwriter-director, Honored Artist of Turkmenistan

Photo: author