Lenin listens to Beethoven

[SD Tav]

From a 1960's Soviet movie with a dead look-a-like actor portraying Lenin. The pianist, Rudolf Kerer, I never heard of. He was not allowed to tour in the West which is too bad since he plays really well. There are other scenes of him playing 'Moonlight' and the 'Revolutionary' etude. Suspend your disbelief!

Link to video

[taiwan_girl]

I assume that is Premier Stalin as the other guy. Wonder who the lady is supposed to be?

[kluurs]

He's playing Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, a favorite work of Lenin's- though it sounds a bit off to my ear.

[Renauda]

@taiwan_girl said in Lenin listens to Beethoven:

I assume that is Premier Stalin as the other guy. Wonder who the lady is supposed to be?

More likely the other guy is supposed to be the writer Maxim Gorky. In 1963 when the movie was made, Stalin was all but erased completely from Soviet media and the arts. The woman could be Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, or possibly the poet Anna Akhmatova.

Edit: movie is in the IMBD data base. It was entitled “Appassionata”. As it turns out, the female character in the clip was neither Krupskaya or Akhmatova but rather Gorky’s first wife, Yekaterina Peshkova.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0312373/fullcredits/cast?ref_=m_ttfc_3

[taiwan_girl]

@Renauda Thanks. Interesting!