Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Oh fudge, now Mikhail Pletnev in trouble too

This is very disturbing news, on a number of levels.

To start with the most recent point: Pletnev states he is being blackmailed.
Blackmail generally refers to a threat to reveal damaging information about a person. It's possible that Pletnev was being blackmailed with being "outed" as a gay man. It may also be the case that he was involved with an underage boy - or even that he was involved in running a child prostitution ring. Or he may be involved in simple money laundering. All of theese things are common in Thailand. All of the above may be true, or some, or none.

Whether Pletnev is innocent or guilty will be for the court to determine. If he is found innocent, a shadow will probably hang over the rest of his career anyway because people remember the charges even after forgetting the verdict. If he's guilty, he's likely going to jail and deservedly so.

As a gay man, when I hear of news like this, it upsets me greatly. Because I know there are those out there who equate homosexuality with pedophilia. Whether it be at the hands of a musician or the local priest, there are those in our society who feel inclined to paint with an awfully broad brush. It must be mentioned that most countries where child sex trafficking takes place are hardly what one would consider gay friendly. It's notorious not only in Thailand, but in Pletnev's own Russia and many Muslim countries including Egypt.

I need hardly mention that the sheer tonage of homosexual pianists (both male and female) would stun a team of oxen in its tracks. A very few, like Stephen Hough and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, have voluntarily come out of the closet. Many more have not, even in today's relatively enlightened age. Being out of the closet is not a big deal if one wants a career in Western Europe. But one could kiss one's career good-bye in Russia and much of Asia. Even in the United States, it can be hard going. (I know of one American competition where a pianist came in second to a lesser player because a few members of the jury thought he was "too effeminate".)

As to Horowitz's remark about gay, Jewish, and bad pianists - I am two out of three (hint: I am not Jewish).

FOLLOW UP: Someone in a newsgroup posted a translation from a Russian news article. Apparently, Pletnev has been accused of this kind of thing before, in Japan, and was said to be involved in something called the "Blue Orchid" scandal in Russia.

Well, at least he did some good things too, like the Prokofiev arrangements. I shall try to remember how his piano playing touched my heart rather than how he touched some kids.


(Allegedly)

Um...wow, you would never think that Pletnev would do such a thing, but WOW...I am speechless.

BTW, I'm not gay or Jewish, so I MUST be a bad pianist T_T

If it is true, of course he should be punished, and very hard too.

Is it not true that in some countries, "sex tourism" is big business? From what a regular visitor to Thailand tells me, Thailand has that reputation. One may be tempted to think that one can get away with indulging in whatever forms of it are offered to tourists by the locals. In some cases, this is the sole reason that some people visit countries where sex trade is widely available.

This is not an excuse, of course, of the actions of which Pletnev is being accused, but it may well be that he would not even have thought of such alleged activities in a western country.

Regards,

I just saw this news about Pletnev-- it's very sickening if true and upsetting as he is a great artist. His CD of Scarlatti sonatas is one of my favorites and just sublime. It is always so difficult to reconcile artistry of that level with sordid news like this.(Haven't similar rumors and concerns been raised about Schubert even?) I'm hoping it is somehow proved wrong but often by the time people are apprehended in situations like this there is a trail of repeated acts and evidence. Someone mentioned in a previous post similar allegations surfacing in Japan. I hope there is a credible other side to this story.

Sophia

I'm aware of LOADS of dodgy dealings (inappropriate sexual advances from much older teacher to underage or barely legal age students) in the music education business, and many of my friends had narrow escapes, some of them literally running away: locking themselves in bathrooms and squeezing out the window, for example, to get away from unwelcome 'teaching' situations, or at the other extreme, running for miles through the country because the piano teacher was giving lessons at his 'farm' that day...... All sorts of outrageous, unethical and downright illegal behaviours. And none of those men have had charges laid against them - which maybe reflects changing societal norms and expectations in 2010 as compared to the 1980s.

These are similar to stories of abuse by Catholic priests.... I reckon there'll be a lot more cases of both priests and pianists before the culture has had a proper shake out.

If I didn't particularly care for his Beethoven Pastoral, I have admired his piano recordings. The Tchaikovsky concertos are quite fine, as are the Chopin Impromptus, mentioned in a post earlier.

Interesting that The Huffington Post mentioned his Grammy winning CD of Prokofiev's Cinderella with Martha Argerich. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other news sources I consulted were this specific.

I do wonder what Martha thinks about this rather unfortunate development. Pletnev is an undeniably major talent -and that technique!- but whatever the outcome, he's going to be damaged goods as Hank Drake's fine post pointed out. Bloody damn shame.

I was aware of some of this 'dodgy' stuff at uni, though I wasn't personally affected, nor any of my friends. But there were tales...

I don't even want to get into the Catholic priest stuff.

Sad to say, the reputation we have is out there - most people assume pianists are gay and effeminate (after all - playing the piano is not football!), limp-wristed or long-haired-type.
The first thing I hear out of most men's mouths is "Oh, like Liberace (snicker)" or "Oh, like Elton John (snicker)" or various forms of mispronouncing 'pianist' to predictably humorless results. Sometimes, I just skip that part and say "I'm a piano player" - which still leads to the inevitable mispronounciation of 'pianist' anyways.

It's just a fact of being a pianist - it no longer has the Franz Liszt appeal.
Of course, it's a little different with women - most women I talk to adore the fact that I'm a pianist. I guess it's the classic tradeoff: men think pianists are homosexuals, women think pianists are passionate, loving, border-line homosexuals.

And while some people yearn to live in a politically correct world where everyone is nice to each other no matter how they choose to live their life - some of us are still offended by the association of pianist with homosexual, for our own personal reasons, no matter how politically incorrect they may be. And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to be associated in that way - not all of us want to be trendy and appear to follow Bernstein's advice on how to be successful on Broadway.

As for Pletnev and his pedophilia - I'm sure Thailand is a wonderful place to live, beautiful scenery, and all that jazz. But doesn't the report say he owns a home there? Now I may be accused of stereotyping as well, but when a non-Thai spends a lot of time there and owns a home, there's usually only several things that are attracting him to that place - and one of those is possibly little slave boys. Of course, it could be little slave girls, too.

So it doesn't surprise me one bit if this turns out to be true. Of course, he's going to claim he's innocent. Who in their right mind would come out of the pedophile-closet? That's a one-way ticket to prison, and then being murdered while incarcerated: that appears to be one thing hardened criminals do not tolerate in their midst, unless that's another urban myth....
Even Japan is starting to crack down on their pedophile problems, or are at least trying to appear to be doing so.

Anyways, in the end - I'm just glad that he's not more well known, I suppose. It's always worse when the general public are familiar with a celebrity.

One of the issues this incident bring up is the field's apparent tolerance towards these immoral ethics. Like what some posters have pointed out, there were dodgy dealings, but no one want to come forward and expose these incidents. I am in the field and I am aware there are such things among the circles, but no one seems want to to whistle blow because no one wants to be the evil one who sabotage the career of other pianists hence affecting your standings in the music circle.

Before she retired, my mother supervised child abuse and neglect cases for a county of about 250,000 people. When I asked her if music teachers were high on the list of offenders, she said the problem isn't really with music teachers, it's with adults who have access and trust.

This is why the vast majority of children are abused by people they know. Music teachers are certainly on the list, as are family members, neighbors, and church officials (and not just Catholic priests - living in the Bible Belt of the US, my mother saw a lot more cases involving Youth Ministers.) One youth minister where I used to live was even arrested after his computer AT WORK was found to contain a large amount of child pornography.

This is also one of the reasons I have an extremely open door policy in my studio. I teach on the ground floor of my house, windows open and easily visible from the front yard, and my door is unlocked during teaching hours. All my students' parents know they are welcome to walk in at any time, unannounced, and observe lessons.

Just how do you know this? It certainly isn't part of my personal experience of the field, or of my observations in general.

I know of at least two local pianists who exhibited pedophile activities and the music teachers here know about these. Both pianists are highly regarded and so far no one has volunteered to come forward to expose them.

Therefore 'the field' condones this sort of behavior? You can really draw this generalization? Wow.

I do believe all of us believe pedophilia is extremely wrong. I never say the field does not 'condone' this behaviour. We all are disgusted and abhor it. But the fact that these pianists remain in business despite other pianists knowing about their 'tastes'. It's just that everyone here goes on their own business. The attitude here is kind of 'You mind your own business and I mind my own business' and everybody lives happily ever after.

I got this attitude at school (pre-uni of course) when classmates saw me play the piano. But at 12 I discovered Beethoven in a BIG way, then later Liszt and Wagner. I could not imagine three more masculine sounding composers, yet what a load of crap I dealt with. (Classical music is for sissys? Really now.) There's nothing 'effeminate' about their powerfully charged music.

Then when I discovered Elgar at 20, here was a composer who spoke so boldly and profoundly to me. The forces of that 'yin and yang' were so powerfully contrasted, yet ultimately so superbly fused, it demonstrated to me what masculinity is all about.

It was a very revealing experience for me.

Agreed. It was an absurd comment to make based on such a tiny sample.

Great discussion here.
I don't have anything to add, probably in part because I'm uncomfortable with the subject, including because we don't really know yet what happened or didn't. As Hank Drake said, sadly he's scarred forever either way. I hope Pletnev didn't do it, but the bigger thing is, there's a lot of this that does goes on.

Excellent posts all around. Too bad it has to be on such a subject.