FRAGMENTS OF REVIEWS AND RESPONSES

“…In Yuri Kholodov's short stories the special system of literary thinking of the musician is distinguishable... the more get a grasp, the more sensation that before you the pieces of music written by letters on a musical staff … Describing life as music, the author deduces his heroes – people with strange and inconsistent destinies – for limits rigidly ranked world of art. Deduces in life where the most valuable appear to hear «live music – singing of birds, a rustle of grasses, water murmur …»

“…The prose included in the “Solo for Viola” collection breathes solidness and nostalgia – the ideal combination for a respectable magazine… There is nothing deliberate or contrived in these stories It is as if the author chops off, piece by piece from himself, every story – childhood with his granny, musical lessons, loving experience of youth, the first wounded duck, and, of course, music: music which sounds in every story – sometimes by relief, sometimes just by a hardly seen shade… The confession of each hero in final narrative “Requiem” is bright, serene, and heartfelt as well as all of Kholodov’s prose…”

“…The favorite hero of Yuri Kholodov the same that of E.Т.А. Hoffmann (too who is masterful united in one person talents of the musician and the writer) - the artist capable on the basis of bored impressions of the everyday validity to create the own world - fine and surprising. And the conflict, in general, the same - loneliness of the artist, inability to come into contact to this most ordinary validity and people, its occupying, - to find long-awaited harmony between dream and a reality…”

“…The music of his literature works affects our feelings and brings us esthetical delight.”

“…His prose is wonderful because reading even the saddest pages brings joy. This pages are transparent and sweet as “a cheerful, gray water” – epithets of Alexander Dovzhenko – of springs nourishing the river Dnepr, as love of the lyrical hero of Kholodov’s stories…”

“…For him, I think, contemplation is not a sign of weariness, and the irony is not a result of nostalgic depression… You would undoubtedly communicate with great interest with the author who is beauteous musician and teller, fisher and hunter…”

“…I am reading these alive pages of my friend and colleague with whom almost all life run alongside – in trains and aircrafts, at rehearsals and in concerts halls, in working meeting with composers, in recording studios, during the vacations… This is a joint creation of classic and contemporary music interpretation, collective reading of scores written for us and dedicated to us, this is an internal relation, a joy of communication and a rare psychological comfort… I am reading and hearing his voice, going from the very depth of his soul: “Stop, listen the music of outgoing time, breathe the elusive, perhaps forever, its flavor.”

“…It’s rarely one can meet in rather “casual” sending so high level of prose. This is a real artistic psychological writing…”

“…Such components as precisely built rhythm of a narration, a leitmotif the sounding theme of each character, and complex polyphony of the whole, which have been so successfully introduced by the author from habitual world of music, are inherent to all his literary creativity in a great measure… Amazingly, with what surprising ease the author reincarnates and leads life of the different his personages – the unfortunates growing old woman, ridiculous writer-loser, and even the cat who has run away from bothered owners…”

“..Devoted the main part of his life to elite chamber genre and brought up on the classic examples of the string quartet art – one of the absolute peaks of world musical culture, Yuri Kholodov remains in his literary creativity the supporter of classical style. He believes that the advantages and spiritual values of the previous centuries should be preserved and multiplied in contemporary art, often penetrated with commerce or ideology. “Vestigia semper adora” (Latin) – “Always be in awe of traces of the past.”