welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. russia's war on ukraine has turned culture into a battleground. in countries supportive of ukraine's resistance to putin's invasion, some russian artists, musicians and dancers have been stripped of their platforms or they've been asked to denounce russia's

military aggression. when does solidarity turn into censorship? my guest is the world renowned soviet—born conductor semyon bychkov. is art the loser when politics takes centre stage? semyon bychkov, a very warm welcome to hardtalk. thank you. you are like all of the great musical maestros, you're peripatetic, your career takes you all around the world, you are constantly travelling.

is there one place you can point to and say that has done the most to define you as a person and an artist? no, i don't think so. maybe because my destiny made it so that i was born in russia. i lived there 22 years before emigrating to america. leningrad was the city, when it was called leningrad. leningrad — today, st petersburg. so the dna, the roots are there, have always been, always will be. but then what happens is that i come to america, i live five years, my first five years, in new york, and then i conduct grand rapid symphony in michigan, buffalo philharmonic, so altogether i think, what, 13, 14 years of life in america, becoming us citizen, having been stripped of my soviet citizenship when i applied for immigration.

and, in a way, i suppose one could call it being born for the second time, in certain ways. and then, life directs me to france and it was a change that happened both professionally as well as personally because i took the direction of the orchestre de paris and, at the same time, my life with marielle labeque has begun. and so ever since, and now it's 33 years, i've been living in france. so i couldn't really define because each experience enriches your roots, enriches your identity and, of course, the privilege of being able to not only to travel as a tourist but actually work with orchestras, so operas houses in germany, austria, in this country, in uk, in london specifically, and elsewhere. there you go, that is the life of a maestro. but you did use that word "roots", and if one takes the metaphor of a tree, a tree does have roots somewhere, and would it be fair to say, if i pushed

you, that you are, in a sense, a musician of russia? no, i don't think so. you see, this is the question that i'm being asked forever, "who are you?" laughs. i suppose, if i'm blunt, that is what i'm saying. and the best answer i could come up with is i am a mixed salad. laughs. mixed salad. if i may, let's focus a bit more on the soviet experience. you stayed until your early 20s and then it seems you were pretty much forced to leave because it became clear to you that your feelings about the soviet union, your doubts about the system and the party, were going to make it impossible for you to develop your musical career inside the soviet union. but, in a funny sort of way, i'm amazed they let you go. why did they let you go? i'm asking myself that question at the time, and we are talking about 1975. this is the period of cold war.

this is the period of brezhnev government. it is ideologically very strict and, well, with me, of course, who needs a musician? i was completely unknown outside of leningrad because i was still studying in the conservatory. so i don't think i represented any value to the establishment. however, my father was an important scientist who worked for many years in the sciences that were classified. and the danger was always that it often happened that if one member of the family would be dealing with classified information, the others wouldn't be allowed to leave. there was that danger, and that's why when i asked for permission to leave,

my parents decided to wait until i would be given an answer before applying for the exit visa themselves. so i was lucky. 30 days later, i received that permission. one thing that amazes me about you is the degree to which you, over the years working in these different countries and working with different orchestras, from the united states to france to germany to the czech republic, you say that you have an attitude almost like an actor who immerses themselves in a culture before they feel able to tell a story and interpret. what do you mean by this immersion? do you literally mean you have to speak the language, you have to go deep into culture, before you're prepared to conduct the music? it's really fascinating what the nature of artistic creations is. imagine that in this country, let's say shakespeare. the czechs will have smetana, dvorak. the russians will have

a tchaikovsky, stravinsky, pushkin, etc, etc. everybody will have their own that represent not just their culture. they make the culture which is born from the nation itself, from its character, from its way of expressing itself because... so the question is, are outsiders qualified, in your view, to interpret? yes, yes, but one has to make that effort, that is the important thing. and how far do you go in that effort? i think i'm right in saying you speak five languages. is language a very important part of it? language is important for communication. in the case of music, music being a universal language, if one is not able to verbally formulate what one feels or thinks about a specific expression here or there, you will sing it and your colleagues will understand

what you mean. of course, you can speak the language, if you can, then you have this whole array of verbal expression because words are important. i know of writers sometimes pondering on the question of which specific word to choose that will best describe what they want to be described. and musicians doing exactly the same thing by other means. so let's take a specific example. you are in london to play mahler, and mahler i know is very important to you. he was born in what we now call the czech republic, he spent much of his life in vienna making music. yes, yes. are you saying that you couldn't properly understand and interpret mahler without knowing a great deal about the way czechs think, the way they behave, their humour, their culture, and you have to bring that to the music?

it's a... it's a hard question because its complex. there are people who are not able to speak the language of the country in which piece of music or work of art has originated, and yet they have an instinct that will enable them to interpret it in a way that the natives of that country will feel being authentic in spirit, and there is plenty of that in music. when i think of karajan, when he came with the berliners and played shostakovich symphony number 10 in moscow and leningrad at the time, the russians went crazy, they couldn't imagine anything like it. shostakovich was one of them, and yet... karajan captured the spirit? he captured the spirit even though he did not speak the language, and what i do know is he said that if he were a composer, he would've wanted to compose like shostakovich. all right, now, let'sjust... but it helps if you do, it does help.

i'm thinking of daniel day lewis. well, that's real immersion, or you could call it method acting to an extreme. it's not acting any more because he becomes the person who he has to incarnate, either onstage or in the film. he's also, some would say, almost impossibly demanding in terms of what he expects from those around him in the film business. are you impossibly demanding? i have read that at times you have even refused to play a symphony even though it's been scheduled and the audience is expecting you to arrive in the city and play it because you say, "i don't feel ready, my spirit isn't there, "i'm not gonna do it." still, i'm still more demanding of myself than anybody else, and daniel is the same way. but it does make life a little difficult if you only are ready to perform if you absolutely feel it on the day. you know, i have to have

the right to stand on that podium and lead my colleagues, first in the rehearsals and then in the performance, and convey, which means in a way to serve the music that i interpret and share it with my audience. if i'm not ready, it means i don't have the conviction of the kind that is necessary to do it, which means i don't have the right either to be there or to do that, which means i have to do something else. let us now talk about russia and ukraine. days after putin took that decision to send his forces into ukraine, you stood before an audience in london and expressed your pain and your disgust at what was happening. you made a statement before a concert. i think you also got the orchestra to play the ukrainian national anthem. why does this feel so direct and personal to you?

once again, it's a very complex, complicated subject. we all know that there is an opinion, very widespread, that artists are to confine themselves to their art and leave politics to the politicians. that's very well known. i don't see this specific case of war, whether it's ukraine or any war for that matter, as a question of politics. for me, politics is a natural political process that exists in society, any society, every single day. here, we are talking about life and death. what does art deal with if not that? any works of art, what do they deal with if not to reveal the human condition, to reveal human nature? and we know how complex that is, it's not black and white. there is lots of in between which is grey. we also, i think, know that there is such thing as the good in human nature and there is such thing

as evil in human nature. and the whole balance that one tries to establish is that the evil can never win. where, though, do you draw the line between expressions of solidarity, where people in the west, including cultural institutions, want to express their support for ukraine, and that teetering over a brink and becoming censorship of art and beauty? because just to finish the thought, there are institutions — the royal opera house in london scrapping a season from the bolshoi ballet. another orchestra in wales actually pulling a performance of a tchaikovsky piece. and that, to many, feels wrong, it feels like associating current politics and a rage against vladimir putin's actions with the censorship of an entire culture. it is...

i totally agree with that position. i could add to these examples the fact that when the war started, opera house in warsaw has cancelled performances of boris godunov of mussorgsky. first of all, it has been composed in 19th century. secondly, it is about the tsar, which is about the absolute power of a monarch and the price he has to pay for that and his people. if those people who cancelled these performances knew what the opera was about, they would decide to perform it ten times a day. because it would be actually illustrative of the very problem that it represents? exactly! it is so relevant to what we live through today. let's make it a bit harderfor you, then. let's talk about perhaps less black and white

but more grey areas. there are some individual artists who have been, if you can put it this way, "cancelled". yes. gergiev, one of the great russian conductors, he was sacked — fired — from his position in munich. many cheered that decision. others wondered, even if they didn't like gergiev, because he's been a loyalist to putin — there is great evidence to suggest that he's been favoured with great wealth because of his association with putin — some still felt that cancelling an artist wasn't right. what about you ? that whole reaction that happened outside of russia when the war started in cancelling — what we call "cancel culture" — cancel artists, cancel performances, it's an irrational reaction which is absolutely understandable because it simply signifies the revulsion of humanity against this murderous regime.

well, if you're describing it as both "irrational" but also "understandable". .. because it's irrational in a sense that this is a reaction of the heart. it comes from the heart. but then, in these complex individual cases, what would you do? again, to take the example of gergiev, because he's so closely allied to putin, does he have a right to perform or not in the west, where the common feeling is...? if people in the west do not wish to hear him perform, it is absolutely their right to do so because they don't wish that. you know, for me, the problem is in the fact that we pile everything — put everything into the same pile — and that is actually should be viewed individually case by case. what about... ?

ok, i will keep the cases coming. i will give you one case of a young pianist — i don't know, maybe he is maybe 20, 22 — his name is malofeev. that's the very case i was going to raise with you. he's a guy at the beginning of what appears to be potentially a brilliant musical career, he's a young russian and he has seen concerts cancelled. in canada, for example, twice. and i read his post on the facebook page. it broke my heart. this kid had lived a very short time until now, had absolutely nothing to do with any of the actions or decisions of his government, and he said... i don't have the quote exactly in my mind now, but... well, i actually have the quote in front of me. he said, "every russian will feel guilty for decades "because of the terrible and bloody decision "that none of us could influence or predict." exactly. now, for me, cancelling

performances of this young man, i think, is extremely unjustified and, in fact, what it does... we have to look, for example, at the nazis in germany burning books, of those that they disapproved of. it's cancelling. so, you're... do you want to...? you're a passionate anti—putin figure who is saying that cancelling russian artists, in the way you just described, represents something akin to nazi approach to censorship? well, not a nazi approach, because we don't burn people, we don't kill people in that way. but what is the difference between them cancelling culture in their way, and us? if we do it on a case—by—case basis, and it has to do with those figures that have consistently associated themselves with the regime, had all the benefits from the regime — the titles, the money, the opportunities, the wealth accumulated — as far as i'm concerned, it's not a question of them being artists because i view artists as something else.

this is being a wilful collaborator, for whatever reasons — opportunistic or not. it's so difficult, though. i'm going to give one more example to you, and that's tugan sokhiev. yes. now, he is fairly young, he's a very talented conductor, he does a lot of work in the west, but he also, at the time of putin's invasion, was music director of the bolshoi, as well as heavily involved with an orchestra in toulouse in france. yes. now, he claims that he was required in france to issue a public statement condemning putin's invasion. he didn't feel he wanted to do that, so he actually took the radical decision of resigning both posts. yes, but he didn't say — and i would like to know it and i cannot claim anything because i don't know — was he under pressure from the putin regime to pronounce himself in favour of the so—called "special military operation",

which is anything but? that, i don't know. but i wouldn't be surprised if he were to be pressured to show his approval of that action, because most prominent figures in russia have been under pressure. i guess... i mean, one fundamental principle is, do artists have a right to remain silent? yes. or can silence be complicity? yes. chuckles. it's an individual choice. what i wrote in my statement when the war started is that — once again, of course i don't have the quote on me, but you might have it here — there are moments when silence in life, where silence is an acquiescence of evil and therefore becomes, it's... which word did i use? "ally", if you will. but that's an individual choice to make, and i made mine because i'm free. and, of course...

and there are others... and there are others who are not free and i absolutely recognise their right to do decide that they wish to remain silent. it's just not my choice. but i do understand that they may have circumstances that are very complex, that have to do not only with them alone but with their families. with theirfamilies. and choices have consequences. choices, yes. and you faced consequences because after 1989, you went back to russia. yes, idid. and you performed. yes, idid. and you clearly enjoyed that experience of return. absolutely. you will not be returning any more, as long as vladimir putin's in power. does that matter to you? no, it doesn't, and i'll tell you why. even if he invited me, i wouldn't do it, not under these circumstances. because we think of russia — we... the world thinks of russia as one entity. what people don't realise is there are many different russias. there is the russia of putin

and those like him, and these are thugs. i know the streets — a lot of them from leningrad — and the driveways from which they came from, and i know their language and their ways. it's based on brutal physicalforce. who is stronger? "i'm stronger, i've proved it and that's how it is," without thinking that tomorrow someone will come who will be stronger than you, and that's why they always end up very badly, every single one of them. and for me, that part of russia is the russia, that noble russia of pushkin, shostakovich, rachmaninoff, you name them all. it's the russia that they kidnapped. it still exists. a final thought, and it springs out of much that we've discussed. do you think there is a place for nationalism and national identity in music? there's a universality

to music, but there is also something national about the way music appears in the world. absolutely. absolutely there is. i think the word "nationalism" is sometimes misunderstood and turned into something very negative and threatening. i don't believe that. for me, nationalism is a reaction. a reaction, for example, that people in czech republic would have, let's say, 19th century, because they were always dominated by someone bigger and stronger. or reaction in the baltic republics or ukraine — doesn't matter — during the soviet empire time. they were nationalist. why? because they wanted to preserve their identity, their dna, their language, their culture, their way of life and their body language, because we all have a different one. and their music — their music became a part of that. the music is a mirror, mirror of life. music is life and life is music, because music comes from life. and in that sense, nationalism is something

that is not only natural, it's totally understandable. what is not is the chauvinism, where you believe that what you have is better than anybody else�*s. and we know plenty of such people who believe that. that is not acceptable. racism is not acceptable, because it's more or less the same thing, and so it goes. so nationalism is something that makes the world — not nationalism but national expression and differences of national character and its expression — they make the world as rich as it is. it is a rich world. you make it richer. semyon bychkov, thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you so much. thank you, stephen.

hello. it's remaining unsettled over the next few days. certainly for the rest of this week, low pressure will be in charge. and we've seen quite a lot of rainfall recently across the south and that's led to flood warnings being issued for south wales and south west england. so a wet next few days for some of us. there will be a bit of sunshine around with our air source coming in from the south west and it'll stay on the mild side. so we've had low pressure with this through tuesday. as we move through wednesday, it will be to the north of the uk. another ripple brings wet weather to the south of the country on thursday and then this area of low pressure will bring some substantial wet weather to the country during the course of friday. now we start wednesday off on a wet note for the south east of england, east anglia. that rain will clear away quite quickly. then its bright for much of england and wales. few showers into the south west later for the far north of england, scotland, northern ireland, it's going to be blustery with sunny spells, scattered showers and temperatures range

from around 7 to 11 degrees across the uk. as we move through wednesday night, it stays blustery across the north of the uk, close to the centre of the low few showers. england, wales will start drying them. we'll see areas of rain and cloud pushing in from the south west and it'll stay quite breezy, particularly across southern and western coast. another mild nights come in the south, further north, 3 to five celsius. we'll start off with some sunshine across the north of the uk on thursday. stay breezy in the far north with a few showers here. but for the rest of england and wales it looks like it'll turn cloudier through the days. more rain pushes in from the south west. some of this again could be quite heavy across southern england, south wales. that'll exacerbate already saturated ground here with flooding issues. a milder day to come in the south, a bit cooler further north. then we look to friday. this area of low pressure will bring a band of rain into southern areas. it'll slowly push northwards through the course of the day.

so some areas here really could be quite wet and they'll stay windy in the south and mild here through friday. but notice across the north, we'll start to see this blue, this cold air starting to push south. so we'll be in a battleground, i think, through friday with cold air in the north, mild air in the south. but it does look like as we move through the christmas period, certainly in the north, it'll turn colder with some wintry showers, notjust hills, even down to lower levels at times. there will be a little bit of sunshine, too, but a very christmassy feeling there. some of the cold air will start to get in towards england and wales as well as we move through the christmas period. so it will be turning colder with the risk of some wintry showers.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore. i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines: in a further erosion of women's rights in afghanistan, the taliban government bans women from university education. mr zelensky goes to washington. us media reports the ukrainian president is to pay an official trip to america. a sea of celebration: hundreds of thousands take to the streets to welcome home argentina's world cup winners. and china announces it's changing the way it counts covid deaths amid growing scepticism over government figures.