MS is for music

Ms Bobrovnikova does not look ill. Her brown eyes are filled with enthusiasm and she gesticulates enthusiastically as she talks about her current favourite music piece.

It is the opening music of Stanley Kubrik's 1999 movie Eyes Wide Shut, Walz 2 from Dmitri Shostakovich's Suite For Variety Stage Orchestra.

"It is the music that made the movie," she says.

"Good music is a guarantee of success for movies. I think it is next to impossible to have a good movie without good music."

As Ms Bobrovnikova talks about music, it is difficult to believe it was not her first passion.

"I started learning the piano relatively late, after two failed attempts at other creative arts: Ballet and singing."

She attributes her love for arts to her parents, both scientists, who used to take her with them to the theatre.

"Back in the 1970s we had nothing in Moscow. We barely had any contact with the rest of the world. Culture was the only window for freedom and that is why so many Russians are cultured."

When just 20 years old, Ms Bobrovnikova had the first neurological problem. "I simply stopped walking. I ended up crawling around because I had been affected from the waist down. Fortunately, my hands had not been affected and neither was my coordination. So although I was unable to sit down properly, I could still play the piano."

At the time, her doctor did not mention multiple sclerosis. "He was talking about a neuro infection. I think he did not use the word MS so as not to scare me. At the time, in the Soviet Union people with neurological problems were condemned because the system simply did not cater for them," she says pensively.

The neurologist also persuaded her to try and lead as normal a life as possible, while trying to keep stress in check.

How does she manage not to stress herself out when preparing for a piano concert? "That's my medicine, the thing which makes me feel useful. It's what keeps me going."

Ms Bobrovnikova fled the Soviet Union for Belgium in 1990. Five years later she had her second MS episode, which also went undiagnosed, although, this time, multiple sclerosis was mentioned to her. "The symptoms started progressing and, finally, in December 2000 I was diagnosed with MS.

"The doctor had two pieces of news: One was the diagnosis and the second was that treatment was available. But this was very expensive. However, as an artist, not treating the condition was not an option since it would not allow me to continue working. Together we fought for government funding for the treatment, which I have been on for more than six years."

But despite her diagnosis, Ms Bobrovnikova kept mum about her condition. Then, in 2003, while in Malta to give a concert, she found out that the European Multiple Sclerosis Platform was meeting here. "It was a coincidence, as if it was written in the stars. I thought that it was some sort of sign and arranged to play for the delegates.

"When I got to the hotel where they were meeting, my first instinct was to run away. I had never in my life come across so many disabled people who were all very young. But my second thought was that since I was also in their situation, I should stay. I ended up playing with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face. It was a bitter sweet experience."

And after the concert the pianist decided to make her condition public. Since then she has not looked back and goes around the world playing the piano to raise funds for multiple sclerosis and raise awareness.

She has also just finished writing a book in Russian - The Lost Diaries Of Alexandra Petrovna. Although based on historical facts surrounding forgotten Russian-German composer Paul August Pabst, the story is complete fiction. "The story revolves around the composer's wife still grieving 10 years after his death, desperate for him to be remembered."

Next week, on Friday, Ms Bobrovnikova will be giving a solo concert at Palazzo Parisio to help the American International Women's Association raise funds for multiple sclerosis. The programme is an eclectic one, she says, with Russian music intermixed with classics and even some modern pieces. She will also be playing a piece by a Maltese composer.