Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

I was truly saddened to learn of the death of Mstislav Rostropovich; indeed I found myself shedding a tear or two, for the world will not be as nice a place without him.

He was probably the greatest ‘cellist of the twentieth century. My reserve in calling him the greatest is that such a superlative accolade can only be enjoyed by one person, no matter how truly great they are, and I feel that Slava would have wanted to share it with some others, including Jacqueline Du Pre.

He was without doubt a genius, both as a ‘cellist and a conductor. His genius was as great as his genuine humility and his generosity of spirit.

The touchstone of true genius, I feel, is how it affects the world around them and how it inspires genius in others. The musical landscape of the late twentieth century is unthinkable without him. He was the dedicatee of over one hundred works, from composers such as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Lutoslawski and Henri Dutilleux to living composers such as James McMillan.

And combined with all his other qualities was courage in the face of brutality, when he was expelled from the Soviet Union, stripped not only of his citizenship but in the time-honoured fashion of thugs and bullies everywhere stripped of his very existence. His records, and those of his wife Galina Vishnevskaya, were removed not only from sale but from the libraries of the radio stations and the catalogue of the state recording company Melodiya, while his role as first performer of works such as the Shostakovich ‘cello concerti was air-brushed out of all text-books and concert programmes.

A number of recorded performances stand out for me. One was made in the 1950s of Shostakovich’s ‘cello sonata (which wasn’t written for him, dating from 1934). He is accompanied by the composer himself, who was. through illness, no longer the virtuoso pianist he had once been. This recording, though scratchy and hardly high-fidelity, is magical.

Another recording, preserved now on DVD, saw Slava accompany Galina on the piano in a performance of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, while yet another DVD preserves his performance of Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto. The orchestra was conducted by a then very youthful Okko Kamu.

Goodbye Slava. You’ll be missed.