Word: conductors
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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SPECIALIZATION MAY BE the peculiar affliction of many individuals and organizations at Harvard, but in its concert Saturday the Bach Society Orchestra convincingly demonstrated that it is not one of those. To open the 1977-78 season, Conductor Christopher Wilkins led the ensemble through an eclectic blend of periods and styles: a Baroque suite, a nineteenth-century overture and concerto, and a minor twentieth-century choral masterpiece...
...debating point, and perhaps unresolvable. Admiringly, Conductor Seiji Ozawa says that "Slava I doesn't interpret, he feels. His music is really his character. He is conducting his life." His performances of the Schubert Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano and the Schumann Cello Concerto are typical. The phrasing and pastels of dynamics in the Schubert expose a bold lyricism that would have astonished?but probably pleased?the composer. As for the Schumann, Leonard Bernstein, who recorded the piece with Rostropovich, confesses that he would just as soon not do it again in quite the same fashion. "Slava takes enormous freedoms...
...days in a row without sleep. Some years ago, during a hectic concert tour, he sat down on a stage to play the Dvorak Cello Concerto and fell asleep during the orchestral introduction. Startled when his cue came, he whispered to the conductor: "You played that so magnificently that I was spellbound. Please start again...
...already established an informal open house at his Watergate Hotel suite; any orchestra member may come along with his instrument to play for the conductor or simply to talk about his work. Part of Slava's new look is already visible this season. The musicians now tune up backstage. Then they file into their seats ready to play, sparing the audience the customary din of warm-up noodling...
These are small beginnings, but most observers agree that the N.S.O. never had a better chance to make fine music. It is a notable opportunity for Rostropovich as well. Though he has no intention of giving up the cello, he is determined to make himself a great conductor. "It was my first dream," he says. "If I play cello or piano, I make sound through instruments, but this instrument is not alive. A conductor must make very deep connection, not with instruments but people. He must use not only baton but also eyes, expression and, most important, his musical personality...