Word: instrumentalization
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...this year's festival, which ran Oct. 3-7, was different. The absence of the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who co-founded the biennial event in 1993 and died in April aged 80, left its participants pondering his legacy and celebrating the unexpectedly prominent role he and his instrument had played in the history of the 20th century...
Rostropovich went by the nickname "Slava," meaning glory - or, in the translation preferred by the American composer Leonard Bernstein, "possessed by the gods." I knew Slava through my father, Lynn Harrell, who belongs to a generation of cellists that inherited an instrument Rostropovich had changed forever. My memory of our meetings is of Slava's effusive affection: from bear hugs to damp kisses on both cheeks. Everyone he met - hotel workers, the Emperor of Japan, even the Pope - left with wet cheeks. Both with and without his instrument, it seemed, it was his goal to touch as many people...
...cello, best known for a series of unaccompanied suites by Bach, is the orchestra's most solitary instrument. It is also one of the most intimate, a result of its proximity in range and expression to the human voice, and also the posture of its player, which is one of embrace. In Rostropovich's hands, this potent mixture of the familiar and the solitary turned the cello into an instrument of dissent, embodying the lone, heroic voice in its 20th century struggle against oppression...
...First of all, calling a state instrument, specifically the recognized army of a legitimate state, a terrorist organization akin to Al Qaeda or Hezbollah goes against the conventional understanding of what a terrorist organization is. We might as well say that the entire state of Iran is a terrorist organization. While this might please some interests and provide a symbolic slap in the face to Iran’s government, it would be ignorant. The army, just like the state, may have some components that support other terrorist organizations (such as training Hezbollah), but this does not mean the entire...
...Peacebone,” which starts with what sounds like a command before evaporating into bubbling electronics, then settling into a narrative that’s low on coherency but high on feeling. Animal Collective has always been in favor of using the human voice as an instrument, but here the words are deployed more for emotional heft than sonic weight. “Peacebone” is a rollicking high adventure despite lyrics like “A peacebone got found / in the dinosaur wing.” The song’s a push forward, but Animal Collective...