Word: rostropovich
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...Rostropovich was denied permission to participate in a BBC program honoring Shostakovich. In a fury, he told a Western journalist that the Soviet authorities had imposed an "artistic quarantine" on him and Galina...
Visiting Moscow in April, Kennedy saw Brezhnev and asked him to permit Slava to perform in America. Shortly thereafter, the Rostropovich family was given passports. In 1974 Slava went to Harvard to receive an honorary degree. There he saw Felicia, threw himself to his knees and kissed the hem of her dress. To show his gratitude to the Kennedy family, Rostropovich offered to train their son Teddy in the cello...
Meanwhile, Rostropovich and his family are enjoying their new freedom and fresh celebrity. In addition to the dacha and the Moscow apartment, they keep flats in Paris and New York and one near Lausanne. Olga, 20, and Elena, 19, are studying at Manhattan's Juilliard School. Galina sang Tosca last week at Covent Garden. Friends report that her life with Slava is often tempestuous, partly because his career is rising and hers is fading; after all, Rostropovich was largely responsible for destroying her position at the Bolshoi. While Galina supported her husband's defense of Solzhenitsyn, she feels that Slava...
...than a commissar at a convention. "What I remember first about Slava," says Seiji Ozawa, "is lots of drinking. He taught me how to drink fantastic amounts. After one night with him, the next day is gone." His constant companion is a pocket-size, wire-haired dachshund named Puks. Rostropovich has taught Puks to leap on the piano bench and bang away at the keyboard with his front paws. Friends observe that what is remarkable is not that Puks can play so well, but that he can play...
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...