Word: rostropovich
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Mass" for Violoncello and Orchestra, an episodic piece that gave listeners a chance to hear Slava produce his exquisite cello sound, to watch his left hand flick across the finger board, his right arm streak like a bowing jet. Both programs were enlivened by the now familiar spectacle of Rostropovich leaping from his podium to kiss and hug every musician within reach...
Washington is of course used to spectacle, but the era of Rostropovich has no precedent, nor has it ever promised so much. For years the capital's music-lovers have felt ignored. The great performers of the world passed through for one-nighters somewhere en route between New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and even downtown Cleveland. But with the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, enterprising managers began to book extended dates for the artists, and today Washington has become one of the obligatory stops for any major musician or musical group that goes on the road...
...hands of Rostropovich, the renaissance flowered. New works were written for him by Benjamin Britten, Lukas Foss, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev. In the Soviet Union alone, innumerable compositions were dedicated to him. This burgeoning literature, as well as the example of Rostropovich himself, has encouraged a new generation of fine young cellists, who have moved from deep inside the orchestra to center stage...
...Strad between his legs?or, more precisely, embracing it?he seems to pour his Russian soul into every phrase, bowing long, singing lines with a subtle eloquence and a purity of tone. His technique is flawless. Modern composers lay finger-mangling minefields in the thickets of their pieces, but Rostropovich negotiates them with cheerful ease. "I don't even know why my hands do certain things sometimes," he says. "They just grab for the notes." His dynamic range, from the greatest fortissimo down the line to a pianissimo that comes on little cat feet, is nothing short of phenomenal...
...Slava, not maestro. He refuses to place himself on a pedestal higher than the podium. Herbert von Karajan once broke up a rehearsal when he spied a musician chewing gum. Szell was a tyrant. Toscanini's men loved him, yet trembled before his baton-snapping temper. "Sometimes," says Rostropovich in his near-impenetrable English, "conductor says to orchestra, 'You play for me and my ego!' No. Orchestra must not think conductor is god. Some day he is running quick to bathroom, then orchestra says, 'There go god with diarrhea.' I, with my work, make service for our most important god?...