Word: rostropovich
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...highlight of the master class was the confrontation of the 49-year-old Soviet emigre, who is often called the world's greatest cellist, and senior Yo-Yo Ma, who has already had a remarkable career in his own right. In fact, until Rostropovich switched to Columbia management last year, he and Ma were two of only five cellists in the world under the management of impressario Sol Hurok...
...times on Saturday Rostropovich met the challenge by hamming it up for the audience rather than concentrating on valuable musical criticism. One music professor said she felt like she was watching a tape of the Johnny Carson Show. Rostropovich never severed his communication with the audience. Colorful metaphors abounded. At one point in the Haydn D major Concerto, a theme appears twice in the score: once in the low, masculine register of the instrument and then in the bright, upper register. "Why, all of a sudden, does the theme appear in the upper register?" he asked after Gregory Colburn...
...When Rostropovich concentrated on musical points, his suggestions effected noticeable improvement in Colburn's playing. Allowing your imagination to be your guide, Rostropovich told Colburn, will eliminate technical difficulties. The Russian asked Colburn to describe the music he was about to play before setting his bow on the strings. "When you truly understand the music, the desire to play the music will awaken itself in you. Your imagination must always be your teacher. It must teach you before you've sat down at the instrument...
...Rostropovich, Ma played the first movement of Antonin Dvorak's cello concerto. The composition is a staple in the relatively scant cello repertoire, and as such is probably as familiar to Rostropovich as the Lord's Prayer is to the Pope. Rostropovich, naturally, has thought a great deal about the work, and his suggestions to Ma about performing it, reflected the more than 20 years he has been performing the concerto...
...particular passage, the portly Rostropovich advised Ma not to give everything he had, for doing so would detract from the importance of the climax. "You have to guard your temperament a little bit," he said to Ma. "If you fall in love with a girl and tell her everything in five minutes that you can tell her...this is not the culmination of all things...