Word: rostropovich
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Like many contemporary composers, America's Lukas Foss, 44, has been experimenting lately with new sounds. At Manhattan's Carnegie Hall last week, Foss conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, with Soloist Mstislav Rostropovich, in the world premiere of his Concert (not, inexplicably, concerto) for Cello and Orchestra. There were no really new sounds in the piece-just old sounds, such as blatt, splatt and pflat...
...first movement had the cellist manfully circling around for three minutes trying to find D-flat. Soon, from loudspeakers came a cadenza recorded earlier by Rostropovich, who then played a whining, arhythmic duet with himself. During one dramatic silence, a massive pffhonk! bounced through the hall; it sounded like somebody blowing his nose. That's just what it was, and a good note it was, too-D-flat, in fact...
...retired after teaching composition at Harvard for 34 years, Piston has certainly not stopped playing with new ideas. Last week in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, Mstislav Rostropovich and the London Symphony Orchestra performed his Variations for Cello and Orchestra, a work that Rostropovich asked him to compose two years ago to enlarge the meager repertory of the cello. "He paid me the compliment-unusual for a virtuoso-of asking me to compose for the instrument and not for the player," says Piston...
...written for solo cello before, and Piston displayed his own virtuosity by splashing forth a 23-minute polyphonic conversation organized as five variations on a theme. Brass and strings quarreled to the punctuation of tambourines and drums, then drifted in and out of harmony-while with his soaring silkiness, Rostropovich traced wide melodic angles ranging from sad loveliness to brittle dissonance. "I hope it is better than anything else I've written," said Piston. Then he set off to try to do even better on two new commissions. "You can't stop," he explained. "Music is a vice...
...until Jacqueline was six and began taking lessons at the London Cello School. She progressed so brilliantly that at the age of eleven she won the Suggia International Cello Award. After seven years of tutoring under London Cellist William Pleeth, she worked for five months in Moscow with Mstislav Rostropovich...