Mstislav Rostropovich - Schumann: Cello Concerto - Bloch: Schelomo '2017

Tracks list

Tracklist
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01. Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129: I. Nicht zu schnell
02. Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129: II. Langsam
03. Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129: III. Sehr lebhaft
04. Schelomo

[quote]Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich was born in Baku, USSR on March 27,
1927. His first name means avenged glory; he is familiarly known by the root of
the name, Slava, which means glory. His father, Leopold, was an excellent
cellist, and after 1931, a teacher at the Gnesin Institute, Moscow after
attending the Moscow Conservatory. Slavas mother was an accomplished pianist.
The family moved to Moscow in 1931; Slava had already begun cello studies with
his father and continued them there. His first public appearance was at eight
years of age. In 1939, he entered the Central Music School, studying there until
1941. He then entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1943 and studied cello with
Semyon Kozolupov and composition with Vissaryon Shebalin and Dmitri
Shostakovich, graduating with highest distinction in 1948. After that he became
a musical secretary to Sergei Prokofiev and developed a warm relationship with
the ailing composer. It was due to Rostropovichs presence that Prokofiev rewrote
his earlier Cello Concerto in E Minor, transforming it into a much more imposing
work, the Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, Op. 125; his late sonata
for cello and piano, and began work on a Concertino for cello and orchestra,
which the composer did not finish. It was completed by Rostropovich and Dmitri
Kabalevesky. Rostropovich began a major career in the Warsaw Pact countries. He
won the International Competition for Cellists in Prague in 1950 and other major
awards. He began to be heard throughout the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. He made
his first appearance in the West in Florence in 1951, and his international
career continued to grow. On a social occasion he met Galina Vishnevskaya, one
of the leading new sopranos of the Bolshoi Theater of Moscow, proclaimed that he
had fallen in love with her at first sight, and within a very few days had
convinced her to marry him, proposing in Prague while they were both on tour
there. In her engaging autobiography she admits that she did not really know who
he was and was somewhat frightened by his intensity; she was also wary of men at
the time since she was being sexually harassed by Nikolai Bulganin, President of
the U.S.S.R., who in his efforts to make her his mistress had made veiled
threats that he would make things difficult for anyone else she became involved
with. There was, indeed, a brief effort to pressure Rostropovich, but this
evaporated as Bulganins position in the government became more and more as a
mere appendage to that of the real power, Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.
Vishnevskaya wrote in her autobiography that she believes their marriage
survived because neither had seen the other in performance; they fell in love
with each other as people rather than with their partners stage image. Bulganin
did make good on some of his threats, one of which was to cancel an upcoming
1956 tour of the West. It was reinstated at the last minute, however, and proved
to be an essential event on the development of Rostropovichs career. He appeared
in London at the Festival Hall in March 1956, his first British appearance. Then
he made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, New York in April, 1956.
Rostropovich was universally hailed in both cities as an exceptional musician,
in fact a superstar, to use a current term which was not then in use. He had the
mysterious charisma of a true star, and backed it up with phenomenal talent,
technique, passion for the music, communicative ability, and instinct for the
composers message. One of the remarkable qualities of his art was the
unprecedented ability to project the instruments sound with fullness and
strength in all its registers. In the warm, naturally forceful medium register
he exceeded most cellists strength of tone. But it was his handling of the
extreme registers which was breathtaking. The upper register, which in most
cases is weaker, became under Rostropovichs bow possessed of a heroic,
tenor-like clarion quality. The lowest register, which threatens to become a
muttering sound at fast tempos, remained clearly articulated, strong and solid
all the way down to low C. His intonation was unusually accurate and secure. His
fluency and mastery of rapid passage work was also remarkable, even in the most
difficult thumb positions. He had a full command of the multitude of special
effects which are available on the instrument, and a wide variety of tonal color
at his disposal. His performances had a firm sense of rhythm, either a heroic or
passionately ardent presentation of the music, and a sure grasp of the structure
and emotional logic of the composition. He had complete command of the styles of
all the musical eras and national schools in the standard cello repertoire.
Composers from all over the Soviet Union immediately became interested in
writing for the cello, and Rostropovich was fortunately deeply interested in new
music. Among the first of the unique body of masterpieces written for him, aside
from the Prokofiev works already mentioned, was the brilliant Concerto for Cello
& Orchestra No. 1 in E Flat, Op. 107 by Dmitri Shostakovich, who soon became a
close friend of Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya. Rostropovich played the premiere
performance, then set off for the West with Shostakovich to make a classic
premiere recording of it with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, a
performance which was made even more thrilling by the presence of Philadelphias
powerful horn soloist, Mason Jones, in the concertos prominent part for that
instrument. The recording solidified Rostropovichs reputation in the West as one
of the great cellists of his time. A decade later, Shostakovich wrote another
mastery cello concerto for Rostropovich. When Rostropovich premiered the
Concerto in London in 1960, this performance was attended by the composer
Benjamin Britten, initiating a friendship which also resulted in the creation of
several masterworks. In fact, Britten credited his hearing of the Shostakovich
concerto with having rekindled his interest in instrumental music. (This is
particularly interesting since it was Shostakovichs opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk
which in the 30s had ignited Brittens interest in vocal music.) For Rostropovich
he wrote the Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, the Sonata for Cello and Piano,
and the three Suites for Cello Solo, each one a masterful addition to the
repertoire of the instrument. Moreover, friendship with Rostropovich also
brought about friendship with Vishnevskaya, which led to the concept of Brittens
greatest work, the War Requiem, of having singers from each of the three main
European powers of World War I in the piece. Moreover, Britten wrote a song
cycle, The Poets Echo, in Russian on Pushkin texts for Vishnevskaya to sing with
Rostropovich, who is also an accomplished pianist, accompanying her at the
keyboard. Rostropovich recorded this song cycle with Vishnevskaya in a memorable
performance, as he had already been accompanying his wife on the piano in public
performances for some years. This led to his being invited to conduct; his
podium debut was at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, leading a performance of
Tchaikovskys Eugene Onegin with Vishnevskaya in the leading female role of
Tatyana. He conducted this production again when the Bolshoi took it to Paris in
December, 1969, and recorded it with the Bolshoi forces there in January, 1970.
He also began conducting symphony concerts. In 1969, he permitted Alexandr
Solzhenitsyn, the dissident Russian novelist, to stay at his dacha, and
protested the Soviet governments treatment of the Nobel Prize winner by means of
an open letter sent to Pravda. The newspaper did not publish it, but copies of
it circulated in the West, to the embarrassment of the Soviet Union. The
government, through its control of the musicians and composers unions as well as
of all booking agencies and concert halls, exacted immediate reprisal on both
Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya. Their international appearance dates were
canceled and their scheduled concert dates were replaced by appearances in
remote and unimportant outposts of the Soviet Union. Their recording of Tosca,
also made in Paris with the Bolshoi company, was vetoed by the Soviet
government. Their social life dwindled to that of a few faithful friends,
including Shostakovich. Rostropovich applied to the Soviet government to permit
him, his wife, and their two daughters to go abroad for two years. In 1974, this
request was granted, and they left on what they knew was an open-ended exile. On
their departure a tearful Shostakovich asked, Now, who will play my music?
Rostropovich explained his reasons for asking to leave Russia, and for taking
his stand for Solzhenitsyn (who was also similarly exiled at about the same
time) in the Paris Russian-language newspaper La Pensee Russe, and in a letter
to the New York Times. Soon after his arrival in the West he bought a new cello,
a 1711 Antonio Stradivari instrument known as the Duport which is famous for
having a scar on its body inflicted when Napoleon, having just heard Duport play
it, asked to examine it and accidentally marred it with his spurs. In July,
1974, he gave the first performance of a new cello concerto by Soviet composer
Aram Khachaturian in Monte Carlo, with the composer, in a brave move,
conducting. News of this event was not reported in the Soviet press. In
September, 1974, he made his British conducting debut with the New Philharmonic
Orchestra in Londons Festival Hall. The critical consensus was that the
spontaneity and innate musicality which made his cello playing magnificent was
present, but that he was too flexible and spontaneous in his tempo and this
caused the orchestra problems of ensemble. His American conducting debut was
with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C. in March, 1975, a
performance which was so highly acclaimed that in 1977 he was appointed as the
music director of that orchestra. Rostropovich and the orchestra formed a
long-lasting partnership that lasted until 1997, elevating the morale and
prestige of the orchestra in those years. He made his American operatic debut
conducting Tchaikovskys Queen of Spades in San Francisco in 1975. Meanwhile,
Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich watched from abroad as they became unpersons in
their homeland. The Soviet music publishing organ removed Shostakovichs
dedication to him from the score of the Second Cello Concerto. When a memorial
biography of Shostakovich appeared following the composers death in 1975,
neither the name of Rostropovich nor Vishnevskaya (who had sung the soprano part
of Shostakovichs vocal symphony, the Fourteenth) appeared. Even the official
account of Shostakovichs important trip to Philadelphia to supervise the Ormandy
recording of the First Cello Concerto managed to omit Rostropovichs name, saying
that the historical recording was made by the cellist who had premiered it. The
couple continued to be outspoken about Soviet abuses of freedom and publicly
recounted the numerous ways in which their lives and artistic freedoms had been
restricted by the Soviets. The U.S.S.R. retaliated with a low blow: the two were
informed by letter in 1978 that they had been declared ideological renegades and
were stripped of their Soviet citizenship. In 1990, the Soviet government, then
led by Mikhail Gorbachev and under his policy of perestroika (reconstruction)
and glasnost (openness), admitted the shamefulness of its earlier treatment of
Rostropovich. It invited them both to return to Russia for a concert tour with
the National Symphony Orchestra. It also restored the Rostropoviches
citizenship. The visit, documented by a superb film called Soldiers of Music,
displayed emotional reunions, a tearful visit to Shostakovichs grave, and a
rapturous reception by friends and audiences. It greatly vindicated Rostropovich
and his adherence to the ideals of liberty and his loyalty to his friends.
Shortly thereafter, when Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin stood up to
the coup plotters who attempted to depose Gorbachev and made a fortress of his
Russian Parliament building, the White House, Rostropovich returned to the
Soviet Union to join Yeltsin in standing up to Soviet armed forces. Thus, he was
present for the quick-moving chain of events which saw the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the smashing of Communist power. Since then, he has appeared
both in his homeland and in the West. He has made many recordings, including an
acclaimed series of many Shostakovich symphonies, with the National Symphony and
other orchestras. He also continued to be active on behalf of new music. In
1996, he produced his first integral set of the unaccompanied Cello Suites of
Bach, an acclaimed recording expressing the culmination of a lifetime of
studying and performing these masterpieces.

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