Opera Chic

Slava's Willpower

Sometimes you're about to play something, anything -- and it doesn't even matter whether it's a solo piece, or you're with, say, a chamber ensemble, or an entire orchestra -- and maybe for a split second you think, will I be worthy of the greatness set down in this score, will I be worthy of this genius, will I be worthy of what has been written with such beauty, such perfection -- sometimes doubt tempts you to do just a bit too much, a bit too loud, because the border between subtle and just plain begins to appear blurry in those moments -- well, the best antidote, for Opera Chic, is to think of Rostropovich and the adagio from Schubert's string quintet in D.

Slava is there and you realize, as the infinite beauty of Schubert's farewell to this world embraces you, you realize that it's not even really what Slava does with it -- it's that, even with different quartets -- you hear that in the one with the Emerson string quartet (UK link here) and in the super-slow rendition with the Melos quartet (UK link here) -- Rostropovich makes you realize that it's not even about his technique, about what he does with his hands -- it's that he wills that sound into existence.

Maybe that's why he's almost been gone for two years now, and Opera Chic misses him exactly as she did the day after he died.

(Opera Chic's Slava-less favorite version of this piece is in the hard-to-find DVD with William Pleeth and the Amadeus Quartet recorded in the Sixties, UK link here)

Moscow International Cello Festival: For Rostropovich

Mstislav Rostropovich died last April -- this week sees the first concert of the Moscow International Cello Festival, a new event organized by the Moscow Philharmonia and dedicated to the memory of the musician. The festival has as its artistic director Boris Andrianov; it opened yesterday and it runs to Feb. 28.

"The Sound of Life": the Cellist As A Young Apprentice

See, all those who have had the privilege of meeting him, even for a brief encounter, or who simply wanted to shook the great maestro's hand  -- and would have settled for a simple nod of the great man's head in their general direction -- and got a bear hug or even a triple kiss, Russian-style, instead, they all agree that Rostropovich was, really, a helluva guy. Quick to laughter, with a optimistic streak and a strong -- if very personal -- faith in humanity.

So it's OK to be sad for his passing, but sadness can obscure the greatness of his lesson, at least for a day -- his lesson of humanity, and his love for life. 

The National Symphony Orchestra, may Terpsichore bless them, has sent out thru AP this 1927 family photo of Baby Mstislav resting in his dad's cello case, dreaming of all the great music waiting to be played -- no, to be imagined -- in the following 80 years.

Just wait until I'm tall enough to be able to sit, and my hands are big enough to handle a bow.

You just wait, world.

   

The World Of Music Mourns.

Rostropovich's colleagues remember the great man.

Daniel Barenboim, the musical director of Berlin's prestigious Opera, said Rostropovich "was not only an excellent cellist, but also one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. "His talent was immense and we can describe him as a true titan," he said of the musician, who in 1989 played an unforgettable Bach rendition in front of the newly-crumbled Berlin Wall.

Seiji Ozawa, the conductor of the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra, said Rostropovich was a "great man" who taught him much about music and life. "Slava was a soldier of music," said Ozawa, who is currently in Vienna, through his press attache. "He told me that he was not afraid to die because he absolutely believed in a new life after death. Surely he will wait for me and I am looking forward to seeing him there again."

Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, a close friend of the cellist, remember him as "one of the most extraordinary figures of our time". He vowed to dedicate an interpretation of Gluck's 'Orpheus and Eurydice' to him.

As a sidenote: because of their personal friendship, Rostropovich classily declined to step in Muti's place after Muti's break-up with la Scala: he chose not to conduct there to avoid hurting his friend's feelings.

Slava The Magnificent

In Thomas Bernhard's shattering novel The Loser, the protagonist studies piano with Vladimir Horowitz. Which is totally cool -- the only problem is that one of the other students is a strange-looking Canadian who's really really good. His name is Glenn Gould.

Which, of course, suXXors a l0t if you're studying with him under another genius.

It's kind of what must have happened to the people who studied under Rostropovich, and one of the other students was an English girl with a French name -- Jacqueline du Pré.

Many things come to your mind when you have to absorb the news of the passing of an essential artist such as Rostropovich -- a major (if not unexpected, given the maestro's age and recent illnesses) catastrophic event, of a  magnitude that, in recent years, is only paralleled by the tragic death -- and at such a young age! --  of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and the passing of our dearest Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini.

Many things come to your mind because you're there, in the kitchen, preparing lunch (it sounds more complicated than it is -- slicing sashimi-grade tuna with a samurai-sword-like  monstrous shiny Japanese blade is not exactly cooking, but still), with the TV on with the sound turned off because you'd much rather listen to La Ceci (aka Cecilia Bartoli for those of you who don't go shoe-shopping with her like Opera Chic does -- j/k j/k we can only hope) sing Gluck. But the TV's on and you see Maestro Rostropovich appear on the screen of the lunchtime news, and you know he's been very sick, and you don't even need to turn the audio on to know what happened.

You check out your CD collection quickly -- Dvorak, Beethoven's Sonata 5, there are so many, and you take down the Bach Sonata n. 2 in D Minor, because it just seems appropriate, and you don't need YouTube to imagine him leaning on his cello, eyes shut tight, drifting into ecstasy.

But it's also nice to imagine him walking briskly in the city of Paris, almost 50 year old and drunken with newly found freedom; playing Berlin in 1989; pacing the corridors of the Russian Parliament in 1991, already in his sixties, to defend the newly born Russian democracy against the military coup. Or simply, already in his old age, playing for the victims of the tsunami. Campaigning for making vaccines cheaper for children worldwide. Conducting with a twinkle in his eye, smiling serenely toward the strings with an expression that said don't make me come down there and show you how it's done, kid, don't make me.

We hear he kissed people a lot, Russian-style, especially perfect strangers.

We wish we'd met him, so much.

The Vishnevskaya-Rostropovich Foundation said the funeral will be held on Sunday in Moscow, in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Rostropovich will be buried, as he should, in Novodevichy Cemetery, next to Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

The very least Russia could do after all for one of her greatest sons.

^^^update^^^

Excellent discography at Tim Page Recommends.

Mstislav Rostropovich, 1927-2007

Very few sights are cooler than somebody playing a cello -- even if they play badly and the audio it's all wrong, it's just cool (all due respect to the other tremendous instruments, we just think the cello carries a particular strain of DNA awesomeness).

If somebody plays it like Rostropovich, then, the coolness factor is just off the charts.

Farewell to the great Maestro, who had been sick for a long time now.

More on the sad news later.