# Rostropovich has died.



## Keemun (Mar 2, 2007)

*Mstislav Rostropovich has died, aged 80 *

_Gramophone
__April 27 2007_​
Cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, one of the 20th century's most celebrated musicians, has died aged 80 in a Moscow hospital. His recordings will stand as milestones of the catalogue for their beauty, technical proficiency and humanity. 

In a career which spanned six decades he gave 240 world premieres; just a handful of the composers who wrote for him include Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Britten, Arvo Pärt, Henri Dutilleux, Luciano Berio, Alfred Schnittke and more recently, James MacMillan and Rodion Shchedrin.

A friend of artists and statesmen alike, Rostropovich disproved those who claim that art is somehow divorced from "real" life. In 1948 he witnessed Shostakovich being denounced by the Soviet regime. Then in 1968 he found himself playing the Dvorák Cello Concerto - a Czech masterpiece - with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra at the Proms, on the day the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague (against everybody's advice, and in defiance of the protestors, he insisted on performing - by the second movement he had won over the audience). In November 1989 he played in the street beside the now-fallen Berlin Wall, and later he was in the Kremlin when it was surrounded by an attempted coup. President Putin had recently visited him while in hospital and awarded him a Russian national honour.

Born in Baku, on 27 March, 1927 into a musical family (his father was a cellist and teacher) Rostropovich began playing the piano aged four. Aged eight, having by then moved to Moscow, he began learning the cello. He had said he wanted to be a conductor (which, indeed he was to become, to great acclaim), and would spend summers accompanying his father to rehearsals, sitting in the orchestra: "they were incredibly important, those two months each summer," he said.

In 1943 he entered the Moscow conservatoire to study cello, piano and composition. He auditioned to join - and was accepted into - Shostakovich's class. He graduated in three years, aged 19, and took a PhD in cello. In 1956 he became professor of cello, the same year he made his London and New York debuts. He gave the London premiere of Shostakovich's First Concerto in 1960, and began an association with Britten around that time, who was to compose for him. In 1974, along with his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (whom he would often accompany on piano), Rostropovich left the USSR, losing his citizenship in 1978 - he wound return to Russia in 1994.

Rostropovich will be remembered as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, for his formidable technique and for his commissioning of new repertoire from many of the century's greatest composers - as cellist Steven Isserlis put it: "he has done more for the cello than any musician has ever done for any instrument." But perhaps most importantly, he will be remembered as a mentor and inspiration for countless musicians, and music lovers, throughout the world.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

I will always inseparably link the Dvorak Cello concerto and Shostakovich's symphonies to this man... He was an excellent musician.


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

Wow... I am speechless. I will set the playlist of my iPod to only play tracks performed by Rostropovich for today, in his honour.


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## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

Morigan said:


> Wow... I am speechless. I will set the playlist of my iPod to only play tracks performed by Rostropovich for today, *in his honour*.


I'm playing his Shostakovich's first (with Ormandy) so loud the neighbours will call the public force...


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## Keemun (Mar 2, 2007)

Here's a nice video of him performing Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

Manuel said:


> I'm playing his Shostakovich's first (with Ormandy) so loud the neighbours will call the public force...


Excellent!!

I would do that, but I'm at work in a government office. LOL.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

They read the news at the concert today, before Penderecki came to the rostrum. So we all stood up and Penderecki decided to dedicate the concert to Rostropovich. Very kind.


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

I just came back from a concert conducted by the American maestro Leonard Slatkin. It happened to be Tchaikovsky's 6th... Before playing the piece, he addressed the audience and solemnly dedicated it to the memory of the great Russian cellist. He said the Pathétique happened to be one of his favourites (and mine too). How appropriate! It was really touching. The people at the National Arts Centre even inserted a pamphlet about Rostropovich in the evening's programme.


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## cato (Dec 2, 2006)

I was stunned when I heard the news.  

I'm not sure what more I can add, except to say that Russia (and the rest of the world)has one more thing to morn over, on top of all of her other sorrows.  

I suppose that we can cheer ourselves by the fact that he left such a rich musical legacy for all of us, and our decendents to enjoy, but "Slava" the "Bear" will be missed.

Rest in peace Slava, you made the world a better place.


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## Guest (Apr 30, 2007)

*RIP *Slav, and thank you for all the beautiful music.


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## robert newman (Oct 4, 2006)

Wonderful Rostropovitch. I will remember a masterful recording he made of the Dvorak Cello Concerto under Giulini. There were dozens of other masterpieces. But in particular his treatment of the final few minuites of the slow movement from that Dvorak concerto. It will always be among my 'desert island' discs. 

He was a truly great musican. A true genius.


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