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| Originally Aired: April 27, 2007 |
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Cellist, Conductor Mstislav Rostropovich Dies at Age 80 |
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| Mstislav Rostropovich, a cellist and conductor who also made a name for himself as a human rights activist, died in Moscow on Friday at the age of 80. A music critic discusses his life and work. |
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RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, remembering a musical master, and to Jeffrey Brown. JEFFREY BROWN: Mstislav Rostropovich was widely considered one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. The cellist and composer was also part of one of the great political dramas of the century, as a champion of artistic freedom during the Cold War. Here to tell us about the man and his music is Ted Libbey, author of "The NPR Listeners' Encyclopedia of Classical Music," and a friend to Rostropovich. Mr. Libbey is now the director of media arts for the National Endowment for the Arts, which, for the record, provides some funding for the NewsHour's arts coverage. Welcome to you. TED LIBBEY, Music Critic: Thank you. JEFFREY BROWN: Let's start with the music. What made him a great musician? TED LIBBEY: Well, as a cellist, he possessed capabilities that no one had ever had in the same degree. He had a monumental technique, fingers that could do anything. He had a huge sound. He went from the softest pianissimo to the loudest forte, all under complete control. He could produce color with his instrument that was ravishing to the ear and really revelatory to people who were listening... JEFFREY BROWN: Color, a technical term, it means... TED LIBBEY: Yeah, color, meaning just the way the instrument could sound in his hands, everything from a whisper to a roar, and with so many variations in between, all of that, and he had the temperament of a great musician. He had intelligence. He had insight. He had an emotional connection to the music, which was probably the most important thing of all. |
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Soviet star to dissident voice
JEFFREY BROWN: You told me earlier the first time you heard him in person, 1971.TED LIBBEY: Yes, it was at Yale University, and all of the cellist students there grabbed me and they said, "You're going down to Woolsey Hall. You've got to hear this guy. He's unbelievable." And we sat there in this big auditorium, and he played a recital. And it was absolutely amazing. His sound was huge, just as everyone had said, but he was all over the instrument. And he could do so much. It was just an experience that I'll never forget. Our hair was standing on end while he was playing, because I'd never heard, not only a cello, but any string instrument played that way before. JEFFREY BROWN: Now, he was raised in the Soviet system. He became a star of that system and then a moral voice, dissident voice within that system. TED LIBBEY: Yes, it's true. You know, he was a product of that system that produced so many great athletes, great scientists, and great musicians, and it did it the same way: by competition. You had to be good to survive in that system, and he was good. He practiced hard. He worked; he worked; he worked. And he went through that system until he was the best they had, and that was why they sent him out very, very early in the Cold War thaw in the 1950s to impress the rest of the world. JEFFREY BROWN: This was after Stalin died. TED LIBBEY: Exactly. JEFFREY BROWN: Mid-'50s, and they're sending people out to say... TED LIBBEY: We have a system that works, and we have produced great artists. And it absolutely -- I mean, people were bowled over in the West, in England and the United States. Not too long after that, a year or two later, came Sputnik, and then we were really done in. You know, so this was really... |
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Starting over in America
JEFFREY BROWN: Sputnik and Rostropovich.TED LIBBEY: Yes, together. It was overwhelming. You know, this system was very impressive, and it produced these stars, these incredible talents. But at the same time, Rostropovich was a man with very, very deep convictions, and he was never afraid to speak his mind. And so when he saw things that were being done to harm other people, or, when, for instance, there was a crackdown against Soviet composers, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, both of whom he was very close to, he stood up for them. And he actually -- he quit the Conservatory in 1948 when Shostakovich lost his professorship there. Later on, in 1970, when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize, Rostropovich gave him shelter, gave him literally a roof over his head when there was no place for Solzhenitsyn to go within the Soviet Union. This got Rostropovich into deep, deep trouble within the system. JEFFREY BROWN: Deep trouble, and eventually he was not allowed to perform. TED LIBBEY: Right, his touring was curtailed. Both his and his wife -- his wife was a great artist in her own right, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. Both of them were basically wiped off the map of Soviet music. He was sent out to give recitals in far Siberia, I mean, just way off the map. And it looked like nothing would happen, no international touring, all of that. His life was over as an artist. So he eventually had to emigrate. He had to leave in 1974, and he came to this country and literally had to start over. |
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Return to the Soviet Union
JEFFREY BROWN: Started over and became the head of the National Symphony Orchestra here, which is where you met him.TED LIBBEY: He was offered the music directorship of this orchestra in 1976 and became its music director in 1977. I came along the next year. JEFFREY BROWN: The first time he went back to the Soviet Union -- it was still the Soviet Union in 1990 -- you were with him. TED LIBBEY: Yes, I was with him. JEFFREY BROWN: What was that like? TED LIBBEY: It was amazing. You know, when he arrived at the airport, it was a mob scene like I've never seen in my life. The airport in Moscow was just crowded, bursting with people who wanted to see him, and he was swept away in this crush of humanity. It was really incredible. People so much wanted to see him, after 16 years that he had been in exile, and to hear him again, and there was great emotion, both on the part of the Russians who had missed him, and on his part, to be back in his country. This had meant so much to him. We all held our breaths when he conducted the first concert, and this was at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, a very important hall. And he did a work that had meant so much to him, Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony, and there was not a dry eye in the house when that was over. It was an incredible ovation, and people were just absolutely carried away from themselves. |
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Performance in Red Square
JEFFREY BROWN: And then, three years later, he went back with the National Symphony and performed in Red Square. We have a little passage of that. This is Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture." Let's look at that.You were smiling as we watched that. What was he like -- why were you smiling? What was he like as a man, to watch him up there with that joy? TED LIBBEY: He was such a warm person, and that joy is exactly what it was. He communicated joy. He radiated joy. When he was with friends, anybody, he would just sweep them up in a big bear hug and bring them along with him, wherever it was that they were going to go. He was so warm and full of life, and full of music. And this is what he conveyed. He had a huge sense of humor, and he had that warmth, that outgoing quality that you can see in his conducting and that he brought to all of his music-making, reaching out always to the audience. JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Ted Libby, thanks a lot. And we close with Mstislav Rostropovich doing what he did best. Here's a passage from a 1991 recording of the six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.
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