Who, like me, loved and is already missing the wonderful cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich ?

Question

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6598895.stm


Thank you for your answer, and have a wonderful weekend! :)

Answer 1

I miss him already. But I also missed him as a soloist when he took over our National Symphony Orchestra. He was a wonderful bear of a man, human being, cello master. Warm, full of life and music, joy and a love of people. I heard him many times.

As a child each time he would come for another tour to the USA and we thought it might be his last visit from the Soviet Union. The first time I ever heard the Rococo Variations, live from a master, it rocked my world. The debut of the Lutislovsky and the Britten cadenzas for the Haydn later. When he performed the Haydn it was magical: somehow he played all five repeated 16teenth groups from the finale on single spicatto up bows, projected at piano as if placed in my lap in the second balcony.

At Ravinia we crashed the gates when thunder turned to a downpour, and Slava was just a little drunk for the Dvorak, as if to comment on the noisy jets passing overhead. And finally, in his old age, in Atlanta with a marquee explaining who he was to the world: "Mistislav Rostropovich: Famous Cello Virtuoso." So sad that someone did that, but perhaps a comment on Yo Yo's dominance. He spent too many years away from the concert stage, for me.

Once introduced to me, he raised his arms as if to embrace me with a chin full of shaving cream and a razor in his hand, exclaiming my name as if I were a long lost friend. His energy was overwhelmingly disarming.

Slava is loved by so many. May his example guide us to protect our freedom of speech and expression in our own countries.

Answer 2

Yes.
I didn't know about it until I saw Julian Lloyd Webber on the news tonight.
Very sad.
He was the greatest cellist ever.
Even better than Jacqueline Du Pre (and that's saying something - I still cry when I listen to her recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto)

Answer 3

I'm rather missing the musical stylings of Vanilla Ice.

Answer 4

I certainly do miss him. Aren't we truly blessed that his glorious, heaven sent music will live forever?

Answer 5

:(((( I feel just as shocked when i learnt that Menuhin died a few years back...pretty sad....but his music will remain :)