[click photo to enlarge]
Photo [Reuters/NYTimes]: Rostropovich pictured playing at Checkpoint Charlie after the fall of the Berlin Wall in December 1989.
Rostropovich appeared with the Oregon Symphony only once during my tenure. He did a one night special with the orchestra, playing the venerable Dvorak Concerto.
It was a remarkable experience for all of us in the orchestra at the time. I recall him demanding such an extremely soft pp (pianissimo) dynamic from the orchestra in an accompanying passage. He essentially took the reins away from Jimmy [Depreist] and ran the rehearsal, and to great effect. We were truly in the hands of one of the titans of music of our century (and several others).
One of the lasting impressions was not in regards to the music-making, but in the fact that he held up the concert for 15 minutes while the microphones that we normally use for archival recordings were removed. He refused to perform unless they were taken down. Our sound engineer at the time had to go up to the Dress Circle level and reel in the microphones and remove them from their cables.
My wife (a very fine cellist) was greatly saddened by the news today, as Slava was one of her heroes. She wondered who there was to take up his mantle, and didn’t see an heir apparent in the wings.
Retired Chicago Symphony (and former National Symphony) executive Henry Fogel shares his remembrance here.
2 replies on “mstislav rostropovich, 1927 – 2007”
Thanks for sharing your memory of Rostropovich’s rehearsal technique. I admire his single-mindedness…
Thanks also for the great photo!
I remember this rehearsal and it was the first thing I thought of when I had heard he died. I had never had to play so softly until then and haven’t had to since – especially terrifying since it was a huge second oboe excerpt! (I hadn’t remembered the microphone business though.)