Learning about Rostropovich

The news of Mstislav Rostropovich’s passing spread around quickly this morning. At this moment I am listening to the final bars of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with Rostropovich and the London Philharmonic, via YouTube (via Marc Geelhoed). Remarkably, it is the first music I have heard him perform.

I have only really been in the classical music scene for a good two years now and have learned about many artists because they come through Symphony Center. So when I learned about Rostropovich last year (I did actually hear of him before), when we were drafting the season announcement for 2007-2008, I told myself that was one concert I was not going to miss.

Astonished, I read his biography and found out that greats like Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Britten wrote works for him. Then, I read about his life in the Soviet Union, how he sheltered an out-of-grace author and how he was exiled in the 1970s. And lest not forget, how he performed under a crumbling Berlin Wall in 1989 (see photo). This would be, indeed, one concert in 2008 I wasn’t going to miss.

Sadly, I, and the rest of the world, will have to miss a great artist, and maybe an even greater human being, in performance. Other obituaries have put this in words much more eloquently than I can ever do. But for me, learning about Rostropovich does not end here.