Rest In Peace, Maestro Rostropovich


Source: Wikipedia

Finally, the end of the late romantic era, as the bastion falls.

The news.

I first met Slava in CMU. It was one of those memorable talks given and I remember he told the story when Shostakovich grabbed him into the room, enthusiastically showed him a piece of music and ask him to play a cello solo segment, while he accompanied him on the piano. He picked up and score and started playing and immediately felt so wonderful. Describing this in a half-broken English, Slava described his immense love of the piece, but Shostakovich didn’t say a word. Later, he found out that it was part of a much larger work dedicated to him, and he were to premiere it. Since then, he had played the work several hundred times, but, it never felt as good as the first time he played it in the room with the composer. Therefore, it is very important in music to have that feeling of “first time”, and cherish it. It will never feel the same again the second time. I remember I was in tears, thinking about all the “first times” in my life.

And this was followed by a memorable concert where he conducted PSO playing 3 Russian gems.

Just last week (or the week before), Symphony 92.4 ran Slava as one of the featured Great Performers on the Morning Show, and reminded me of the many stories in his life. And I thought, wow, here’s a hero.

Rock on Slava!

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