Conversation with Mstislav Rostropovich

http://www.cello.org/newsletter/articles/rostropovich/rostropovich.htm

ICS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!!!

CONVERSATION WITH MSTISLAV
ROSTROPOVICH
by Tim Janof

Mstislav Rostropovich is internationally acclaimed and acknowledged as one of the world's greatest living cellists. He
has given countless memorable performances and has inspired the world's leading composers to enlarge and enrich
the standard cello repertoire with works specially composed for and dedicated to him. These include works by Britten,
Bliss, Khachaturian, Lutoslawski, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Rostropovich was soloist in the premieres of
Prokofiev's second Cello Concerto in 1952, Shostakovich's two Cello Concertos in 1959 and 1966, Britten's Cello
Symphony in 1964 and Bliss's Cello Concerto in 1970. Many other works have been written for him and today his
repertoire includes more than 50 concertos, ranging from the baroque, through the classical and romantic periods, to
the avant-garde. As a cellist, Rostropovich is noted for his commanding technique and intense, visionary playing.
Rostropovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1927. At the age of four he started piano lessons with his mother and
shortly afterwards began to study the cello with his father. He continued under his father's tuition at the Central
Music School in Moscow and then went on to the Moscow Conservatoire, where in addition to his cello and piano
studies he began to conduct. He made his public debut as a cellist in 1942 at the age of 15 and was immediately
recognized as a potentially great artist. When the war ended his reputation soon spread outside the USSR, principally
through his recordings, and when he began touring in the West it was soon apparent that in Rostropovich the world
had a natural successor to the great Pablo Casals, who had reigned as the supreme cellist for more than half a
century.
Rostropovich has also won outstanding acclaim as a conductor, appearing with most of the world's leading
orchestras, as well as conducting and recording many operas, including Queen of Spades, Eugene Onegin, Lady
Macbeth of Mtsensk and Tosca. Since 1977 he has been Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of
Washington. He appears regularly in the UK with the London Symphony Orchestra (he made his UK conducting
debut in 1974) and with other leading British orchestras. The London Symphony Orchestra have forged close links
with Rostropovich through major festivals which have made an enormous impact on London's musical life.
Rostropovich was a close friend of Sergei Prokofiev and was the inspiration behind the LSO's Sergei Prokofiev: The
Centenary Festival 1991, featuring orchestral and chamber music, and the world premiere of a cello fugue dedicated
to Rostropovich. In 1993 Rostropovich led the Festival of Britten with the LSO, appearing both as conductor and
soloist. Other events with the LSO have included Rostropovich's 60th Birthday series in 1987 and Shostakovich:
Music from the Flames in 1988. Both on the cello and on the conductor's rostrum, Rostropovich is considered one of
the leading interpreters of the music of Shostakovich (with whom he studied composition), Britten, and Prokofiev.
Mstislav Rostropovich is one of the world's most outspoken defenders of human and artistic freedoms. In 1974, after a
period of four years during which the writer Solzhenitsyn resided in their home, Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya left
the Soviet Union at their own request. Since then he has devoted much time and has given numerous performances to
support humanitarian efforts around the world. In 1990, after an absence of 16 years, he made a triumphant return to
the Soviet Union with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, giving concerts in Washington and Leningrad
to enormous acclaim. During the coup of August 1991 the strength of his attachment to his native Russia compelled
him to fly, without a visa, to Moscow, to spend those momentous days in the Russian Parliament building and on the

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streets, where he was hailed as a national hero.

Mstislav Rostropovich holds over 40 honorary degrees and over 30 different nations have bestowed more than 130
major awards and decorations upon him. These include the German Order of Merit, the Gold Medal of the Royal
Philharmonic Society, the Lenin Prize, the Annual Award of the League of Human Rights, the Preamium Imperiale
from the Japan Arts Association and the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
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TJ: When you burst onto the music scene, people were struck by your white hot performances. Your sound was
strong and your vibrato was wide, which was a striking contrast to your predecessors. Where did your unique
concept of sound come from?
MR: Let me give you a little background first. My family lived in two-room apartment in Baku until I was seven
years old. My mother was a pianist and my father was a cellist who had worked with Casals. There is a picture of me
sleeping inside my father's cello case when I was four months old.
My first instrument was the piano, which was my first love. To this day, when I am learning a new cello work, I
always start at the piano instead of the cello. One of my father's favorite games was to have me play a melody on the
piano starting on a key that he chose at random. I became so proficient at this that at four or five years old he had me
do it for friends. My parents never thought that I might have a special talent for the cello.
After my family moved to Moscow, my father played in orchestras that performed in small towns, such as Zaporozh'e.
He did this to make some extra money in the summer months. I remember going with my godmother to open air
concerts of my father's when I was seven or eight years old. I'd cry when I listened to Tchaikovsky or some other
sentimental music, and my godmother would give me a piece of chocolate to soothe me. I soon learned the trick to
getting chocolate.
It was around this time that my father said he wanted to teach me how to play the cello. I told him that I didn't want to
be a cellist because I wanted to become a conductor instead. He replied, "First you must try the cello. If you are
successful with the cello, you can do what you want after that."
My mind, even at that age, was geared towards Romantic symphonic music, not cello music. My interest has always
been in the large scale repertoire and that's the sound I've always had in my head, not the cello sound. My "big sound"
concept on the cello therefore came from my desire for a more orchestral scale projection. I don't hear a cello sound
when I play, I hear an orchestra. I never tried to copy another cellist's sound.
My concept of sound also comes from my experience of playing works with many composers, including
Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten, Penderecki, and Lutoslawski, to name a few. I also studied orchestration for three
years with Shostakovich and I wrote two piano concerti. I am therefore very sensitive to the different orchestrations
and timbres of different composers and I learned to vary my sound depending on whose music I was playing. I don't
think of myself as having a single sound.
I think some cellists have sounds that are best in certain types of music. My friend Janos Starker's sound is absolutely
fantastic for solo pieces like the Kodly Sonata or other more intimate works, but I prefer a different sound when I
hear a piece like the Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante. I believe the Prokofiev needs to have a very strong and full
sound.
Were you familiar with the recordings of cellists like Feuermann?
Of course, I was familiar with the playing of many cellists. Feuermann was a phenomenal cellist, but his sound in
pieces like the Dvorak Concerto didn't have enough meat for me. Please understand that I greatly respect my
colleagues, whether I'm talking about Starker, Feuermann, or others. It's just that I have a different concept of how
certain types of music should be played.
Your playing changed significantly over decades. Your playing earlier in your career had a certain simplicity and
sense of restraint. It became more rhythmically free and emotionally charged later on. Was there something that
happened in your life that caused this change?

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I simply evolved over the years. My playing changed as I learned more and as I gained more experience with great
musicians around the world. I also started conducting in the 1950's, so my perspective on music-making greatly
widened. I became more comfortable with the music making process as a whole and I felt freer to express myself on a
more personal level.
I also learned a lot about conducting from people such as Herbert von Karajan. I remember lamenting to him about
my difficulties in getting a choir and orchestra to be in synch with each other. No matter what I did, they simply
weren't together. He told me to just lower my hands so that the orchestra couldn't see my beat. This forced the
orchestra to listen to the choir as they played instead of depending on visual cues. Suddenly the ensemble was perfect!
The Elgar, Walton and Barber concerti were not in your standard repertoire. Why?
I stayed away from the Elgar because I think of that piece as somewhat nave. The theme from the slow movement
sounds like it's about first love, so I think it's more appropriate for a young person. My pupil Jacqueline du Pr played
it much better than I because I didn't have the fresh perspective that a piece like that requires. After playing Don
Quixote, the Shostakovich concertos, and other works, it was hard for me to go back to a piece like the Elgar.
Why didn't you record the third Britten Suite?
That was a mistake. I have three musical gods -- Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Britten -- and I feel like I didn't pay
sufficient homage to the last one by recording that piece. I was devastated when Britten died so I stayed away from
the third suite for awhile, but then I got too busy with other things and I simply never got around to recording it. This
is one of my regrets in life.
I remember when Britten asked me to show his War Requiem to Shostakovich. He had composed it in just a couple of
weeks. Shostakovich called me two days after I dropped the score off and said that he wanted to hear the work
performed, saying, "I'm one hundred percent sure that Britten is one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century."
Why didn't you record the Walton Concerto? That seems like a great piece for you.
I didn't have time to play everything. I gave 320 world premieres throughout my career, so I was always extremely
busy. I was also busy playing the standard repertoire and conducting orchestras around the world. I could only do so
much.
Walton was a great composer and I asked him to write a cello piece for me, but he never got around to it. He did write
an orchestra work, Prologo e fantasis, which was his last composition. I asked Barber and Messiaen to write
something for me too, but they never got around to it either. Messiaen wrote Concert Quatre, which is a concerto for
flute, oboe, cello, and piano, and he had me in mind when he wrote the cello part. I premiered it after Messiaen died.
Given your phenomenal technique, you must have practiced endlessly when you were young.
I generally practiced at most two hours per day. My record was over a four day period after Shostakovich gave me the
score to his first cello concerto. I knew that he was working on it, but I first learned that he had completed it from the
local newspaper. I remember wondering anxiously if I would get to see it, since at the time I had no idea if I would be
the one to give its premiere. I rushed over immediately when he called and he said that if I liked it he would dedicate
it to me. I was in heaven! I went straight home and practiced ten hours that day, ten hours the next day, eight hours the
day after that, and then six hours on the fourth day. I only practiced that hard because I was so excited about the piece,
and that was the most I practiced in all of my 79 years. I played it for Shostakovich from memory after the fourth day,
which was one of the proudest moments in my life.
I was very lucky because I didn't need to practice when I was young. While some performers had to practice every
day in order to stay in top form, I didn't. It was as if my fingers had a memory of their own. They never forgot what
they were supposed to do.
If you weren't a big practicer then what was that story about you hanging food from the ceiling as you practiced.
That was when I lived in Orenburg, which is in the Urals. I was thirteen years old when my father passed away. He
had been the cello professor at the local music academy and I was the best cellist in town after he died, so I was asked
to take his place. My family needed the money, so I dropped out of school in eighth grade and took the job. In order to

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earn some additional cash, I also played some pieces at the local theater as part of an operatic production and I made
kerosene lamps to sell at the market. Basically, I was so busy that I didn't have time to practice more than an hour or
two per day.
My godmother often baked large flatbread for me, which I tied to a ceiling lamp such that it hung near my head as I
practiced. The hard part was catching it so that I could take a bite. The bottom line is that I was so busy that I didn't
have time to eat, so I ate while I squeezed in some precious practice time.
What are your priorities when you perform? Are you thinking about the music, the composer, the audience?
I never choose because they are all important, but I do care very deeply about doing justice to the composer. I've had
many composers play parts for me on a piano. Sometimes they play very badly, but I see what they feel in their face. I
try to re-create their feelings in my performances.
What were Shostakovich and Prokofiev like as people?
Shostakovich was very shy and sensitive and he had a rich inner life that he kept to himself. He avoided confrontation
and would fib to spare somebody's feelings. I remember him going up to somebody after a concert and praising their
performance and predicting a great future career even though the performance was actually pretty bad. He generally
kept his true thoughts and feelings to himself, though he did tend to open up a bit at parties.
Prokofiev, on the other hand, didn't seem to have an unexpressed thought. If he didn't like something, he never
considered another person's feelings before he shared his opinion. As an example, Prokofiev once asked Shostakovich
why he used so much tremolo in his Fifth Symphony, telling him that it sounded like Aida, which I gather was a bad
thing. He could be quite acidic.
Their composition process was also very different. While Prokofiev did a lot of his composing at the piano,
Shostakovich worked out a lot of ideas in his head. I do have in my collection small pieces of paper on which
Prokofiev would jot down ideas during massage sessions, so he did do some work away from the piano, but
Shostakovich's process was much more internal. I took many walks with Shostakovich during which he would
suddenly raise his head and become very quiet, which I understood to mean that he was composing.
What did Shostakovich and Prokofiev think of each other's music?
They both had enormous respect for each other, though their tastes were very different. Prokofiev loved Tchaikovsky
while Shostakovich preferred Mussorgsky. They listened with great interest to each other's works and got ideas from
each other. Shostakovich liked the combination of cello and celeste in Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante, so that
instrumentation appeared in Shostakovich's next work. Shostakovich also liked the dramatic beat of the timpani after
a run of high notes in the cello in the Sinfonia Concertante, so he used that idea in another piece, though he used
seven timpani beats instead. Shostakovich thought that the Sinfonia Concertante was Prokofiev's most brilliant work.
The Soviet composers all kept a close eye on each other. I remember after I performed the Miaskovsky Sonata with
Sviatislov Richter, Prokofiev complained that he couldn't hear any of the difficult fast notes in the cello's lower
register because the piano was drowning them out. Interestingly, fast low notes in the cello part appeared in beginning
of the second movement of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante (see Figure 1), but he made sure that the orchestra isn't
playing so that the notes are audible. They all borrowed from each other.

Figure 1 -- Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante, Second Movement

How much of the Sinfonia Concertante was written by you?
Much less than the rumors would suggest. I remember when I played his Opus 58 Concerto in recital with piano.
Prokofiev was in the audience and he came up to me afterwards and said, "I think there is some good material in the
piece, but I don't like its shape. How would you like to work with me on revising it?" I was so elated by his offer that I
practically floated out of the hall!

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There was only one section where I wrote something, and that was at Number 20 (see Figure 2) in the first movement.
Some think I wrote the cadenza, but that was all Prokofiev. He said that he needed eight bars of something virtuosic
for the cello. All I had to do was write the cello part since he had already composed the orchestration to go with it.
Week after week he'd ask me if I had written something, but I kept putting it off and coming up with excuses. He
finally blew up at me and said, "You don't have the talent of Brahms! Brahms wrote tons of piano etudes in addition to
his other works and you can't even write eight bars!" That motivated me to finally write it.

Figure 2 -- Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante, Number 20

I came in the next week with the eight bars and he immediately took it to the piano with a pencil and eraser in hand.
As often happened when he concentrated, drool dribbled from his lower lip as he reviewed it. After changing maybe
ten notes, he thanked me and said it was good. As I walked down the stairwell from his apartment, he shouted behind
me, "Nice eight bars!" It was rare to receive compliments from Prokofiev so that was a great day for me.
Unfortunately, he never heard the piece played with orchestra because the Soviet government didn't allow his music to
be performed in public. I premiered it in Copenhagen in 1953 after he died.
I also remember when Prokofiev was brought by Miaskovsky to my recital in 1949 to hear the premier of
Miaskovsky's cello sonata. Prokofiev said to me, "I shall now start writing a cello sonata for you." I was ecstatic!
Being a pianist as well as a cellist, I learned both parts before we met. When we first played it together, I kept
correcting him. "I think that F natural should be an F#.... The chord isn't C, E-flat, G, it's C, E natural, G#...."
Prokofiev finally said, "Who wrote this, me or you?"
What do you think of the Soviet government's relationship with music and the arts today?
They are so busy with other things that they don't have time to make things worse.
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