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Mstislav Rostropovich: 1927-2007

May. 04, 2007

Mstislav Rostropovich, cellist, conductor and one of the world’s great musicians, passed away Friday, April 27. Maestro Rostropovich’s conducting debut took place with the Gorky State Philharmonic Orchestra in 1962 and he was already a celebrated cellist, conductor and teacher when he made his American conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) in 1975. Only a few years after, he was named music director of the NSO and held a prolific tenure there that lasted seventeen years with performances of over 500 works.  Milestones of his career with the NSO include the world premiere Krysztof Penderecki’s The Polish Requiem and more recently the U.S. premiere of Henri Dutilleux’s Correspondances, a work that contains a setting of the author Alexander Solzhenitsyn's letter to Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, dated February 9, 1984. The text emotionally recounts Solzhenitsyn’s trials in labor camps ten years prior and expresses his deepest gratitude for the great support and sacrifices the couple made on his behalf during that time.

Devoted to advancing and performing contemporary music, Rostropovich forged lasting friendships with Benjamin Britten, Henri Dutilleux and his teachers Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev.  His special friendships with these and other composers inspired many twentieth century masterpieces for the cello repertoire. Rostropovich had works dedicated to him by Britten, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and gave the first performances of works by Penderecki, Schnittke, Dutilleux and a host of other twentieth century composers. Rostropovich served as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra from 1977 until 1994, when he was named Conductor Laureate, a position he held for the rest of his life.

For more about Mstislav Rostropovich, please click here.

For more on Krysztof Penderecki and Henri Dutilleux's Correspondances, please visit www.schott-music.com.

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