Rostropovich-Rozhdestvensky – Leningrad – Edinburgh 1960 – Past Daily Mid-Week Concert

Mstislav Rostropovich (L) – Gennady Roszhdestvensky (R) – Legendary Collaborations

Something historic this week – a concert from the 14th Edinburgh Festival in 1960 featuring the Leningrad Philharmonic, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky with Mstislav Rostropovich, cello in the UK Premier of the Cello Concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich, which was dedicated to Rostropovich and given its world premier months earlier. The concert was recorded by the BBC Transcription Service.

The concert starts with Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Henry Purcell (aka: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra) and then gets down to business with Shostakovich featuring Rostropovich – the second half is made up of the 21st Symphony of Miaskovsky and ends with Francesca da Rimini by Tchaikovsky. And there’s room for an encore from Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev.

Msitslav Rostropovich was well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works, which enlarged the cello repertoire more than any cellist before or since. He inspired and premiered over 100 pieces, forming long-standing friendships and artistic partnerships with composers including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Henri Dutilleux, Witold Lutosławski, Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Norbert Moret, Andreas Makris, Leonard Bernstein, Aram Khachaturian, and Benjamin Britten.

Rostropovich was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights, and was awarded the 1974 Award of the International League of Human Rights. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and had two daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich. He received numerous accolades, including a Polar Music Prize.

Gennady Rozhdestvensky was considered a versatile conductor and highly cultured musician with a supple stick technique. In molding his interpretations, he gave a clear idea of the structural outlines and emotional content of a piece, combined with a performing style that melded logic, intuition and spontaneity. In the Soviet Union, he recorded extensively with David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Rozhdestvensky is featured in the documentary Notes interdites: scènes de la vie musicale en Russie Soviétique (English title: “The Red Baton”), which examines the hardships Soviet musicians faced under Stalinism. In it, he describes the political situation and its impact on his life, as well as those of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Richter, and other colleagues. The role of Tikhon Khrennikov, Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, is discussed extensively. Rozhdestvensky also discusses the art of conducting, and there is footage of masterclasses, rehearsals with Moscow Conservatory students and Zürich’s Tonhalle orchestra, as well as snippets of Rozhdestvensky conducting Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, and Alfred Schnittke‘s Dead Souls.