SLAVA at 75:
“I love Russia enormously and continue to love it”
Slava (the short name for Mstislav) Rostropovich one of
the greatest musicians of our time is celebrating his 75th birthday this
year. His timetable is incredibly busy, and it is almost impossible to
find time to speak to him, but I was lucky to catch him in his hotel in
Valensia (Spain).
-Hello, Slava.
-Hi, my dear.
-Have you got time?
-No, I am running to the concert where I am conducting.
But tell me, what do you need?
-I am calling from California.
-What are you doing there?
-The festival and so on.
-Oh, it’s very good.
-Look, the “Gramophone” magazine wants me to
ask you a few strange questions.
-Go ahead!
-Your father was a student of Pablo Casals…
-It is true.
-To what extent was your playing was affected by
him?
-To what extent? To vast extent! I knew him not
only because my father. I met him myself about 6 times. And I was immensely
affected by his playing.
-Shostakovich wrote his First Cello Concerto for
you…
-He wrote two concerti for me.
-I know it, but it was “Gramophone’s” question.
Tell me, what was your first impression, when you saw these works.
-I was hugely impressed!
-Oh, these are a remarkable answer and very complete
one!
-Yes, yes, I was terribly impressed. He played
me his first Concerto on piano, and I was enormously shaken.
-And what do you feel, when you play or listen
Shostakovich’s music: is it just music ore something, which has extra-musical
(i.e. political) implication?
-Just music! For me it is only music.
-Wonderful. Do you remember that while Sergey Prokofiev
was writing his Symphony-Concerto for you he used your helping hand; did
you have a similar relationship with Shostakovich?
-No, no! Shostakovich asked me only about a couple
of passages – how to write them better. But Prokofiev asked me all the
time. Listen. How many more questions have you got?
-Only seven very short questions.
-Seven??? Why so many? The truth is: I am late
for my concert. I will conduct Verdi’s “Requiem”. I have to go to
a different town.
-OK! I will be brief. Why didn’t you ever played
Elgar’s Concerto?
-That’s not true! I did play it in my festivals
in New York, Moscow and St Petersburg.
-But you never recorded it.
-No, I did not record. It is true.
-And Britten’s 3rd Solo Cello Suite?
-The same. I played it everywhere, but did not
record.
-Who were the best musicians who surrounded you,
in your opinion?
-You know, I knew so many of them… But I do not
want to be late for my concert.
I called him again exactly six hours later. He picked
up the receiver himself.
-Sorry, it is me again. How was the concert?
-Good. I’ve just come in. What is your next question?
-A very serious and important one: you have always
stood up for what you believe in, are there still things in current day
Russia for you to fight against?
-Look, what do you mean to fight? I can’t fight
because I have no arms. I just don’t like that Russia was plundered,
and they are continuing to plunder it. But I am counting on Putin. I think
up until now he has been doing the right thing. So I have an impression
of him that he, at any rate, will fight against the plunder and the people
who are doing it.
-And how has your relationship with your homeland
changed in last 10 years?
- I love Russia enormously and continue to love it. It
is the only think I can say. And I help Russia as much as I can. I have
gotten a foundation in Washington, which was established help with the
health of children in Russia. And now I am busy with getting vaccinations
against hepatitis for children. My foundation and I have already vaccinated
700 thousand children. This is the most important thing I am doing in Russia.
-Incredible!
-Listen you, are you just memorizing everything I am
saying?
-Oh sorry, I’ve connected the tape-recorder - I don’t
want to distort your words, I want to quote every word exactly as you have
said it.
-Well-done! This is the right thing to do.
-You’re still expanding your cello’s repertoire –
what have you commissioned recently?
-At first, Sofia Gubaidulina wrote for me a piece named
“Sonnengesang” (The Song of the Sun) for chamber chorus, solo cello
and percussion. I’ve already performed it. Then Rodion Shchedrin wrote
for me the piece named “Otcharovannyi Strannik” (The Enchanted Wanderer)
for cello with string orchestra and timpani. This is quite a large composition.
Then you wrote for me…
-I know about myself.
-I’ll tell you more… When you going back home?
-On the 12th of February.
-On the 12th? I will write you because I am learning
your “Concerto-Piccolo” in greater detail, and I am going to suggest
some changes – there are some things which are impossible to play. I
also looked through your piano reduction…
-Very well. Do as you like.
-No, no, I will send you what, as I think, needs to be
technically changed. This is the fraction, just a few separate notes.
-Understood.
-So I’ll write to you and you will reply.
-With pleasure.
-So, alright! And something more: besides Shchedrin,
whose piece I premiered in October – I did another premiere of one young
French composer Eric Tanguy. He wrote for me a big cello concerto.
-Do you like everything you play?
-Oh yes. If I didn’t I wouldn’t play it.
-Which qualities do you look for in a composer’s writing
for cello?
-You know, the important thing is a piece to be written
with talent. That’s all. How to define it? It’s easy to define. If
I like it, if it seems to be talented to me, I will play it. But what it
is like – it does not matter. It can be as in your case with an element
of sarcasm, let to say, with some sort of irony, or it can be tragic, or
it can be with narrative qualities, or a sort of dialogue, conversation,
or just classical – the kind of classical concerto in four movements,
as Tanguy wrote for me. Only talent is important!
-Slava, I am very interested, if is it true that you
played all the works which were written for you?
-No, it is not true, not all of them, by no means all.
Therefore I am making a catalogue now of all the works, which I already
have played and another catalogue of pieces dedicated to me, but still
not played. I have a huge batch of such scores and by the way a lot of
good ones, and I am even sorry that I did not perform them – I just have
no time.
-Let us return to Prokofiev. Next year is 50 years since
his death. Are you going to play some of his music?
Yes I will, I will definitely. For example at my festival
in New York Philharmony in 2003, which will be three weeks long, I will
dedicate the last concert to the music of Prokofiev only. And I will do
the same in different places. In 2003 I will play an entire festival dedicated
to Prokofiev’s music with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This year I
will have a similar event in Chicago dedicated to Benjamin Britten, and
last year it was a Festival completely dedicated to Dmitry Shostakovich.
-This is great! The British audience is especially interested
in your attitude towards the music of Britten.
-I adore it!
-And they ask: what qualities attract you in the works
of Britten?
-His genius, I think, I can’t find another word. I
conducted his “War Requiem” many-many times. And after I conducted
it the first time, I brought the score and the recording to Shostakovich,
as Ben asked me. I gave it to Shostakovich thinking that he would not find
time to listen it anytime soon, because he was too busy with his own composing.
But in a couple of days we came for a walk and he told me these words,
which I will never forget: “Slava, I listened to the Requiem a few times
and looked through the score. This is the greatest work of 20-th century”.
He told me it himself – Shostakovich!!! If he said so, you can trust
it! This is a fact! This is a real fact! Oh, yes!
-Can I ask a very strange question? What would you have
been doing if you hadn’t been a musician?
-I would do nothing!
-What do you mean?
-I don’t know. I have not got any other talent at all.
-I understand that it was a silly question.
-Very silly!
-But I decide to ask you anyway. I thought something
interesting might came of it.
-Nothing interesting! – said Slava and laughed.
-Oh, thank you so much!
-Not at all and all the best. I want to tell you something.
I am fussing a lot, and even with some success, over the “Requiem”
of you wife Lena Firsova - I want to perform it. So, I will contact you
about this.
Telephone interview on 5th February 2002
San-Francisco – Valencia
***
With the help of my Californian friends I translated this
text into English word-to-word and sent to the "Gramophone". In a couple
of days I received the proof. It was possible to recognize some details
of the original text in it, but I was sorry that it was reduced more than
twice, and the vivid character of the conversation was lost. So I decided
to present this text to those who is interested.
© Dmitri Smirnov |
