Café Mouffe: In Memory of Slava

Sleepless in Cambridge. Woke at 4 a.m. to BBC and sad news that Mstislav Rostropovich had died in Moscow this morning at age 80. So the Mouffe will depart from its usual jazz format to pay tribute with this YouTube clip of Rostropovich performing the Bourreé from Bach´s Suite for Solo Cello in C Major. Violistarevirtuoso, who posted the clip, wrote, “WE´LL MISS YOU. THANKS FOR THE MAGIC YOU LEAVE BEHIND.” Amen.

I remember hearing Rostropovich in 1974 when he performed the Dvorak cello concerto with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. This was shortly after his political exile from the USSR, and shortly before he became conductor of the National Symphony in Washington. I had free press passes, and I took my father to the concert. It became one of my first experiences with realizing through someone else’s eyes what I could not see. My dad did a deft job of narration. He was impressed by the cellist’s hands (“they’re huge”), the way Slava enveloped his instrument (he was huge, too), and the way he jutted his jaw and jerked his head, emphatically urging the orchestra to pick up the tempo. After the performance we tried to go backstage on the press pass, but the line outside Rostropovich’s dressing room was too long. That night remains one of my most cherished memories with my father.

I am not ready to let him go. Here is a clip of Slava performing the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G major (BWV 1007). The YouTube sound can’t begin to approach the acoustics of his 1995 recordings of the complete cello suites, but this looks like it came from the DVD of the same performance. The opportunity to see him at the cello in that spare, resonant cathedral is extraordinary.