slava!

wheeeeeeee! last night i saw mstislav rostropovich play the cello, live, in the flesh, in philadelphia! woohoo! probably only dear j will understand how very very wonderful this was. but it was. very very very wonderful.

this was probably the best concert i've ever been to. i'd never seen rostropovich play live before. heard his recordings, of course. but classical music (all music, probably, but especially classical music) is so much better live. there are so many things to tell you about!

i only heard about this concert on thursday of last week. rostropovich (slava, as he's affectionately referred to by just about everyone) turned 75 on 27 march 2002, and in celebration of 75 years, he's embarking on a 6-week concert tour. philly was his first stop. i got the tickets for $15 each (student price (gawd, how i LOVE being a student)), and they were orchestra box seats (which were selling regular price for over $100)!!! orchestra box 12, seat 4 was mine (left rear). here is a good artist's rendering of the interior of the hall. my seat would've been in the orchestra box in the bottom right of the picture, on the left side of that little aisle, in the second row. good, no?

the concert took place in the new kimmel center, in verizon hall. the hall is shaped like a cello (!!!), so sitting in it feels a little like sitting...in a cello! yay! the room is paneled in a beautiful red wood and is stunning. also, the room is 'tunable'. i don't know exactly how this works, but somehow, the room is a little bit adjustable, so that they can get the acoustics just right. how cool is THAT? and i must say, the acoustics were *fabulous*. no matter what the dynamic level, you could hear everything in perfect balance, and could make out clearly even things like the sound of the bow hairs pulling across slava's cello strings at pianissimo. it was incredible.

so. the program. the orchestera (the philadelphia chamber orchestra) started out with schubert's symphony #8, unfinished. though i like this piece, it seemed a little lifeless as played last night, but i don't know if maybe i was just so excited to have rostropovich play that i couldn't give it my proper attention.

after intermission, slava joined the orchestra, and they played parabola concertante (parable concerto) by rodion shchedrin. he's a modern composer, who wrote this piece for rostropovich (this is only one of 170 pieces dedicated to him). the piece follows (sorta) the life story of a russian monk named golovin. the solo cello represents golovin, and the orchestra outlines the events of his life, which include stints as a serf, a servant to a prince, an actor, a soldier, a coachman, a prisoner of war, and finally a monk. it was very modern an dissonant (which i quite like). it was full of all manner of dissonant, difficult double-stops (when two strings are bowed at once). but of course, slava made easy, beautiful work of them. the orchestra sounded great on this piece, allaying my earlier fears of lifelessness. the piece demanded quite a bit of the tympanist, and after slava and the conductor took their bows, slava gestured for the tympanist to join them at the front of the stage. i tell you what, i would've peed in my pants if mstislav rostropovich wanted *me* to join him in a bow. but the tympanist seemed to take it in stride.

the final piece on the program was the hayden cello concerto in C. this is a cello standard, a piece that every cellist of any ability at all has dabbled with. it's lovely, with baroque and classical aspects, plenty of places for the cellist to play long, sonorous notes, and also plenty of opportunities for showing off (aka virtuosity). for this piece, slava dispensed with the music and stand (which i appreciated, because it was occluding him a little) and enjoyed himself. of course, he's played this piece about 20,000 times during his career, so it's no big deal for him. and of course, he brought the house down.

actually, he brought the house down with every movement. everytime he appeared onstage, the audience lept to its feet. every time, he bowed his head in thanks and acknowledged the love from the audience.

at the end of the hayden, after taking his bow, he walked through the orchestra, starting with the basses, making each section stand up individually and be applauded.

the concert was conducted by ignat solzhenitsyn, son of the soviet nobel prize-winning author alexander solzhenitsyn. the elder solzhenitsyn was persecuted in the ussr because of his subversive, anti-soviet writing. he and rostropovich became friends while both were still in the ussr, and when solzhenitsyn got in trouble, slava invited him to stay at his house as a guest--a personal risk. when the young ignat started showing musical promise at the piano, slava insisted he get proper training. today, ignat solzhenitsyn is not only the principal conductor of the philadelphia chamber orchestra, but also an accomplished concert pianist.

after being called back onstage 3 times, a piano was brought out, and slava and ignat sat down to play an encore: the andante from the rachmaninoff sonata. they were called back again for a second encore, for which they played a short, funny piece called humoresque, opus 5, by mstislav rostropovich. needless to say, the crowd went wild.

after all the playing was done, and many more bows were taken, the director of the orchestra gave a short speech, and called out slava's birthday gift from the orchestra: the opera singer ingrid thompson (i think that was her name), who was trained in philadelphia, sang him "happy birthday." after the traditional first verse, she sang a second verse written for him. i only remember the first two lines: "many strings on your bow / you play them just so." after that verse, the lights in the hall went up, and we were encouraged to sing a verse to him.

*i* got to sing "happy birthday" to mstislav rostropovich!!! i'm still grinning.

after the singing, slava spoke. he said, in his heavily accented english, "NOW i'm nervous, more nervous than i was playing for you." he went on to thank us for this birthday celebration, and to tell us that he loved us, and this country. he was so genuine, so gracious, so charming in his unpolishedness. i understand why the world loves him so much.

okay, now that i've given you a blow-by-blow i'll tell you a couple things about slava that i noticed. now, this is all on top of the incredible, awesome, undescribable expertise and magic that is his playing. i'm not even going to TRY to tell you about that.

slava's cello has a bent end pin. my cello has a bent end pin. that is the first and last time i will ever compare myself to rostropovich.

as he's playing, he exudes an air of confidence, of mastery, of comfort. of course, this is to be expected, given his genius. i just wanted to point out that it's noticable as he plays. that ease is something that i'll never have.

while he's playing, he is strikingly still. that is, he doesn't weave or sway much. this is in contrast to another great cellist, yo yo ma. at a recent concert in philly (actually, the grand opening concert at the kimmel center), yo yo was playing onstage with itzak perlman and he was so energetic that he fell off his chair, and the chair fell off the platform, and he had to continue playing standing up while someone fixed his chair for him. anyway, that is not slava's style.

finally, he looks around a lot as he's playing. not surprising, really, since he is also a conductor. he especially looked a lot at the first violins (next to where he was sitting) and the cellos. he looked at them when they were about to come in, like a conductor would, sometimes even giving them that conductor's nod. i thought it was great.

becky, sitting next to me in seat 3, said that she hopes that when she's 75, she can walk as well as he plays the cello. i said i can't walk as well as he plays the cello NOW.