Mstislav Rostropovich passed away in Moscow today. I looked up his performance history with the SLSO:
April 1967: Prokofiev Sinfonia concertante for Cello and Orchestra & Dvorak Concerto in B minor, Eleazar de Carvalho conducting
April 1969: Haydn Concerto in C major, Walter Susskind conducting
January 1975: Dvorak Concerto in B minor & Haydn Concerto in C major, Susskind conducting
October 1979: Dvorak Concerto in B minor, Leonard Slatkin conducting
February 1988: Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococco Theme & Britten Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Slatkin conducting
September 1999: Shostakovich Concerto No. 1, Hans Vonk conducting
SLSO Principal Cello Danny Lee was a student of “Slava’s.” Lee began studying with the maestro at the age of 10, and it was with Rostropovich’s encouragement and blessing that Lee started school at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at age 11. “I was practicing all the time. I would take the train down to DC for my lessons with Slava,” Lee told me in an interview last fall. “He would make me prepare a whole lot of stuff: two concertos every two weeks sometimes. He expressed the importance of the orchestra, and would have me read the whole score and play the parts on the piano.”
The Rostropovich photo here is by SLSO trumpeter Gary Smith. I’m not sure of the date.
