Slava (Read 397 times)

Very sad. Great cellist and great conductor. The only person who doesn't rush through the end of the last movement of Shostakovitch 5 -- IMHO, the only conductor to get it right. RIP Slava.

Very sad. Great cellist and great conductor. The only person who doesn't rush through the end of the last movement of Shostakovitch 5 -- IMHO, the only conductor to get it right. RIP Slava.

It helps to study with the composer! (Did any of Slava's compositions ever get noticed or performed? I havent heard any of them....then again, no one had heard Bernstein of Mahler before they died.) I have heard other god Shosti Fives, but his was definately one of the best. One of the things that made him stand out in my mind is not just his cello, music director, or conducting (which some days was amazing and some days was really lacking - I think in many ways he was a great music director, but his last 5 or so years were really hard on the National Symphony!) but everything else he did - his political statements which risked his career, comissioning lots of Russian music, and his work with musicians - his masterclasses with National Symphony members are legendary, his teaching, his mentoring young musicians. There are few who have his musical talent and even fewer who use it not just to perform but to truly try to make the world a better place.