Book Alert / Rostropovich

Rostropovich -- The Musical Life of the Great Cellist, Teacher and Legend by Elizabeth Wilson, Ivan R. Dee '08, $35, 387 pages, ISBN #1566637767. Index, bibliography, footnotes, two appendices, grouping of b&w glossy images.

The first time I experienced the ecstacy of listening to the aria from Bachianas Brasileiras, it was sung not by such a memorable diva as Galina Vishnevskaya but, improbably but impressively, by American folk diva Joan Baez. Wilson's new book describes the transport felt by students of Mstislav Rostropovich in performing it in Moscow at the height of his teaching career.

But Rostropovich was so much more than a teacher; he was equally renowned as a performer and conductor. Wilson, herself a cellist and student of Russian life, studied at the Moscow State Conservatory with "Slava" Rostropovich from 1964 to 1971 and is the biographer of Dmitri Shostakovich and Jacqueline du Pre'. She relates her saga against the background of tumultuous 20th century Russian politics and describes Slava's relationships with such musical legends as Pablo Casals, Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khatchaturian.