Books

It would be difficult to argue with the proposition that Mstislav Rostropovich was one of the great interpretive artists of the 20th century. It would be absurd to deny that he was a person of enormous courage and humanity.

FILE/Staff photo

Mstislav Rostropovich performing with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1998.

Yet so fulsome is the portrait of Mr. Rostropovich in Elizabeth Wilson's new biography that her book begins to pall before the final pages. Beyond being a fine artist and human being, he seems to be a candidate for sainthood who somehow escaped the flaws of other mortals.

Ms. Wilson certainly knew her subject well. A cellist, she studied with Mr. Rostropovich at the Moscow State Conservatory from 1964 to 1971. The daughter of a former British ambassador to the Soviet Union, she observed at close hand Mr. Rostropovich's tribulations when he fell out of favor with the Soviet regime.

She draws heavily on her experiences and those of her fellow students in Class 19, Mr. Rostropovich's cello class at the conservatory. Six of them offer testimonials that are interspersed as "interludes" throughout the biography.

Since all of them were in awe of their famous teacher, this presents a somewhat one-sided view of the man. Only one of them, the composer Aleksandr Knaifel, lets slip some criticism.

At the end of one class, Mr. Rostropovich, following his usual procedure, told Mr. Knaifel to memorize Dvorák's cello concerto and have it ready for performance by the next class period. Mr. Knaifel memorized and practiced ferociously for three solid days, then came to class, exhausted but ready. With piano accompaniment, Mr. Knaifel played the concerto in its entirety. Then an important visitor came in and Mr. Rostropovich told Mr. Knaifel to play the concerto again, which he did.

The result was disaster. "By the end my arm was completely numb," Mr. Knaifel writes. "I had no feeling in it at all, and it hung by my side limp, like a dead weight." It took two months of treatment before Mr. Knaifel regained the use of his arm. Not long after, he sold his instrument and abandoned the study of cello.

This bit of insight is rare in Ms. Wilson's book, and even Mr. Knaifel remained in awe of Mr. Rostropovich, so powerful was his personality and musical gift.

The book will be of special interest to cellists and other performing musicians, since much of it deals with questions of cello technique and musical insight. Others may want to speed-read until they come to topics of more general interest.

These certainly are there. For most music lovers, the most interesting parts will probably be those dealing with the many composers Mr. Rostropovich was associated with, most prominently Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Britten.

One anecdote: Prokofiev, who was a superb pianist, sat down to play one of his compositions with Mr. Rostropovich. The cellist had the audacity to point out that the composer had played some wrong notes. Prokofiev turned to Mr. Rostropovich and said, "Young man, who wrote this work, you or me?"

The final portions of Ms. Wilson's book deal with Mr. Rostropovich's support for the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the price he paid in retribution by the Soviet government. To Mr. Rostropovich's enormous credit, he never wavered.

The book basically ends with Mr. Rostropovich's departure from the Soviet Union into exile in 1974. A brief epilogue brings the reader up to date: Mr. Rostropovich died in Russia of cancer on April 27, 2007.

Olin Chism is a freelance writer in Irving.

The Musical Life of the Great Cellist, Teacher and Legend

Elizabeth Wilson

(Ivan R. Dee, $35)

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