Hearing of his death today, I am so grateful I got to hear Mstislav Rostropovich conduct one last time, almost exactly a year ago, with Maxim Vengerov and the New York Philharmonic in an all-Shostakovich program. If not quite as memorable as his Shostakovich Eleventh Symphony a few years back with the London Symphony Orchestra, it was nevertheless an evening I will treasure.
From Time Europe in 2004, here is an appreciation in Vengerov's own words.
[Drawing by Sol Schwartz, via photographer Norman Koren.]
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