MSTISLAV R o s t r o p o v i c h
from an interview with Moray Welsh
(2001)
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| Rian Archives |
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I would love to hear something about your relationships with Oistrakh and Richter, two very different musical personalities from your own. Apart from your individual partnership with Richter, and the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the three of you, did you ever play chamber music together?
- SLAVA ROSTROPOVICH:
We did play an enormous amount together. Practically all the cello repertoire. [with Richter]
MW.: But did you think of playing Trios with Oistrakh and Richter?
- SLAVA ROSTROPOVICH:
No no. We only played the Triple Concerto. Because we each had different trios before. David treated me wonderfully - I have an amazing letter from him with a signed photograph. He was a person of great integrity, and he had a trio, before I was an established cellist, with Oborin and Knushevitsky.
But I wanted to play trios too, so formed a trio with Gilels and Kogan. And there was a lot of intrigue between us ! People actually spread rumours that I was leaving my trio to join Ostrakh, and it was a major topic of conversation. But all the same we stayed loyal to our different trios. And I only gave up playing trios eventually because of a personal quarrel with Kogan, but I remained very grateful to Gilels with whom I played with great pleasure. So Richter found himself between the two of us [Oistrakh and Rostropovich], nor did I find it so comfortable playing Sonatas with Richter and Trios with Gilels!
My partnership with Richter was established very easily from the beginning, because in 1949 when Prokofiev wrote his Cello Sonata he requested that I should play it with Richter. That was his wish. So we put a whole recital programme together. Then later we played all the Beethoven Sonatas, Grieg, Chopin, all three Bach Sonatas, a lot of repertoire, and that was a very great joy for me in my life.
But it happened that after the episode with Solzhenitsyn, Richter and I stopped playing together. I didnt want to beg him to play with me, and and he didnt ring me, so I didn’t bother him. It seemed to me, in fact I am convinced, that he was afraid to contact me.