Mistislav Rostropovich died yesterday. He was one of the greatest cellists who ever lived. He was a great teacher and an inspiring, if not always technically great, conductor.

But he was more that a great musician. He was a great humanitarian and political figure. He challenged Soviet rulers by speaking out against injustice. He remained friends with Dimitri Shotakovitch when that composer fell out of favor with the party hacks. He hid Aleksander Solzhenitsyn when that writer was threatened with arrest and when Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize Rostropovich publicly called out the political bosses at great risk to his own life.

He was forced to flee his home country, losing his citizenship in the process, and spent the better part of the rest of his life spreading joy in music and the word of freedom throughout the world.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall his Soviet citizenship was restored. He returned to his homeland when a hard-line communist coup threatened Gorbachov's reforms. He participated in the Moscow sit-ins that helped turn the tide, again at great personal risk.

This only begins to touch on his acts of courage and generosity. It does not mention his many other human rights activities or his charitable work.

We often talk about things or people that are great. For once that adjective applies.

I love this quote from the Washington Post:
"There is too much emphasis on technical perfection nowadays, and not enough on what music is actually about — irony, joy, human suffering, love." Slava was all about the love.

Federico,
Thank you for posting this. I had not yet heard this information.
Your summation was right on target. Rostropovich was one of the true giants of modern classical music.