Mstislav Rostropovich Bach Cello Suites

“Rostropovich's performances are masterly and all-involving, drawing distinctions between each work in his spoken introductions, although one can choose to hear the music without the commentaries. Unsurpassed and unsurpassable.” (The Penguin Guide)

Mstislav Rostropovich is one of the few musicians who can create a larger-than-life experience through the combined forces of exceptional music, a beautiful instrument, and uncommonly facile communicative skills. In his performances of Bach's transcendent masterpieces for solo cello, Rostropovich finds a perfect balance between a romantic, rhapsodic interpretation and one that emphasizes the purely formal "aridity" of Bach's structures. Although it's nearly impossible to isolate one or two highlights, the Sarabande and Prelude from Suite No. 5 are among the most profoundly moving cello performances you will ever hear–the closest we probably will ever come to experiencing through music the soul of both Rostropovich and Bach.

Truls Mørk, you have to admit, is a very cool name for a cellist. A native of Norway, Mørk is a cellist whose tone ranges from intimate pianissimos to immense fortissimos without ever losing its essential combination of passionate lyricism and cool lucidity, a cellist whose interpretations range from blissful joy to endless despair without every losing its fundamental balance of total dedication and cool objectivity, a cellist, in short, who lives up to his name.

That the cello's repertoire has been so wonderfully enriched during the 20th century is due largely to Mstislav Rostropovich, the most influential cellist of his time, a champion of liberty, and also a noted conductor and pianist. Born In Baku on 27 March 1927 to a pianist mother and a cello-playing father who had studied with Pablo Casals, 'Slava' received early paternal grounding in his chosen instrument.

In the '80s there were those listeners who thought that Heinrich Schiff might redeem cello performance practice from fatal beauty and lethal elegance. Aside from the burly and brawny Rostropovich, more and more cellists were advocating a performance style whose ideals were perfect intonation and graceful phrasing. In some repertoire, say, Fauré, these are perfectly legitimate goals. In other repertoire, Beethoven and Brahms, say, it is a terrible mistake. In Bach's Cello Suites, as the fay and fragile Yo-Yo Ma recordings make clear, it was a terminal mistake. Not so in Schiff's magnificently muscular 1984 recordings of the suites: Schiff's rhythms, his tempos, his tone, his intonation, and especially his interpretations were anything but fay or fragile. In Schiff's performance, Bach's Cello Suites are not the neurasthenic music of a composer supine with dread and despair in the dark midnight of the soul, but the forceful music of a mature composer in full control of himself and his music.

Mstislav Rostropovich - Brahms - Cello Sonata No. 2 & Works by Popper, Debussy & Scriabin (2017) (Warner Classics)
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© 1957, 2017 Parlophone Records / Warner Classics | 0190295892296
Classical / Romantic / 20th Century Classical / Cello

This key title is being reissued at a special price as part of the celebration of Rostropovich - "Cellist of the Century". Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich was born in Baku, USSR on March 27, 1927. His first name means "avenged glory"; he is familiarly known by the root of the name, "Slava," which means "glory." His father, Leopold, was an excellent cellist, and after 1931, a teacher at the Gnesin Institute, Moscow after attending the Moscow Conservatory. Slava's mother was an accomplished pianist. The family moved to Moscow in 1931; Slava had already begun cello studies with his father and continued them there. His first public appearance was at eight years of age. In 1939, he entered the Central Music School, studying there until 1941.

Following the 2017 complete edition released for the 10th anniversary of Rostropovich’s death, the greatest cellist of his time is now part of the 100 Best Series. These new compilations take the best of his recordings for Warner Classics as a cellist in the 2017 Remastering and also as a conductor.