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Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich was a Russian cellist and conductor. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works, which enlarged the cello repertoire more than any cellist before or since. He inspired and premiered over 100 pieces, forming long-standing friendships and artistic partnerships with composers including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Henri Dutilleux, Witold Lutosławski, Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Norbert Moret, Andreas Makris, Leonard Bernstein, Aram Khachaturian, and Benjamin Britten.
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126, in 1966 in the Crimea. Like the first concerto, it was written for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere in Moscow under Yevgeny Svetlanov on 25 September 1966 at the composer's 60th birthday concert. The concerto is sometimes listed as in the key of G, but the score gives no such indication.
Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya was a Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist who was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1966. She was the wife of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and mother to their two daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich.
Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Soviet and Russian composer and pianist, winner of USSR State Prize (1972), the Lenin Prize (1984), and the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1992), and is a former member of the Inter-regional Deputies Group (1989–1991). He is also a citizen of Lithuania and Spain.
David Geringas is a Lithuanian cellist and conductor who studied under Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1970 he won the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. He also plays the baryton, a rare instrument associated with music of Joseph Haydn.
Robert Saxton is a British composer.
Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov was a Russian-British composer and academic teacher, who also published as Dmitri N. Smirnov and D. Smirnov-Sadovsky. He wrote operas, symphonies, string quartets and other chamber music, and vocal music from song to oratorio. Many of his works were inspired by the art of William Blake.
Songs and Dances of Death is a song cycle for voice and piano by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in the mid-1870s, to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer.
Alexander Aronovich Knaifel was a Soviet composer from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, known for his operas The Ghost of Canterville and Alice in Wonderland as well as for his music for cinema.
"Vocalise" is a song by Sergei Rachmaninoff, composed and published in 1915 as the last of his 14 Songs or 14 Romances, Op. 34. Written for high voice with piano accompaniment, it contains no words, but is sung using only one vowel of the singer's choosing. It was dedicated to soprano singer Antonina Nezhdanova. It is performed in various instrumental arrangements more frequently than in the original vocal version.
Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko was a Russian and Soviet composer and pianist.
Alexander Kuzmich Vustin, also Voustin or Wustin was a Russian composer. His works, including the opera The Devil in Love, were played and recorded internationally.
Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov was a Soviet and Russian composer. He is most widely known for his choral music, strongly influenced by the traditional chant of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as his orchestral works which often celebrate elements of Russian culture.
Marcel François Paul Landowski was a French composer, biographer and arts administrator.
The Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation (RVF) is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that supports programs to improve the health of children worldwide.
Sviatoslav Nikolayevich Knushevitsky was a Soviet-Russian classical cellist. He was particularly noted for his partnership with the violinist David Oistrakh and the pianist Lev Oborin in a renowned piano trio from 1940 until his death. After Mstislav Rostropovich and Daniil Shafran, he is spoken of as one of the pre-eminent Russian cellists of the 20th century.
Elena Rostropovich is a pianist. She left Russia with her parents, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and soprano Galina Vishnevskaya in 1974.
The Poet's Echo is a song cycle composed by Benjamin Britten (1913–76) in August 1965 during a holiday visit to the Soviet Union, in Dilizhan, Armenia. It consists of settings for high voice and piano of six poems by the Russian poet Alexandr Pushkin (1799–1837), in their original language. It was published as his Op. 76.
Sergei Prokofiev began composing his Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 134, in 1952. The sonata was intended to be written in four movements, but as it was one of seven compositions which the composer was writing during this time, only the beginning of the first movement was completed before Prokofiev's death in March 1953.
