129-534: Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April [ O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union . As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres , he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges ,
258-606: A "substantially higher" sum than the £20 million pre-sale estimate In 2006, he was featured in Alexander Sokurov 's documentary Elegy of a life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya . Rostropovich's health declined in 2006, with the Chicago Tribune reporting rumours of unspecified surgery in Geneva and later treatment for an aggravated ulcer. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Rostropovich to discuss details of
387-547: A ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes . Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev— Chout , Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son —which, at the time of their original production, all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. But Prokofiev's greatest interest was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel . Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime
516-605: A ballet scenario. Prokofiev's inexperience with ballet led him to revise the work extensively in the 1920s, following Diaghilev's detailed critique, prior to its first production. The ballet's premiere in Paris on 17 May 1921 was a huge success and was greeted with great admiration by an audience that included Jean Cocteau , Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel . Stravinsky called the ballet "the single piece of modern music he could listen to with pleasure", while Ravel called it "a work of genius". During World War I, Prokofiev returned to
645-642: A calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923. In England , Wales , Ireland and Britain's American colonies , there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted the start of a new year from 25 March ( Lady Day , the Feast of the Annunciation ) to 1 January,
774-588: A celebration the Kremlin was planning for 27 March 2007, Rostropovich's 80th birthday. Rostropovich attended the celebration but was reportedly in frail health. Though Rostropovich's last home was in Paris, he maintained residences in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, London , Lausanne , and Jordanville, New York . He was admitted to a Paris hospital at the end of January 2007, but then decided to fly to Moscow, where he had been receiving care. On 6 February 2007 Rostropovich
903-632: A cello concert was organized by the Armenian Relief Society and the Volunteers Technical Assistance (VTA) for the victims of the earthquake. At the concert, Rostropovich played his favorite cello repertoire, including Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor; Haydn's cello concerti in C and D; Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto; and Shostakovich's two cello concerti. The evening raised awareness and helped hundreds of earthquake victims put food on their tables. The concert
1032-544: A change which Scotland had made in 1600. The second discarded the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days in the month of September to do so. To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. For countries such as Russia where no start-of-year adjustment took place, O.S. and N.S. simply indicate
1161-468: A concussion after fainting in his apartment due to untreated chronic hypertension . The composer Dmitry Kabalevsky visited him in hospital and found him semi-conscious, and "with a heavy heart, I left him, I thought it was the end." He never fully recovered from the injury, and, following medical advice, restricted his composing activity. Prokofiev had time to write his postwar Sixth Symphony and his Ninth Piano Sonata (for Sviatoslav Richter ) before
1290-574: A contract was offered to the composer. Prokofiev made his first foreign trip in 1913, travelling to Paris and London where he first encountered Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes . In 1914, Prokofiev finished his career at the Conservatory by entering the 'battle of the pianos', a competition open to the five best piano students for which the prize was a Schroeder grand piano; Prokofiev won by performing his own Piano Concerto No. 1 . Soon afterwards, he journeyed to London where he made contact with
1419-426: A day. In spring 1949, Prokofiev wrote his Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 119 , for the 22-year-old Mstislav Rostropovich , who gave the first performance in 1950, with Sviatoslav Richter. For Rostropovich, Prokofiev also extensively recomposed his Cello Concerto, transforming it into a Symphony-Concerto , a landmark in the cello and orchestra repertory today. The last public performance he attended, on 11 October 1952,
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#17327763307891548-537: A fashion"—he was just one of many students in a heavily attended class—and regretted that he otherwise "never had the opportunity to study with him"). He also shared classes with the composers Boris Asafyev and Nikolai Myaskovsky , the latter becoming a close and lifelong friend. As a member of the Saint Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev developed a reputation as a musical rebel, while getting praise for his original compositions, which he performed himself on
1677-620: A fortnight after the triumphant premieres on 30 December 1944 of his Eighth Piano Sonata and, on the same day, the first part of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible . With the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, which was programmed alongside Peter and the Wolf and the Classical Symphony (conducted by Nikolai Anosov ), Prokofiev appeared to reach the peak of his celebrity as a leading Soviet composer. On 20 January 1945, Prokofiev suffered
1806-495: A general artistic direction, since he is himself not immune to error". According to Prokofiev, Stravinsky "became incandescent with rage" and "we almost came to blows and were separated only with difficulty". As a result, "our relations became strained and for several years Stravinsky's attitude toward me was critical." In March 1922, Prokofiev moved with his mother to the town of Ettal in the Bavarian Alps, where for over
1935-459: A letter dated "12/22 Dec. 1635". In his biography of John Dee , The Queen's Conjurer , Benjamin Woolley surmises that because Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/84 date set for the change, "England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates". In contrast, Thomas Jefferson , who lived while
2064-587: A modest income, and she acted as storyteller for a recording of her husband's Peter and the Wolf (released on CD by Chandos Records ) with Neeme Järvi conducting the Scottish National Orchestra . Their sons Sviatoslav (1924–2010), an architect, and Oleg (1928–1998), an artist, painter, sculptor and poet, dedicated much of their lives to promoting their father's work. Old Style and New Style dates Old Style ( O.S. ) and New Style ( N.S. ) indicate dating systems before and after
2193-599: A musical career at such an early age, and considered the possibility of his attending a good high school in Moscow. By 1904, his mother had decided instead on Saint Petersburg , and she and Prokofiev visited the then capital to explore the possibility of moving there for his education. They were introduced to composer Alexander Glazunov , a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory , who asked to see Prokofiev and his music; Prokofiev had composed two more operas, Desert Islands and The Feast during
2322-457: A petition in court to begin divorce proceedings against his estranged wife. Five days later the court ruled that the marriage had no legal basis since it had taken place in Germany , and had not been registered with Soviet officials, thus making it null and void. After a second judge upheld the verdict, he and his partner Mira wed on 13 January 1948. On 20 February 1948, Prokofiev's first wife Lina
2451-665: A pianist were, in Europe at least, undiminished. But Prokofiev saw himself as a composer first and foremost, and increasingly resented the time lost to composition through his appearances as a pianist. Having been homesick for some time, Prokofiev began to build substantial bridges with the Soviet Union. Following the dissolution of the RAPM in 1932, he acted increasingly as a musical ambassador between his homeland and western Europe, and his premieres and commissions were increasingly under
2580-616: A plane ticket to Japan on a flight that stopped at Moscow, talked his way out of the airport and went to join Boris Yeltsin in the hope that his fame might make some difference to the chance of tanks moving in. Rostropovich supported Yeltsin during the 1993 constitutional crisis and conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in Red Square at the height of the crackdown. In 1993, he was instrumental in
2709-579: A regular performer at the Aldeburgh Festival . His impromptu performance during the fall of the Berlin Wall as events unfolded was reported throughout the world. His Soviet citizenship was restored in 1990. When, in August 1991, news footage was broadcast of tanks in the streets of Moscow , Rostropovich responded with a characteristically brave, impetuous and patriotic gesture: he bought
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#17327763307892838-529: A renowned cellist and former student of Pablo Casals , and Sofiya Nikolaevna Fedotova-Rostropovich, a talented pianist. Leopold (1892–1942) was born in Voronezh to Witold Rostropowicz [ ru ] , a composer of Polish noble descent with distant Belarusian roots, and Matilda Rostropovich (née Pule) of German and Huguenot descent. The Polish part of his family bore the Bogoria coat of arms , which
2967-407: A series of " mass songs " (Opp. 66, 79, 89), using the lyrics of officially approved Soviet poets. In 1938, he collaborated with Eisenstein on the historical epic Alexander Nevsky , composing some of his most inventive and dramatic music. Although the film had very poor sound recording, Prokofiev adapted much of his score into a large-scale cantata for mezzo-soprano , orchestra and chorus, which
3096-911: A start-of-year adjustment works well with little confusion for events before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Agincourt is well known to have been fought on 25 October 1415, which is Saint Crispin's Day . However, for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on 14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in Continental Western Europe and in British domains. Events in Continental Western Europe are usually reported in English-language histories by using
3225-458: A trip to India for the 1988 Armenian earthquake relief program. The event was part of an effort called Musicians for Armenia, which was expected to raise more than $ 450,000 from donations worldwide, including gifts from musicians, concert proceeds and film and recording rights. Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales attended the concert in the sold-out 2,026-seat hall. On February 7, 1989,
3354-549: A very successful staging of The Love for Three Oranges in the Mariinsky Theatre . In 1928, Prokofiev completed his Third Symphony , which was broadly based on his unperformed opera The Fiery Angel . The conductor Serge Koussevitzky characterized the Third as "the greatest symphony since Tchaikovsky 's Sixth ". In the meantime, under the influence of the teachings of Christian Science , Prokofiev had turned against
3483-421: A work started in his days at the Conservatory. In October of that year, he had a car crash while driving his family back to Paris from their holiday: as the car turned over, Prokofiev pulled some muscles on his left hand. Prokofiev was therefore unable to perform in Moscow during his tour shortly after the accident, but he was able to enjoy watching performances of his music from the audience. Prokofiev also attended
3612-516: A year he concentrated on an opera project, The Fiery Angel , based on the novel by Valery Bryusov . His later music had acquired a following in Russia, and he received invitations to return there, but decided to stay in Europe. In 1923, Prokofiev married the Spanish singer Carolina Codina (1897–1989, stage name Lina Llubera) before moving back to Paris. In Paris, several of his works, including
3741-431: A year in Moscow or St Petersburg taking piano lessons. Sergei Prokofiev was inspired by hearing his mother practicing the piano in the evenings, mostly works by Chopin and Beethoven , and wrote his first piano composition at the age of five, an "Indian Gallop", which was written down by his mother: it was in the F Lydian mode (a major scale with a raised 4th scale degree), as the young Prokofiev felt "reluctance to tackle
3870-536: Is 9 February 1649, the date by which his contemporaries in some parts of continental Europe would have recorded his execution. The O.S./N.S. designation is particularly relevant for dates which fall between the start of the "historical year" (1 January) and the legal start date, where different. This was 25 March in England, Wales, Ireland and the colonies until 1752, and until 1600 in Scotland. In Britain, 1 January
3999-568: Is buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery . The leading Soviet musical periodical reported Prokofiev's death as a brief item on page 116 (the first 115 pages were devoted to Stalin's death). Prokofiev's death is usually attributed to cerebral hemorrhage . He had been chronically ill for eight years. Prokofiev's wife Mira Mendelson spent her final years living in the Moscow apartment they had shared. She occupied her time organizing her husband's papers, promoting his music, and writing her memoirs, having been strongly encouraged by Prokofiev to embark on
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4128-425: Is no official record, but according to a variety of witnesses, Prokofiev did not attend on the first day, and had to be fetched, arriving on day two wearing a brown suit and baggy-kneed trousers tucked into his felt boots. Ilya Ehrenburg , who was not in the hall, claimed in his memoirs that Prokofiev fell asleep, woke up suddenly and loudly asked who Zhdanov was. The cellist Mstislav Rostropovich heard that Prokofiev
4257-542: The Azerbaijan State Conservatory . Together they formed a valuable art collection. In September 2007, when it was slated to be sold at auction by Sotheby's in London and dispersed, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov stepped forward and negotiated the purchase of all 450 lots to keep the collection intact and bring it to Russia as a memorial to Rostropovich. Christie's reported that the buyer paid
4386-544: The Bolshoi Theatre 's "audition" of his ballet Le pas d'acier , and was interrogated by members of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) about the work: he was asked whether the factory portrayed "a capitalist factory, where the worker is a slave, or a Soviet factory, where the worker is the master? If it is a Soviet factory, when and where did Prokofiev examine it, since from 1918 to
4515-826: The Classical . The name was Prokofiev's own; the music is in a style that, according to Prokofiev, Joseph Haydn would have used if he were alive at the time. The music is more or less Classical in style but incorporates more modern musical elements (see Neoclassicism ). The symphony was also an exact contemporary of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major , Op. 19, which was scheduled to premiere in November 1917. The first performances of both works had to wait until 21 April 1918 and 18 October 1923, respectively. Prokofiev stayed briefly with his mother in Kislovodsk in
4644-730: The Georgian SSR , where he lived in Tbilisi from 11 November 1941 until 29 June 1942. While there he began to compose the original version of War and Peace . While in the Georgian SSR he also composed his Second String Quartet and Piano Sonata No. 7 . His relationship with the 25-year-old writer and librettist Mira Mendelson had finally led to his separation from his wife Lina. Despite their acrimonious separation, Prokofiev tried to persuade Lina and their sons to accompany him as evacuees out of Moscow, but Lina opted to stay. During
4773-593: The Leningrad Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory . In 1955, he married Galina Vishnevskaya , a leading soprano at the Bolshoi Theatre . Rostropovich had working relationships with Soviet composers of the era. In 1949 Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Cello Sonata , Op. 119, for the 22-year-old Rostropovich, who gave the first performance in 1950, with Sviatoslav Richter . Prokofiev also dedicated his Symphony-Concerto to him; this
4902-554: The Octet and the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments . For his part, Stravinsky described Prokofiev as the greatest Russian composer of his day, after himself. Prokofiev met Boris Krasin in the violinist Joseph Szigeti 's Paris apartment in 1924. In 1927, Prokofiev made his first concert tour in the Soviet Union . Over more than two months, he spent time in Moscow and Leningrad (as St Petersburg had been renamed), where he enjoyed
5031-609: The Russian Empire and the very beginning of Soviet Russia . For example, in the article "The October (November) Revolution", the Encyclopædia Britannica uses the format of "25 October (7 November, New Style)" to describe the date of the start of the revolution. The Latin equivalents, which are used in many languages, are, on the one hand, stili veteris (genitive) or stilo vetere (ablative), abbreviated st.v. , and meaning "(of/in) old style" ; and, on
5160-416: The Saint Petersburg Conservatory , Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite , compiled from music originally composed for
5289-544: The Second Symphony , were performed, but their reception was lukewarm and Prokofiev sensed that he "was evidently no longer a sensation". Still, the Symphony appeared to prompt Diaghilev to commission Le pas d'acier ( The Steel Step ), a "modernist" ballet score intended to portray the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. It was enthusiastically received by Parisian audiences and critics. Around 1924, Prokofiev
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5418-698: The Symphonic Song , Op. 57, which Prokofiev's friend Myaskovsky —thinking of its potential audience in the Soviet Union—told him "isn't quite for us… it lacks that which we mean by monumentalism—a familiar simplicity and broad contours, of which you are extremely capable, but temporarily are carefully avoiding." By the early 1930s, both Europe and America were suffering from the Great Depression , which inhibited both new opera and ballet productions, though audiences for Prokofiev's appearances as
5547-616: The USSR State Symphony Orchestra ; it was the orchestra's debut performance at the Proms. The programme featured Czech composer Antonín Dvořák 's Cello Concerto in B minor and took place on the same day that the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to end Alexander Dubček 's Prague Spring . After the performance, which had been preceded by heckling and demonstrations, the orchestra and soloist were cheered by
5676-415: The expressionist style and the subject matter of The Fiery Angel . He now preferred what he called a "new simplicity", which he found more sincere than the "contrivances and complexities" of so much modern music of the 1920s. In 1928–29, Prokofiev composed his last ballet for Diaghilev, The Prodigal Son . When first staged in Paris on 21 May 1929, choreographed by George Balanchine with Serge Lifar in
5805-508: The latter of which caused a scandal at its premiere (23 August 1913, Pavlovsk). According to one account, the audience left the hall with exclamations of "'To hell with this futuristic music! The cats on the roof make better music!'", but the modernists were in rapture. In 1911, help arrived from renowned Russian musicologist and critic Alexander Ossovsky , who wrote a supportive letter to music publisher Boris P. Jurgenson (son of publishing-firm founder Peter Jurgenson [1836–1904]); thus
5934-513: The "War Sonatas". Premiered respectively by Prokofiev (No. 6: 8 April 1940), Sviatoslav Richter (No. 7: Moscow, 18 January 1943) and Emil Gilels (No. 8: Moscow, 30 December 1944), they were subsequently championed in particular by Richter. Biographer Daniel Jaffé argued that Prokofiev, "having forced himself to compose a cheerful evocation of the nirvana Stalin wanted everyone to believe he had created" (i.e. in Zdravitsa ) then subsequently, in
6063-784: The 10 February 1948 decree on "formalist" composers, his teacher Dmitri Shostakovich was dismissed from his professorships in Leningrad and Moscow; the 21-year-old Rostropovich quit the conservatory in protest. Rostropovich also smuggled to the West the manuscript of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 , which set verses by Yevgeny Yevtushenko ; the subject of its first movement was the Babi Yar massacre . In 1970, Rostropovich sheltered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , who otherwise would have had nowhere to go, in his own home. His friendship with Solzhenitsyn and support for dissidents led to official disgrace in
6192-482: The 11-year-old Prokofiev's insistence, with the budding composer making his first attempt to write a symphony. The following summer, Glière revisited Sontsovka to give further tuition. When, decades later, Prokofiev wrote about his lessons with Glière, he gave due credit to his teacher's sympathetic method but complained that Glière had introduced him to "square" phrase structure and conventional modulations , which he subsequently had to unlearn. Nonetheless, equipped with
6321-420: The 19th century, a practice that the author Karen Bellenir considered to reveal a deep emotional resistance to calendar reform. Mstislav Rostropovich Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (27 March 1927 – 27 April 2007) 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
6450-539: The 4th century , had drifted from reality . The Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these figures, between the years 325 and 1582, by skipping 10 days to set the ecclesiastical date of the equinox to be 21 March, the median date of its occurrence at the time of the First Council of Nicea in 325. Countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar after 1699 needed to skip an additional day for each subsequent new century that
6579-583: The Boyne was commemorated with smaller parades on 1 July. However, both events were combined in the late 18th century, and continue to be celebrated as " The Twelfth ". Because of the differences, British writers and their correspondents often employed two dates, a practice called dual dating , more or less automatically. Letters concerning diplomacy and international trade thus sometimes bore both Julian and Gregorian dates to prevent confusion. For example, Sir William Boswell wrote to Sir John Coke from The Hague
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#17327763307896708-462: The British Isles and colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, instructed that his tombstone bear his date of birth by using the Julian calendar (notated O.S. for Old Style) and his date of death by using the Gregorian calendar. At Jefferson's birth, the difference was eleven days between the Julian and Gregorian calendars and so his birthday of 2 April in the Julian calendar is 13 April in
6837-410: The British colonies, changed the start of the year from 25 March to 1 January, with effect from "the day after 31 December 1751". (Scotland had already made this aspect of the changes, on 1 January 1600.) The second (in effect ) adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian calendar. Thus "New Style" can refer to the start-of-year adjustment , to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar , or to
6966-488: The Buffoon who Outwits Seven Other Buffoons".) Under Diaghilev's guidance, Prokofiev chose his subject from a collection of folk tales by the ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev ; the story, concerning a buffoon and a series of confidence tricks, had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape it into
7095-599: The Caucasus. After completing the score of Seven, They Are Seven , a "Chaldean invocation" for chorus and orchestra, Prokofiev was "left with nothing to do and time hung heavily on my hands". Believing that Russia "had no use for music at the moment", Prokofiev decided to try his fortunes in America until the turmoil in his homeland had passed. He set out for Moscow and Petersburg in March 1918 to sort out financial matters and to arrange for his passport. In May, he headed for
7224-473: The Conservatory and studied organ to avoid conscription . In 1916, he debuted his Toccata . Shortly after this he composed The Gambler based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky 's novel of the same name , but rehearsals were plagued by problems, and the scheduled 1917 première had to be cancelled because of the February Revolution . In the summer of that year, Prokofiev composed his first symphony ,
7353-533: The Conservatory in 1948 and became professor of cello there in 1956. Rostropovich gave his first cello concert in 1942. He won first prize at the international Music Awards of Prague and Budapest in 1947, 1949 and 1950. In 1950, at age 23, he was awarded what was then considered the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, the Stalin Prize . At that time, Rostropovich was already well known in his country and, while actively pursuing his solo career, taught at
7482-627: The End of the War , Festive Poem , Cantata for the Thirtieth Anniversary of October , Ballad of an Unknown Boy , the 1934 piano cycle Thoughts , and Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 and 8. Such was the perceived threat behind the banning of the works that even works that had avoided censure were no longer programmed. By August 1948, Prokofiev was in severe financial straits, his personal debt amounting to 180,000 rubles. On 22 November 1947, Prokofiev filed
7611-623: The Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. However, confusion occurs when an event involves both. For example, William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November (Julian calendar), after he had set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November (Gregorian calendar) 1688. The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland took place a few months later on 1 July 1690 (Julian calendar). That maps to 11 July (Gregorian calendar), conveniently close to
7740-466: The Gregorian calendar. Similarly, George Washington is now officially reported as having been born on 22 February 1732, rather than on 11 February 1731/32 (Julian calendar). The philosopher Jeremy Bentham , born on 4 February 1747/8 (Julian calendar), in later life celebrated his birthday on 15 February. There is some evidence that the calendar change was not easily accepted. Many British people continued to celebrate their holidays "Old Style" well into
7869-430: The Julian and Gregorian dating systems respectively. The need to correct the calendar arose from the realisation that the correct figure for the number of days in a year is not 365.25 (365 days 6 hours) as assumed by the Julian calendar but slightly less (c. 365.242 days). The Julian calendar therefore has too many leap years . The consequence was that the basis for the calculation of the date of Easter , as decided in
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#17327763307897998-581: The Julian calendar had added since then. When the British Empire did so in 1752, the gap had grown to eleven days; when Russia did so (as its civil calendar ) in 1918, thirteen days needed to be skipped. In the Kingdom of Great Britain and its possessions, the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 introduced two concurrent changes to the calendar. The first, which applied to England, Wales, Ireland and
8127-517: The Julian date of the subsequent (and more decisive) Battle of Aughrim on 12 July 1691 (Julian). The latter battle was commemorated annually throughout the 18th century on 12 July, following the usual historical convention of commemorating events of that period within Great Britain and Ireland by mapping the Julian date directly onto the modern Gregorian calendar date (as happens, for example, with Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November). The Battle of
8256-571: The Kirov to replace works based primarily on choreographic display and innovation). Following Radlov's acrimonious resignation from the Kirov in June 1934, a new agreement was signed with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on the understanding that Piotrovsky would remain involved. But the ballet's original happy ending (contrary to Shakespeare ) provoked controversy among Soviet cultural officials, and
8385-771: The Plague , and was working on his fourth, Undina . Glazunov was so impressed that he urged Prokofiev's mother to have her son apply for admission to the Conservatory. He passed the introductory tests and enrolled that year. Several years younger than most of his class, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant and annoyed a number of his classmates by keeping statistics on their errors. During that period, he studied under, among others, Alexander Winkler for piano, Anatoly Lyadov for harmony and counterpoint, Nikolai Tcherepnin for conducting , and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for orchestration (though when Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908, Prokofiev noted that he had only studied with him "after
8514-406: The Proms audience. Rostropovich stood and held aloft the conductor's score of the Dvořák as a gesture of solidarity for the composer's homeland and the city of Prague. Rostropovich fought for art without borders, freedom of speech , and democratic values, resulting in harassment from the Soviet regime. An early example was in 1948, when he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory . In response to
8643-438: The Soviet leadership instructed musicians from the Soviet bloc not to take part in an international competition he had organised. In 1978, Rostropovich was deprived of his Soviet citizenship because of his public opposition to the Soviet Union's restriction of cultural freedom. He did not return to the Soviet Union until 1990. On December 17, 1988, Rostropovich gave a special concert at Barbican Hall in London, after postponing
8772-562: The St Petersburg Evenings of Contemporary Music. There he performed several of his more adventurous piano works, such as his highly chromatic and dissonant Etudes, Op. 2 (1909). His performance of it impressed the organisers of the Evenings sufficiently for them to invite Prokofiev to give the Russian premiere of Arnold Schoenberg 's Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 . Prokofiev's harmonic experimentation continued with Sarcasms for piano, Op. 17 (1912) , which makes extensive use of polytonality . He composed his first two piano concertos around then,
8901-465: The Terrible ), and the ballet Cinderella (Op. 87), one of his most melodious and celebrated compositions. Early that year, he also played excerpts from War and Peace to members of the Bolshoi Theatre collective, but the Soviet government had opinions about the opera that resulted in many revisions. In 1944, Prokofiev composed his Fifth Symphony (Op. 100) at a composer's colony outside Moscow. He conducted its first performance on 13 January 1945, just
9030-583: The UNESCO , he supported many educational and cultural projects. Rostropovich performed several times in Madrid and was a close friend of Queen Sofía of Spain . With his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, he founded the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation , a publicly supported nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization based in Washington, D.C., in 1991 to improve the health and future of children in the former Soviet Union. The Rostropovich Home Museum opened on 4 March 2002, in Baku. The couple visited Azerbaijan occasionally. Rostropovich also presented cello master classes at
9159-437: The US, having obtained official permission to do so from Anatoly Lunacharsky , the People's Commissar for Education, who told him: "You are a revolutionary in music, we are revolutionaries in life. We ought to work together. But if you want to go to America I shall not stand in your way." Arriving in San Francisco after having been released from questioning by immigration officials on Angel Island on 11 August 1918, Prokofiev
9288-576: The United States successfully at the start of 1930, propped up by his recent European success. That year, Prokofiev began his first non-Diaghilev ballet On the Dnieper , Op. 51, a work commissioned by Serge Lifar , who had been appointed maitre de ballet at the Paris Opéra . In 1931 and 1932, he completed his fourth and fifth piano concertos. The following year saw the completion of
9417-540: The Wolf , for Natalya Sats ' Central Children's Theatre . Sats also persuaded him to write two songs for children, "Sweet Song", and "Chatterbox"; they were eventually joined by "The Little Pigs" and published as Three Children's Songs , Op. 68. Prokofiev also composed the gigantic Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution , originally intended for performance during the anniversary year but effectively blocked by Kerzhentsev, who demanded at
9546-588: The Wolf , Romeo and Juliet , Cinderella , Alexander Nevsky , the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies , On Guard for Peace , and the Piano Sonatas Nos. 6–8. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace ; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson , his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev
9675-532: The auspices of the Soviet Union. One such was Lieutenant Kijé , which was commissioned as the score to a Soviet film . Another commission, from the Kirov Theatre (as the Mariinsky had now been renamed) in Leningrad, was the ballet Romeo and Juliet , composed to a scenario created by Adrian Piotrovsky and Sergei Radlov following the precepts of "drambalet" (dramatised ballet, officially promoted at
9804-518: The ballet's production was postponed indefinitely when the staff of the Bolshoi was overhauled at the behest of the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, Platon Kerzhentsev . In 1936, Prokofiev and his family settled permanently in Moscow, after shifting back and forth between Moscow and Paris for the previous four years. That year, Prokofiev composed one of his most famous works, Peter and
9933-445: The black notes". By seven, he had also learned to play chess . Chess remained a passion of his, and he became acquainted with world chess champions José Raúl Capablanca , whom he beat in a simultaneous exhibition match in 1914, and Mikhail Botvinnik , with whom he played several matches in the 1930s. At age nine, he was composing his first opera, The Giant , as well as an overture and various other pieces. Opera remained thereafter as
10062-435: The cello at age eight from his father. In 1943, at age 16, he entered the Moscow Conservatory , where he studied cello with his uncle Semyon Kozolupov, piano with Nikolai Kuvshinnikov, and composition with Vissarion Shebalin . His teachers also included Dmitri Shostakovich . In 1945, he came to prominence as a cellist when he won the gold medal in the Soviet Union's first ever competition for young musicians. He graduated from
10191-526: 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 . Rostropovich
10320-552: The cello repertoire more than any previous cellist: he gave the premiere of 117 compositions. Rostropovich is also well known for his interpretations of standard repertoire works, including Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor. Between 1997 and 2001 he was intimately involved in the development and testing of the BACH.Bow , a curved bow designed by the cellist Michael Bach . In 2001 he invited Bach to present his BACH.Bow to Paris (7th Concours de violoncelle Rostropovitch ). In 2011,
10449-486: The city of Moscow announced plans to erect a statue of Rostropovich in a central square; the statue was unveiled in 2012. He was also a notably generous spirit. Seiji Ozawa relates an anecdote: on hearing of the death of the baby daughter of his friend the sumo wrestler Chiyonofuji , Rostropovich flew unannounced to Tokyo, took a 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 -hour cab ride to Chiyonofuji's house and played his Bach sarabande outside, as his gesture of sympathy—then got back in
10578-492: The combination of the two. It was through their use in the Calendar Act that the notations "Old Style" and "New Style" came into common usage. When recording British history, it is usual to quote the date as originally recorded at the time of the event, but with the year number adjusted to start on 1 January. The latter adjustment may be needed because the start of the civil calendar year had not always been 1 January and
10707-493: The composer's baton, on 30 December 1921. Diaghilev became sufficiently interested in the opera to request Prokofiev play the vocal score to him in June 1922, while they were both in Paris for a revival of Chout , so he could consider it for a possible production. Stravinsky, who was present at the audition, refused to listen to more than the first act. When he then accused Prokofiev of "wasting time composing operas", Prokofiev retorted that Stravinsky "was in no position to lay down
10836-609: The composers' union, Tikhon Khrennikov , who said that the person Prokofiev snubbed was the Stalinist official Matvei Shkiryatov . The decree, published on 11 February, denounced six artists—Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Shebalin , Popov , and Myaskovsky , in that order—for the crime of "formalism", described as a "renunciation of the basic principles of classical music" in favor of "muddled, nerve-racking" sounds that "turned music into cacophony". Eight of Prokofiev's works were banned from performance: The Year 1941 , Ode to
10965-463: The cultural authorities, The Story of a Real Man , were quickly cancelled by the Kirov Theatre . The snub, in combination with his declining health, caused Prokofiev to progressively withdraw from public life and from various activities, even chess, and increasingly devote himself to his own work. After he had a stroke on 7 July 1949, his doctors ordered him to limit his composing to an hour
11094-518: The early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and Western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as a composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. His greatest Soviet successes included Lieutenant Kijé , Peter and
11223-441: The early 1970s. As a result, Rostropovich was restricted from foreign touring, as was his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, and his appearances performing in Moscow were curtailed, as increasingly were his appearances in such major cities as Leningrad and Kiev. Rostropovich left the Soviet Union in 1974 with his wife and children and settled in the United States. He was banned from touring his homeland with foreign orchestras and, in 1977,
11352-543: The end of the following December, 1661/62 , a form of dual dating to indicate that in the following twelve weeks or so, the year was 1661 Old Style but 1662 New Style. Some more modern sources, often more academic ones (e.g. the History of Parliament ) also use the 1661/62 style for the period between 1 January and 24 March for years before the introduction of the New Style calendar in England. The Gregorian calendar
11481-635: The foundation of the Kronberg Academy and was a patron until his death. He commissioned Rodion Shchedrin to compose the opera Lolita and conducted its premiere in 1994 at the Royal Swedish Opera . Rostropovich received many international awards, including the French Legion of Honor and honorary doctorates from many universities. He was an activist, fighting for freedom of expression in art and politics. An ambassador for
11610-472: The four entractes from Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Shostakovich's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death with Vishnevskaya singing. In 1967, at the invitation of the Bolshoi Theatre's director Mikhail Chulaki , he conducted Tchaikovsky 's opera Eugene Onegin at the Bolshoi. Rostropovich played at The Proms on the night of 21 August 1968. He played with
11739-506: The genre Prokofiev was most fond of working in. In 1902, Prokofiev's mother met Sergei Taneyev , director of the Moscow Conservatory , who initially suggested that Prokofiev should start lessons in piano and composition with Alexander Goldenweiser . Unable to arrange that, Taneyev instead arranged for composer and pianist Reinhold Glière to spend the summer of 1902 in Sontsovka teaching Prokofiev. The first series of lessons culminated, at
11868-583: The hearse was not allowed near Prokofiev's house, his coffin had to be moved by hand through back streets in the opposite direction of the masses of people going to visit Stalin's body. About 30 people attended the funeral, Shostakovich among them. Although they had not seemed to get along when they met, in the later years their interactions had become far more amicable, with Shostakovich writing to Prokofiev, "I wish you at least another hundred years to live and create. Listening to such works as your Seventh Symphony makes it much easier and more joyful to live." Prokofiev
11997-500: The impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev commissioned Prokofiev's first ballet, Ala and Lolli ; but when Prokofiev brought the work in progress to him in Italy in 1915 he rejected it as "non-Russian". Urging Prokofiev to write "music that was national in character", Diaghilev then commissioned the ballet Chout ("The Buffoon"). (The original Russian-language full title was Сказка про шута, семерых шутов перешутившего, meaning "The Tale of
12126-502: The latter. Work on the memoirs was difficult for her; she left them incomplete at her death. Mendelson died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1968, 15 years after Prokofiev. Inside her purse a message dated February 1950 and signed by Prokofiev and Mendelson instructed: "We wish to be buried next to each other." Their remains are buried together at Novodevichy Cemetery. Lina Prokofiev outlived her ex-husband by many years, dying in London in early 1989. Royalties from his music provided her with
12255-401: The necessary theoretical tools, Prokofiev started experimenting with dissonant harmonies and unusual time signatures in a series of short piano pieces he called "ditties" (after the so-called "song form", more accurately ternary form , on which they were based), laying the basis for his own musical style. Despite his growing talent, Prokofiev's parents hesitated over starting their son on
12384-456: The other, stili novi or stilo novo , abbreviated st.n. and meaning "(of/in) new style". The Latin abbreviations may be capitalised differently by different users, e.g., St.n. or St.N. for stili novi . There are equivalents for these terms in other languages as well, such as the German a.St. (" alter Stil " for O.S.). Usually, the mapping of New Style dates onto Old Style dates with
12513-515: The pain, the deep sorrow in the song." Sonata No. 7 received a Stalin Prize (Second Class) and No. 8 a Stalin Prize (First Class). Meanwhile, Romeo and Juliet was staged by the Kirov Ballet , choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky , on 11 January 1940. To the surprise of all of its participants, the dancers having struggled to cope with the music's syncopated rhythms and almost having boycotted
12642-416: The piano. In 1909, he graduated from his class in composition with unimpressive marks. He continued at the Conservatory, studying piano under Anna Yesipova and continuing his conducting lessons under Tcherepnin. In 1910, Prokofiev's father died and Sergei's financial support ceased. Fortunately, he had started making a name for himself as a composer and pianist outside the Conservatory, making appearances at
12771-417: The present he has been living abroad and came here for the first time in 1927 for two weeks [sic]?" Prokofiev replied, "That concerns politics, not music, and therefore I won't answer." The RAPM condemned the ballet as a "flat and vulgar anti-Soviet anecdote, a counter-revolutionary composition bordering on Fascism". The Bolshoi had no option but to reject the ballet. With his left hand healed, Prokofiev toured
12900-491: The production, the ballet was an instant success and became recognised as the crowning achievement of Soviet dramatic ballet. Prokofiev had been considering making an opera out of Leo Tolstoy 's epic novel War and Peace , when news of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 made the subject seem all the more timely. Because of the war, he was evacuated together with a large number of other artists, initially to
13029-737: The so-called " Zhdanov Doctrine ". On the day before the decree was published, 10 February 1948, Prokofiev was at a ceremony in the Kremlin to mark his elevation to the status of People's Artist of the RSFSR . The decree followed a three-day conference of more than 70 composers, musicians and music lecturers convened on 10 January, presided over by Zhdanov. Prokofiev was berated by a minor composer, Viktor Bely , who accused him of "innovation for innovation's sake" and "artistic snobbishness", but unlike Dmitri Shostakovich , Aram Khachaturian and others, Prokofiev gave no speech. His silence set off rumors that he had been deliberately defiant and uncooperative. There
13158-505: The suite Lieutenant Kijé , the ballet Romeo and Juliet —from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf . Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia —seven completed operas, seven symphonies , eight ballets , five piano concertos , two violin concertos , a cello concerto , a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra , and nine completed piano sonatas . A graduate of
13287-619: The summer of 1877, the Prokofievs moved to a small estate in the Smolensk governorate. Eventually, Sergei Alekseyevich found employment as a soil engineer, employed by one of his former fellow-students, Dmitri Sontsov, to whose estate in the Ukrainian steppes the Prokofievs moved. By the time of Prokofiev's birth, Maria—having previously lost two daughters—had devoted her life to music; during her son's early childhood, she spent two months
13416-576: The three sonatas, "expressed his true feelings". As evidence, Jaffé has pointed out that the central movement of Sonata No. 7 opens with a theme based on the Robert Schumann lied "Wehmut" ("Sadness", from the Liederkreis , Op. 39 ): its words translate, "I can sometimes sing as if I were glad, yet secretly tears well and so free my heart. Nightingales … sing their song of longing from their dungeon's depth … everyone delights, yet no one feels
13545-555: The title role, the audience and critics were particularly struck by the final scene, in which the prodigal son drags himself across the stage on his knees to be welcomed by his father. Diaghilev had recognised that in the music to the scene, Prokofiev had "never been more clear, more simple, more melodious, and more tender". Only months later, Diaghilev died. That summer, Prokofiev completed the Divertimento, Op. 43 (which he had started in 1925) and revised his Sinfonietta , Op. 5/48,
13674-1357: The two had a special affinity; Rostropovich's family described him as "always smiling" when discussing "Ben", and on his deathbed he was said to have expressed no fear as he and Britten would, he believed, be reunited in Heaven. Britten was also renowned as a pianist and together they recorded, among other works, Schubert 's Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor . His daughter claimed that this recording moved her father to tears of joy even on his deathbed. Rostropovich also had artistic partnerships with Henri Dutilleux ( Tout un monde lointain... for cello and orchestra, Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher for solo cello), Witold Lutosławski ( Cello Concerto , Sacher-Variation for solo cello), Krzysztof Penderecki (cello concerto n°2, Largo for cello and orchestra, Per Slava for solo cello, sextet for piano, clarinet, horn, violin, viola and cello), Luciano Berio ( Ritorno degli snovidenia for cello and thirty instruments, Les mots sont allés... for solo cello), and Olivier Messiaen ( Concert à quatre for piano, cello, oboe, flute and orchestra). Rostropovich took private lessons in conducting with Leo Ginzburg , and first conducted in public in Gorky in November 1962, performing
13803-497: The visit was to discuss arrangements for marking Rostropovich's 80th birthday. On 27 March 2007, Putin issued a statement praising Rostropovich. On 7 April 2007, Rostropovich reentered the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Centre, where he was treated for intestinal cancer . He died on 27 April, aged 80. On 28 April, Rostropovich's body lay in an open casket at the Moscow Conservatory , and
13932-747: The war years, restrictions on style and the demand that composers write in a 'socialist realist' style were slackened, and Prokofiev was generally able to compose in his own way. The Violin Sonata No. 1 , Op. 80, The Year 1941 , Op. 90, and the Ballade for the Boy Who Remained Unknown , Op. 93 all came from this period. In 1943, Prokofiev joined Eisenstein in Alma-Ata , the largest city in Kazakhstan , to compose more film music ( Ivan
14061-409: The work's audition before the Committee on Arts Affairs, "Just what do you think you're doing, Sergey Sergeyevich, taking texts that belong to the people and setting them to such incomprehensible music?" The Cantata was not performed until 5 April 1966, just over 13 years after the composer's death. Forced to adapt to the new circumstances (whatever private misgivings he had about them), Prokofiev wrote
14190-608: Was The Love for Three Oranges , composed for the Chicago Opera and performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia. After the Revolution of 1917 , Prokofiev left Russia with the approval of Soviet People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky , and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. In 1923 he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina , with whom he had two sons; they divorced in 1947. In
14319-856: Was a huge influence on the younger generation of cellists. Many have openly acknowledged their debt to his example. In the Daily Telegraph , Julian Lloyd Webber called him "probably the greatest cellist of all time". Rostropovich either commissioned or was the recipient of compositions by many composers including Dmitri Shostakovich , Sergei Prokofiev , Nikolai Miaskovsky , Benjamin Britten , Henri Dutilleux , Olivier Messiaen , André Jolivet , Witold Lutosławski , Luciano Berio , Krzysztof Penderecki , Leonard Bernstein , Alfred Schnittke , Aram Khachaturian , Astor Piazzolla , Andreas Makris , Sofia Gubaidulina , Arthur Bliss , Colin Matthews and Lopes Graça . His commissions of new works enlarged
14448-434: Was admitted to a hospital in Moscow. "He is just feeling unwell", Natalya Dolezhale, Rostropovich's secretary in Moscow, said. Asked if there was serious cause for concern about his health, she said: "No, right now there is no cause whatsoever." She refused to specify the nature of his illness. The Kremlin said that Putin had visited him in the hospital, which prompted speculation that he was in serious condition. Dolezhale said
14577-480: Was altered at different times in different countries. From 1155 to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on 25 March ( Lady Day ); so for example, the execution of Charles I was recorded at the time in Parliament as happening on 30 January 164 8 (Old Style). In newer English-language texts, this date is usually shown as "30 January 164 9 " (New Style). The corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar
14706-565: Was an agronomist from a mercantile family in Moscow. Prokofiev's mother, Maria (née Zhitkova), came from a Saint Petersburg family of former serfs who had been owned by the Sheremetev family, under whose patronage serf-children were taught theatre and arts from an early age. She was described by Reinhold Glière , Prokofiev's first composition teacher, as "a tall woman with beautiful, clever eyes … who knew how to create an atmosphere of warmth and simplicity about her." After their wedding in
14835-641: Was another example of Prokofiev's bad luck in operatic matters. The failure also cost him his American solo career since the opera took too much time and effort. He soon found himself in financial difficulties, and in April 1920, he left for Paris , not wanting to return to Russia as a failure. In Paris, Prokofiev reaffirmed his contacts with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes . He also completed some of his older, unfinished works, such as his Third Piano Concerto . The Love for Three Oranges finally premièred in Chicago, under
14964-521: Was arrested and charged with espionage for trying to send money to her mother in Spain. After nine months of interrogation, she was sentenced by a three-member Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to 20 years of hard labor. She was released eight years later on 30 June 1956 and in 1974 left the Soviet Union. Prokofiev's latest opera projects, among them his desperate attempt to appease
15093-546: Was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism ". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich : he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter. Prokofiev was born in 1891 in a rural estate in Sontsovka, Bakhmut uezd , Yekaterinoslav Governorate , Russian Empire (now known as Sontsivka , Pokrovsk Raion , Donetsk Oblast , Ukraine). His father, Sergei Alekseyevich Prokofiev,
15222-596: Was celebrated as the New Year festival from as early as the 13th century, despite the recorded (civil) year not incrementing until 25 March, but the "year starting 25th March was called the Civil or Legal Year, although the phrase Old Style was more commonly used". To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal even in semi-official documents such as parish registers to place a statutory new-year heading after 24 March (for example "1661") and another heading from
15351-405: Was chatting to the person next to him when a senior figure sitting nearby warned him to be quiet. Prokofiev asked: "Who are you?" The official said that his name did not matter, but that Prokofiev had better pay attention to him, to which Prokofiev retorted: "I never pay attention to comments from people who haven't been introduced to me." This possibly apocryphal story was corroborated by the head of
15480-771: Was extensively performed and recorded. In the wake of Alexander Nevsky' s success, Prokofiev composed his first Soviet opera, Semyon Kotko , which was intended to be produced by the director Vsevolod Meyerhold . The opera's première was postponed because Meyerhold was arrested on 20 June 1939 by the NKVD , and shot on 2 February 1940. At the end of the same year, Prokofiev was commissioned to compose Zdravitsa (literally "Cheers!", but sometimes subtitled Hail to Stalin in English) (Op. 85) to celebrate Joseph Stalin 's 60th birthday. Later in 1939, Prokofiev composed his Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 , 7 , and 8 , Opp. 82–84, widely known today as
15609-644: Was held at the Kennedy Center and over 2,300 were in attendance. From 1977 to 1994, Rostropovich was music director and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., while still performing with famous musicians such as Martha Argerich , Sviatoslav Richter , and Vladimir Horowitz . He was also the director and founder of the Mstislav Rostropovich Baku International Festival and
15738-496: Was implemented in Russia on 14 February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918 , pursuant to a Sovnarkom decree signed 24 January 1918 (Julian) by Vladimir Lenin . The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date, until 1 July 1918. It is common in English-language publications to use the familiar Old Style or New Style terms to discuss events and personalities in other countries, especially with reference to
15867-712: Was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights , and was awarded the 1974 Award of the International League of Human Rights . He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and had two daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich . He received numerous accolades, including a Polar Music Prize . Mstislav Rostropovich was born in Baku , Azerbaijan SSR , to parents who had moved from Orenburg in Russia: Leopold Vitoldovich Rostropovich [ ru ] ,
15996-408: Was introduced to Christian Science . He began to practice its teachings, which he believed to be beneficial to his health and to his fiery temperament and to which he remained faithful for the rest of his life, according to biographer Simon Morrison . Prokofiev and Stravinsky restored their friendship, though Prokofiev particularly disliked Stravinsky's "stylization of Bach " in such recent works as
16125-624: Was located at the family palace in Skotniki . Mstislav's mother Sofiya Fedotova, of Russian descent, was the daughter of musicians and herself a conservatory-trained pianist. Her elder sister, Nadezhda, married cellist Semyon Kozolupov, who was thus Rostropovich's uncle by marriage. Rostropovich grew up in Baku and spent his youth there. During World War II his family moved back to Orenburg and then in 1943 to Moscow. At age four, Rostropovich began studying piano with his mother. He began learning
16254-571: Was premiered in 1952. Rostropovich and Dmitry Kabalevsky completed Prokofiev's Cello Concertino after the composer's death. Shostakovich wrote both his first and second cello concertos for Rostropovich, who also gave their first performances. Rostropovich went on several tours in Western Europe and met several composers, including Benjamin Britten , who dedicated his Cello Sonata, three Solo Suites, and his Cello Symphony to Rostropovich. Rostropovich gave their first performances, and
16383-542: Was soon compared to other famous Russian exiles, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff . His debut solo concert in New York led to several further engagements. He also received a contract from the music director of the Chicago Opera Association , Cleofonte Campanini , for the production of his new opera The Love for Three Oranges , but due to Campanini's illness and death, the premiere was postponed. The delay
16512-596: Was the première of the Seventh Symphony , his last completed work. The symphony was written for the Children's Radio Division. Prokofiev died at age 61 on 5 March 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin . He had lived near Red Square , and for three days throngs gathered to mourn Stalin, making it impossible to hold Prokofiev's funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composers' Union. Because
16641-588: Was then moved to the Church of Christ the Saviour . Thousands of mourners, including Putin, bade farewell. Spain's Queen Sofia , French first lady Bernadette Chirac and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, where Rostropovich was born, as well as Naina Yeltsina , Yeltsin's widow, were among those who attended the funeral on 29 April. Rostropovich was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery . Rostropovich
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