Passing: Mstislav Rostropovich, Renowned Maestro

Mstislav Rostropovich, who died April 27 in Moscow at the age of 80 was renowned for a number reasons. Read the obituaries, is best remembered as one of the great instrumentalists of the 20th century. Moreover, he is being honored as an outspoken champion of artistic freedom in the Soviet Union during the last decades of the cold war.

His tory line was very much Russian.

But there is a very American connection as well.

Personally, I best remember Rostropovich as music director of the National Symphony from 1977 to 1994 and then as its conductor laureate. In that capacity he was fixture at American holiday concerts (Fourth of July and Memorial Day) on the National Mall. It was throught he television broadcasts of those holiday events that I got to see the great maestro.