La música com a arma de protesta.Some day last week Mstislav Rostropovich, a very significant and celebrated Russian cellist and conductor, passed away. Born in
He had a troublesome, adventurous life, having had to leave the Soviet Union and take up exile, after having aired his views against some of the witch hunts in the arts world by the
His last years were, however, spent in
I looked at a picture of him playing the cello. It must have been thirty or forty years old, around the time he played a particular concert in 1968. It was during the Prague Spring of ’68, in the midst of the Russian invasion. Oblivious to the world outside, he played a piece composed by Dvorak, the maybe the greatest Czech composer, in the concert hall.
Why did he keep on playing while the tanks outside were rolling down
I can hear the drums of the concerto playing rhythmically, echoing the explosions outside the concert hall. The pitch sounds of the violin muffled by the screams of dying children. The cello accompanying the last breaths of wounded men. The crowds, chanting slogans, the non-existing lyrics of Dvorak’s symphony. Finally, the sudden clapping rattle of machine guns became intertwined with an imaginary standing ovation’s clapping rhythm.
When the scared, weary audience finally walked out of the building, seeing the streams of blood flowing down the pavement, rushed back into the hall, thus becoming trapped, yet saved, by Dvorak’s music.
Did Dvorak and Rostropovich actually save those people’s lives?
