I first met Rostropovich in Washington DC in the mid-1990s, where he conducted the American premiere of my percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. Because he was such a big star, I expected him to be somewhat distant and unapproachable, but the very instant I met him he embraced me affectionately and enthusiastically. Over the next few days, he was to invite Evelyn Glennie and myself to his apartment, where his wife Galina laid on a splendid array of Russian delicacies. Listening to his personal stories was awe-inspiring: his encounters with Stalin, Kruschev, the Kennedies, Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn; his relationships with Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Britten. At one point he produced a photograph of himself in a darkened room holding a Kalashnikov, a young Russian soldier asleep on his shoulder. This was taken deep in the Moscow White House, which was under attack by the forces of the Communist coup. Slava had in fact returned home surreptitiously, without even telling his wife, to be with Yeltsin and the defenders of the fledgling Russian democracy, a poignant thought this week.
Evelyn and I ate and drank with him through the night and by the end of it, he had asked me to write two pieces for him: my Cello Concerto, which he premiered in London in 1996, and my first Symphony, which he conducted there the following year, both with the LSO. We left at five in the morning, leaving him in an excited state as he prepared to tune in to the news direct from Moscow on the radio.
I met up with him again the day before the premiere of the Cello Concerto. He played it through, and thought that the cadenza sections in the first movement were a bit truncated and squashed. He was, of course, absolutely right. I returned to my room with borrowed manuscript and got writing. In writing for this great musician, I felt embraced by a fierce friendship, but the insights he gave into the history of 20th century music and politics, in his very personal, and sometimes hilarious observations, make me feel very privileged indeed. He was more than a great musician, he was a force of nature. Music-lovers felt this at his concerts and in his company, and those thirsting for freedom behind the old iron curtain felt it as a benediction.
One of my most prized possessions is a snapshot of him holding my then six-year-old daughter Catherine in his arms, both with huge grins on their faces, in the Barbican's Green Room after the Cello Concerto premiere.
