Synopsis
For over 120 years the late summer music festival known as the BBC Proms has been presenting memorable concerts in London, but one of the most memorable occurred on today’s date in 1968.
The scheduled performers at the Royal Albert Hall were the USSR State Symphony, its conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, and the virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. As the musicians took to the stage, boos and cat-calls were mixed with the applause, and some shouts of “Go home!” and “Russians out!”
The reason? Earlier that same day, the Soviet Union and its East Block allies had invaded Czechoslovakia, sending troops and tanks into the country to crush the so-called “Prague Spring,” a period of liberalization and reform that threatened Communist control of that nation.
By a cruel stroke of irony, one of the works on the scheduled program of the Soviet orchestra was the Cello Concerto by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. There were some shouts of protests as Rostropovich began to play, but by the end of his intense performance, all was quiet. Rostropovich had played with tears streaming down his face, and after finishing held up the conductor’s score of the concerto as both a sign of solidarity with the Czech nation and act of mute protest of the invasion.
Music Played in Today's Program
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904): Cello Concerto; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; USSR State Symphony; Yevgeny Svetlanov, conductor; BBC Legends CD 4110 (recorded live August 21, 1968 at the BBC Proms)
On This Day
Births
1893 - French composer Lili Boulanger, in Paris. She was the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), the famous French composition teacher.
1927 - German composer Willhelm Killmayer, in Munich
Deaths
1951 - British composer and writer Constant Lambert, 45, in London
Premieres
1966 - Creston: Pavane Variations at the La Jolla Music Festival in California
Others
1800 - The U.S. Marine Band presented its first public concert in Washington, D.C., “on a hill overlooking the Potomac,” near the future site of the Lincoln Memorial
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About Composers Datebook®
Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.
He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.