Landowski: Un Enfant appelle, La Prison (Remastered) Mstislav Rostropovich

• Marcel Landowski (1915-1999): Un enfant appelle:
• 1 I. Un enfant appelle, loin, très loin 08:39
• 2 II. Je crois très bas 06:11
• 3 III. La nuit même où il faut livré 08:48
• La Prison:
• 4 I. L'attente 09:04
• 5 II. L'interrogatoire 12:39
• 6 III. La prison 14:15
• Total Runtime 59:36

Info for Landowski: Un Enfant appelle, La Prison (Remastered)

In March 2017, Warner Classics marks the 10th anniversary of Mstislav Rostropovich’s death and 90 years since his birth with the deluxe collectors’ box set Cellist of the Century, comprising of selected remastered recordings.

The label was given unprecedented access to Rostropovich’s personal archive and worked closely with his daughters Elena and Olga. The range and variety of music in the box set is nothing short of extraordinary, embracing works by more than 60 composers, from iconic recordings to rarities. A number of the live performances originate from Russian tapes saved from destruction by resourceful Soviet archivists when Rostropovich was exiled from the USSR (1974-1990), and which came back to light in the late 1990s. Another highlight is the complete Bach Cello Suites, presented here in both audio and video versions. The collection also features an exclusive audio interview of Rostropovich recorded by personality Jon Tolansky.

Although Rostropovich died 10 years ago, on 27 April 2007, he remains a powerful presence on the world’s cultural scene through his legacy as the greatest cellist of his time, as a brave advocate of human rights, and as a man of proverbial generosity and charisma.

Special care has been taken to ensure the highest quality of sound reproduction. Wherever possible, the engineers of Art et Son studios have refined the sound, always with scrupulous respect to the original sources. The analogue recordings originating from EMI and Erato (CD1-15) have been remastered in 96 kHz from the original tapes. These are, therefore, the first recordings where the presence and definition of sound are heard in such detail.

Mstislav Rostropovich, cello

Digitally remastered

Mstislav Rostropovic
That the cello's repertoire has been so wonderfully enriched during the 20th century is due largely to Mstislav Rostropovich, the most influential cellist of his time, a champion of liberty, and also a noted conductor and pianist. Born In Baku on 27 March 1927 to a pianist mother and a cello-playing father who had studied with Pablo Casals, 'Slava' received early paternal grounding in his chosen instrument.

In 1943 he entered the class of Semyon Kozolupov, the 'Tsar' of Russian cellists, at the Moscow Conservatory, where he also studied composition with Shostakovich and Shebalin. In the late 1940s, after graduating with highest honours, Rostropovich triumphed in a string of competitions before making his London and New York debuts in 1956. These launched an international career of enormous distinction.

It is his profound musicality and legendary technique that have inspired some of the 20th century's greatest composers to write the cello: Shostakovich, Britten (who made his Moscow debut in 1964 with Rostropovich), Prokofiev, Kabalevsky, Miaskovsky, Khachaturian and Weinberg are among those who took up the challenge - it is estimated that he gave more than 240 world premieres.

In 1955, Rostropovich married the acclaimed Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya after a whirlwind courtship in Prague. In 1974, as a result of having sheltered the beleaguered writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he was exiled from his native land. In 1989, he famously played the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No.2 at Checkpoint Charlie immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Among his legendary recordings are the Bach Cello Suites (1991), which were also filmed in the intimate setting of a French church; the 1977 studio recording of the Dvorak and Saint-Saëns Cello Concerts with Carlo Maria Giulini and the London Philharmonic; and the 1960s Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Sviatoslav Richter.

Other central repertoire includes Don Quixote, with Karajan clarifying the Berlin Philharmonic like a chamber group, Schelomo with Bernstein, two versions of Brahms’s Double Concerto, his Haydn Concerto in D Major with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and many pieces with Rostropovich’s longtime accompanist ‘Sasha’ Dedyukhin at the piano.

Rostropovich was closely associated with EMI Classics (now Warner Classics) for more than 50 years, having made 100 recordings with the company between 1954 and his death in 2007, just a month after celebrations for his 80th birthday at the Kremlin.

This album contains no booklet.