I was privileged to be present at the Washington memorial service of the great Russian cellist and conductor, Mistislav Rostopovitch. I had an entré in this remarkable event by virtue of my relationship with Freddie, who was principal timpanist in the orchestra Slava had conducted for seventeen years. I was already sad because Freddie was bereft that his great friend had departed this life.
I stepped into the cool, dark interior of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of John the Baptist and looked up at dozens of images in the Byzantine style of Jesus and the Apostles, the saints and martyrs. The sanctuary is covered floor to ceiling with them, all looking down with huge, sad eyes. The air was thick with wisps, sometimes clouds of incense, hundreds of candles, the sound of the choir singing over the diapason of Russian bassi profondi. All the priests were huge men with massive beards. They moved around the altar like gentle bears, their big paws holding the sacred books and vessels, all looking as though they had just stepped out of the pages of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
The priest-in-charge spoke briefly about “our brother Slava.” Freddie hadn’t realized that his old friend and colleague was particularly religious, but it seems that Slava was a regular communicant and had helped establish the church and contributed the money for the massive bells, which only a few days earlier had tolled eighty strokes for him. The people in this congregation regarded him with great admiration and affection, but he wasn’t at all a remote figure to them, separated by his talent and celebrity. He was “their brother Slava.”
The head priest (there were about eight others in the room), told the people that Slava had summoned him to Paris to help him prepare for his imminent death. The clergyman spent several days at his bedside. He said that by the time he died, the Maestro was ready to go. He had made his confession and received Absolution and Extreme Unction. His deathbed lay on the bosom of Mother Russia, where Slava would find his final resting place.
I felt a great sadness that such a luminous soul had left us, that an intense light in this world had been extinguished. I knew Slava only by reputation. I had a moment with him when Freddie presented me to him. He took me in his large embrace and kissed me first on the left cheek, then the right, then again on the left. “You make my darling Frediki happy,” he said in his thickly accented English. I wasn’t sure whether it was a statement of fact or a command.
The only religion I know of that would have suited the largeness of Slava was the Russian Orthodox Church, with its mystical intensity and embracing sensuality. Thinking back on my first few minutes in the church, I realized that the environment makes a global appeal to the senses in the coming together of the art, the music, the incense. The worship is active, with the congregation standing the entire time, and the people making the sign of the Cross repeatedly and chanting all the responses. I had only once before seen a congregation so passionately involved. In Kiev, the “Jerusalem of Russia,” not long after the fall of the Soviet Union, I saw people weeping and prostrating themselves upon the floor. I assumed that such devotion was occurring because the Russian people were finally free to practice their religion after long repression. Perhaps it is always so in the Russian Church. I wondered if the religious practices I found acceptable were really too narrow for me. My restrained Broad Church Anglicanism suddenly seemed too dry, too tight a fit. Maybe I longed to fall down and weep for my sins and be comforted by one of these big, gentle priests. Maybe I was a Holy Roller at heart in the guise of a via media Episcopalian.
By the time the service was over and the congregation and clergy had bid farewell to Slava one more time, I was feeling both sad and elated. Sad that Slava, who had contributed so much to this world was gone, and elated that I actually felt piercing emotion in church, which I had not experienced for a long time.
After the ceremony, the people were invited to a meal and a glass of wine. I was feeling a bit overwrought but wanted to stay for Freddie.
After a lengthy blessing and acknowledgment of Slava’s presence among them, supper was served -- fine salmon (lox Freddie called them), excellent dark breads, lovely ham and cheeses. A lady named Nadia, who had been Slava’s assistant, rose to say that Slava loved toasts, and she proposed one to the Maestro. We toasted with tiny cups of vodka (Stoly, I noticed). Some people sipped, but the Russians simply tossed it back unflinchingly.
At the table, I met a pianist named Lambert Orkis, Slava’s accompanist who had traveled with him on many tours. The day before, I had read an article he had written for The Washington Post entitled “Goodbye, Maestro.” He recounted that Slava once told him he drank like a student. We all wondered what he meant—that he drank too much, that he drank indiscriminately?
What an evening! I found my way into this rich world, populated by some of the gods and heroes of music, because of my connection with Freddie—Slava’s beloved Frediki. No one knew me, so I wasn’t obliged to say anything intelligent or pretend that I understood what was going on.
Later in the week, many members of the orchestra, Slava’s comrades in arms during the years he made music with them, would gather at a downtown club to honor their fallen friend. They would no doubt tell Slava stories, laugh and be sad at the same time, slam back lots of vodka, and add another chapter to the legend of Mistislav Leopoldovitch Rostopovitch.
