The 75th birthday of the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century is certainly an occasion worth celebrating. But it is Mstislav Rostropovich as conductor rather than cellist who is in the spotlight in the London Symphony Orchestra's four-programme tribute over the next two weeks.
The series features three of the composers with whom Rostropovich had a close relationship - Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Britten - before ending with a glamorous gala night.
As a young man in the Soviet Union, Rostropovich worked with Prokofiev in the last years of the composer's life, premiering the Cello Sonata and the Symphony Concerto, while as a conductor he has championed the symphonies. But to open the series on Thursday night, he conducted the LSO in the complete Romeo and Juliet ballet score, not as a straight concert work, but with the dance element as well, supplied by the Lithuanian State Ballet (see review Romeo and Juliet 2).
The production was conceived by Rostropovich and choreographer Vladimir Vasiliev in the late 1980s for the Verona Arena, and aimed to present the orchestra and its conductor as equal protagonists in the performance with the dancers. So it is Rostropovich who takes centre stage, with the orchestra arrayed all around him, and the dance behind and in front of them all.
How that circumscribes what the conductor can do with the music is hard to judge, but this had all the hallmarks of an enthusiastic Rostropovich performance. There were plenty of bold, muscular gestures, far less refinement and poise.
The death of Tybalt at the end of the second act was balefully dark, but much of the fine detailing of the score went astray, reminding those who know the suites better than the complete work just how much second-rate music the score contains.
· A version of this review appeared in later editions of yesterday's paper.
