| Main Performers | Mstislav Rostropovich - cello |
| Orchestra or Band | State Orchestra of The USSR (Soviet State Symphony Orchestra) |
| Set List | 'Overture' from Ruslan and Ludmilla, Glinka (State Orchestra of The USSR),
'Cello Concerto in B Minor', A Dvorak (Mstislav Rostropovich, State Orchestra of The USSR)
ENCORE
'Sarabande', Bach (Mstislav Rostropovich)
INTERVAL
'Symphony No.10', Shostakovich (State Orchestra of The USSR) |
| Performance Notes | Proms, London and Royal Albert Hall debuts of the State Orchestra of the USSR.
The night before this concert Brezhnev had sent Soviet Union troops and tanks into Czechoslovakia, following the 'Prague Spring', a period of liberalisation and reform in the Eastern Bloc state. The invasion shocked the world and there was a call for the concert to be cancelled or for ticket-holders to boycott the event (a Red Army Ensemble event planned for after the Proms season was later cancelled). Outside the Hall, approx. 150-200 protestors with placards and leaflets, called for the cancellation of the event.
The event went ahead, but yells and scrunched-up newspapers from protestors were thrown at members of the State Orchestra of the USSR, as they entered the Hall before the concert. Prommers made their feelings clear by shouting "Go home!", "Shame on you!", "Get out of Czechoslovakia!" and "Russians out!" and some placards has been brought into the Hall also. Booing by the audience took place during the concert, and counter-booing by audience members who wanted to hear the music inspite of the politics.
The Orchestra's choice of the Czech composer Dvorak, though chosen months earlier, was seen as a provocative insult. An emotional and unsettled Rostropovich, who was a Soviet citizen, but who had met his wife and married in Prague, wept as he played the concerto by heart, and held up the score at the end in a gesture of solidarity. Later, Rostropovich recalled that he imagined people being killed through the tears.
For him going on stage was really an act of will, his biographer and former pupil Elizabeth Wilson says in The Prom Of Peace. He felt like he was putting his head on the scaffold. He knew that people would be judging him just for being a Soviet citizen, so somehow he had to overcome this prejudice through his instrument through playing the music with all his soul and to somehow share his feelings with the audience, and to conquer the audience.
A 16 year-old Julian Lloyd-Webber was in the audience as were members of the KGB who accompanied the Orchestra.
The event was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
A reception for the Orchestra after the event was cancelled.
Dvorak's 'Cello Concerto in B Minor' was performed exactly 50 years later at the Hall during the Proms by the BBC National Ocrhestra of Wales. They received a much kinder reception.
A BBC Radio Four programme for the series 'For One Night Only' about the event was broadcast in 2007, called 'The Prom of Peace', presented by Paul Gambuccini, discussed the relationship between music and politics.
The BBC released a CD called 'BBC Legends: Rostropovich', which included a digitally remastered recording of 'Cello Concerto in B Minor', Dvorak, from the 1968 Prom. The recording includes some of the shouting from Prommers before the music, however the shouting over the music at the beginning of the piece were removed and the opening bars from another recording used to reduce the protest noise. |
| Related Archival Material | Proms Guide (RAHE/1/1968/94),
Programme (RAHE/1/1968/126),
Ticket (RAHE/8/5/1968/9) |