When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice - my voice.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep emotional connection one can have with a musical instrument.
Mstislav Rostropovich reflects on the intimate bond he formed with the cello during his learning process, likening it to a personal voice that resonated with his own identity. This suggests that art, particularly music, can be a powerful medium of self-expression and emotional exploration.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of music education, one might quote this to highlight the personal impact of learning an instrument.
Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him.
People are craving this great progress in electronics, going after computers, the Internet, etc. It's a giant progress technologically. But they must have a balance of soul, a balance for human beauty. That means art has an important role.
The artist must forget the audience, _x000D_ forget the critics, forget the technique, forget everything but love for the music._x000D_ Then, the music speaks through the performance,_x000D_ and the performer and the listener will walk together_x000D_ with the soul of the composer, and with_x000D_ God.
I know that after my letter there will be undoubtedly an 'opinion' about me, but I am not afraid of it. I openly say what I think. Talent, of which we are proud, must not be submitted to the assaults of the past.
Now I come to 75 years of age, I think what's most important in life is your conscience. If you told a lie and made other people suffer, I think that's very difficult when you reach this age.
All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.
We live in an age of music for people who don't like music. The record industry discovered some time ago that there aren't that many people who actually like music. For a lot of people, music's annoying, or at the very least they don't need it. They discovered if they could sell music to a lot of those people, they could sell a lot more records.
The theater requires an essential gullibility that you can't get through life without having. If all you can feel is skepticism-well , you meet people like this. Run away from them. They're not good people.
Without foundations, there can be no fashion.
I write almost always in the third person, and I don't think the narrator is male or female anyway. They're both, and young and old, and wise and silly, and sceptical and credulous, and innocent and experienced, all at once. Narrators are not even human - they're sprites.
Music television is all about the media-oriented version of what it is to be a rock star; it's not about what Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix were about - which included great images, sure, but they had spiritual and political and revolutionary content, too.
I look at a nude. There are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver.
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