Janos Gereben wrote:

>Rostropovich led a brisk, energetic first movement, string sections
>responding splendidly, woodwind and brass performing solidly; the
>second and fourth movements went well, although tempi seemed on the
>slack side at times.  And yet, all that receded in the memory against
>the experience of the third movement.  This Largo, with its unusually
>divided strings (three groups of violins, two each of violas and celli),
>is a contemplative, serious, "sincere" movement, with magical sonorities.
>Then, in the middle of the movement, Rostropovich took the orchestra and
>the audience to another place: critical listening stopped, thinking
>ceased, one got lost in the work, happily, and the music swept everything
>along its gentle but inevitable path - truly, a magic moment.

Reading your words reminded me of another moving performance of that
work...Ozawa came on stage and announced to the audience that Shostakovich
had died...then Rostropovich walked out on stage to conduct the scheduled
work, the Shostakovich 5th Symphony.  I heard, and taped the performance
via a delayed broadcast.  Even to this day, I find it very difficult to
listen to that performance objectively.  In that performance, the final
movement had such a stately elegance to it and the slow movement was
almost transcendental.

Karl