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This concert has been carried out by personal initiative of Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich. They keep a holy memory about Great Patriotic War and a profound respect for its veteran in their hearts. Galina Vishnevskaya experienced all the horrors of Leningrad blockade. At nights she extinguished a firebombs on a roofs and among her numerous rewards the most important she considers the medal “For Leningrad defense”.
Being quite young both Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich gave concerts at fronts of Great Patriotic War in dugouts, submarines, on trucks and ships.
Recently the 26 remixes forming the repertoire of a front brigades artists were found in Dmitry Shostakovich archive. Since wartime they have never been performed nowhere. Program includes arias from classic opera repertoire and songs of the soviet composers such as Blanter, Dunaevsky, brothers Pokrass and russian romances. As Mstislav Rostropovich has stressed, “this concert opened one more profound page of Dmitry Shostakovich creativity – maybe one of the greatest composers of XX century and the program is so various because the composer wanted that each of the soldier got pleasure of this concert”.
According to Galina Vishnevskaya, “this is an incredible interesting musical material. Shostakovich is genius and our national pride. He made this arrangements for cello and violin because of musicians had to take with them only small instruments which could be easily transported. We devoted this concert to the day of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War – the day of memory and sorrow. Of course it is not a holiday, but nowadays many young people no longer know that this war took place. It would be very good for them to listen to these songs as well as to my apprentices who participated in the concert”.
Ms. Shostakovich, Moscow mayor Mr. Luzhkov and the governor of Nizhegorodsky oblast Mr. Hodirev were the honorary guests of this concert.