When he came to America in 1975, he did not apply for U.S. citizenship; he did not want to stop being a Russian. "As artists," he said, "we must be able to play what we want, where and when we want, with whom we want." That creed is perfectly acceptable in Washington, D.C., where Mstislav Rostropovich has achieved a rousing success as conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, but last week it proved unacceptable in Moscow. In a decree signed by Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, Rostropovich and his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, were...
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