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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Music Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Notes. All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions is still the fountainhead of Soviet music and that Cesar Franck is not forgotten. But the four notes are G-Fb-Cb-Bb, and launching a work with a falling diminished third is no cliche. Later, themes screamingly insist on a single note, returned to from different angles, like Slavic translations of Franck's tethered melodies.The single French horn, the only brass instrument, has a role second only to the cello itself, engaging the soloist in dialogue, at one point just the two of them. Almost like the trumpet in the first piano concerto, the horn stands out in sharp relief. Timpani and celesta, the only percussion, have their special moments, especially at the end of the second movement, a fascinating interplay of celesta and cello harmonics over soughing strings. The cadenza is written out as a separate movement connecting the slow movement and the finale. No mere display of digital dexterity, it has melodic and even harmonic substance, contributing to the unity of the whole.While using such old-fashioned devices as constant key signatures and shifting time signatures, the concerto is still late twentieth-century music. There are no horribly predictable spots and no breathtakingly unpredictable spots. The import is clear to the least musical; the craftsmanship undeniable by the most musical. And this is more than can be said of most Western products today. If the concerto falls short of being a masterpiece, it is a perfect vehicle for the master who loves it. Rostropovich needs it, and it needs Rostropovich.

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