Utilité publique and Public Utility

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Notes

¹Rostropovich gave a famously emotional performance of it, with the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra at the London Proms, on 21 August 1968, the day that Russian tanks entered what was then Czechoslovakia and the so-called ‘Prague Spring’ came to an abrupt end.

² Le nouvel observateur, 9 October 2008 (all translations are my own). The other Concours Internationaux de la Ville de Paris are the Lily Laskine (d. 1988) Harp Competition, the Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992) Piano Competition, the Jean-Pierre Rampal (d. 2000) Flute Competition, and those named after the trumpeter Maurice André and the jazz pianist Martial Solal, who at the time of writing are, notwithstanding M. Girard's somewhat sinister rationale, also still alive!

³Reported in Diapason, 10 October 2009, and elsewhere.

⁴Salle Pleyel, 8 November 2009. Rostropovich's playing of Bach at the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989 was widely reported at the time, and images of the event (e.g. that at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6598895.stm ;>) became icons of the re-unification of Germany. He reprised the performance in situ on the tenth anniversary in 1999.

⁵ Le Figaro, 9 November 2009.