April 19, 2023 --

Maestro Vasily Gergiev will be 70 on May 2. I well recall that day, a Saturday in 1953 because it was the day of my bar mitzvah party.
My bar mitzvah fell on April 25, 1953, but as that day was in the middle of the Omer period when simchas (celebrations) are not observed, my bar mitzvah reception had to be scheduled for Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, following Passover, when simchas could again be celebrated.

Only a few weeks ago, LPR learned of his attenuated link to the now-blackballed Russian maestro for not denouncing Russian President V. Putin.

To mark the occasion of LPR's link with Maestro Gergiev (which means LPR is 13 years senior to the maestro) here is this great (if barred in the West) Russian conductor, leading the Mariinsky Orchestra in a 2010 performance in Paris, of Tchaikovsky's Sixth (Pathetique) Symphony.

How is this masterpiece so much a part of Gergiev? As a commentator points out below the screen, the maestro conducts without the score. And note the silence for several moments after this heartfelt performance.

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