39 Facts About Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich was a Russian cellist and conductor.

Mstislav Rostropovich is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century.

Mstislav Rostropovich was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights, and was awarded the 1974 Award of the International League of Human Rights.

Mstislav Rostropovich was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and had two daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich.

Mstislav Rostropovich graduated from the Conservatory in 1948, and became professor of cello there in 1956.

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At that time, Mstislav Rostropovich was already well known in his country and while actively pursuing his solo career, he taught at the Leningrad Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory.

Mstislav Rostropovich had working relationships with Soviet composers of the era.

Mstislav Rostropovich went on several tours in Western Europe and met several composers, including Benjamin Britten, who dedicated his Cello Sonata, three Solo Suites, and his Cello Symphony to Mstislav Rostropovich.

Mstislav Rostropovich gave their first performances, and the two had an obviously special affinity – Mstislav Rostropovich's family described him as "always smiling" when discussing "Ben", and on his death bed he was said to have expressed no fear as he and Britten would, he believed, be reunited in Heaven.

Mstislav Rostropovich's daughter claimed that this recording moved her father to tears of joy even on his deathbed.

Mstislav Rostropovich took private lessons in conducting with Leo Ginzburg, and first conducted in public in Gorky in November 1962, performing the four entractes from Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Shostakovich's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death with Vishnevskaya singing.

Mstislav Rostropovich played at The Proms on the night of 21 August 1968.

Mstislav Rostropovich played with the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra – it was the orchestra's debut performance at the Proms.

Mstislav Rostropovich stood and held aloft the conductor's score of the Dvorak as a gesture of solidarity for the composer's homeland and the city of Prague.

Mstislav Rostropovich fought for art without borders, freedom of speech, and democratic values, resulting in harassment from the Soviet regime.

Mstislav Rostropovich smuggled to the West the manuscript of Shostakovich's Symphony No 13, emphasizing Soviet indifference to the Babi Yar massacre.

In 1970, Mstislav Rostropovich sheltered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who otherwise would have had nowhere to go, in his own home.

Mstislav Rostropovich left the Soviet Union in 1974 with his wife and children and settled in the United States.

Mstislav Rostropovich was banned from touring his homeland with foreign orchestras and, in 1977, the Soviet leadership instructed musicians from the Soviet bloc not to take part in an international competition he had organised.

In 1978, Mstislav Rostropovich was deprived of his Soviet citizenship because of his public opposition to the Soviet Union's restriction of cultural freedom.

At the concert, Mstislav Rostropovich played his favorite cello repertoire, including Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor; Haydn's cello concerti in C and D; Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto; the two cello concerti of Shostakovich, and others.

The evening with Mstislav Rostropovich raised awareness and helped hundreds of earthquake victims put food on their table.

Mstislav Rostropovich was the director and founder of the Mstislav Rostropovich Baku International Festival and was a regular performer at the Aldeburgh Festival in the UK.

When, in August 1991, news footage was broadcast of tanks in the streets of Moscow, Mstislav Rostropovich responded with a characteristically brave, impetuous and patriotic gesture: he bought a plane ticket to Japan on a flight that stopped at Moscow, talked his way out of the airport and went to join Boris Yeltsin in the hope that his fame might make some difference to the chance of tanks moving in.

Mstislav Rostropovich supported Yeltsin during the 1993 constitutional crisis and conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in Red Square at the height of the crackdown.

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Mstislav Rostropovich commissioned Rodion Shchedrin to compose the opera Lolita and conducted its premiere in 1994 at the Royal Swedish Opera.

Mstislav Rostropovich received many international awards, including the French Legion of Honor and honorary doctorates from many international universities.

Mstislav Rostropovich was an activist, fighting for freedom of expression in art and politics.

Mstislav Rostropovich performed several times in Madrid and was a close friend of Queen Sofia of Spain.

Mstislav Rostropovich's health declined in 2006, with the Chicago Tribune reporting rumours of unspecified surgery in Geneva and later treatment for what was reported as an aggravated ulcer.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mstislav Rostropovich to discuss details of a celebration the Kremlin was planning for 27 March 2007, Mstislav Rostropovich's 80th birthday.

Mstislav Rostropovich attended the celebration but was reportedly in frail health.

Mstislav Rostropovich was admitted to a Paris hospital at the end of January 2007, but then decided to fly to Moscow, where he had been receiving care.

Mstislav Rostropovich re-entered the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Centre on 7 April 2007, where he was treated for intestinal cancer.

Mstislav Rostropovich was then buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery, the same cemetery where his friend Boris Yeltsin had been buried four days earlier.

Mstislav Rostropovich was a huge influence on the younger generation of cellists.

Mstislav Rostropovich either commissioned or was the recipient of compositions by many composers including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Henri Dutilleux, Olivier Messiaen, Andre Jolivet, Witold Lutoslawski, Luciano Berio, Krzysztof Penderecki, Leonard Bernstein, Alfred Schnittke, Aram Khachaturian, Astor Piazzolla, Andreas Makris, Sofia Gubaidulina, Arthur Bliss, Colin Matthews and Lopes Graca.

Mstislav Rostropovich is well known for his interpretations of standard repertoire works, including Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor.

Mstislav Rostropovich is included in the Russian-American Chamber of Fame of Congress of Russian Americans, which is dedicated to Russian immigrants who made outstanding contributions to American science or culture.