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capital of the Independent Republic of Azerbaijan, and spent his young
ages there, until his move to Moscow in 1931.
At the age of four he learned the piano
with his mother who was a
talented pianist, and started the cello at the age of 10 with his father,
who was also a cellist.
From 1943 to 1948, he studied at the Moscow Conservatoire, where
he became professor of cello in 1956. He entered the Moscow Conserva-
toire at the age of sixteen, and studied not only the piano and the cello,
but also conducting and composition. Among his teachers were Dmitri
Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. In 1945 he came to prominence as
cellist when he won the gold medal in the first
ever Sovie t Union com-
petition for young musicians.
In 1951, at the age of twenty-four he was awarded w
hat was then
considered the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, the Stalin Prize.
At that time, Rostropovich was already well known in his country and
while actively pursuing his solo career, he taught at the Leningrad
(St. Petersburg) Conservatoire and the Moscow Conservatoire. In 1955,
he married Galina Vishnevskaya, soprano at the Bolshoi Theatre.
His international career started in 1964. He went on several tours in
Western Europe and met several composers, including Benjamin Britten.
In 1967, he conducted Tchaikovsky’s opera
Eugene Onegin at the Bol-
shoi, thus letting forth his passion for both
the role of conductor and
the opera.
Among the composers who wrote especially for Rostropovich were
Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten, Bernstein, Schnittke and Piazzolla.
Rostropovich fought for art without borders, freedom of speech, and
democratic values. When in 1948 his teacher Dmitri Shostakovich was
dismissed from his professorships in Leningrad and Moscow because he
was thought to be one of the so-called “formalist” composers, the then
21-year-old Rostropovich quit the Conservatoire,
dropping out in pro-
test. In 1969 he sheltered Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his own home. His
friendship with Solzhenitsyn and his support for dissidents led to official
disgrace. As a result, Rostropovich was restricted from foreign touring,
as was his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, and he was sent on a tour
of small towns in Siberia.
Rostropovich left the Soviet Union in 1974 with his wife and children
and settled in the United States.
Rostropovich was a huge influence on the younger generation of cel-
lists.
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From 1977 until 1994, he was musical director and conductor of the
United States National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC, while
still performing with some of the most famous musicians such as Svi-
atoslav Richter and Vladimir Horowitz. He was also the director and
founder of the Rostropovitch and Aldeburgh music festivals. His perfor-
mance during the fall of the Berlin Wall as events unfolded earned him
international fame and was shown on television throughout the world.
His Russian citizenship was restored in 1990,
although he and his family
had already become American citizens.
Rostropovich received many international awards. He supported ma-
ny educational and cultural projects. Rostropovich and his wife, Galina
Vishnevskaya, started a foundation to stimulate social projects and ac-
tivities. He died on April 27, 2007.
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