Master Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich Dies

Russian Fought For Rights Of Soviet Dissidents, Dies At 80 After Battle With Cancer

(AP)  When hardline communists tried to overthrow then-President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, Rostropovich rushed back to Moscow without a visa and spent days in the Russian parliament building to join those protesting the coup attempt.

In his early to mid-70s, he still had the energy of a middle-age man. He recorded the six Bach solo suites for the first time when he was 70. Five years later, he performed 16 concerts in 11 cities in 28 days, crossing the United States twice and logging nearly 10,000 miles.

Asked by The Associated Press during the 2002 tour about his sleep, he replied in his accented English: "Normally ... four hours for me (is) absolutely enough."

Finckel recalled that after the release of the Bach recordings, Rostropovich celebrated with a feast at a hotel until 2 a.m., then reserved a meeting room for 4 a.m. in order to practice his cello.

Ever the bon vivant with a big smile and twinkling blue eyes, he was known for his love of women and drink.

"He is a passionate man and he has a real lust for life, and his marriage is stronger because of it," his daughter Olga said when asked by the Internet Cello Society in 2003 about his love for the five Fs — "fiddles, food, females, friends and fodka." "What they have together is very precious and nothing can destroy it."

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich was born March 27, 1927, in Baku, in Soviet Azerbaijan. His mother was a pianist. His grandfather and father, Leopold, were cellists. One memorable photo shows him as an infant cradled in his father's cello case. He started playing the piano at age 4 and took up the cello at about 7, later studying at the Moscow Conservatory.

"When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice — my voice," Rostropovich told Strad magazine.

He made his public debut as a cellist in 1942 at age 15, and gained wide notice in the West nine years later, when the Soviets sent him to perform at a festival in Florence, Italy. Life magazine reported the 24-year-old "stirred the audience to warm applause." The New York Times critic said his music was "first class. His tone was big, clean and accurate. ... His musical style seemed to be ardent and intense."

He developed close musical relationships with contemporary composers, inspiring some 100 works, from Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Benjamin Britten — as well as from some not-so-famous composers.

During the 2002 AP interview, he spoke about Shostakovich, who endured part of the Nazis' siege of Leningrad and battled for individual expression under Stalin.

Suffering is essential for art, Rostropovich said. "You know creators, composers, need a palette for life, a color for life. If he (is) only happy with his life, I think that he (does not fully) understand what is happiness."

Rostropovich's work for humanity didn't stop with the fall of the Soviet Union. In 1991, he and his wife established the Vishnevskaya-Rostropovich Foundation to help to improve the health care of children in former Soviet lands.

Rostropovich received numerous awards, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987 and a knighthood conferred on him that year by Queen Elizabeth II on his 60th birthday.

On the cellist's 80th birthday, the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta published a letter Solzhenitzyn wrote in May 1973 after the author and his wife moved out of the Rostropoviches' house.

"Once more I repeat to you and Galiya my delight at your steadfastness, with which you endured all the oppression connected with me and did not allow me to feel," Solzhenitzyn wrote. "Once again I am grateful for the years of shelter with you, where I survived a time that was very stormy for me, but thanks to the exceptional circumstances I all the same wrote without interruption."

In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1955, survivors include their daughters Olga and Elena.