MstislavRostropovich
Stockholm, May 1995
The 4th Polar Music Prize Ceremony was held at Berwaldhallen in the month of May 1995. The evening continued with a banquet in Vinterträdgården at Stockholm’s Grand Hôtel.
HM King Carl XVI Gustaf presented the Prize to the two Laureates Mstislav Rostropovich and Sir Elton John.
The citation for Mstislav Rostropovitch was read by Swedish cello player Frans Helmerson, who also performed at the ceremony.
Elton John and Mstislav Rostropovich, Laureates of 1995. (Source: © Polar Music Prize)
Mstislav Rostropovich receiving the Polar Music Prize from HM King Carl XVI Gustaf.
To honour the Laureates, music was performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and, among others, Joey Tempest from Europe.
(Source: © Polar Music Prize)
Influences & Mentors
Mstislav Rostropovich was born on March 27, 1927 in Baku, Azerbaijan in the former Soviet Union (d. in Moscow, April 2007). With a father who was a distinguished cellist and a mother who was a concert pianist, the young Rostropovich was introduced to music at an early age, taking up piano at four and cello a few years later. The family later moved to Moscow and Rostropovich entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1943 where he studied cello, piano, composition and conducting under Vissarion Shebalin and Dmitri Shostakovich.
Moscow Conservatory of Music around 1940. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Sergei Prokofiev with Mstislav Rostropovich.
During his studies he won a number of prizes and impressed Sergei Prokofiev so much that the composer rewrote his cello concerto into the Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra which he went on to dedicate to Rostropovich. Around this time Soviet politician Andrei Zhdanov began censoring Soviet artists and composers for not adhering to the strict cultural policy of Soviet Realism. Among those affected were Prokofiev who had his works banned and Shostakovich who lost his teaching job at the Conservatory.
Rostropovich was adamant in defending his mentors’ artistry, and refused to join the Communist Party despite the very real threats posed by such a stance.
Russian pianist and composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). (Source: Photo by Pierre Choumoff/Wikimedia Commons)
The music of Rostropovich's mentors.
Galina Vishnevskaya
In 1955, he married famed Bolshoi Opera Galina Vishnevskayasoprano Galina Vishnevskaya. The couple not only worked side by side throughout their musical careers, but also shared many of the same political convictions; they were often critical of the Soviet regime’s stifling and censuring of cultural expressions and actively worked with human rights and charity projects.
Galina Vishnevskaya in 2008. (Source: Photo by Alexey Yushenkov, via Wikimedia Commons)
Galina Vishnevskaya: songs and opera arias
Reaching out to the west
After Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet state began to relax the rigid rules of cultural totalitarianism, allowing Rostropovich to tour and make new contacts in the West. Benjamin Britten was one such contact and in Britten, Rostropovich found one of his most inspiring friends.
Rostropovich with Benjamin Britten after a concert at the Moscow Conservatory in 1964. (Source: RIA Novosti archive/ photo by Mikhail Ozerskiy)
Britten, along with Berio, Bernstein, Khachaturian, Dutilleux, Lutosławski, Penderecki, Prokofiev, Schnittke, Shostakovich and Walton are some of the many contemporary composers who have dedicated works to Rostropovich – works which include some of the most important cello compositions of our age and, taken together, eloquently testify to this man’s artistic significance and standing, not only as an advocate of his instrument and its repertoire and a proponent of Russian music, but also as a living inspiration and prime mover, worldwide, for the writing of new cello compositions.
Rostropovich & friends
Political Exile
In spite of the great personal risks involved, Rostropovich was uncompromising in his campaign for human dignity and artistic integrity during the darkest days of the Soviet epoch. In 1970, Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya sheltered dissident author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who, considered to be an enemy of the Soviet people by the state, was incessantly persecuted by the KGB. His friendship with Solzhenitsyn and his support for dissidents led to official condemnation in the early 1970s, resulting in fewer and fewer engagements and less publicity as well as being forbidden to tour internationally. Galina Vishnevskaya also received less publicity though she was still allowed to sing at the Bolshoi Theater.
Rostropovitch with russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. (Source: RIA Novosti archive, Yuryi Abramochkin)
This politically motivated cultural boycott eventually led the couple to leave the Soviet Union in 1974 and settle in the United States. Consequently, Rostropovich was banned from several musical ensembles in his homeland and in 1978 the two were deprived of their Soviet citizenship due to "systematic acts which have damaged the reputation of the Soviet Union." In November 1989, Rostropovitch travelled to Berlin and gave an impromptu performance at the Berlin Wall as it was being dismantled. He had his citizenship reinstated by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990.
Rostropovich during his time as the chief conductor and musical director of the U.S. National Symphony Orchestra in Washington. (Source: RIA Novosti archive, Vladimir Vyatkin)
"We're all soldiers for the music"
Mstislav Rostropovich
(Source: RVF)
Rostropovich was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights, receiving the 1974 Human Rights Award from the International League of Human Rights. Together with his wife, he also started the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation in 1991, a non-political, non-partisan organization that aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children in need. The foundation's work is focused mainly in ex-Soviet territories such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, but has also extended to help children in the West Bank and Gaza.
Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya addressing a news conference at the U.S.S.R. Foreign Ministry press center, 1990. (Source: RIAN Archive)
The Duport Stradivarius is a cello that was crafted in 1711 by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari of Cremona. The instrument is named after the French cellist Jean-Louis Duport who owned it around the beginning of the 19th century. Legend has it that a small dent on the cello was from Napoleon Bonaparte nicking the instrument after Duport had permitted the emperor to try it. Rostropovich played the instrument from 1974 until his death.
Antonio Stradivari at work (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Legacy
Through his unusual artistic versatility – he was not only a cellist and conductor but also a skillful pianist and accompanist – through his friendship and close association with the very foremost Russian musicians and composers of our time such as Oistrach, Prokofiev, Richter, Shostakovich and Kogan, and through his teaching at the Moscow and St Petersburg Conservatories, Mstislav Rostropovitch, as a musician and cultural personality, has had an importance and influence, both in Russia and internationally, the full compass of which has yet to be perceived.
In memoriam Mstislav Rostropovich 1927–2007.
Rostropovich memorial in Schulgarten in Kronberg (Source: Wikipedia Commons)
Content of biography is presented here as it was published in 2012.
All pictures from the Polar Music Prize ceremony and banquet © Polar Music Prize.
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