Msskislav Rostropovich, a famous Russian cellist and conductor, died in Moscow on April 27, 2007 at the age of 80. Rostropovich is the most famous cellist today, he has played almost all the famous cello pieces, and many famous composers have composed for him. In recent years, he has been active on the world music stage as a conductor. He has served as conductor for many famous symphony orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has been warmly welcomed by audiences all over the world.
The legendary musician is known as Russia’s most beloved cellist and the world’s greatest cellist. President Putin described Rostropovich’s death as “a great loss to Russian culture”.
Rostropovich began learning to play the piano at the age of 4 with his mother, a talented pianist. At the age of 7, he began to learn to play the cello with his father, who was a student of the cellist master Casals.
Rostropovich entered the Moscow Conservatory at the age of 16, where he not only studied cello and piano, but also studied composition with Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
In 1945 he won the gold medal at the Young Musicians Competition of the Soviet Union as a cellist. In 1947, he won the first prize at the Prague World Youth Festival. In 1950, he won the first prize in the International Cello Competition held in Prague. In 1964, he was awarded the title of “People’s Artist” of the Soviet Union. In 1956 he became a professor of cello at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. His playing is rich, powerful, dramatic, and technically proficient, recording almost all of the cello repertoire. For his outstanding contributions to the arts, the Soviet government awarded Rostropovich the Stalin Medal, the Lenin Medal, the title of People’s Actor of the Soviet Union, and the rank of professor at the Moscow Conservatory of Music.
Dissatisfied with the Soviet government, Rostropovich traveled to Paris, France with his wife and two daughters in 1974, before settling in the United States. He and his wife were subsequently stripped of their Soviet citizenship. Rostropovich is active on the European and American music stage as a conductor and a cellist, and has cooperated extensively with Western musicians. Rostropovich recorded Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor with conductor Karajan.
Rostropovich is well known. He is a recipient of the Knights of Honour of the British Empire, the French Cross for Culture and Arts, the Greek Order of the Phoenix and the Grand Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany for Distinguished Service. In 1987, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest level of American civil service, from then-President Ronald Reagan. In addition, he holds honorary degrees and titles from more than 30 universities around the world, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Georgetown, Tel Aviv University, and more. After 2000, Rostropovich and conductors Seiji Ozawa and Zubin Mehta have come to China several times to give master classes.
Rostropovich had a wide-ranging influence on the younger generation of cellists, cellist Julian Lloyd Webb wrote in the Telegraph the day after Rostropovich’s death Said: “He is a giant, he is the greatest cellist, and it is difficult for any master to create as many new repertoires for the cello as he does. His interpretation of the cello language is unrivaled, and the secret is not only that The performance is also in the unique tone, Rostropovich takes his audience through his cello to feel the wonderful sound of nature.”
On March 27, 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin for Rost Lopovic hosted a lavish 80th birthday party and awarded him the Presidential Award in recognition of Rostropovich’s “service to his country.” Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the music master: “Whether he touches a bow or a baton, he can turn a stone into gold.” That is, a full month after this banquet, on April 27, this A legendary musician has died in Moscow of bowel cancer.
Rostropovich is gone forever, but his violin will never go away.
