Mstislav Rostropovich – The musical conscience

This docu­men­tary por­trays the exciting and eventful life of cel­list and con­ductor Mstislav Rostro­po­vich. The film shows the famous musi­cian in Moscow rehear­sing Shostakovich’s 8th sym­phony in Sep­tember 2006 for the 100th anni­versary of the com­poser who was not a teacher, mentor and friend for Rostropovich.

Unknown mate­rial from Rus­sian archives illus­trates the most important sta­tions in Rostropovich’s life and career: His childhood, his early suc­cess as a cello-soloist which made it pos­sible for him to travel to Wes­tern coun­tries, his debut as an opera con­ductor at the Bolshoi Theater, and the quar­rels with the Soviet regime lea­ding to his depar­ture of Russia in 1974. Des­pite his home­sick­ness and painful events like the with­drawal of his Rus­sian citi­zenship in 1978, Rostro­po­vich con­ti­nued his career in the Wes­tern world, both as a cel­list and a conductor.

The film also shows Rostro­po­vich during a master class in Flo­rence in 2006. He tea­ches young musi­cians to per­form chamber music by Pro­ko­fiev and Shosta­ko­vich. These scenes reveal not only Rostropovich’s highly trained musi­ca­lity but most of all his com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills as well as his spe­cial and sen­si­tive rela­tion to music as a source of inex­haus­tible and inde­scri­bable energy. Fur­ther­more, the film shows the Rostro­po­vich Cello Con­test in 2005 which is ano­ther proof of his pas­sio­nate enga­ge­ment for young talents of the cello. The viewer expe­ri­ences the event through the eyes of first prize win­ning par­ti­ci­pant Marie-Elisabeth Hecker.

Besides Rostro­po­vich him­self the most important inter­view part­ners are com­poser Krzy­sztof Pen­der­ecki, cel­list Natalia Gutman and vio­li­nist Maxim Ven­gerov whose lives and careers are inse­pa­rably con­nected to Rostropovich.

Cast & Crew

Film Stills

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