The now 70-year-old MstislavRostropovich is considered the greatest

’cellist of our time, and is generallymentioned in the same breath as thelegendary Pablo Casals. The proximity toCasals is not accidental, for his father andfirst teacher, Leopold Rostropovich,admired Casals’ art greatly, and was for atime his student in Paris. Like Casals, whorevolutionized ’cello playing at thebeginning of this century—liberatingBach’s Suites for Violoncello Solo from thetaint of a naked “étude,” and performingthese brilliant Classical compositions forthe first time in the concert hall, so thatthey were established as the foundation of’cello literature—Mstislav Rostropovichhas also distinguished himself as arevolutionary on his instrument. Nearly allmodern composers have been stimulated byhis ’cello playing. Most of all, it is thanks tohim and his innumerable students, whothemselves belong to the elite of ’celliststoday, that the ’cello has experienced a truerenaissance in recent decades. Yet, asRostropovich recounts in this interview, hewas already as a child fascinated byconducting, and even at the beginning ofhis career as a soloist, prepared seriously for the conductor’s calling.

Born in 1927, the son of a ’cellist and apianist, Rostropovich took in music “withhis mother’s milk,” so to speak. As a child,he received a thorough education on bothpiano and ’cello, until, in accordance withhis father’s wishes, he concentrated entirelyon the violoncello. He debuted as a soloistwhen he was only 13 years of age—at the“advanced” age of 14, following the earlydeath of his father, he had to concern him-

self with supporting hisfamily—and, owing to hisoutstanding accomplish-ments, within three yearshe entered the renownedMoscow Music Conserva-tory. He immediatelybegan a meteoric career asthe leading ’cellist of theformer Soviet Union,which very quickly led himabroad. At the beginningof the 1960’s, he conductedhis first public concert,together with his friend,the composer DmitriShostakovich, and in 1968 he premiered asensational “musically new production” ofTchaikovsky’s opera “Eugene Onegin” at theworld-renowned Bolshoi Theater, in whichhis wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya,held the position of Primadonna assoluta.

Befriending Solzhenitsyn

In the West, besides his great artisticachievements—he has concertized withpractically every world-class orchestra andchamber music group—Rostropovich isknown above all for his public championshipof the author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who,beginning the late 1960’s, was banned by theformer Soviet regime, and finally, in 1973,exiled from that country altogether.Solzhenitsyn lived for nearly four years inRostropovich’s dacha, as he otherwise had noplace to live with adequate workingconditions. A crisis with the regime wasreached in the late fall of 1970, afterRostropovich had confirmed his attitude onthis question in an Open Letter. Although

suppressed in the Soviet Union, after thisletter hit the West like a tidal wave,Rostropovich himself quickly became aSoviet “non-person”: his artistic activity wasdrastically curtailed and foreign trips wereforbidden, as were concerts in the great citiesof Moscow and Leningrad. Nearly all hisfriends turned against him. In the begin-ning of 1974, Rostropovich received—particularly through the intervention of U.S.Senator Edward Kennedy—approval fromthe Soviet regime for a “two-year foreignresidence,” accompanied by his family. In1978, Soviet citizenship was stripped fromhim and his wife.

Rostropovich could not complain abouta lack of work in the West. Besides hisintense activity as an internationallysought-after soloist, he was frequently also aguest conductor with renowned orchestras.Besides these duties, in 1977 he undertookthe position of chief conductor of theNational Symphony Orchestra inWashington, D.C., a position for which he

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Mstislav Rostropovich,’Cellist and Conductor

‘We carry out a divineservice with our music’

I NT ERVI EW

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had prepared for seventeen long years.When the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989,he flew to Berlin with his ’cello as quicklyas possible, to play one of Bach’s solo suitesat Checkpoint Charlie—a work which hehas only just, at the age of 70, really under-taken for the first time, because, as he saysbelow, “I had now the ‘balance’ at mydisposal for the first time.”

At the time of this interview, MstislavRostropovich was on tour, concertizing asboth ’cellist and conductor on the occasionof his 70th birthday. At the end ofNovember 1997, two of these Jubileeconcerts took place with the ViennaPhilharmonic, in the concert hall of thetradition-rich Vienna Music Association.There, on November 20, Mr. Rostropovichwas interviewed for Fidelio, and itsGerman-language sister publicationIbykus, by Hartmut Cramer.

Fidelio: Mr. Rostropovich, for nearlyforty years, you—the world-famous ’cel-list—have also experienced an equallygreat career as a conductor. Does thismean that you became a conductor with-out ever having properly learned con-ducting?Rostropovich: Of course not. I’ll tellyou how my conducting career cameabout.

Since my youth, it was my dream tobecome a conductor and not a ’cellist.When I was somewhere between eightand nine years old, my father, who alsowas a ’cellist—by the way, he playedmuch better ’cello than I—played oftenin the orchestra at a resort during thesummer; I believe he did that only so

that we—his wife and two children—might have a vacation, since we simplyhad no money for normal vacations.

Unfortunately, my father died of aheart attack when he was very young;that was 1942, and he was just 50 yearsold. He was an unusually strong individ-ual, and always said: “If the people needme, then they will come to me.” He wasthat certain of his ability—and yet, noone came.

Fidelio: Was he very much embitteredwhen he died?Rostropovich: Yes, he was. I believe thatmy father, where he is now, must bevery pleased that God has enabled me tohave so beautiful an artistic life, becausehe had no luck in his. He was as musical-ly gifted as I, he was highly gifted. Hecould play the piano—an entire orches-

tral score, in fact, by heart—,he composed . . .Fidelio: . . .Your father wasa pianist too, not just yourmother?Rostropovich: Oh, my fatherwas the best pianist in thefamily. He played Chopin’sentire piano oeuvre, by heart;all the ballades, the études,sonatas, the concertos, all. Anddetailed study of a full score,this I learned from my father.So too, the ability to play apiece by heart after havingplayed it through only two orthree times. But the “prima

vista”—to play at first sight, sight-read-ing—in that, my father held completesway. He did that like no one else. WhenI put together my first piano concert—Iwas then a good 13 years old, and a yearlater my father died—he took the scoreand sight-read the entire concert. It wasinconceivable, but true. That was myfather and first teacher.

Now, because our family was verypoor, my father accepted a position everysummer in a small resort orchestra; thatwas in southern Russia, in Zaporozhye,and also in Slavyansk. It was there inSlavyansk, in 1940, that I played as asoloist with an orchestra for the firsttime—it was the ’cello concerto byCamille Saint-Saëns.

Fidelio: And with that began, at age 13,your career as a ’cellist?Rostropovich: Yes. Before, my fatherhad always taken me to rehearsals—even the concerts in Zaporozhye. I wasat every rehearsal and sat in the orches-tra, somewhere between the first andsecond violins, and listened. The peoplewere very nice to me; I learned a lot. Ihad already composed my first piece atage four (which my father preserved inits entirety!). From the start, the conduc-tors fascinated me a great deal. One ofthe first taught me transposition, at agesix or seven; that is, reading the clarinetvoice, the brass instruments, and so on.And, from that time on, I dreamt ofbecoming a conductor. Up until age 13, Iwould conduct old recordings; for exam-ple, the symphonies of Tchaikovsky.But, my father insisted that I become a’cellist, and he also taught me. So Ibecame a ’cellist, and not a conductor—but I never gave up my old dream. Atfirst, in fact, I had no time for it, and alsoI wanted to finish up my musical educa-tion quickly. As a rule, students come tothe Conservatory at age 18, and studythere for five years. Now, I had difficul-ties with the final examination for thefirst term; of course not with ’cello play-ing, but in the theoretical division . . .Fidelio: . . . music theory, harmony? . . .Rostropovich: ...No, no—with that Ihad no problem. But we were also testedon Marxism-Leninism, the history ofworkers’ movements, and so forth; andabout these I really knew nothing at all.But—my father had been dead over ayear, I had to provide for my family, formy mother and older sister—so I mas-tered all these requirements during thenext year, so that it went better at theend of the term. I could do the ’celloplaying anyway, of course, which myfather had taught me. And, naturally, Iperfected my technique at the Conserva-tory, broadened the repertoire, improvedintonation still further; in all modesty, Ican say, that I played very well in theexamination at the end of the secondterm. I had sought out the most difficultthings from the literature—pieces byPaganini, for example—and playedthem absolutely cleanly and technicallyperfectly.

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I have immense respect for Bach;he is one of the best examples, thatart comes from God. As with apriest, it is not necessary that theWord of God be interpreted;rather, that God speak directly toman through the priest. Thus do I see it also with Bach and othergreat composers.

Fidelio: So, you were what Mozartcalled a “solid ’cellist”?Rostropovich: Yes, one could say that.The professors were so pleased, that theypromoted me at once from the secondyear to the fifth and last; so I had tostudy at the Moscow Conservatory foronly two years, instead of five. By then Ihad completed nineteen years of study,and stood ready to begin a great career asa ’cellist. Yet, at the same time—and thisquite seriously—I immediately began acareer as a conductor.

First, I worked with the composerAlexander—in Russia, there are twofamous musicians by the name ofAlexander. One conducted the RedArmy Chorus, and was for me, natural-ly, only an amateur. But the other was atrue composer. And his wife—althoughnot a professional musician—was a verybrilliant teacher and ideal pedagogue.She taught conducting technique to meand other students.

At the same time, I began lessonswith Leo Ginsburg, one of the mostfamous teachers at the Conservatory. Ofcourse, these were private lessons, since Iwas then no longer a student, but alreadya successful working ’cellist. Ginsburgwas absolutely the best teacher of con-ducting in the entire Conservatory. Gen-nadi Rozhdestvensky had been his stu-dent, as well as all the other famousRussian conductors. Ginsburg was, him-self, not a great conductor; but, as ateacher, he was the best. So I went to hishouse, and he was very enthusiastic. Andhe did a very unusual thing with me: hisinstruction began with my conductingstring quartets.

Fidelio: Which quartets were those?Rostropovich: Three or four of Bee-thoven’s, including late quartets, andseveral quartets of Mozart.

Fidelio: How did that work? Did youbring recordings with you?Rostropovich: No, no; I brought somefriends with me, who played the quartetsof Beethoven and Mozart, and I con-ducted. Ginsburg advised me very close-ly, interrupted me, explained to me, anddemonstrated for me ... it was won-derful, phenomenal. I learned a great

deal through that experience, because, inthe four different voices of one stringquartet of the great composers, you canstudy and try out so much.

Fidelio: It’s also very interesting, on thisaccount, because historically the orches-tra, to some extent, developed from thefour voices of the string section. So thestring quartet, so to speak, shaped thekernel of the orchestra, such that theother instruments—especially the wood-winds and horns—group around it.Rostropovich: Exactly. Later, I con-ducted ’cello concerts under Ginsburg’ssupervision, and after his death—after Igot to know Kyrill Kondrashin—I con-ducted my first concert. I’m still in closecontact with Kondrashin, and also witha conductor named Guzman, the chiefconductor in Gorki (which nowadays isagain called Nizhny Novgorod). Hewas not so famous, and neither was he agreat musician—but he was a goodbandmaster. I asked Kondrashin andGuzman to prepare a concert with mein Gorki. I studied Tchaikovsky’s FirstSymphony and Prokofiev’s Fifth Sym-phony with Kondrashin. This was myfirst public appearance as a conductor,at the end of 1961. Although, earlier, Ihad already conducted—five musicalinterludes for orchestra, from LadyMacbeth.Fidelio: The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk ofShostakovich?Rostropovich: Yes, the Lady Macbeth ofShostakovich. In addition, somewhatearlier I also conducted a world pre-miere, the Songs and Dances of Death byMussorgsky, which Shostakovichorchestrated and dedicated to my wifeGalina. At this time, Shostakovich wasalready very ill, he suffered from atrophyof the muscles. He suffered even more,however, from the fact that he could nolonger appear as a pianist, he loved thisprofession so much. He often accompa-nied my wife and me to piano concerts.And, when discussing his illness, I pro-posed that he could still conduct, thatthis would certainly still work. Heagreed, and we put together a programin Gorki, in which he conducted the firstpart, and I the second part: Mussorgsky’sSongs and Dances of Death (in the orches-

tral setting) and five musical interludesfrom Macbeth. For me, it was great for-tune, for the best review ever writtenabout me as a conductor, came fromShostakovich. In this article, Shos-takovich developed very interestingmusical ideas; I still have it today.

Previously, Shostakovich had ob-served me at rehearsals. Afterwards hecame to me, very excited, and wentdirectly into details: “While at such-and-such passage, I did not hear the bassoonstrongly enough, and thought, ‘thatneeds to be heard more clearly,’ at thatvery moment, you brought the bassooninto greater prominence wonderfully.” Ithappened somewhat similarly in refer-ence to the pianissimo: for at the begin-ning, the orchestra played mezzoforteinstead of mezzopiano, and thus the laterpianissimo passage became too loud rela-tively too quickly. That is the most diffi-cult thing, to get an orchestra to playtruly piano, or, then again, pianissimo.

I still remember vividly a discussionwith the famous pianist HeinrichNeuhaus, who in his developmentdebuted on the piano and one afteranother struck a key in pianissimo and inforte-fortissimo and asked: “How manygradual differences are there betweenthese two tones?” The greatest difficul-ties in music belong to this, to reallywork out these many, many gradations.

I always spend a great deal of timeworking out the dynamic shadings whenI work with an orchestra. I let them firstplay piano, then mezzopiano, mezzoforte,then forte, fortissimo, ... and, in theprocess, it usually becomes clear, thatthere is no possibility of increasingbeyond f to ff, let alone a further increaseto fff.

Shostakovich was not only complete-ly excited about this rehearsal and theassociated concert in Gorki, but he alsothen spoke later to friends about hisappreciation of me as a conductor; andthat naturally greatly helped me in myconducting career.

Later, I got a chance to conductTchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin atthe Bolshoi Theater. I studied that withyet another teacher. After the first threeteachers—Ginsburg, Kondrashin, andGuzman—my fourth conductor-teacher

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was Boris Kaikin, who conducted at theBolshoi Theater. But that I must explainmore precisely.

You know that my wife Galina hadsung the title role of Tatiana in the operaEugene Onegin; well, when I was inMoscow, I heard every performance. Asa result, little by little, I observed that theinterpretation of the opera was not right.So I studied the full score more closely,and determined that in the perfor-mance—a “standard performance,”which had been unchanged in the reper-toire for a long time—many mistakeswere being made. Tchaikovsky’s musicsounded completely falsified; it was sen-timental and trashy, indeed the render-ing was almost smutty. I love Tchai-kovsky very much, and when I perform

him, I take pains to present his musicvery intelligibly and clearly, exactly as hewrote it. But what was offered at theBolshoi Theater as a “standard perfor-mance” of Eugene Onegin was entirelyotherwise.

Fidelio: That was the reason why, foryour debut with the Bolshoi in 1968, youinsisted on having so many rehearsals?Rostropovich: Yes, and that in particu-lar led to a scandal. Imagine, I come as awell-recognized ’cellist, but inexperi-enced conductor, to the world-renownedBolshoi, which is by far the best theaterin the entire Soviet Union, and insist forthe performance of a decade-long-rehearsed “standard opera,” ten re-

hearsals. They would only give me five. Iinsist on ten. Finally, we reach a compro-mise on the number eight. But it windsup 22—because the musicians insisted onso many.

They said, that the music ofTchaikovsky—who was otherwise aperson of strong character—is, quite tothe contrary, as sentimental and trashy asanything they had hitherto heard orplayed. Line by line, I went through the

different passages with the orchestra,arguing and singing. And then they notonly accepted, but were finally evenexcited.

For example, in the famous baritonephrase in the final scene duet [SEE musi-cal example], in the original, Tchai-kovsky writes out the fermata on theopposite end of the singing line [on theG–Ed.]; but, by the performance, how-ever, it rings out already well before, justat the beginning on the F, the highestnote of the baritone . . .Fidelio: . . . because the baritone wantsto shine just like a tenor or soprano . . .Rostropovich: . . . naturally, and theconductors have submitted to him. Andwith time, it becomes completely absurd:The first singer sustains this high noteten seconds, then it becomes 12, 13, even15; thus, Tchaikovsky’s music becomestrash—and this is but a single example,of which there are many. So, there wasmuch to do, and I therefore neededmany rehearsals. Because I wanted thatthe musicians, and through them ulti-mately the audience also, receive themost direct possible insight into themusical intention of the composer.

Fidelio: What you describe is whatFurtwängler referred to with the phrase,“I conduct what lies behind the notes.”Rostropovich: That is exactly what Imean. In fact, I learned a great deal fromFurtwängler, precisely in respect toTchaikovsky. His interpretation of

Tchaikovsky’s SixthSymphony hasgiven me so manyideas, far more thanfrom any of theRussian conductors.Furtwängler’s inter-pretation bespeaks a

great deal of imagination, but also everso much logic. And because of thisunique combination of musical logic andcreative imagination, I admire Furtwän-gler. He was a brilliant conductor.

Fidelio: How and when did you hearFurtwängler for the first time?Rostropovich: On old recordings, whichwere protected by us in Moscow as trea-sures, having been received only secretly

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My wife Galina sang the title role ofTatiana in the opera Eugene Onegin,and I heard every performance. Little by little, I observed that the interpretation of theopera was not right. Tchaikovsky’s musicsounded completely falsified; it wassentimental and trashy. I love Tchaikovskyvery much, and when I perform him, I takepains to present his music very intelligiblyand clearly, exactly as he wrote it.

Galina Vischnevskaya,in her 1953 BolshoiOpera debut asTatiana in “EugeneOnegin.”

Baritone phrase,“Eugene Onegin”:shifting the fermatatransforms a musicalidea into meresentimentality.

and “under-the-table.”Fidelio: Because hewas officially decried inMoscow—as was pret-ty much every Germanat that time—as a “fas-cist” and “counterrevo-lutionary”?Rostropovich: Yes,yes—all these thingsare well known.

Fidelio: What elsehave you heard ofFurtwängler’s, besidethe symphonies ofTchaikovsky?Rostropovich: Manydifferent symphon-ies—above all, ofcourse, Beethoven’sworks. What especial-ly impressed me:Furtwängler was al-ways the same; as aperson, as a musicalpersonage. It’s for thisreason, that he is forme the greatest con-ductor. He was a truly powerful individ-ual. And it is especially important todayto strenuously emphasize this; nowadays,in the electronic age, where recordingsbecome manufactured as mass-producedarticles, where distinctions becomewatered-down and everything is lev-elled, and even in art there is introducedsomething like a “statistical average.”There are even record experiments, inwhich, for instance, the Fourth Sympho-ny of Brahms or Beethoven is assembledfrom old recordings, so that the firstmovement is done by Furtwängler, thesecond by Bruno Walter, the third byKlemperer, and the fourth . . . —whereas, these are completely differentworlds.

I have also learned much from theconductors with whom I concertized asa ’cello soloist. Even when one plays thesame ’cello concerto often, it is stillalways different every time. One cantherefore learn a great deal, especially asI have had the fortune to practicallyalways play under the best conductorsin the world. In addition, I have con-

sulted many conductors, for instanceHerbert von Karajan. With him, it alsowent into details, as to the openingphrase of the Fourth Symphony ofShostakovich, or a particular choral andorchestral part in the second act ofEugene Onegin, where Karajan was animportant stimulus.

And I have not only learned fromhaving seen and heard the most famousconductors, but, I have always taken thetime to consult them, to discuss thesmallest details with them, and to con-tinuously improve myself.

Fidelio: You have—just in the recenttwenty years—conducted many greatorchestras. It used to be, that each greatorchestra was an individual body ofsound. The “Vienna” was known for itsstrings, a tradition which—as the firstviolin of the Amadeus Quartet NorbertBrainin explained in a recent interview—goes back ultimately to Josef Böhm,whose artistry in string quartets even metwith Beethoven’s approval. With the“Prague,” especially its horns shone—something Mozart had already reallytreasured. And the “Berlin” impressesabove all through its discipline, its specialability to make the developmental processof a composition alive—something whichsurely traces back, above all, to theirintensive work with Furtwängler.

Today, there is no longer anythingunique, the orchestras are more andmore similar to one another—in their

sound, especially. What is your experi-ence with this?Rostropovich: I see this also, and it isreally too bad. A great orchestra has avery specific “character,” which personi-fies an entirely specific tradition; but, atthe same time, it also has the ability, toprecisely render the “character” of dif-ferent composers. Because, every com-poser has a very specific sound, and theorchestra must render this sound appro-priately—while also preserving its owntradition. It must have a feeling for thissound. This means, above all, that the

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I invited Solzhenitsyn to live in my dacha, althoughthis immediately got me into difficulties with theregime. . . .

It was clear to me, that I must speak the truth on suchan important question. When I consider my decision inretrospect, I come to the conclusion that I never didanything better in my life, than when I stood up forSolzhenitsyn. This was morally the best thing that Iever did.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (left) and Mstislav Rostropovich, in the 1970’s.

conductor must consider the correct bal-ance, the appropriate distribution ofsound of the individual instrumentalgroups, to render the characteristicsound of a composer.

I had the fortune to work withProkofiev, and especially Shostakovich,and learned a great deal in this regard.Also, indirectly, from Dvorák, because Istudied his ’cello concerto with theCzech violinist and conductor VaclávTalich, who had personally knownDvorák. Talich showed me how Dvorákhad thought about the rendering of his’cello concerto. Naturally, I questionedTalich intensely, because I wanted torender Dvorák’s music exactly as he hadthought and felt.

Normally, one can only convey theintentions of composers through images.I still remember a rehearsal with Sviat-oslav Richter, when we were intensivelystudying Brahms’ E-minor ’CelloSonata, and he suddenly asked me: “Inwhat kind of weather, do you think, didBrahms compose this sonata?” And sureenough, it went better.

Fidelio: Mr. Rostropovich, the periodfrom 1969 to 1974 was very difficult foryou. You were inconvenient for theregime, not least of all because you hadopened your dacha to the proscribedauthor Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Youwere harassed in this regard. The culture

ministry would typically say that yourplanned foreign tours were cancelled “onaccount of illness”; in Moscow andLeningrad, concert halls were suddenly“no longer available” for you; you wereno longer allowed to appear in theprovinces, where your concerts werelargely blacked out; and, in reviews oforchestral concerts and opera perfor-mances, your name and that of yourwife—the Primadonna assoluta of theBolshoi Theater—were no longer men-tioned. You were considered to be a“non-person,” and were finally forced togo into exile at the beginning of 1974.What was the greatest problem for youduring these difficult years?Rostropovich: That was truly a difficulttime, for at that time I was, for the firsttime in my life, confronted with a trulygreat problem. I am a believing man,and I think that God was in this waytesting me.

My friendship with AlexanderSolzhenitsyn began in 1969, after myfirst concert in thestate of Ryazan,where Solzhenitsynat that time livedwith his family, orwas lodged, as thecase may be. Atthat moment, hewas the greatest ofall Soviet authors.

Pravda had showered him with hymns ofpraise, because, after all, Khrushchovhad released him from prison, or rather,a workcamp. One should have no illu-sions: Khrushchov merely wanted toshow how “liberal” he was in compari-son to Stalin; therefore, he ordered thatSolzhenitsyn be “our greatest author.”When Brezhnev came to power, this waschanged just as abruptly. Brezhnevhated Khrushchov, and just as Khrush-chov damned practically everythingwholesale that Stalin had called good, soBrezhnev did with respect to Khrush-chov. Thus has it gone for the rest, up totoday. For Gorbachov, almost every-thing that Brezhnev had done was bad,and for Yeltsin, almost everything thatGorbachov had done is bad—that’s howthings are run by us in Russia. And so,Solzhenitsyn was again proscribed andbanned under Brezhnev.

Solzhenitsyn came on the aforemen-tioned evening to my concert, but, unfor-tunately, not later to the dressing room.

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Galina reproached me, that I would risk my career, the future of the family, above all,

the children, with this letter. . . .

It became clear to her, however, that I wasadamant on this question—because this

decision affected my life as an artist.Neither of us slept for two nights; we fought,

discussed, cried. But then my wife’s greatstrength of character manifested itself.

We went through the letter together, line byline; she worked it over editorially, and

even improved it.Rehearsing with his wife Galina.

So I located his address, and the nextmorning drove to his home to visit him;we had an intense discussion which last-ed approximately two hours. Solzhenit-syn was pleased, as he expressed it, by the“colorfulness” of my Russian speech, andhe encouraged further cultivation of ouracquaintance.

I saw in a glance that his financialsituation was very tight, and that heactually could barely work in his cir-cumstances; in addition, he was sickand needed medicines, which couldonly be purchased with difficulty insuch a small city as Ryazan. So, I invitedhim to live in my dacha in the vicinityof Moscow, although this immediatelygot me into difficulties with the regime.Two ministers, under the Interior Min-ister, even asked me “to throw Solzhen-itsyn on the street,” when I argued that,aside from my dacha, he really had noplace to stay.

Solzhenitsyn, who lived in my dachauntil his 1973 expatriation, knew precise-ly what to expect from the system, andthat he would be constantly watched.When we drove to Moscow, we some-times did it in his car—a very oldMoskwitsch—and sometimes in mine,until he once said to me: “Slava, thisdoesn’t work. This way, we’re making ittoo easy for the KGB. They need onlyram us with a van, to finish us both offtogether. Suppose, then, we make itmore difficult for them; each of usshould drive his own car.” I was alsoanxious, of course, when we went for awalk together. But, this opened my eyesto the political situation in my country.In my youth, I had, because of my talent,made my career very quickly, and there-fore had not had political problems.

Naturally, I thought about my familyin this situation, especially of my twodaughters, whose future I did not wantto obstruct. On the other hand, they andpossible grandchildren ought not to laterbe able to reproach me, that I had beensilent about the truth, and conformedout of cowardice and laziness. It wasclear to me, that I must speak the truthon such an important question; no mat-ter what happened, what I think must besaid. When I now, in retrospect, considermy decision at that time, I come to the

conclusion that I never did anything bet-ter in my life, than when I stood up forSolzhenitsyn in this situation. This wasmorally the best thing that I ever did.

But, of course, it wasn’t easy. In Octo-ber 1970, I drafted an Open Letter, inwhich I explained my attitude on thisquestion, and then later I sent it to thefour most important Soviet newspapers.After Galina read the letter, she said, tobegin with, only one word: “No!” Thenshe reproached me, that I would, cava-lierly, risk my career, the future of thefamily, above all, the children, that Iwould ruin my life with this letter—along the lines of the saying, “Make ofyour life what you will, but don’t risk thefuture for me and the children.” So,then, I came up with a “way out”—Iproposed a staged separation. We would

separate pro forma, such that nothingwould change between us; we wouldotherwise continue to live as before. As aresult, neither of us slept for two nights;we fought, discussed, cried, and so forth;but then, my wife’s great strength ofcharacter manifested itself. Galinaagreed with my decision. We wentthrough the letter together, line by line;she worked it over editorially, and evenimproved it.

Fidelio: She strengthened your argu-ments?Rostropovich: Yes, because, after forty-eight hours, it became clear to her, that Iwas adamant on this question, andwould not give in—because this decisionaffected my life as an artist. Of course,then, as the letter—which the Soviet

newspapers did not publish—appearedin the Western press and made quite astir, I began to feel the full severity of theregime. And, I had expected this, in cer-tain ways, too. But, what really took meby surprise, was not the fact that I wasno longer permitted to travel to theWest—only once was I allowed duringthose years to concertize abroad, here inVienna, where I performed Prokofiev’sWar and Peace with the Bolshoi, an operawhich nobody but I had conducted withthe Bolshoi. Moreover, I was very closelysurveilled by the KGB during that peri-od, and the reviews were—despite thefact that the public was enthusiasticabout the performance—astonishinglyvery bad, something I attribute to theinfluence of the KGB, which was veryactive here in Vienna. . . .

Fidelio: ...Vienna was, at the time ofthe Cold War, in respect to the intelli-gence services, something like a revolv-ing door; as was Berlin.Rostropovich: Exactly. So, beyond thisone appearance here in Vienna in 1971, Iwas not allowed to concertize any moreabroad. Neither in Moscow nor Lenin-grad, either—only in the provinces, andthat under impossible conditions. But,that was not the worst. The worst was,that nearly all my friends—and I had atthat time many Soviet friends—fell awayfrom me like the leaves of a tree inautumn. We received no more visits, notelephone calls, nothing. It was as if we

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Furtwängler was always the same; as a person, as a musical personage. For this reason, he is for me the greatest

conductor. He was a truly powerful individual. It is especiallyimportant today to strenuously emphasize this—nowadays,in the electronic age, where recordings are manufactured asmass-produced articles, where distinctions become watered

down and everything is levelled, and even in art there isintroduced something like a ‘statistical average.’

Rostropovich conducts “his” Washing-tonians, Red Square, Moscow, 1993.

no longer existed. We were alone. Thatwas the worst.

At the Bolshoi Theater, where, fol-lowing the Vienna trip, I was no longerallowed to conduct, another conductorwas hired, and it was commanded: “For-get everything Rostropovich ever said.”Even in Eugene Onegin—and I havealready explained how enthusiasticallythe orchestra had reacted to my propos-als at my 1968 debut.

As the situation was now totallyunbearable, there remained finally noth-ing else for me, but to turn to my friends

in the West; and they helped me. Just asthey helped in November 1989, when theBerlin Wall fell, and I was very, very for-tunate to fly as quickly as possible toBerlin and play at the opening of the Wall.

Fidelio: At that moment, many peoplewere very much moved that you left nostone unturned, immediately after theWall began to fall—it is said, you calleda friend in Paris and asked him to flyyou immediately to Berlin, and onNovember 11 you played a Bach suite atCheckpoint Charlie.

Rostropovich: It was a simple need; Ihad to do it. And by myself, for sure.Because, this Wall was a symbol of mylife, or my “two” lives—the one before1974, and the one thereafter—whichwere so completely different, and couldnot be brought into harmony so long asthis Wall existed. I’m now seeking towork this out; for instance, I am now atthe point of bringing together, in mynew home in St. Petersburg, all my doc-uments, my entire archives, from a totalof six different countries.

Fidelio: Yet onefinal question aboutmusic, Mr. Rostropo-vich. You have, whencharacterizing therole of an artist—instrumentalist orc o n d u c t o r — f r e -quently used themetaphor, of ap-proaching a resem-blance to a mediatingrole, like a priest.Could you elucidatethat further?Rostropovich: Cer-tainly. We inter-preters are the ser-vants of the com-posers; we must bevery modest andought never to pre-sent ourselves—ourego—in the frontlines; rather, the ideaof the composer,which, on the con-trary, is divinely in-

spired, should be presented. You knowthat I was chief conductor in Washing-ton for seventeen years; and I still clearlyremember the first day, when I said tothe musicians: “Friends, you make mis-takes, and I make mistakes; we bothmake many mistakes. But we both carryout a divine service with our music.”

Often, it is not so easy, because natu-rally it can also thereby lead to conflicts.As a conductor, one has the choicebetween two possibilities: Either one is adictator, who disciplines his musicians bymeans of terror, or—and this is my way

of approaching it—one works togetherwith them on the basis of friendship. Iforgive the musicians their failures, andthey forgive me mine; but we both workwith our music for God.

This modesty, of course, also appliesto me as a ’cellist. Take the followingexample: Why have I made a recordingof the Bach ’cello suites for the first timeso late in life, at 70 years of age? Becauseit was a question of balance; and that is aquestion of one’s person, one’s character.Permit me this comparison: It is verysimilar to when a young man sees a beau-tiful young woman on the street. He fallsin love with her immediately and wantsto possess her. He simply feels the “bal-ance.” Thank God, the animal instinctsusually wear off with time, and reasoncomes more and more to the fore. Theproblem persists above all for us Rus-sians—I speak here from my own experi-ence. As a young man and ’cellist, I alsohad no balance, and I had to learn thatmy personality did not come first, but thatof the composer. When I was young, it wasmany times more likely the opposite.

With the performance of Debussy’s’Cello Sonata it often happened to me,that I played it with a “Russian sound”;that is of course completely wrong. WithBach it was still clearer. In order to ren-der his music, I had to give up my “Russ-ian personality”; because a composer asgreat as Bach actually needs hardly any“rendering” to come into being. It “suf-fices” to perform it as he wrote it. Andthat is true for all great composers.

I have immense respect for Bach; heis one of the best examples, that artcomes from God. As with a priest, it isnot necessary that the Word of God beinterpreted; rather, that God speakdirectly to man through the priest. Andthus I see it also with Bach and othergreat composers. In order to bring themdirectly in contact with people, I oughtnot to render my “word,” but I must ren-der it as it is written. That is also the rea-son why I have studied the Partitas insuch detail, and made such a great effortto achieve a precise rendering.Fidelio: Mr. Rostropovich, thank you very much for this fascinatingconversation.

—translated by Marianna Wertz

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