Mstislav Rostropovich - Early Years

Early Years

Rostropovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, USSR, to parents who had moved from Orenburg. Rostropovich was of mostly ethnic Russian ancestry; his father, Leopold Vitoldovich Rostropovich, was also partly of Polish noble descent. That part of his family bore the Bogorya coat of arms, which was located at the family palace in Skotniki, Masovian Voivodeship. He grew up in Baku and spent his youth there. During World War II his family moved back to Orenburg and then in 1943 to Moscow.

At the age of four, Rostropovich learned the piano with his mother, Sofiya Nikolaevna Fedotova, who was a concert pianist of Russian-Jewish heritage. He began the cello at the age of 10 with his father, who was a renowned cellist and former student of Pau Casals.

In 1943, at the age of 16, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied cello, piano, conducting and composition. His teachers included Dmitri Shostakovich. In 1945 he came to prominence as a cellist when he won the gold medal in the first ever Soviet Union competition for young musicians. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1948, and became professor of cello there in 1956.