Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich was born in 1927 in Azerbaijan, which was then part of the Soviet Union. When he was four years old, Rostropovich learned to play the piano from his mother. She was a very talented pianist. At the age of 10, Rostropovich learned to play the cello from his father, who was also a cellist. From 1943 to 1948, he studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where Rostropovich himself became a cello teacher in 1956. Here Rostropovich studied not only piano and cello, but also orchestral conducting and composition.

In 1974, Rostropovich and his wife were exiled from the Soviet Union for supporting charities. In the United States, they found freedom of art, freedom of speech and democracy. Rostropovich was stripped of Russian citizenship in 1978, after which he officially became an American. He became the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. In a failed attempt to take power in 1991, Rostropovich supported his friend Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin became the first president of Russia. Rostropovich regained his Russian citizenship in 1990 and moved to Moscow. Nevertheless, he and his family remained Americans. In 2007, Rostropovich died in Moscow.