For Mstislav Rostropovich

Shaping the sound of Rostropovich ...

"In creating a portrait it is the many "circles" that have to be drawn round the subject that determine the expression. The constant moving round and round the subject yields depth. These are good, useful circles, as if working on a symphony, constantly playing, seeking, finding. That is what produces expression. I made "circling" or "viewing" aids to help me. A "very small figure with a cello" (fits on a bookshop or on a desk), a "life-size head" (can stand on a plinth in the living room) and an "oversized figure in a coat" (it is not only in Russian that people need to turn their collars up and put on a warm coat - you need to do that in Kronberg, too). Between these three and the "large work", the "huge head", is where I shape the sound of Rostropovich."
Anna Franziska Schwarzbach

Thanks to an initiative by Kronberg's citizens, a memorial is now being erected to Mstislav Rostropovich in Kronberg, with vast approval from the town. On a recommendation from the National Gallery in Berlin, the sculptress Anna Franziska Schwarzbach was commissioned to make a portrait of the artist Mstislav Rostropovich. The sculpture has been paid for entirely by citizens of Kronberg; the money was raised, for example, through a benefit concert on 29 September 2007 in the Streitkirche, Kronberg.

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