In death as in life, Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich was steeped in music when his coffin was placed in the Moscow Conservatory yesterday.

Rostropovich, who came to symbolise the fight for artistic freedom under Soviet rule, died on Friday aged 80.

Thousands of people including many of Russia's most prominent cultural and public figures, paid their respects in the Conservatory's Great Hall under portraits of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach and other composers.

His wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, wearing dark glasses and holding a handkerchief to her mouth, sat near the coffin which was placed on a bed of roses by the orchestra pit.

The cellist's death was announced four days after that of former President Boris Yeltsin, whom Rostropovich joined on the barricades to resist a coup by Soviet hardliners in 1991.