An excerpt from a French documentary on the cello, taken from the INA online archives. This video contains all appearances of Pierre Fournier in the documentary, which includes a performance of Faure's Elegie with Fournier on cello and Rostropovich on piano. This documentary aired in 1982, which was very late in Fournier's performing career and just a few years before his death. The full documentary may be found here:
www.ina.fr/art-et-culture/musi...
Directed by Francois Reichenbach
More about the relationship between Rostropovich and Fournier from Angela Hughes' "Pierre Fournier: A Cellist in a Landscape with Figures":
'A great celebrator of anniversaries, Slava Rostropovich put all his energy and enthusiasm into organizing a concert for Fournier's 75th birthday. It took place at the Tonhalle in Zurich, with Paul Sacher who had premiered the Frank Martin Concerto with Fournier and the Collegium Musicum. Characteristically ignoring baleful warnings about 'too many concerts and not enough public', Slava pushed ahead with his plan and was proved right: the concert was sold out at once. Fournier played the Haydn D major Concerto, Fonda (Fournier's son) Mozart's E flat concerto K 449, Rostropovich partnered Fournier at the piano in Fauré's Elégie, and Magaloff and Amoyal joined him in Mendelssohn's D minor Trio. At one point there was a horrified gasp from the audience: forgetting Pierre's fragility, Slava had embraced him with an effusion which virtually bought them both to the floor. But they recovered and the concert ended happily with Davidov's Feststück and Klengel's Hymnus performed by an international ensemble of 110 cellists.'
'The Young Mstislav Rostropovich made his triumphant Paris debut at the Salle Gaveau in February 1956. Visiting rue Lesueur he brought Pierre and Lyda his photograph, a tin of caviar and a bottle of vodka. He told them he had two ambitions - to visit Casals at Prades and them in Paris. He then dazzled them at the piano with a study of his own in the manner of Prokofiev. They were totally captivated.'
And a less than complementary note on Rostropovich's cello, which speaks to the change of taste in sound, as the majority of celli today are setup similarly to what is described here.
"[Fournier] borrowed Slava's cello but found it awkward, 'going the way of Gaspar [Cassado]'s, steel strings, Belgian bridge, Tortelier spike, making for horrid tone... Here, as in America, the size of tone seems more important than the quality.'"