That's quite sad. I met him a few times when I was a kid - he had a house near mine. I never would have called him warm, but for the one time I heard him play Tchaikovski. I'll have to ask my parents if they know, they always had nice things to say about him.

In other, related news, I used to do grounds work for a direct descendant of J.S. Bach, who lived almost across the street from the Rostropovich estate...