It was not exactly the most ideal setting for a concert, but that is the way the maestro wanted it.


After performing to a packed house at Moscow Conservatory's Great Hall on Saturday evening in a charity concert to benefit the Christ the Savior Cathedral, Mstislav Rostropovich gave a repeat performance Sunday -- at the cathedral's construction site.


"The idea to perform on the construction site came to me at the construction site itself," said Rostropovich, who in recent years has traveled frequently to his native Russia. The musician was exiled in 1974 for his support of dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.


Across a makeshift stage in the lower chapel of the rapidly rising structure, a banner read "Not for Us, Not for Us, But in Your Name" -- the same words engraved on the cornerstone laid last October by Patriarch Alexy. But the chilly setting inside bare concrete walls did not seem to bother some 1,500 fans who crowded under a few hastily hoisted chandeliers to hear the world's greatest living cellist play Haydn and Bach.


Rostropovich later took up his baton to conduct the Molodaya Rossia, or Young Russia, orchestra for a moving finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. As musical director of Washington's National Symphony Orchestra, Rostropovich conducted the same piece on Red Square in September of 1993, when he arrived for a Russian concert tour in time to support President Boris Yeltsin in his battle with parliament. But this time Rostropovich had his reasons for the repeat performance. The overture, he said, was written in 1880 for the consecration of the original Christ the Savior Cathedral.


In its reincarnated form, the church is scheduled to open in 1997, a scant three years after the first cornerstone was laid. The original cathedral, commissioned by Tsar Alexander I in honor of those who had fallen in fight against Napoleon in 1812, was the largest Orthodox cathedral in the world. It took over 40 years to build, but stood for only 48 years before being blown up on Stalin's orders in 1931. The entire cost of the present project, which is supposed to come from donated funds, is estimated at $244 million.


The Russian Theater Agency, which organized the two charity concerts, would not comment on how much money was raised from the Saturday benefit at the conservatory, for which tickets started at $1,000 for the parterre.


As the pealing bells of Tchaikovsky's overture came to an end Sunday, Rostropovich was surrounded by flowers, the largest bouquet of all carried by Mayor Yury Luzkhkov, who has championed the often controversial renovation campaign.


Embracing the 67-year-old maestro, Luzhkov praised Rostropovich for the great deed he carried out "for the good of our people."


"My dear Slava," the mayor said familiarly. "You come to us with hope that our life will be better."You come to us with a love of Russia, its culture and its riches," the mayor went on with the enthusiasm of a preacher. "Together we will walk upon the road of culture and orthodoxy."


Rostropovich and his wife, opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who marked the end of the concert by laying a few ceremonial bricks together at the construction site, are now turning their attention to a new production of Modest Mussorgsky's opera "Khovanshchina," to be staged next month at the Bolshoi Theater. Rostropovich, who stepped down as director of Washington's National Symphony last year after a 17-year tenure, will serve as musical director for "Khovanshchina" and will conduct two performances, on Nov. 9 and 11. Vishnevskaya is working as a vocal consultant.


"It is the most important task of my life," Rostropovich said at a press conference at the Bolshoi Monday.





-- Carlotta Gall contributed to this report.