Gregor Piatigorsky (1903–1976)

Gregor Piatigorsky was born to a Jewish family in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro), Ukraine. He was taught violin and piano as a child by his father. After seeing and hearing the cello, he was determined to become a cellist, and was given his first cello when he was seven. After that, he began supported his whole family by playing in cafés, brothels, and silent movie houses. Two years later, he left home and made his way to Moscow. There he won a scholarship to the Moscow Conservatory. By age 15, he was both principal cellist of the Bolshoi Opera Orchestra and a member of the First State String Quartet (the famed "Beethoven String Quartet"). The Soviet authorities would not allow him to study abroad, so in 1921 he smuggled himself and his cello into Poland on a cattle train with a group of artists. He told many colorful stories about this border crossing in his autobiography, and recounted various versions of them over the years. Piatigorsky studied in Leipzig, Germany with Julius Klengel, then moved to Berlin to find work. Wilhelm Furtwängler hired him as principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic, and he also performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He played with violinist Carl Flesch and Artur Schnabel in the first of three famous trios with which he was to be associated. After four years with the Berlin Philharmonic, Piatigorsky embarked on a legendary solo career. He toured the world demonstrating the extraordinary qualities of the cello to people from the largest cities to the smallest towns, including the first cello recital at the White House. He developed and expanded the technique of the instrument, making it as facile and expressive as the violin. Piatigorsky also increased its repertoire by transcribing, arranging, composing, and commissioning countless cello work. He owned two Stradivarius cellos, the "Batta" and the "Baudiot." From 1939 to 1951, he also owned the famous 1739 Domenico Montagnana cello known as the "Sleeping Beauty." In the USA in 1937, he married Jacqueline de Rothschild, a member of the wealthy French Rothschild banking family. That fall, after returning to France, they had their first child. Following Nazi Germany's invasion in World War II, the family left for the USA and settled in Elizabethtown, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. From 1941 to 1949, Piatigorsky was head of the cello department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and also taught at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. In 1949, the family moved to California, where many of his friends, such as Rubinstein, Heifetz, and Stravinsky, had settled. Piatigorsky taught first at UCLA, and then at the University of Southern California for many years. He made recordings with Rubinstein and Heifetz. In 1965, he published his highly-popular autobiography Cellist. Piatigorsky also wrote a novel in English in 1949, Mr. Blok, which was finally published in 2021.