Gregor Piatigorsky
This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (February 2021) |
Gregor Piatigorsky | |
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Born | Ekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (now, Dnipro, Ukraine) | April 17, 1903
Died | August 6, 1976 Los Angeles, California, US | (aged 73)
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Cellist |
Spouse | |
Children | Jephta Piatigorsky (1937–2019) Joram Piatigorsky (b. 1940) |
Relatives | Daniel B. Drachman (son-in-law) |
Gregor Piatigorsky (Russian: Григо́рий Па́влович Пятиго́рский, Grigoriy Pavlovich Pyatigorskiy; April 17 [O.S. April 4] 1903 – August 6, 1976[1]) was a Russian Empire-born American cellist.
Biography
Early life
Gregor Piatigorsky was born in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine) into a Jewish family. As a child, he was taught violin and piano by his father. After seeing and hearing the cello at an orchestra concert, he was determined to become a cellist and was given his first cello when he was seven.
Piatigorsky won a scholarship to the Moscow Conservatory, studying with Alfred von Glehn, Anatoliy Brandukov, and a certain Gubariov. At the same time, he was earning money for his family by playing in local cafés, brothels and silent movie houses.
Piatigorsky was 13 when the
The Soviet authorities, specifically Anatoly Lunacharsky, would not allow Piatigorsky to travel abroad to further his studies, so he smuggled himself and his cello into Poland on a cattle train with a group of artists. One of the women was a heavy-set soprano who, when the border guards started shooting at them, grabbed Piatigorsky and his cello. The cello did not survive intact, but it was the only casualty.
Now 18, Piatigorsky studied briefly in Berlin and Leipzig, with Hugo Becker and Julius Klengel, playing in a trio in a Russian café to earn money for food. Among the patrons of the café were Emanuel Feuermann and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Furtwängler heard Piatigorsky and hired him as the principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Family
In January 1937, Piatigorsky married
United States
In 1929, Piatigorsky first visited the United States, playing with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and the New York Philharmonic under Willem Mengelberg.
From 1941 to 1949, Piatigorsky was head of the cello department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and he also taught at Tanglewood, Boston University. In 1949 he moved to California because a doctor had advised him to move to a better climate to stop Joram's constant colds and ear infections. Piatigorsky favored Los Angeles, because many of his friends, such as Rubinstein, Heifetz, and Stravinsky, lived there.[6] He taught at the University of Southern California, with which he remained associated until his death. USC established the Piatigorsky Chair of Violoncello in 1974 to honor him.
Piatigorsky participated in a
Piatigorsky played chamber music privately with Heifetz, Vladimir Horowitz, Leonard Pennario, and Nathan Milstein.[7][9] He also performed at Carnegie Hall with Horowitz and Milstein in the 1930s.[10]
In 1965, his popular autobiography, Cellist, was published.
Gregor Piatigorsky died of lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles in 1976.
Instrument
He owned two Stradivarius cellos, the "Batta" and the "Baudiot". From 1939 to 1951 Piatigorsky also owned the famous 1739 Domenico Montagnana cello known as the "Sleeping Beauty".
Appraisal
External audio | |
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You may hear Gregor Piatigorsky performing Concerto For Cello and Orchestra in B minor Op. 104 with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1946 Here on archive.org |
The great violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian reportedly once called Piatigorsky the greatest string player of all time. He was an extraordinarily dramatic player. His orientation as a performer was to convey maximum expression. He brought a great authenticity to his understanding of this expression. He was able to communicate this authenticity because he had had extensive personal and professional contact with many of the great composers of the day.
Many of those composers wrote pieces for him, including Sergei Prokofiev (Cello Concerto[12]), Paul Hindemith (Cello Concerto), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Cello Concerto[13]), William Walton (Cello Concerto), Vernon Duke (Cello Concerto), and Igor Stravinsky (Piatigorsky and Stravinsky collaborated on the arrangement of Stravinsky's "Suite Italienne", which was extracted from Pulcinella, for cello and piano; Stravinsky demonstrated an extraordinary method of calculating fifty-fifty royalties[14]). At a rehearsal of Richard Strauss's Don Quixote, which Piatigorsky performed with the composer conducting, after the dramatic slow variation in D minor, Strauss announced to the orchestra, "Now I've heard my Don Quixote as I imagined him."
Piatigorsky had a magnificent sound[
Works
Piatigorsky was also a composer. His Variations on a Paganini Theme (based on
Partial discography
- RCA VictorLP LSC-2563) RCA Victor Red Seal 1961
- Heifetz & Piatigorsky (Stereo LP LSC-3009) RCA Victor Red Seal 1968
- The Heifetz Piatigorsky Concerts (21-CD boxed set, original album collection) Sony-RCA 88725451452, 2013
Chess
Piatigorsky also enjoyed playing
References
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ^ a b cello.org biography
- ISBN 0-394-46890-2.
- ISBN 978-2-35035-333-3
- ISBN 0-688-02656-7
- ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
- ^ Solow, Jeffrey (31 March 2010), "Prokofiev: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.58", MusicaNova's Blog, MusicaNova Orchestra of Scottsdale, archived from the original on 19 October 2013, retrieved 19 March 2013
- ISBN 978-0786456260, retrieved 19 March 2013
- ^ Prieto 2006, p.251
- ^
Lambooij, Henk; Feves, Michael (2007) [1999]. A cellist's companion: a comprehensive catalogue of cello literature. Netherlands: Stichting The Cellist’s Companion. p. 430. ISBN 9781847990051.
- ^ Lamoreaux, Andrea (2009). Wendy Warner Plays Popper and Piatigorsky (Liner notes). Wendy Warner, cello, and Eileen Buck, piano. Cedille Records. CDR 90000 111.
- Prieto, Carlos; Murray, Elena C.; Mutis, Alvaro (2006). The Adventures of a Cello. University of Texas Press. pp. 249–251. ISBN 0-292-71322-3.
Further reading
- His autobiography: Cellist (1965). Doubleday. Limited edition reprint: Da Capo Press (1976). ISBN 0-306-70822-1
- Bartley, M. (2006). Grisha: The Story of Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Otis Mountain Press. ISBN 0-9760023-0-2.
- "Gregor Piatigorsky". The Musical Times. 117 (1604): 849. October 1976.
- King, Terry (2010). Gregor Piatigorsky: The Life and Career of the Virtuoso Cellist. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-4635-3.
- "With the Artists". World Famed String Players Discuss Their Art, Samuel and Sada Applebaum, John Markert & Co., New York (1955). Pages 192-202 are devoted to Gregor Piatigorsky.
- Jump in the Waves, a Memoir, Jacqueline Piatigorsky, St. Martin's Press, New York (1988). ISBN 0-312-01834-7.
External links
- http://www.piatigorskyarchives.org
- Biography at cello.org
- Gregor Piatigorsky at IMDb
- Gregor Piatigorsky at Find a Grave
- Youtube: An Afternoon with Gregor Piatigorsky (1976) Short documentary by Steve Grumette, including student Raphael Wallfisch.
Media related to Gregor Piatigorsky at Wikimedia Commons