Gregor piatigorsky autobiography of missouri

Robert Battey

by Robert Battey

One of the pre-eminent string players of the 20th century, Gregor Piatigorsky was born in Ukraine in , and died in Los Angeles in His international solo career lasted over 40 years, and especially during the &#;s and early &#;s he was the world&#;s premier touring cello virtuoso &#; Casals was in retirement, Feuermann had died, and the three artists who were to succeed Piatigorsky (Starker, Rose, and Rostropovich) were still in their formative stages. His one true peer, Fournier, was limited in his travelling abilities by polio. Thus, Piatigorsky had the limelight almost to himself. He was gregarious, loved to travel and perform anywhere, and he hobnobbed as easily with farmers in small towns as he did with Toscanini, Stravinsky, rubinstein, and Schoenberg. It was a legendary career.

Piatigorsky was not a &#;child prodigy,&#; perhaps, but his talent manifested itself early and carried him quickly upw

•

The  Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, recently listed by The New York Times as a classical årstid highlight, and Artistic Director Ralph Kirshbaum, have announced several new developments to the exciting day event, taking place in Los Angeles from March , , including the addition of several new guest artists, the complete roster of Festival Fellows, and the launch of a never-released work of fiction by the Festival’s namesake, Gregor Piatigorsky, published bygd Adelaide Books. Tickets to all 42 events of this truly unique international celebration of the cello are now on sale.

In conjunction with the Piatigorsky Film Screening & Panel Discussion on Saturday, March 14, , Joram Piatigorsky, Gregor’s son, will present the fictional work entitled Mr. Blok. The novel fryst vatten published with an introduction by Joram, who states about this release, “I am very grateful to Adelaide Books and Stevan Nikolic for publishi

•

Piatigorsky: Her Triumph Was an Identity of Her Own

For someone who claims that fear is the story of her life, Jacqueline Piatigorsky seems unintimidated by the incredibly heavy Carrara marble sculpture that needs to be moved.

“Don’t touch it,” says the year-old white-haired woman curtly as she eases her cumbersome, dusty work in progress from one platform to another. “You don’t know how to handle it.”

It seems she has conquered fear, the fear she writes of extensively in “Jump in the Waves,” an autobiography that traces her life, from birth into the superrich Rothschild clan to a loveless first marriage and happy second marriage to the late, renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, with whom she had two children.

But readers hoping to find this a poor-little-rich-girl story or a gossipy tell-all book will be disappointed. This is Jacqueline’s story, simply told, of her struggle to find an identity that wasn’t tied to someone else.

She had been the daughter of and the wife of