Piatigorsky in Louisville

In the 1950s, Gregor Piatigorsky was the most famous cellist performing in the United States. In those same years, Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up, remained a small city on the edge of the South, remote from the cultural centers of the nation. One would not expect the illustrious cellist to come there and make much of a stir. Yet, at least for me, Piatigorsky’s two amazing visits in that decade planted lasting memories in my young mind.

At the age of ten, I began studying the cello at the University of Louisville Music Preparatory Department. Naturally, Piatigorsky became my hero, just as the other boys championed baseball players. When, in March of 1951, he came to Louisville to play the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra, of course I went backstage after the performance to meet him and receive his autograph. I still have the program with his dashing-styled signature.

Autographed program of Piatigorsky’s 1951 concert in Louisville.

Despite its relative isolation from the musical world’s nuclei, Louisville then (and to this day) had a wonderful chamber music society that brought renowned ensembles to the city. Fortunately, there were enough lovers of the intimate musical form to easily fill the small Gothic-styled, wooden Playhouse on the campus of the University of Louisville. The iconic structure still stands there, and is now used for student theatrical performances. The programs were always held on Sunday afternoon, and I invariably attended the concerts with my parents, who were regular patrons of the series.

Piatigorsky, also known affectionately as Grisha, came again in 1956 to perform with the orchestra. On that occasion, he played the Saint-Saëns cello concerto. As a coincidence, on the same weekend of Piatigorsky’s appearance with the orchestra, the Budapest String Quartet was in town playing on the chamber music series. As it happened, Piatigorsky’s performance was on a Saturday night, leaving Sunday free to relax and enjoy himself. It seems someone told Piatigorsky that his old friends in the quartet, Joseph Roisman, Boris Kroyt, and brothers Alexander and Mischa Schneider, were performing. With nothing else to do, Piatigorsky made his way to the Playhouse, and happily found himself a seat in the audience. At intermission, Piatigorsky, as would be expected, went backstage to greet his friends, who must have been utterly surprised to find him in all places, Louisville, Kentucky!

In Terry King’s excellent, well-researched biography of Piatigorsky, Gerhard Herz,¹ the Chamber Music Society administrator, gives an account of the extraordinary encounter. In a short paragraph, Herz tells us of the events that occurred after the meeting of the great string players. Herz reports that it was he who suggested that Gregor join them in a performance of Schubert’s great C major quintet, Opus 163, for two cellos.

According to Herz, apparently there was general agreement, and a courier was sent back to the hotel to retrieve Piatigorsky’s cello. Personally, I find that hard to believe, as it is unlikely that Piatigorsky would entrust an unknown person to carry his Stradivarius cello through the city. But here I will accept Herz’s word. He also states that the parts for the quintet were in Alexander Schneider’s car, since the quartet had played the Schubert the day before with a local cellist in Indianapolis, and driven the hundred miles down to Louisville.

I also find that implausible, since it is hard to imagine Sascha Schneider driving in a car around the Midwest in 1956. But once more, I will trust Herz. Finally, according to Herz, through negotiations, it was agreed that Piatigorsky play the quintet’s first cello part. On this point, I take issue with Herz’s account, as that assertion, in my view, is only partially true. What follows is my side of the story:

Herz informs us that chamber music society secretary Fanny Brandeis² stepped on the stage and announced the program change to the audience, who at that point were impatiently wondering why the second half of the program had not begun. Naturally, everyone gasped in surprise. Brandeis then went on to explain that they would have to wait while the cello and music were being brought to the Playhouse. And so the intermission extended for an uncustomary length, becoming a jovial social hour for the chamber music crowd, filled with excited anticipation for the impromptu performance to come.

Finally there was Grisha, sitting on the stage next to cellist Mischa Schneider, ready to perform the revered composition. Contrary to Herz’s account, what I then saw and heard, as the quintet began, was Piatigorsky playing the second part in the first movement! Mischa played the first part. I expect it was given to him out of respect, since he was the highly esteemed cellist of the quartet.

Now let me regress a bit to the summer of 1955, when I was thirteen. My parents had sent me to a music camp in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, the Indian Hill Music Workshop. The camp no longer exists, but in its day was a well-known institution attracting young students from New York City, Boston, Cleveland, and all over the country. Three students from Louisville attended: myself, Philip Noer, now deceased, and Constance (Connie) Kain, who currently lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

On the faculty were well-known musicians, pianist Seymour Lipkin and violinist Sidney Harth, among others. I was assigned to a string quartet, playing Beethoven’s Opus 18, No. 2, coached by Harth. The violist was a young, roly-poly thirteen-year-old, Samuel Rhodes, who years later became the violist of the Juilliard String Quartet. For better or worse, my music career did not unfold in such an illustrious way as did Rhodes’s. While keeping my cello playing going, I embarked upon a career in architecture, achieving a measure of success.

At the end of the eight weeks of music making at Indian Hill, the faculty gave a closing recital program. On that program was the Schubert C major quintet. The two cello parts were played by my teacher from Louisville, Grace Whitney,³ and Richard Kapuscinski.⁴ Fortunately, at that formative period of my life, I was given the privilege of hearing the quintet, a work that I have loved through the years, a love I have shared with so many others.

In the autumn of 1955, back in Louisville studying in the preparatory department, I had the good fortune of playing the great Schubert quintet with other young students. I played second cello. Who it was who played first cello escapes my memory. Perhaps, because I was jealous, I don’t want to remember. Anyway, playing the second cello part was just fine until I came to the slow movement. The second cello part starts with easy enough pizzicati providing an underlying bass accompaniment for the theme in E major, but then came a change in key to F minor with four flats, and with ascending triplet figures in 16th notes. The technical challenges had begun to mount, but still had not reached their apex. Some bars later, I was presented with more ascending, running figurations, but now not in triplets, but rather in intricately woven 32nd notes in groups of four, in the original key of four sharps. This passage was almost a solo for the cello, clearly audible to the listener. It was at this juncture that my playing completely fell apart. Encountering the difficulty of the very challenging turbulent passage, I struggled to play a note here and there, and otherwise faked my way through to the return of the sublime beginning theme of the movement.

Now, let me return to the stage at the Playhouse, a few months later in early 1956, with Piatigorsky and the Budapest String Quartet in their impromptu gathering. The music of the first movement began wafting out across the audience in a fresh, unrehearsed interpretation, with the players seeming to enjoy it all, as if they had joined together for a congenial evening of chamber music in one of their homes. And one could sense the wonder in the audience upon hearing this surprising turn of musical events as the first movement came to a conclusion. Then an astonishing action took place, at least for me, with my young observing eyes. Just before the commencement of the second movement adagio, the one that I had struggled to play months before, I saw Mischa and Grisha trade parts. Mischa took the difficult second cello part, handing over to Grisha the less challenging first part. You can imagine my amusement. Here was the great virtuoso Piatigorsky acknowledging that the second part would be very difficult to “sight-read,” even given his consummate technical skills. Certainly, he had played the quintet many times in the past, but probably never the second part.

Not at all to compare myself with Piatigorsky, I could well understand his apprehension in considering whether to play that second cello part in public, having encountered it myself months before. Probably few people in the audience, if any besides me, knew the reason for this exchange of parts. One can only assume that it was agreed upon among the players prior to the performance. Anyway, the occurrence stands as a charming moment in the history of chamber music, and I have recounted the event at amateur chamber music gatherings on many occasions, to the amusement of all.

An insight that Evan Drachman has offered as a second reason for allowing his grandfather to play the first cello part in the adagio was to give him the pleasure of playing the movement’s lovely duet between the first violin and first cello. And to add to the history of Piatigorsky and the Schubert Quintet is the fact that in 1967, performing the work with Pablo Casals, Piatigorsky played the second part. This was surely out of respect for the great master. Maybe in preparation, he spent some time practicing the notoriously difficult passages in the adagio.

In a discussion with cellist Evan Drachman, Piatigorsky’s grandson, I was informed that, unbeknownst to me, his mother, Gregor’s daughter, Jephta, then a young lady of about seventeen, was in the audience that afternoon. Jephta, it seems, accompanied her father on that 1956 tour that included Louisville. Though later I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with Evan, I regret not meeting his mother on that occasion.

That same winter, three of us who had attended the summer music workshop, Philip Noer, Connie Kain and I, formed a trio studying with Sidney Harth at the preparatory department. In a telephone interview, Connie Kain told me that when Piatigorsky visited Louisville for his concert with the Louisville Orchestra, he asked someone in the city who it might be interesting to meet. Piatigorsky, though without a formal education, was a man of great intellectual curiosity and was always seeking new and enriching experiences. According to Connie, Gregor was told he should meet Dr. Richard M. Kain, Connie’s father.

Dr. Kain, an English professor at the University of Louisville, was an early, distinguished James Joyce scholar, and the author of a seminal book about Joyce, Fabulous Voyager. As well, Richard with his wife, Louise, were ardent patrons of the Louisville Orchestra, with whom Gregor had just played. It seems the two men became well acquainted, friendly enough for Kain to ask Piatigorsky if he would be willing to hear our trio play, offering us a little lesson. Perhaps since our trio included Kain’s daughter, Connie, Gregor felt he should accept the request. Fortunately for us, Piatigorsky consented, and when I heard that I was to play for him, albeit in an ensemble, I was shaken to the very endpin of my cello.

As Piatigorsky was soon to leave town, the momentous occasion was scheduled for the Monday evening just after the quintet performance. It took place in Dr. and Mrs. Kain’s lovely home in the Seneca Gardens neighborhood of Louisville. We came early and rehearsed by ourselves Boccherini’s Terzetti, scored for two violins and cello. The music belonged to my father, a medical doctor and amateur violinist. I still have the music sitting on a table in my practice studio as a memento of the incredible experience. After about a half hour, we heard steps approaching the living room where we were playing, and turning around there was the towering figure of Piatigorsky passing through an archway, which seemed small in comparison to his considerable stature. Dr. Kain accompanied him. Like the archway, we three string students felt diminutive in accomplishment before the great cellist. It was an awesome encounter.

After introductions, flavored by Piatigorsky’s charming manner, we felt more relaxed, and the lesson began. I have absolutely no recollection of what Piatigorsky said about our playing. Perhaps it makes no difference. What was important though, and lasting in my memory, was being in the very presence, not only of a great performer on the instrument I was studying, but a man who exuded greatness of character. I have long believed that successful teachers channel their knowledge and skills to the student through their character. This is what really impels students to pursue their art, in a life-long way, after departing the mentor. What has been specifically learned becomes less and less important, the details falling away with the teacher rising up as an inspiring, continuing presence.

Piatigorsky was not the only great cellist I encountered in my youth. There was also Nicolai Graudan. My meeting with him happened during the years my sister, Sally, was studying piano at Juilliard in New York City. Each summer she attended the Aspen Music School, where her teacher was the pianist Joanna Graudan, wife of Nicolai. Joanna and Nicolai had established a well-known piano-cello duo that played in the 1940s and 50s throughout the country. The Graudans were Russian immigrants, as was Piatigorsky. An interesting note is that Nicolai became the first solo cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic, under conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, after Piatigorsky left that position to pursue a solo career.

In October of 1953, the Graudans came to Louisville to play a recital in the same Chamber Music Society series that Piatigorsky was later to play in with the Budapest Quartet. As it happened, the Graudans stayed at our house in Louisville as our family guests. I remember playing the first movement of a student concerto, perhaps by Romberg, for him in our living room. Nicolai made a few gentle comments, picked up my three-quarter-size cello and played through the concerto. Possibly he had never seen it before. We were all filled with awe and delight.

For the visit, my parents gave up their master bedroom to the Graudans. Where they slept elsewhere in the house, I cannot remember. As it was, my own bedroom door was adjacent to the Graudans’ door. One time, I came dashing out of my room in boyish glee into the common hallway, and there were Nicolai and Joanna in a loving embrace, kissing each other with affection. Naturally we were all surprised, and probably somewhat embarrassed. But in my youthful way, I came, then and there, to understand what love can be.

So it was that in my young years I met and played for two great cellists with similar backgrounds, who obviously knew each other. In fact, Piatigorsky relates in the preface of his novel, Mr. Blok, that they met at a reception in Minneapolis when Graudan was the principal cellist of the orchestra there. They both later lived in the Los Angeles area, and I assume from time to time saw each other. Graudan never achieved the celebrity that Piatigorsky did, and is now rather forgotten. That is unfortunate, as he was a great artist and an exponent of a wide range of the cello literature, some of it little played at the time, and even to this day.

Still, despite the motivation these meetings with great cellists should have given me, I departed my cello studies for an entire year, having suffered from the distractions of teenage life in a small American city of the fifties. That was when I was sixteen, a junior in high school. However, with music deeply rooted in me, I returned to the instrument in my senior year. That year I practiced on my own without instruction, and performed Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre with a community orchestra. Also that year, I played in a pit orchestra for a University of Louisville production of Flotow’s opera, Martha, a work I always enjoy hearing. Recently I performed, in transcription, the famous tenor aria from the opera, “M’appari,” which goes well on the cello.

In September of 1959, I went on to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I majored in architecture and minored in music. I studied cello with artist-in-residence Robert Swenson, a former cellist in the Cleveland Orchestra under Rodzinski, and a member of the Walden String Quartet. The Walden Quartet is forgotten today, but was prominent in those years. Interestingly, they performed in Louisville in 1948 on the same chamber music series on which Piatigorsky and the Graudans had played. One of their significant accomplishments was giving the premiere performance of Elliott Carter’s first string quartet, recording it on Columbia Records. I still have the record, and occasionally listen to it. The quartet opens with a cello solo, magnificently played by Swenson.

During my undergraduate years, I played in the university orchestra. I recall then William Primrose performing with us, Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, and Roman Totenberg playing Ravel’s Tzigane. Joseph Szigeti visited the music school and gave a talk. A graduate student, Roger Drinkell, having finished studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, was the principal cellist of the orchestra. Drinkell went on to make a career as a soloist and teacher. Recordings of his performances can be heard on YouTube.

After my years at the University of Illinois, I went on to graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, studying in the master class of the eminent architect Louis I. Kahn. Still I continued my cello playing in a local training orchestra and in chamber groups. Shortly after finishing at Penn, I got married, hoping to settle down in Philadelphia, but then the Vietnam War came along. I was drafted into the army and sent to Honolulu, Hawaii, to work in the Army Corps of Engineers office as an architect.

That assignment, with what was happening further across the Pacific in Vietnam, was, as they say in the army, “great duty!” But it was even greater, because it opened up a new pathway in my parallel musical career: I received a paying job playing in the Honolulu Symphony for two seasons, 1966 through 1968. Former cellists George Barati and Robert La Marchina were conductors in successive years. Many famous soloists came to perform with us: Laszlo Varga, Alicia de Larrocha, Claudio Arrau, Jan Peerce, Itzhak Perlman, and Van Cliburn, to name a few. In my recollection, the most striking event was Igor Stravinsky’s appearance as the guest conductor in an all-Stravinsky program. There is much I want to tell about the unusual experience of playing under Maestro Stravinsky, but that must wait for a later time. Here, I will suspend my work on this reminiscence. The story of my continuing life with the cello shall be told in forthcoming chapters of a planned memoir.

Notes

1. Gerhard Herz: Musicologist Gerhard Herz immigrated in 1938 to Louisville as refuge from Nazi Germany. He established the musicology department at the University of Louisville, and was a founder in 1938 of the Louisville Chamber Music Society and later the Louisville Bach Society.

2. Fanny Brandeis: Fanny Brandeis was another founder of the Louisville Chamber Music Society and went on to become its leader for many years. She was a member of the well-known Louisville Brandeis family, and a niece of the famous Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis.

3. Grace Whitney: Cellist Grace Whitney was the sister of Louisville Orchestra conductor Robert Whitney and principal cellist of the orchestra for many years. She was my cello teacher during my teenage years.

4. Richard Kapuscinski: Richard Kapuscinski was a prominent cellist and distinguished professor at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

David S. Traub, Jr.

December 2021