Hryhorii Piatyhorskyi was born on April 17, 1903 in Katerynoslav (now Dnipro). He was an outstanding cellist, teacher, and philanthropist. Among his creative partners were Fedor Chaliapin, Yasha Heifets, Arthur Rubinstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz.
Hryhorii is the second son in a large family of Isaac Piatyhorskyi and Basia Amchyslavska. The couple had five other children, besides Hryhoriy. We assume that neither Hryhorii, nor his older brother Leonid and younger brother Oleksandr had any other alternative in life but music. It was almost fatal passion of their father - the son of the owner of a bookstore, located on the Troitska street.
According to Piatyhorskyi, his father was disgusted with the measured and regulated life of a bookseller and dreamed of a career as a professional musician. He wished the same fate to his sons, who from an early age practiced playing the violin (his father's favorite instrument) and the piano. By the way, mother, Basya Piatyhorskaya, did not even have a primary education, but she played the piano at a fairly decent level.
On his seventh birthday, Hryhorii received the first cello, which was one and a half times larger than the boy. At first, the father tried to teach his son on his own. Later, the boy began attending classes at a local music school, which was run by the All-Russian Music Society.
Year 1911 was a crisis for the family. First, the head of the family, and later the mother, were baptized according to the Orthodox rite and, as a result, changed their name to Pavel and Maria Piatyhorskaya, respectively. This, as well as a spontaneous father's decision to move to St. Petersburg to continue his music education, provoked an openly negative reaction from the future musician's grandfather, Abram Piatyhorskyi. He promised to deprive his rebellious son and his family not only of the means of subsistence, but also of all inheritance rights in general. However, even this did not hinder P. Piatyhorskyi on the way to his dream of becoming a musician.
After his father left, Leonid and Hryhorii played the role of the family’s main breadwinners. The latter already at the age of 9 played at night in several restaurants, and later in the "Colosseum" - one of the first cinemas of Ekaterinoslav [1].
P. Pyatigorsky’s trip to the capital of the Russian Empire ended in fiasco. However, during his absence, his sons became famous performers in the city. So, the decision to move to Moscow was dictated by the desire to give children a quality music education. Thus, in 1912 H. Piatyhorskyi successfully passed the entrance exams to the Moscow Conservatory. Due to the poverty of the family, and later the conflict with his father (because of which Hryhorii literally found himself on the street), the talented young man was forced to devote more time to earnings than to systematic education. The role of the first "music universities" was performed by the orchestra of the fashionable hotel "Metropol" - "Moscow Babylon of the twentieth century", summer tours with Moscow opera troupes, occasional work in restaurants.
In 1916, a 13-year-old boy won a competition to play on the same stage with the then star of vocal art Fedor Chaliapin. Despite his best efforts, the audience filling the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory paid little attention to the young musician, who was in the shadow of the famous vocalist. Despite the fact that Piatyhorskyi was fired for his antics, he became known as a virtuoso musician.
Later in his life there will be the experience of playing in a string quartet, under the direction of Leo Zeitlin, escape during a tour of Ukraine to Poland (1921), playing in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (1924 - 1928), moving to the United States and, finally, solo concerts with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
He, who did not formally receive a degree from the Moscow Conservatory, was taught at the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia), Boston University, and from 1962 until the end of his life (1976) was a professor at the University of Southern California.
And in his life there were two marriages, the last of which was with Jacqueline Rothschild (from 1937) (yes, from the famous Rothschild family), a passion for chess and music.
By the way, his father's dreams became a reality. In addition to Hryhorii , his brothers Leonid Pyatigorsky and Oleksandr Stogorsky achieved success in music. Both realized as musicians, conductors and music theorists.
And soon Hryhorii Piatyhorskyi will tell his amazing story to the visitors of the Museum, located in his hometown. So, follow the announcements carefully and get inspired by exceptional quality music.
More photos, as well as unique biographical materials related to the figure of Hryhorii Piatyhorskyi, a prominent native of Dnipro, can be seen by following the link.
[1] Opened in 1912, the cinema was repeatedly renamed - "Comintern", "Victory" After a devastating fire in the 1970s, the building was not restored, and in its place was a complex of administrative buildings of Dnipro City Council.