GREGOR PIATIGORSKY - INSCRIBED SIGNATURE 1947 - HFSID 174555

GREGOR PIATIGORSKY. Inscribed signature: "To Emil R. Dern/with best wishes/Gregor Piatigorsky/1947", 5x4 album leaf. Name written (unknown hand) in ink at lower margin. Ukraine-born cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976), who won a scholarship to the Moscow Conservatory, began playing with the Lenin Quartet and was the principal cellist for the Bolshoi Theatre while still a teenager. When he was not allowed to travel abroad to further his studies, Piatigorsky escaped to Poland and later studied briefly in Berlin and Leipzig before becoming the principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. He made his U.S. debut in 1929, playing with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowsi and the New York Philharmonic under Willem Mengelberg. Piatigorsky, who recorded and toured extensively with Arthur Rubinstein and Jascha Heifetz, also enjoyed a successful solo career, bringing the cello to the forefront as a solo instrument. To help to make the cello as facile and expressive as the violin, he transcribed, arranged, composed and commissioned works for the instrument. Piatigorsky moved to America in 1939 and became a U.S. citizen three years later. From 1941-1949, he was the head of the cello department at the Curtis Insitute of Music in Philadelphia, and "Grisha" later taught at Tanglewood and Boston University before his tenure at the University of Southern California (1962 until his death). Slightly creased. Mid-vertical fold nicks the flourish of the "P" in signature and touches two words of inscription. Slightly faded at lower margin. Fine condition.