William Pleeth

William Pleeth OBE (12 January 1916 – 6 April 1999) was a well-known British cellist and an eminent teacher, who became widely known as the teacher of Jacqueline du Pré.

Biography

Early years

William Pleeth was born in London. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Warsaw, Poland. Many generations of his family had been professional musicians. He started to learn the cello at six and his talent was quickly noticed. At nine he became a pupil of Herbert Walenn at the London Cello School.

At thirteen Pleeth won a two-year scholarship to study with Julius Klengel at the Conservatory in Leipzig. He was the youngest person ever to receive this scholarship at the time. Pleeth much appreciated Klengel. He said: "He was a wonderful teacher because he allowed you to be yourself. He hated it if someone copied him. He wanted us to develop our own musicality - and we did, and we're all different after all. Emanuel Feuermann and Gregor Piatigorsky were both Klengel pupils and they were totally different in their style of playing. Klengel himself was a very simple, unsophisticated man whose integrity was unquestionable. He was always honest and I loved him for it."

Yo-Yo Ma

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Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is a French-born Chinese Americancellist. Born in Paris, he spent his schooling years in New York City and was a child prodigy, performing from the age of five. He graduated from the Juilliard School and Harvard University and has enjoyed a prolific career as both a soloist performing with orchestras around the world and a recording artist. His 90+ albums have received 18 Grammy Awards.

In addition to recordings of the standard classical repertoire, he has recorded a wide variety of folk music such as American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, the tangos of Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla, and Brazilian music. He also collaborated with Grammy Award-winning jazz/reggae singer Bobby McFerrin. During the Dixie Chicks' controversial tour of 2005-6, Ma backed them playing cello as sideman, assisting in the string arrangements for the band.

Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky (Russian: Григо́рий Па́влович Пятиго́рский, Grigoriy Pavlovich Pyatigorskiy; April 17 [O.S. April 4] 1903 – August 6, 1976) was a Russian-born American cellist.

Biography

Early life

Gregor Piatigorsky was born in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine) into a Jewish family. As a child, he was taught violin and piano by his father. After seeing and hearing the cello, he determined to become a cellist and was given his first cello when he was seven.

He 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.

He was 13 when the Russian Revolution took place. Shortly afterwards he started playing in the Lenin Quartet. At 15, he was hired as the principal cellist for the Bolshoi Theater.

The Soviet authorities, specifically Anatoly Lunacharsky, would not allow him 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.

Jacqueline du Pré

Jacqueline Mary du Pré, OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was an English cellist. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity unusual for a classical performer. Despite her short career, she is regarded as one of the most talented cellists of the second half of the twentieth century.

Du Pré is most famous for her iconic recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, her interpretation of which has been described as "definitive" and "legendary".

Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at the age of 28. She battled the illness for many years before her death. Posthumously, she was the subject of a film titled Hilary and Jackie (based on her siblings' memoir, A Genius in the Family) that was factually controversial and criticized for sensationalising her private life.

Early years, education

Du Pré was born in Oxford, England, the second child of Iris Greep and Derek du Pré. Derek was born in Jersey, where his family had lived for generations. After working as an accountant at Lloyds Bank in St Helier and London, he became assistant editor and later editor of The Accountant. Iris was a talented concert pianist who taught at the Royal Academy of Music.

Amadeus Quartet

The Amadeus Quartet was a world famous string quartet founded in 1947 and disbanded in 1987, remarkable for having retained its founding members throughout its long history.

Because of their Jewish origin, the violinists Norbert Brainin (12 March 1923 – 10 April 2005), Siegmund Nissel (3 January 1922 – 21 May 2008) and Peter Schidlof (9 July 1922 – 16 August 1987) (later violist) were driven out of Vienna after Hitler's Anschluss of 1938. Brainin and Schidlof met in a British internment camp on the Isle of Man; many Jewish refugees had the misfortune of being confined by the British as "enemy aliens" upon seeking refuge in the UK. Brainin was released after a few months, but Schidlof remained in the camp, where he met Nissel. Finally Schidlof and Nissel were released, and the three of them were able to study with violin teacher Max Rostal, who taught them free of charge. It was through Rostal that they met cellist Martin Lovett, and in 1947 they formed the Brainin Quartet, which was renamed the Amadeus Quartet in 1948.