The Story of Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. This books tells the story of a struggle between father and son, both aspiring musicians. While the father fails in the musical world of Tsarist Russia, his son becomes a world famous cellist. For Gregor Piatigorsky, success meant escaping the grip of his father, surviving the murderous Russian pogroms, fleeing from the Bolshevik Revolution and twice escaping the Nazi Holocaust. It also meant falling in love with the daughter of the Baron de Rothschild, the wealthiest family in Europe. While Piatigorsky found fame and fortune as a musical artist and entertained presidents, kings and emperors, he was still a man without a country. As World War II destroyed everything he had ever known, Piatigorsky found sanctuary at Windy Cliff, an abandoned castle in Adirondack Mountains of Northern New York. In 1942, he achieved his dream of becoming an American citizen and finally stopped running.
