12
The fate of Beta’s violin came to light suddenly and unexpectedly.
When he heard about Beta’s death, the conductor at the House of Scholars orchestra took a bad turn. Later, I realised why: he was used to seeing her right in front of him; she sat in the first row, after all.
The conductor was a notable fellow: Leonid Piatigorsky, brother of the famous American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. There was a third musical brother, too, who’d taken the surname Stogorsky, which literally meant a man from a hundred mountains, whereas Gregor only had five of them in his surname. However, as someone once joked, quality doesn’t depend on how many mountains you have! The existence of a legendary émigré brother created a certain aura around Leonid, who was, after all, merely the modest conductor of a
