![]() ![]() She won numerous awards and medals in competitions by the age of twelve, and she performed with her brother Victor at Carnegie Hall. By the age of eleven, Eleanor was playing difficult cello music. My brother, Leonard, remembers “mother” (that’s what Len called Eleanor) playing the piano. At five, Eleanor began studying piano with her mother, and at the age of nine she began studying cello with her father. Gregory played in theater orchestras, and Fannie worked as a piano teacher. The musical life of the Aller family blossomed in New York. ![]() Victor was a great pianist who made many recordings with my parents.Įleanor, who began her career in Hollywood as the principal cellist of the Warner Brothers Orchestra, became one of the greatest and most-often-heard cellists of the twentieth century. They were named Victor and Herbert because Gregory’s colleague in the New York theaters was Victor Herbert! My uncle Herbert, who was very close with my mother, worked for the cinematographer’s union in Los Angeles. The ship manifests of my grandfather and great-grandfather show “Zlotchin” and “Zlatkine.” In order to preserve the “o” sound of the original name, I transliterated the Russian to “Zlotkin.”Įleanor had two brothers, Herbert and Victor. A dear Austrian friend of mine told me that if I came from a Jewish family my last name couldn’t be “Slatkin,” and speculated that it might have originally been “Zlotkin.” When I looked at my great-grandfather’s death certificate (he was killed by an automobile in 1927), his last name was given as “Zlatkin.” The Hebrew name on his tombstone, and letters that he wrote to relatives in Russia, corroborated my friend’s assumption. In the 1970s I restored my original surname. For that reason, Gregory could live in Moscow rather than in the Pale of Settlement along Russia’s western border, the only area in the Russian Empire where Jews were allowed to lease land and build communities ( shtetls). Their father (my great-grandfather) was Jewish, but their mother (my great-grandmother) was not. The story my mother told me was that they believed that there were too many Altschulers. Their original family name was Altschuler, but they changed the name to Aller when they came to America. He came to the United States from Russia around the turn of the twentieth century with his brothers Joe and Simeon. Her mother, Fannie Altschuler, was a pianist, and her father, Gregory, was a cellist. My mother was born into a family of musicians in New York City on May 20, 1917. It still rings in my head, even though she has been gone for more than twenty-five years. “For Christ’s sake, play in tune!” was one of Eleanor Aller Slatkin’s mantras. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Frederick Zlotkin (he will explain that). As soon as I started writing the chapter about Felix, I knew that he was the only person who could really tell the story of this remarkable woman. Whereas I followed in the footsteps of our father, my brother Fred stepped over to the other side of the family. Tough, gentle, funny, and serious, Mom was a true force of nature. Once you met her, she etched an indelible mark onto your soul. The world never stopped for Eleanor Aller, and if it had, she would have made sure it was spinning again. I was convinced she would be around after I passed. “Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mother’s face.” Somewhere in the firmament, at least three generations of Altschulers, Allers, and Zlotkins are playing cello trios, but I can assure you, it will be my mother who wins any musical arguments. Other than the occasional grammatical, punctuational, or syntax corrections, I have left this as Fred wrote it, with a short introduction by yours truly. So instead of the usual musings about the current state of our musical world, I decided that these words might help fill in some of the blanks for those of you who have heard stories and tales about Eleanor Slatkin. I had written one about our dad, but Fred knew more about our maternal side and was the keeper of the family archives. ![]() When I found it in a folder, I also discovered that he had completed an essay about our mom. After he passed away, I posted a chapter of a book that I was working on. The music-making (when it occurred) was fine, Cindy and I took some wonderful trips, and I started some projects that you will learn about over the next several months.īut I lost some good folks along the way, first and foremost my brother, Fred. 2022 was a particularly difficult year for me.
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