For the new year: Leonard Slatkin shares a family reminiscence written by his brother, the cellist Frederick Zlotkin, who died only a few months ago. The focus is mainly on their mother, Eleanor Aller Slatkin, who played in the Hollywood String Quartet with her husband, Felix, and as principal cellist in the Warner Bros. studio orchestra. In the latter capacity, she frequently recorded cello solos for the films. There’s plenty here to fascinate, both in terms of Saltkin family history and glimpses into what it was like for a musician, particularly a female musician, to work in Hollywood during the “Golden Age.” Furthermore, it concludes with a great anecdote about Arnold Schoenberg, in Eleanor’s own words.
Tag: Frederick Zlotkin
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Frederick Zlotkin Cellist Dies at 75
I didn’t have a chance to share this earlier. I saw it mentioned on Friday on Leonard Slatkin’s Facebook page. Sadly, the news remains the same. Slatkin’s younger brother, Frederick Zlotkin, has died at the age of 75. Zlotkin (who preferred the original spelling of the family name) was principal cellist of the New York City Ballet for fifty years. Like his parents, he also recorded for motion pictures and numerous contemporary artists – in his case, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Aretha Franklin, and Neil Young, among others.
Leonard and Frederick were products of an enviable music dynasty. Their father was the violinist Felix Slatkin (concert master of the 20th Century Fox Orchestra), who conducted and made recordings with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Their mother was Eleanor Aller Slatkin (principal cellist at Warner Bros.), who played cello on the soundtracks to dozens of films, including “Deception” (1946) and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977). Both parents were founding members of the Hollywood String Quartet.
Here, from a documentary on Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Zlotkin and Leonard Slatkin discuss, rehearse, and perform Korngold’s Cello Concerto, the work introduced by their mother, who dubbed actor Paul Henreid’s “performance” in “Deception.”
I’ve cued it up to the 28-minute mark, but the entire documentary is worth watching. It includes lots of interesting info about the Slatkins.
My condolences to Leonard Slatkin and the rest of the Zlotkin/Slatkin family.
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