The other thing that Frank Miller did for me was to give me a very strict diet of scales and very difficult etudes - Popper High School - forty marvelous etudes. They are still sort of my Bible today, as far as cello is concerned. All my students have to play that material.

First was the establishment of a curved thumb on the bow, for without the thumb being capable of flexing, the bow arm must be faulty. Second, was a good left hand setting on the fingerboard in the lower positions. Third, were the early scales, exercises, and finger independence studies.

You played very well but I would like you to take the Fourth Sonata of Beethoven and figure it out for yourself.

She said go ahead, I handled the house before while you was gone, I guess I can do it again.

There was the barest minimum of religion at home. In my entire youth, until I left home at age 15, I remember going to Synagogue just a few times on Yom Kippur.

My father was a tremendous extrovert, always managing to be the center of attention and the life of the party. Mom was just the opposite - quiet, suffering, and neurotic as Hell. Quite a combination, those two. Dad was a terrific ham and Mom was very introverted, and basically sad and self-conscious.