aronson first heard the cello played by a child of a non-jewish neighbor in voronezh. soon after this, a relative on his mother's side, nikolai arnoff, who was a professional cellist, came to voronezh to give a concert and stayed with the aronson family. he taught lev how to hold the instrument and the bow. lev's father bought him a small cello and arranged with a fellow immigrant, aron rafaelovitsch rubinstein, to teach the child his first cello lessons. lev was seven.