Isaac Stern ( ; July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was a Ukrainian-born violin virtuoso. He was renowned for his recording and for discovering new musical talent.
Biography
Isaac
Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenetz
, Ukraine
.
He was
fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco
. He received his first music lessons from
his mother before enrolling at the
San Francisco Conservatory
of Music in 1928 where he studied until 1931 before going on to
study privately with
Louis
Persinger. He returned to the San Francisco Conservatory to
study with
Naoum Blinder for five
years. He said he owed the most to Blinder. At his public début on
February 18, 1936, aged 15, he played the
Violin Concerto
No. 3 in B minor
of
Camille Saint-Saëns with
the
San Francisco Symphony
under the
direction of
Pierre Monteux. Reflecting on his background
Stern once memorably quipped that cultural exchanges between the US
and Soviet Russia were simple affairs: "They send us their Jews
from Odessa, and we send them our Jews from Odessa."
Within musical circles, Stern became renowned both for his
recordings and for championing certain
younger players. Among his discoveries were
cellists Yo-Yo Ma and
Jian Wang, and violinists
Itzhak Perlman and
Pinchas Zukerman.
He also played a major
role in saving New York
City
's Carnegie
Hall
from demolition in 1960, which later had its main
auditorium named in his
honor.
Among his many recordings, Stern recorded
concertos by
Brahms,
Bach,
Beethoven,
Mendelssohn,
Tchaikovsky, and
Vivaldi and modern works by
Barber,
Bartók,
Stravinsky,
Bernstein and
Dutilleux. The Dutilleux concerto, entitled
L'Arbre des Songes ['The Tree of Dreams'] was a 1985
commission by Stern himself. He also
dubbed actors' violin-playing in several
films, one of which was
Fiddler
on the Roof.
Stern served as musical advisor for the 1946 film,
Humoresque, about a rising violin
star and his patron, played respectively by
John Garfield and
Joan Crawford.
In his
autobiography written with
Chaim Potok,
My First 79 Years,
he cites
Nathan Milstein and
Arthur Grumiaux as major influences
on his style of playing.
He won Grammys for his work with
Eugene
Istomin and
Leonard Rose in their
famous chamber music trio.
In 1979,
eight years after Richard Nixon made
the first official visit
by a US President to
the country, the People's
Republic of China
offered Stern and pianist David Golub an unprecedented invitation to tour
the country. While there, he collaborated with the China
Central Symphony Society (now China National Symphony) under the
direction of Chinese Conductor
Li Delun.
Their visit was filmed and resulted in the
Oscar-winning
documentary,
From Mao to Mozart.
In 1987, Stern received the
Grammy
Award for
Lifetime
Achievement.
His November 1948 marriage to
ballerina
Nora Kaye ended in divorce in 1949. On
August 17, 1951, Stern married Vera Lindenblit. They had three
children together. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1994 after 43
years of marriage. On January 23, 1997, Stern married his third
wife, Linda Reynolds, who survived him.
Isaac
Stern died in New York City, New York
on September 22, 2001 of congestive heart failure at
81.
Violins
Stern's favorite instrument was the
Ysaÿe Guarneri del Gesù, one of
the violins produced by the
Cremonese
luthier Giuseppe Guarneri del
Gesù.
Amongst other instruments, Stern played the 'Kruse-Vormbaum'
Stradivarius (1728), the 'ex-Stern'
Bergonzi (1733), the 'Stern-Alard' Guarneri del Gesù (1737), a
Michele Angelo Bergonzi (1739-1757), the 'Arma Senkrah' Guadagnini
(1750), a Giovanni Guadagnini (1754), a
J. B. Vuillaume copy of the "Panette"
Guarneri del Gesu of 1737 (c.1850), and the 'ex-Nicolas I' J.B.
Vuillaume (1840). He also owned two contemporary instruments by
Samuel Zygmuntowicz.
Awards
Notes
References
External links
Interviews
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