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The outstanding Russian-born American violinist, Isaac Stern, the son of Solomon and Clara Stern, was born in Kremenets, Poland (now Ukraine), into a Jewish family. He was 14 months old when his family moved to San Francisco in 1921. He received his first music lessons from his mother, who was a professional singer. In 1928, he enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied violin until 1931 before going on to study privately with Louis Persinger. He returned to the San Francisco Conservatory to study for five years with Naoum Blinder (1932-1937), to whom he said he owed the most. In his autobiography, co-authored with Chaim Potok, My First 79 Years, Stern cited Nathan Milstein and Arthur Grumiaux as major influences on his style of playing.
At his public orchestral debut on February 18, 1936, aged 15, Isaac Stern played Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Monteux. His his New York debut followed on October 11, 1937. After further training in San Francisco, he returned to New York and gave a notably successful concert on February 18, 1939; his Carnegie Hall debut there on January 8, 1943, was a triumph.
Issac Stern performed both nationally and internationally. In 1947 he toured Australia; made his European debut at the Lucerne Festival in 1948; subsequently appeared regularly with American and European orchestras; in 1956 he made a spectacularly successful tour of Russia, the first American violinist to do so. In 1967, he stated his refusal to return to the USSR until the Soviet regime allowed artists to enter and leave the country freely. His only visit to Germany was in 1999, for a series of master-classes, but he never performed publicly in Germany. In 1979, seven 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 conductor Li Delun.
Isaac Stern maintained close ties with Israel. Stern began performing in the country in 1949. In 1973, he performed for wounded Israeli soldiers during the Yom Kippur War. During the 1991 Gulf War and Iraq's Scud missile attacks on Israel, he had been playing in the Jerusalem Theater. During his performance, an air raid siren sounded, causing the audience to panic. Stern then stepped onto the stage and began playing a movement of J.S. Bach. The audience then calmed down, donned gas masks, and sat throughout the rest of his performance. Stern was a supporter of several educational projects in Israel, among them the America-Israel Foundation and the Jerusalem Music Center.
In 1940, Issac Stern began performing with Russian-born pianist Alexander Zakin, collaborating until 1977. In 1961 he organized a trio with the pianist Eugene Istomin and the cellist Leonard Rose, which toured widely until Rose's death. Within musical circles, he 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.
In the 1960's, he played a major role in saving New York City's Carnegie Hall from demolition, by organising the Citizens' Committee to Save Carnegie Hall. Following the purchase of Carnegie Hall by New York City, the Carnegie Hall Corporation was formed, and Stern was chosen as its first president, a title he held until his death. Carnegie Hall later named its main auditorium in his honor. In 1986 he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his orchestral debut.
Among Stern's many recordings are concertos by Johannes Brahms, J.S. Bach, L.v. Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Antonio Vivaldi and modern works by Alban Berg, Samuel Barber, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, George Rochberg, and Henri Dutilleux. The Henri Dutilleux' concerto, entitled L'arbre des songes ["The Tree of Dreams"] was a 1985 commission by Stern himself.
Isaac Stern also dubbed actors' violin-playing in several films, such as Fiddler on the Roof. He 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. He was also the featured violin soloist on the soundtrack for the 1971 film of Fiddler on the Roof. In 1999, he appeared in the film Music of the Heart, along with Itzhak Perlman and several other famed violinists, with a youth orchestra led by Meryl Streep (the film was based on the true story of a gifted violin teacher in Harlem who eventually took her musicians to play a concert in Carnegie Hall). Stern's tour in China was filmed and resulted in the Oscar-winning documentary, From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China.
Isaac Stern's favorite instrument was the Ysaÿe Guarnerius, one of the violins produced by the Cremonese luthier Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. It had previously been played by the violin virtuoso and composer Eugène Ysaÿe. Among other instruments, Stern played the "Kruse-Vormbaum" Stradivarius (1728), the "ex-Stern" Bergonzi (1733), the "Panette" 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 (c1850), and the "ex-Nicolas I" J.B. Vuillaume (1840). He also owned two contemporary instruments by Samuel Zygmuntowicz and modern Italian Jago Peternella Violins. In 2001, Stern's collection of instruments, bows and musical ephemera was sold through Tarisio Auctions. The May 2003 auction set a number of world records and was at the time the second highest grossing violin auction of all time, with total sales of over $3.3M.
Isaac Stern belongs to the galaxy of virtuoso performers to whom fame is a natural adjunct to talent and industry; he is also active in general cultural undertakings, and is an energetic worker for the cause of human rights. He received extensive recognition for his work, including and six Grammy Awards. In 1979 he was made an Officer of the Legion d'honneur of France; in 1984 he received the Kennedy Center Honors Award; in 1987 was given the Wolf Prize of Israel, and in 1992 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He won Grammys for his work with Eugene Istomin and Leonard Rose in their famous chamber music trio in the 1960's and 1970's, while also continuing his duo work with Alexander Zakin during this time. Stern recorded a series of piano quartets in the 1980's and 1990's with Emanuel Ax, Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma, including those of W.A. Mozart, L.v. Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Gabriel Fauré, winning anGrammy in 1992 for Johannes Brahms quartets Opp. 25 and 26. The Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall bears his name, due to his role in saving the venue from demolition in the 1960's.
Isaac Stern was married three times. His first marriage, in 1948 to ballerina Nora Kaye, ended in divorce after 18 months, but the two of them remained friends. On August 17, 1951, he married Vera Lindenblit (1927-2015). They had three children together, including conductors Michael and David Stern. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1994 after 43 years. In 1996, Stern married his third wife, Linda Reynolds. His third wife, his three children, and his five grandchildren survived him. Isaac Stern died September 22, 2001 of heart failure in a Manhattan, New York, hospital after an extended stay. |
