Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was an American violinist.[1]
Born inPoland, Stern moved to theUnited States when he was 14 months old. Stern performed both nationally and internationally, notably touring theSoviet Union andChina, and performing extensively in Israel, a country to which he had close ties since shortly after its founding.
Stern received extensive recognition for his work, including winning thePresidential Medal of Freedom and sixGrammy Awards, and being named to the FrenchLegion of Honour. The Isaac Stern Auditorium atCarnegie Hall bears his name, due to his role in saving the venue from demolition in the 1960s.
The son of Solomon and Clara Stern,[2] Isaac Stern was born inKremenets,Poland (nowUkraine), into aJewish family. He was 14 months old when his family moved toSan Francisco in 1921. Both his parents were musical and his mother, who had studied at theSaint Petersburg Conservatory, began teaching him thepiano when he was six before switching her son to theviolin when he was eight. In 1928, Stern’s parents enrolled him at theSan Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied until 1931 before going on to study briefly in New York withLouis Persinger.[3] He returned to the San Francisco Conservatory to study for five years withNaoum Blinder, the concertmaster of theSan Francisco Symphony, to whom he said he owed the most.[4] At his public début on February 18, 1936, aged 15, he playedSaint-Saëns'Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor with the San Francisco Symphony under the direction ofPierre Monteux. Reflecting on his background, Stern once memorably quipped that cultural exchanges between the U.S. and Soviet Russia drew from the same city:
DuringWorld War II, Stern was rejected from military service due to flat feet. He then joined theUnited Service Organizations and performed for US troops. During one such performance onGuadalcanal, a Japanese soldier, mesmerized by his playing, sneaked into the audience of US personnel listening to his performance before sneaking back out.[6][7]
Stern toured theSoviet Union in 1951, the first American violinist to do so. In 1967, Stern 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.[2]
Stern was married three times. His first marriage, in 1948 to ballerinaNora Kaye, ended in divorce after 18 months, but the two of them remained friends.[8] On August 17, 1951, he married Vera Lindenblit (1927–2015). They had three children together, including conductorsMichael andDavid Stern and also Rabbi Shira Stern, one of the first female rabbis in the USA. 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.[2]
Stern died September 22, 2001, of heart failure in a Manhattan, New York, hospital after an extended stay.[2]
In 1940, Stern began performing with Russian-born pianistAlexander Zakin, collaborating until 1977.[9] Within musical circles, Stern became renowned both for his recordings and for championing certain younger players. Among his discoveries were cellistsYo-Yo Ma andJian Wang, and violinistsItzhak Perlman andPinchas Zukerman.
In the 1960s, he played a major role in saving New York City'sCarnegie Hall from demolition, by organizing 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.[2] Carnegie Hall later named its main auditorium in his honor.[10]
Among Stern's many recordings are concertos byBrahms,Bach,Beethoven,Mendelssohn,Sibelius,Tchaikovsky, andVivaldi and modern works byBarber,Bartók,Stravinsky,Bernstein,Rochberg, Berg, Penderecki, andDutilleux. The Dutilleux concerto, entitledL'arbre des songes ["The Tree of Dreams"] was a 1985 commission by Stern himself. He alsodubbed actors' violin-playing in several films, such asthe 1971 film adaptation ofFiddler on the Roof.
Stern served as musical advisor for the 1946 filmHumoresque, about a rising violin star and his patron, played respectively byJohn Garfield andJoan Crawford. He was also the featured violin soloist on the soundtrack for the film adaptation ofFiddler on the Roof.[11] In 1999, he appeared in the filmMusic of the Heart, along withItzhak Perlman and several other famed violinists, with a youth orchestra led byMeryl Streep (the film was based on the true story ofRoberta Guaspari, a gifted violin teacher inHarlem who eventually took her musicians to play a concert in Carnegie Hall).
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Interview with Stern onMy First 79 Years, 26 October 1999,C-SPAN | |
| Booknotes interview with Stern onMy First 79 Years, 23 January 2000,C-SPAN |
In his autobiography, co-authored withChaim Potok,My First 79 Years, Stern citedNathan Milstein andArthur Grumiaux as major influences on his style of playing.
He won Grammys for his work withEugene Istomin andLeonard Rose in their famous chamber music trio in the 1960s and '70s, while also continuing his duo work with Alexander Zakin during this time. Stern recorded a series of piano quartets in the 1980s and 1990s withEmanuel Ax,Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma, including those ofMozart,Beethoven,Schumann andFauré, winning anotherGrammy in 1992 for theBrahms quartets Opp. 25 and 26.
In 1979, seven years afterRichard Nixon made thefirst official visit by a US president to the country,the People's Republic of China offered Stern and pianistDavid 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 conductorLi Delun. Their visit was filmed and resulted in theOscar-winning documentary,From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China.
Stern maintained close ties withIsrael. Stern began performing in the country in 1949.[1] In 1973, he performed for wounded Israeli soldiers during theYom Kippur War. During the 1991Gulf War and Iraq'sScud missile attacks on Israel, he had been playing in theJerusalem 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 ofBach. The audience then calmed down, donned gas masks, and sat throughout the rest of his performance.[12] Stern was a supporter of several educational projects in Israel, among them the America-Israel Foundation and theJerusalem Music Center.[1]
Stern's favorite instrument was theYsaÿe Guarnerius, one of the violins produced by theCremoneseluthierGiuseppe Guarneri del Gesù.[13] It had previously been played by the violin virtuoso and composerEugène 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), aJ. 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 bySamuel Zygmuntowicz and modern ItalianJago Peternella Violins.
In May 2003, Stern's collection of instruments, bows and musical ephemera was sold throughTarisio Auctions. The 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.[14]
In 2012, a street inTel Aviv was named for Stern.[1]
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