OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern

Subject: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 12:47 PM

I would simply like to note the passing of Isaac Stern on Saturday at 81. Among the many recordings of his, I would single out the Istomen-Stern-Rose Brahms Trios as something I cannot do without. But there are many favourites, and many fine memories of concerts always at a kind of normal perfection that was assumed as soon as he walked on stage.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: GUEST,Irish Sergeant
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 01:17 PM

For years Isaac Stern filled our lives with beautiful music, filled with passion and grace. I will miss the man and the beauty he gave to a world that sorely needs all the beauty it can get. Shalom, Isaac Stern, may God's visage smile on you alway and thank you!

Subject: RE: OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 01:29 PM

Oh, nooooo.

Shalom, shalom. God bless you and thank you for all the grace and beauty you added to t he world.

A.

Subject: RE: OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 03:56 PM

Not only did Stern himself fill our lives with beautiful music, but he achieved another kind of immortality as well -- through students such a Isthak Perlman, Pinchas Zucherman, and God knows how many others. Also, when Carnegie Hall was scheduled to become victim to the wrecking-ball, he persuaded the City of New York to buy it. NYC did, and they put him in charge. A great musician and a great man.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: Troll
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 04:19 PM

We will say akadish for him.

troll

Subject: RE: OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: Escamillo
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 09:08 PM

This is a brief biography of the dear Maestro Isaac Stern:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11080-2001Sep22.html

God bless him - Andrés

Subject: OBIT: Isaac Stern
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 09:43 PM

Links tend to expire, so allow me to post the article Escamillo linked to.
-Joe Offer-

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Virtuoso Violinist Isaac Stern Dies at 81
By Bart Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 23, 2001; Page C04

Isaac Stern, 81, the virtuoso violinist who followed his musical calling to the summit of artistry in a career that spanned more than six decades and took him to every continent on the globe, died Sept. 22 in New York.

Mr. Stern played in solo recitals, with small string ensembles and with symphony orchestras. He made music with the leading conductors and the best musicians of his generation, and he appeared on the stages of the world's finest concert halls.

With pianist Eugene Istomin and cellist Leonard Rose, he participated in one of music's premiere trios. For the bicentenary of Beethoven's birth in 1970, the trio performed highly acclaimed all-Beethoven programs in New York, London and Paris. He had also given chamber music concerts with the great cellist Pablo Casals.

Known primarily as a classical musician, Mr. Stern was arguably among the half-dozen greatest violinists of the 20th century. His standard repertoire included virtually all the great composers from Bach to Stravinsky, not only in live performance but also in recordings.

Among the most popular and prolific of recorded violinists, he made records in collaboration with the likes of Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. He played the world premiere and also made the first recording of Bernstein's "Serenade," and he premiered compositions by William Schuman, George Rochberg and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Describing the sound of Mr. Stern's music, the authoritative New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians said, "[H]is distinctive style reflects his vibrant personality, total involvement in music and intense communication with his listeners. His interpretations are vital and exuberant, his tone warm and expressive. His feeling for style is impeccable; invariably he finds the right inflection to bring the music alive."

Virgil Thompson, music critic of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote after a 1943 Carnegie Hall concert by Mr. Stern, then 22, that he was already "one of the world's master fiddle players." Mr. Stern himself described his style of play as like the "natural rise and fall of the human voice. . . . You sing in your head, and you play what you hear."

In 1960, 17 years after his Carnegie Hall triumph, it was Mr. Stern who led the campaign to save the venerable concert facility from a scheduled demolition to make way for a 44-story office building. He subsequently became president of Carnegie Hall Corp., a position he held for more than 30 years.

He also was a founding member of the National Endowment for the Arts, an aggressive supporter of funding for artistic endeavors and an eloquent spokesman and advocate for music as one of the noblest forms of artistic expression.

"Music is the essential ingredient of a civilized life. It has nothing to do with the glitter of the occasional gala," he said. "You need it as you need bread."

To the world, Mr. Stern was not only a world-class musician but a U.S. ambassador of goodwill. In 1956, at the height of the Cold War, he became the first important American musician to tour the Soviet Union, two years before the formal establishment of the cultural exchange program. He had a long-standing and special relationship with the state of Israel, having served as president of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and as a mentor to dozens of young Israeli musicians.

"No other living musician has contributed so much to the upholding, fostering and development of Israeli musical education," the Jerusalem Post said in a 1990 story headlined "In Praise of Isaac Stern."

Since the establishment of Israel as a state in 1948, Mr. Stern had played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. During the Six-Day War in 1967 and again in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he canceled all commitments to be in Israel. In the midst of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he was giving a concert in Jerusalem when the alarm sounded for an Iraqi Scud missile attack. While members of the audience in the packed house donned gas masks, an unmasked Mr. Stern strode to center stage and played a Mozart solo, 10 minutes before an all-clear sounded.

It was on his second trip to Jerusalem, 40 years earlier in 1951, that Mr. Stern met his second wife, a young concertgoer named Vera Lindenblit who agreed to have dinner with him in exchange for a concert ticket. The marriage later ended in divorce, as did his first marriage, to New York ballerina Nora Kaye.

In 1979, his travels took him to China, where he visited the Shanghai Conservatory and toured the country, meeting with Chinese musicians and music students. A film documentary of that trip, "From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China," won a 1980 Academy Award for best feature documentary and a special mention at the Cannes Film Festival.

Other motion pictures in which Mr. Stern figured included "Humoresque" (1946), in which he was ghost violinist for John Garfield, who played the role of a violinist in the film; and "Tonight We Sing" (1953), for which he played the soundtrack. In 1971, he played the violin music for "Fiddler on the Roof."

Isaac Stern was born in Kreminiecz, in what now is Ukraine, and he immigrated to the United States with his family at age 1. Both his parents were musical, and his mother, who had studied voice at the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg, began teaching him to play the piano when he was 6. At age 8, he became intrigued by the violin playing of a friend, and he turned to that instrument. When he was 10, he entered the San Francisco Conservatory, where his study was financed by a wealthy patron of the arts. At 11, he made his professional debut as a guest artist with the San Francisco Symphony, followed by performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and concerts in other West Coast cities.

In 1937, he made his New York debut but returned to San Francisco for further study shortly thereafter. A second New York recital in 1939 established the young Mr. Stern's standing in the top rank of American violinists.

During World War II, he played for Allied servicemen and women in Greenland, Iceland and the South Pacific. He made his European debut in 1948 and in subsequent years toured Europe regularly, playing at all the major music festivals. In the course of his career, he performed in most countries of the world and on all continents, at the rate of 150 or more concerts a year during his most productive years.

On the concert stage, he was a commanding presence as an artist, but as a man he appeared almost ordinary. He was short and stubby, down-to-earth, easily accessible, loquacious and unassuming. He was delighted whenever he had a chance to perform with younger musicians.

In 1986, when his son, David, was a senior at Yale and was the music director of the Yale Bach Society, Mr. Stern spent a week in New Haven, Conn., rehearsing as soloist in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor for the society's last concert under David Stern's directorship. After the concerto, the elder Mr. Stern joined the orchestra's first violin section in a performance of Brahms's German Requiem, with David Stern directing.

"What better pleasure can there be," he said afterward, " . . . than if your son does you the honor of asking you to take part in an important moment in his life?"

Mr. Stern's awards included the Kennedy Center Honors, the Albert Schweitzer Music Award and the American Symphony League's gold baton.

Survivors include his wife, the former Linda Reynolds, whom he married in 1996; two sons, David and Michael, both musical conductors; and a daughter, Shira, a rabbi.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

Subject: RE: OBIT: Passing of Isaac Stern
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 09:57 PM

As fine a musician as he was, it was sometimes almost as good to hear him talk and teach and show folks how to be profoundly human. He was a mensch and a wonderful ambassasdor of goodness and beauty to the world. I shall miss him......