Gluck, detail of a portrait by Joseph Duplessis, dated 1775 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (2 July 1714 in Erasbach near Berching (Upper Palatinate), Germany – 15 November 1787 in Vienna) was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century.

The strong influence of French opera in these works encouraged Gluck to move to Paris, which he did in November 1773. Fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French national genre into a new synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian stages. One of the last of these, Iphigénie en Tauride, was a great success and is generally acknowledged to be his finest work. Though he was extremely popular and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera, Gluck's mastery of the Parisian operatic scene was never absolute, and after the poor reception of his Echo et Narcisse he left Paris in disgust and returned to Vienna to live out the remainder of his life.

Early years[link]

Gluck was born in Erasbach (now a district of Berching, Bavaria) the first of six surviving children. His father, Alexander Johannes, came from a long line of foresters, and married Gluck's mother, Maria Walburga, in about 1711. During 1717 the family moved to Bohemia, where the father became head forester in the service of Prince Philipp Hyazinth von Lobkowitz in 1727. According to J. C. von Mannlich, who shared rooms with Gluck in Paris, it was as a Bohemian schoolboy that Gluck received his first musical training, both as a singer in the church choir and by learning. Gluck later wrote:

My father was a head forester in [Eisenberg] in Bohemia and he had brought me up to follow in his footsteps. At that time music was all the rage. Unfortunately, inflamed with a passion for this art, I soon made astounding progress and was able to play several instruments. My whole being became obsessed with music and I left all thoughts of a forester's life behind."

A childhood flight from home to Vienna is included in several contemporary accounts of Gluck's life, including Mannlich's, but recent scholarship has cast doubt on Gluck's picturesque tales of earning food and shelter by his singing as he travelled. Most now claim that, if this incident happened at all, it occurred later, and the object of Gluck's journeying was not Vienna but Prague, and connected to his studies at the University of Prague, where according to early biographies he began studying logic and mathematics in 1731. At that time the University boasted a flourishing musical scene that included performances of both Italian opera and oratorio. Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree, and vanishes from the historical record until 1737, a possible year (likely to have been 1736) in Vienna apart.

Italy[link]

In 1737 Gluck arrived in Milan, where he studied under G. B. Sammartini, who, according to Carpani, taught Gluck "practical knowledge of all the instruments." Apparently this relationship lasted for several years. Sammartini was not, primarily, a composer of opera, his main output being of sacred music and symphonies, but Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-and-coming opera houses, the Teatro Regio Ducal, where his first opera, Artaserse, was performed on 26 December 1741. Set to a libretto by Metastasio, the opera opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742. According to one anecdote, the public would not accept Gluck's style until he inserted an aria in the lighter Milanese manner for contrast.

Nevertheless, Gluck composed an opera for each of the next four Carnivals at Milan, with renowned castrato Giovanni Carestini appearing in many of the performances, so the reaction to Artaserse is unlikely to have been completely unfavourable. He also wrote operas for other cities of Northern Italy in between Carnival seasons, including Turin and Venice, where his Ipermestra was given during November 1744 at the Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo. Nearly all of his operas in this period were, like Artaserse, set to Metastasio's texts, despite the poet's dislike for his style of composition.

Travels: 1745–1752[link]

In 1745 Gluck accepted an invitation to become house composer at London's King's Theatre, probably travelling to England via Frankfurt and in the company of Georg Christian, Fürst von Lobkowitz. The timing was poor, as the Jacobite Rebellion had caused much panic in London, and for most of the year the King's Theatre was closed. Gluck's two London operas, (La caduta de'giganti and Artamene) eventually performed in 1746, borrowed much from his earlier works, a method that was to re-occur throughout his career. Six trio sonatas were the other immediate fruits of his time in London. A more long-term benefit was exposure to the music of Handel – whom he later credited as a great influence on his style – and the naturalistic acting style of David Garrick. Either Gluck or Lobkowitz bought a copy of Handel's Messiah.^[1] Handel's own experience of Gluck pleased that composer less: Charles Burney reports Handel as saying that "he [Gluck] knows no more of contrapunto, as mein cook, Waltz".

The years 1747 and 1748 brought Gluck two highly prestigious engagements. First came a commission to produce an opera for Dresden, performed by Pietro Mingotti's troupe, to celebrate a royal double wedding that would unite the ruling families of Bavaria and Saxony. Le nozze d'Ercole e d'Ebe, a festa teatrale, borrowed heavily from earlier works, and even from Gluck's teacher Sammartini. The success of this work brought Gluck to the attention of the Viennese court, and, ahead of such a figure as Johann Adolph Hasse, he was selected to set Metastasio's Semiramide riconosciuta to celebrate Maria Theresa's birthday. Vittoria Tesi took the title role. On this occasion Gluck's music was completely original, but the displeasure of the court poet, Metastasio, who called the opera "archvandalian music," probably explains why Gluck did not remain long in Vienna despite the work's enormous popular success (it was performed 27 times to great acclaim). For the remainder of 1748 and 1749 Gluck travelled with Mingotti's troupe, contracting a venereal disease from the prima donna and composing the opera La contesa de' numi for the court at Copenhagen.

In 1750 he abandoned Mingotti's group for another company established by a former member of the Mingotti troupe, Giovanni Battista Locatelli. The main effect of this was that Gluck returned to Prague on a more consistent basis. For the Prague Carnival of 1750 Gluck composed a new opera, Ezio (again set to one of Metastasio's works). His Ipermestra was also performed in the same year. The other major event of Gluck's stay in Prague was, on 15 September 1750, his marriage to Maria Anna Bergin, aged 18 years old, the daughter of a rich but long-dead Viennese merchant. The marriage brought Gluck financial security, and he seems to have spent most of 1751 commuting between Prague and Vienna.

The year 1752 brought another major commission to Gluck, when he was asked to set Metastasio's La clemenza di Tito (the specific libretto was the composer's choice) for the nameday celebrations of King Charles VII of Naples (later Charles III of Spain). The opera was performed on 4 November at the Teatro di San Carlo, and the world-famous mezzo-soprano castrato Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano) took the role of Sextus. For Caffarelli Gluck composed the famous, but notoriously difficult, aria "Se mai senti spirarti sul volto," which provoked admiration and vituperation in equally large measures. Gluck later reworked this aria for his Iphigénie en Tauride. According to one account, the Neapolitan composer Francesco Durante claimed that his fellow composers "should have been proud to have conceived and written [the aria]." Durante simultaneously declined to comment whether or not it was within the boundaries of the accepted compositional rules of the time.

Vienna[link]

Gluck finally settled in Vienna where he became Kapellmeister. He wrote Le Cinesi for a festival in 1754 and La Danza for the birthday of the future Emperor Leopold II the following year. After his opera Antigono was performed in Rome in February, 1756, Gluck was made a Knight of the Golden Spur by Pope Benedict XIV. From that time on, Gluck used the title "Ritter von Gluck" or "Chevalier de Gluck."

Gluck turned his back on Italian opera seria and began to write opéra comiques. In 1761, Gluck produced the groundbreaking ballet Don Juan in collaboration with the choreographer Gasparo Angiolini. The climax of Gluck's opéra comique writing was La rencontre imprévue of 1764. By that time, Gluck was already engaged in his operatic reforms.

Operatic reforms[link]

Gluck had long pondered the fundamental problem of form and content in opera. He thought both of the main Italian operatic genres – opera buffa and opera seria – had strayed too far from what opera should really be and seemed unnatural. Opera buffa had long lost its original freshness. Its jokes were threadbare and the repetition of the same characters made them seem no more than stereotypes. In opera seria the singing was devoted to superficial effects and the content was uninteresting and fossilised. As in opera buffa, the singers were effectively absolute masters of the stage and the music, decorating the vocal lines so floridly that audiences could no longer recognise the original melody. Gluck wanted to return opera to its origins, focusing on human drama and passions and making words and music of equal importance.

In Vienna, Gluck met likeminded figures in the operatic world: Count Giacomo Durazzo, the head of the court theatre, who was a passionate admirer of French stage music; the librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi, who wanted to attack the dominance of Metastasian opera seria; the innovative choreographer Gasparo Angiolini; and the London-trained castrato Gaetano Guadagni.

The first result of the new thinking was Gluck's reformist ballet Don Juan, but a more important work was soon to follow. On 5 October 1762, Orfeo ed Euridice was given its first performance, with music by Gluck to words by Calzabigi. The dances were arranged by Angiolini and the title role was taken by Guadagni. Orfeo, which has never left the standard repertory, showed the beginnings of Gluck's reforms. His idea was to make the drama of the work more important than the star singers who performed it, and to do away with dry recitative (recitativo secco, accompanied only by continuo) that broke up the action. The more flowing and dramatic style which resulted has been seen as a precursor to the music dramas of Richard Wagner.

Gluck and Calzabigi followed Orfeo with Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1770), pushing their innovations even further. Calzabigi wrote a preface to Alceste, which Gluck signed, setting out the principles of their reforms.

Paris[link]

Gluck then began to spread his ideas to France. Under the patronage of his former music pupil, Marie Antoinette, who had married the future French king Louis XVI in 1770, Gluck signed a contract for six stage works with the management of the Paris Opéra. He began with Iphigénie en Aulide (19 April 1774). The premiere sparked a huge controversy, almost a war, such as had not been seen in the city since the Querelle des Bouffons. Gluck's opponents brought the leading Italian composer, Niccolò Piccinni, to Paris to demonstrate the superiority of Neapolitan opera and the "whole town" engaged in an argument between "Gluckists" and "Piccinnists." The composers themselves took no part in the polemics, but when Piccinni was asked to set the libretto to Roland, on which Gluck was also known to be working, Gluck destroyed everything he had written for that opera up to that point.

On 2 August 1774 the French version of Orfeo ed Euridice was performed, with the title role transposed from the castrato to the tenor voice. This time Gluck's work was better received by the Parisian public. In the same year Gluck returned to Vienna, where he was appointed composer to the imperial court. Over the next few years the now internationally famous composer would travel back and forth between Paris and Vienna. On 23 April 1776, the French version of Alceste was given.

Gluck also wrote Armide (1777), Iphigénie en Tauride (1779) and Echo et Narcisse for Paris. During the rehearsals for Echo et Narcisse, Gluck suffered his first stroke. Since the opera itself was a complete failure, Gluck decided to return to Vienna.

His musical heir in Paris was the composer Antonio Salieri, who had been Gluck's protégé since he arrived in Vienna in 1767, and later had made friends with Gluck. Gluck brought Salieri to Paris with him and bequeathed him the libretto for Les Danaïdes by Leblanc du Roullet and Baron Tschudi. The opera was announced as a collaboration between the two composers; however, after the overwhelming success of its premiere on 26 April 1784, Gluck revealed to the prestigious Journal de Paris that the work was wholly Salieri's.

Last years[link]

In Vienna Gluck wrote a few more minor works but he generally lived in retirement. In 1781 he brought out a German version of Iphigénie en Tauride and other operas of his enjoyed great popularity in Vienna.

On 15 November 1787, in Vienna, Gluck suffered another stroke and died a few days later. At a formal commemoration on 8 April 1788 his friend and pupil Salieri conducted Gluck's De profundis and a requiem by the Italian composer Niccolò Jommelli was given. Like many other prominent musicians and painters Gluck was buried in the Matzleinsdorfer Friedhof. When this cemetery was turned into a park in 1923, Gluck's remains were transferred to a tomb in the Vienna Zentralfriedhof.

Gluck's musical legacy includes approximately 35 complete full-length operas plus around a dozen shorter operas and operatic introductions, as well as numerous ballets and instrumental works. His reforms influenced Mozart, particularly his opera Idomeneo (1781). Gluck left behind a flourishing school of disciples in Paris, who would dominate the French stage throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. As well as Salieri, they included Sacchini, Cherubini, Méhul and Spontini. Gluck's greatest French admirer would be Hector Berlioz, whose epic Les Troyens may be seen as the culmination of the Gluckian tradition. Though Gluck wrote no operas in German, his example influenced the German school of opera, particularly Weber and Wagner, whose concept of music drama was not so far removed from Gluck's own.

Works[link]

Operas[link]

Ballets[link]

Songs with piano[link]

• Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beym Clavier zu Singen (Vienna, 1785; individually published during 70s)
  • Vaterlandslied ("Ich bin ein deutsches Mädchen")
  • Wir und sie ("Was that dir, Thor, dein Vaterland?")
  • Schlachtgesang ("Wie erscholl der Gang des lauten Heers")
  • Der Jüngling ("Schweigend sahe der May") [earlier version published in Göttinger Musenalmanach, 1775]
  • Der Sommernacht ("Wenn der Schimmer von dem Monde") [different version in Musenalmanach, ed. J.H. Voss (Hamburg, 1785)]
  • Die frühen Gräber ("Willkommen, o silberner Mond")
  • Die Neigung ("Nein, ich widerstrebe nicht mehr")
• An den Tod ("O Anblick der Glanznacht") (Klopstock), in Musikalischer Blumenstrauss (Berlin, 1792)
• "Minona lieblich und hold", duet, in Musikalische Blumenlese (Berlin, 1795)
• Siegsgesang für Freie ("Laut, wie des Stroms donnernder Sturz") (Friedrich von Matthisson), in Musenalmanach, ed. Voss (Hamburg, 1795)

A number of additional works in German, Italian and French are considered doubtful or spurious.

Arias & solo motets[link]

• "Berenice, ove sei … Ombra che pallida" (recitatve and aria for Apostolo Zeno's Lucio vero)
• Alma sedes, motet, 1v, orch (Paris, before 1779)

A number of additional Latin motets have been identified as parodies from Gluck's operas

Choral[link]

• De profundis clamavi for SATB & orchestra, performed 17 Nov. 1787 at Gluck’s burial and published Paris, c1804
• Lost works include a Miserere (? Turin, 1744–5), a setting of Psalm viii, c1753–7, and a '‘Grand choeur'’ performed in Vienna, 18 March 1762
• Doubtful: Hoch tut euch auf (Ps xxiv),Hosianna gelobet sei der da kommt, Mit fröhlichem Munde

Instrumental music[link]

• 9 Symphonies are listed in Alfred Wotquenne's 1904 catalogue, another 12 mentioned in Grove include some that are doubtful.
• Six trio sonatas, (London, 1746)
  • No 1 in C major
  • No 2 in g minor
  • No 3 in A major
  • No 4 in B-flat major
  • No 5 in E-flat major
  • No 6 in F major
• Two trio sonatas, after manuscripts
  • no 1 (No 7) in E major
  • No 2 (No 8) in F major

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

• Bruce Alan Brown, Julian Rushton. "Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 11 November 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
• Bruce Alan Brown: Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1991
• This article incorporates material from the German version of Wikipedia

Further reading[link]

• A. A. Abert: Christoph Willibald Gluck (in German) (Munich, 1959) OCLC 5996991
• P. Howard: Gluck and the Birth of Modern Opera (London, 1963) OCLC 699685
• W. Felix: Christoph Willibald Gluck (in German) (Leipzig, 1965) OCLC 16770241
• D. Heartz: "From Garrick to Gluck: the Reform of Theatre and Opera in the Mid-Eighteenth Century", Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, xciv (1967–8), 111–27. ISSN 0269-0403, 0080-4452.
• J. Rushton: "The Musician Gluck", The Musical Times, cxxvi (1987), 615–18. ISSN 0027-4666
• J. Kerman: Opera as Drama (New York, 1956, 2/1989) Revised 1989 edition ISBN 978-0-520-06274-0.
• F. W. Sternfeld: "Expression and Revision in Gluck"s Orfeo and Alceste", Essays Presented to Egon Wellesz (Oxford, 1966), 114–29
• P. Howard: "“Orfeo” and “Orphée”", The Musical Times, cviii (1967), 892–4. ISSN 0027-4666
• P. Howard: "Gluck"s Two Alcestes: a Comparison", The Musical Times, cxv (1974), 642–3. ISSN 0027-4666
• O. F. Saloman: Aspects of Gluckian Operatic Thought and Practice in France (diss., Columbia U., 1970)
• J. Rushton: "Iphigénie en Tauride: the Operas of Gluck and Piccinni", Music & Letters, liii (1972), 411–30. ISSN 0027-4224
• M. Noiray: Gluck"s Methods of Composition in his French Operas "Iphigénie en Aulide", "Orphée", "Iphigénie en Tauride" (diss., U. of Oxford, 1979
• P. Howard: "Armide: a Forgotten Masterpiece", Opera, xxx (1982), 572–6. ISSN 0030-3526
• J. Rushton: "“Royal Agamemnon”: the Two Versions of Gluck"s Iphigénie en Aulide", Music and the French Revolution, ed. M. Boyd (Cambridge, 1992), 15–36. ISBN 978-0-521-08187-0.
• P. Howard: Christoph Willibald Gluck: A Guide to Research. (London, Routledge, 2003) ISBN 978-0-415-94072-6.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Christoph Willibald Gluck

• Free scores by Christoph Willibald Gluck in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Christoph Willibald Gluck in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Christoph Willibald Gluck at the International Music Score Library Project

Mireille Delunsch (born 2 November 1962) is an opera soprano. She was born in Mulhouse, France, and studied musicology and voice at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. Her debut was at the Opéra du Rhin in Mulhouse, in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

Her repertory is wide, from Baroque opera to 20th century art songs, with an emphasis on French music. She is best known for the operas she has sung under the direction of French conductor Marc Minkowski.

Recordings[link]

Among the operas Delunsch has recorded with Minkowski are:

• La dame blanche by Boïeldieu (1996, released 1997, EMI Classics) - Jenny
• Armide by Gluck (1996, released 1999, Archiv) - Armide
• Dardanus by Rameau (1998, released 2000, Archiv) - Vénus
• Iphigénie en Tauride also by Gluck (1999, released 2001, Archiv) - Iphigénie
• Orphée et Eurydice (French version) also by Gluck (2002, released 2004, Archiv) - Eurydice

and DVD/TV broadcast

• L'incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi (2000, DVD) - Poppea
• Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II (2001, DVD) - Rosalinde
• Platée by Rameau (2002, DVD) - La Folie & Thalie
• Gala Jean-Philippe Rameau - Concert du 20ème anniversaire des Musiciens du Louvre (2003, TV)

Other recordings include:

• Herminie by Hector Berlioz, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe (1995, Harmonia Mundi)
• Elektra by Richard Strauss conducted by Friedemann Layer (1995, released 2001, Naïve) - Fünfte Magd
• Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy conducted by Jean-Claude Casadesus (1997, Naxos) - Mélisande
• Complete Songs by Henri Duparc (2000, Timpani)
• Cantates de Rome by Maurice Ravel (2000, EMI Classics), conducted by Michel Plasson
• Les deux journées by Luigi Cherubini, conducted by Christoph Spering (2002, Opus 111)
• Fisch-Ton-Kan by Emmanuel Chabrier, conducted by Roger Delage (1992, Arion)

Delunsch has also appeared in a number of opera telecasts.

References[link]

• Naxos discography for Delunsch, accessed 21 January 2010
• MusicWeb review of Pierre Bartholomée's La Lumière Antigone with Delunsch, accessed 21 January 2010

External links[link]

• Site officiel
• Mireille Delunsch at the Internet Movie Database

Marc Minkowski (born 4 October 1962)^[1][2] is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother, Mary Anne (Wade), is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology.^[3] Marc Minkowski is a Chevalier du Mérite.

Life and career[link]

Marc Minkowski was born in Paris. His maternal grandmother, Edith Wade, was a violinist.^[4] He began his musical career as a bassoonist for René Clemencic's Clemencic Consort and Philippe Pierlot's Ricercar Consort.^[5]

In 1982 Minkowski formed "Les Musiciens du Louvre", an orchestra dedicated to showcasing French Baroque music^[6][7] which has championed works by Marin Marais (opera Alcione), Jean-Joseph Mouret (opera Les amours de Ragonde), Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Jean-Baptiste Lully (opera Phaëton at Opéra National de Lyon) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (opera Hippolyte et Aricie). The ensemble has also revived lesser-known Handel operas, such as Teseo, Amadigi, Riccardo Primo and Ariodante, as well as several operas by Christoph Willibald Gluck including Armide (at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles), Alceste and Iphigénie en Tauride (at the English Bach Festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden).

Les Musiciens du Louvre relocated to Grenoble after 1996, where they are associates at the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble.^[8]

Minkowski's career focus has shifted from an initial specialized interest in the Baroque to a wider interest in opera. He conducted Mozart's Idomeneo in 1996 at the Opéra National de Paris and debuted his Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Salzburg Festival. He has since conducted Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Salzburg Festival, Handel's Giulio Cesare in Amsterdam, Paris and Zürich (with Cecilia Bartoli) and his Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in Zürich, Donizetti's La Favorite in Zürich, and Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, among others.

He has also performed and recorded critically acclaimed works by Jacques Offenbach: Orphée aux Enfers, La belle Hélène and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein.

As well as Les Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski is active in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Mozarteum Salzburg and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

The majority of his recordings have been issued by Deutsche Grammophon, but can also be found on Erato, EMI's Virgin Classics and Naïve Records.

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

• Minkowski at Deutsche Grammophon
• Les Musiciens du Louvre
• Marc Minkowski at the Internet Movie Database

Jascha Heifetz (/ˈhaɪfɪts/; February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1901 – December 10, 1987) was a violinist, born in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.^[1][2][3][4]

Photo by Yousuf Karsh

Early life[link]

Heifetz was born into a Litvak family in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire.^[5] His father, Reuven Heifetz, son of Elie, was a local violin teacher and served as the concertmaster of the Vilnius Theatre Orchestra for one season before the theatre closed down. Jascha took up the violin when he was three years old and his father was his first teacher. At five he started lessons with Ilya D. Malkin, a former pupil of Leopold Auer. He was a child prodigy, making his public debut at seven, in Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) playing the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1910 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study under Leopold Auer himself.

He played in Germany and Scandinavia, and met Fritz Kreisler for the first time in a Berlin private house together with other noted violinists in attendance. Kreisler, after accompanying the 12-year-old Heifetz at the piano in a performance of the Mendelssohn concerto, said to all present, "We may as well break our fiddles across our knees." Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens. In April 1911, Heifetz performed in an outdoor concert in St. Petersburg before 25,000 spectators; there was such a sensational reaction that police officers needed to protect the young violinist after the concert. In 1914, Heifetz performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch. The conductor was very impressed, saying he had never heard such an excellent violinist.^[6]

Career[link]

Heifetz and his family left Russia in 1917, traveling by rail to the Russian far east and thence by ship to the United States, arriving in San Francisco.

On October 27, 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the United States, at Carnegie Hall in New York, and became an immediate sensation.^[7] Fellow violinist Mischa Elman in the audience asked "Do you think it's hot in here?", whereupon the pianist Leopold Godowsky, in the next seat, imperturbably replied, "Not for pianists."^[8] The reviews by the New York critics were rapturous.

In 1917, Heifetz was elected as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, by the fraternity's Alpha chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. As he was aged 16 at the time, he was perhaps the youngest person ever elected to membership in the organization. Heifetz remained in the country and became an American citizen in 1925. When he told admirer Groucho Marx he had been earning his living as a musician since the age of seven, Groucho answered, "And I suppose before that you were just a bum."

Technique and timbre[link]

Heifetz is considered to be one of the finest violinists of all time. Heifetz's technical command of his instrument – his physical ability to play the violin with stunning precision – is regarded by many critics as unequaled. That physical control enabled Heifetz to produce a distinctive tone quality, intense and shimmering, that came to be regarded as his trademark. Yet, from time to time his near-perfect technique and conservative stage demeanor caused some critics to accuse him of being overly mechanical, even cold. Virgil Thomson called Heifetz's style of playing "silk underwear music", a term he did not intend as a compliment. Other critics argue that he infused his playing with feeling and reverence for the composers' intentions. His style of playing was highly influential in defining the way modern violinists approach the instrument. His use of rapid vibrato, emotionally charged portamento, fast tempos, and superb bow control coalesced to create a highly distinctive sound that make Heifetz's playing instantly recognizable to aficionados. The violinist Itzhak Perlman, who himself is noted for his rich warm tone and expressive use of portamento, describes Heifetz's tone as like "a tornado" because of its emotional intensity. Perlman also said that Heifetz preferred to be recorded relatively close to the microphone; as a result, one would perceive a somewhat different tone quality when listening to Heifetz during a concert hall performance as opposed to a recording.^[9]

In creating his sound, Heifetz was very particular about his choice of strings. He used a silver wound Tricolore gut g-string, plain gut unvarnished D and A strings, and a Goldbrokat steel E string medium including clear Hill brand rosin sparingly. Heifetz believed that playing on gut strings was important in rendering an individual sound.

Early recordings[link]

Jascha Heifetz around 1920

Heifetz made his first recordings in Russia during 1910–11, while still a student of Leopold Auer. The existence of these recordings was not widely known until after Heifetz's death, when several sides (most notably François Schubert's L'Abeille) were reissued on an LP included as a supplement to The Strad magazine.

Shortly after his Carnegie Hall debut on November 7, 1917, Heifetz made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company; he would remain with Victor and its successor, RCA Victor, for most of his career. For several years, in the 1930s, Heifetz recorded primarily for HMV in the UK because RCA cut back on classical recordings during the Great Depression; these discs were issued in the US by RCA Victor. Heifetz often enjoyed playing chamber music. Various critics have blamed his limited success in chamber ensembles to the fact that his artistic personality tended to overwhelm his colleagues. Some notable collaborations include his 1941 recordings of piano trios by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms with cellist Emanuel Feuermann and pianist Arthur Rubinstein as well as a later collaboration with Rubinstein and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, with whom he recorded trios by Maurice Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Felix Mendelssohn. Both formations were sometimes referred to as the Million Dollar Trio.

He recorded the Beethoven Violin Concerto in 1940 with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini, and again in stereo in 1955 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. A live performance from April 9, 1944, of Heifetz playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, again with Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, has also been released.

He performed and recorded Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto, at a time when many classical musicians avoided Korngold's music because they did not consider him a "serious" composer after he wrote many film scores for Warner Brothers.

Wartime[link]

Heifetz commissioned a number of pieces, perhaps most notably the Violin Concerto by William Walton. He also arranged a number of pieces, such as Hora Staccato by Grigoraş Dinicu, a Romanian whom Heifetz is rumoured to have called the greatest violinist he had ever heard. Heifetz also played and composed for the piano;^[7] he performed mess hall jazz for soldiers at Allied camps across Europe during the Second World War, and under the alias Jim Hoyl he wrote a hit song, "When You Make Love to Me (Don't Make Believe)", which was sung by Bing Crosby.

Decca recordings[link]

From 1944 to 1946, largely a result of the American Federation of Musicians recording ban (which actually began in 1942), Heifetz went to American Decca Records to make recordings because Decca settled with the union in 1943, well before RCA Victor resolved their dispute with the musicians. He recorded primarily short pieces, including his own arrangements of music by George Gershwin and Stephen Foster; these were pieces he often played as encores in his recitals. He was accompanied on the piano by Emanuel Bay or Milton Kaye. Among the more uncommon discs featured one of Decca's most popular artists, Bing Crosby, in the "Lullaby" from Benjamin Godard's opera Jocelyn and Where My Caravan Has Rested (arranged by Heifetz and Crosby) by Hermann Lohr (1872–1943); Decca's studio orchestra was conducted by Victor Young in the July 27, 1946, session. Recorded mostly in small studios, the digitally remastered performances (issued by MCA) have remarkably clear, high fidelity sound. However, Heifetz soon returned to RCA Victor, where he continued to make recordings until the early 1970s.^[10]

Later recordings[link]

Returning to RCA Victor in 1946, Heifetz continued to make a number of 78-rpm discs for the company, including solo, chamber, and orchestral recordings.

RCA Victor began releasing long-playing recordings in 1950, including concertos taken from 78-rpm masters. The company began to make new high fidelity recordings with Heifetz, primarily with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner. Beginning in early 1954, most of RCA's classical sessions were also taped on three-track tape machines. These were eventually issued in the "Living Stereo" series, which began in 1958. RCA later reissued the recordings on a series of CDs. While many earlier Heifetz recordings used close miking, which led to a dry sound, the post 1954 RCA concerto recordings have somewhat more distant and effective miking, creating a more effective concert ambience that shows Heifetz's tone to excellent advantage. In 2000, RCA released a double CD compilation entitled Jascha Heifetz – The Supreme which gives a sampling of Heifetz's major recordings, including the 1955 recording of Brahms's Violin Concerto with Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the 1957 recording of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (with the same forces); the 1959 recording of Sibelius's Violin Concerto with Walter Hendl and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the 1961 recording of Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy with Sir Malcolm Sargent and the New Symphony Orchestra of London; the 1963 recording of Glazunov's A minor Concerto with Walter Hendl and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra (drawn from New York musicians); the 1965 recording of George Gershwin's Three Preludes (transcribed by Heifetz) with pianist Brooks Smith; and the 1970 recording of Bach's unaccompanied Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor.

Third Israel tour[link]

Heifetz in Be'er Sheba, Israel, 1953

On his third tour to Israel in 1953, Heifetz included in his recitals the Violin Sonata by Richard Strauss. At the time, Strauss was considered by many to be a Nazi composer, and his works were unofficially banned in Israel along with those of Richard Wagner. Despite the fact that the Holocaust had occurred less than ten years earlier and a last-minute plea from the Israeli Minister of Education, the defiant Heifetz argued, "The music is above these factors ... I will not change my program. I have the right to decide on my repertoire." Throughout his tour the performance of the Strauss sonata was followed by dead silence.

Heifetz was attacked after his recital in Jerusalem outside his hotel by a young man who struck Heifetz's violin case, Heifetz resorting to using his right hand to protect his priceless violins from the crowbar. As the attacker started to flee, Heifetz alerted his companions, who were armed, "Shoot that man, he tried to kill me." The attacker escaped and was never found. The attack has since been attributed to the Kingdom of Israel terrorist group.^[11][12] The incident made headlines in the press and Heifetz defiantly announced that he would not stop playing the Strauss. Threats continued to come, however, and he omitted the Strauss from his next recital without explanation. His last concert was cancelled after his swollen right hand began to hurt. He left Israel and did not return until 1970.

Russian defector[link]

Soviet musicians considered Heifetz and his teacher Leopold Auer as traitors to their home country for emigrating to the US, and Heifetz especially because of his very young age. Meanwhile, musicians who remained, such as David Oistrakh, were seen as patriots. Heifetz greatly criticized the Soviet regime; he condemned the International Tchaikovsky Competition for being biased against Western competitors. During the Carl Flesch Competition in London, Oistrakh tried to persuade Erick Friedman, Heifetz's star student, to enter the Tchaikovsky Competition, of which he was the principal juror. Hearing of this, Heifetz strongly advised against it, warning Friedman, "You will see what will happen there." Consequently, the competition received international outrage after Friedman, already a seasoned performer and recording artist for RCA, who had performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, among many others, placed sixth behind players who had yet to establish themselves. Joseph Szigeti later informed Heifetz himself that he had given his student top scores.

Later life[link]

After an only partially successful operation on his right shoulder in 1972, Heifetz ceased giving concerts and making records. Although his prowess as a performer remained intact and he continued to play privately until the end, his bow arm was affected and he could never again hold the bow as high as before.

Rudolf Koelman (left) with Jascha Heifetz, 1979

Heifetz taught the violin extensively, holding master classes first at UCLA, then at the University of Southern California, where the faculty included renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and violist William Primrose. For a few years in the 1980s he also held classes in his private studio at home in Beverly Hills. His teaching studio can be seen today in the main building of the Colburn School, where it is now used for masterclasses and serves as an inspiration to the students there. During his teaching career Heifetz taught, among others, Erick Friedman, Elaine Skorodin,^[13] Pierre Amoyal, Rudolf Koelman, Endre Granat, Eugene Fodor, Paul Rosenthal, and Ayke Agus.

It was rumored that Heifetz was such a strict disciplinarian that the main gate of his Beverly Hills home was closed exactly at the time his classes were to begin in order to shut out students who arrived late. Heifetz died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California in December 1987.

Heifetz owned the 1714 Dolphin Stradivarius, the 1731 "Piel" Stradivarius, the 1736 Carlo Tononi, and the 1742 ex David Guarneri del Gesù, the last of which he preferred and kept until his death. The Dolphin Strad is currently owned by the Nippon Music Foundation. The Heifetz Tononi violin used at his 1917 Carnegie Hall debut was left in his will to Sherry Kloss, Master-Teaching Assistant to Heifetz, with "one of my four good bows" (Violinist/author Kloss wrote "Jascha Heifetz Through My Eyes" and is a co-founder of the Jascha Heifetz Society). The famed Guarneri is now in the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum, as instructed by Heifetz in his will, and may only be taken out and played "on special occasions" by deserving players. The instrument has recently been on loan to San Francisco Symphony's concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, who featured it in concertos with Andrei Gorbatenko and the San Francisco Academy Orchestra in 2006.^[14] In 1989, Heifetz received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Family life[link]

Heifetz was married in 1928 to the silent motion picture actress Florence Vidor, ex-wife of King Vidor, whose seven year old daughter, Suzanne, Heifetz adopted. The couple had two more children, Josefa (born 1930) and Robert (1932–2001) before divorcing in 1945. In 1947, Heifetz took a sabbatical during which he married Frances Spiegelberg, with whom he had another son, Joseph (known as Jay). The second marriage ended in divorce in 1962.

Heifetz's son Jay is a professional photographer. He was formerly head of marketing for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl, and the Chief Financial Officer of Paramount Pictures' Worldwide Video Division. He lives and works in Fremantle, Western Australia. Heifetz's daughter, Josefa Heifetz Byrne, is a lexicographer, the author of the Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words.^[15]

Heifetz's grandson Danny Heifetz is an accomplished drummer/percussionist and has played with Mr. Bungle, Dieselhed, Secret Chiefs 3 and Link Wray.

His extended family was active in Los Angeles progressive political circles in addition to music.

Heifetz had a difficult personality, and has even been described as "misanthropic". He tended to drive away the very people who could have been his most trusted allies. His own childhood had been difficult; his father was an extremely stern man who, even after Jascha had become the family's sole breadwinner, would still roundly criticise every performance.^[16]

Notable Instruments[link]

• Dolphin 1714 Stradivarius
• Heifetz-Piel 1731 Stradivarius
• Antonio Stradivari 1734
• Carlo Tononi 1736
• ex-David 1742 Guarneri

Filmography[link]

Heifetz in They Shall Have Music

Heifetz played a featured role in the movie They Shall Have Music (1939) directed by Archie Mayo and written by John Howard Lawson and Irmgard von Cube. He played himself, stepping in to save a music school for poor children from foreclosure. He later appeared in the 1947 film, Carnegie Hall, performing an abridged version of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, with the orchestra led by Fritz Reiner, and consoling the star of the picture, who had watched his performance. Heifetz later recorded the complete Tchaikovsky concerto with Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as one of RCA Victor's "Living Stereo" discs.^[17] In 1951, he appeared in the film Of Men and Music. In 1962. he appeared in a televised series of his master classes, and, in 1971, Heifetz on Television aired, an hour-long color special that featured the violinist performing a series of short works, the "Scottish Fantasy" by Max Bruch, and the Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 by Bach. Heifetz even conducted the orchestra, as the surviving video recording documents.

The most recent film featuring Heifetz, Jascha Heifetz: God's Fiddler, premiered on April 16, 2011 at the Colburn School of Music. It is "The only film biography of the world's most renowned violinist, featuring family home movies in Los Angeles and all over the world."^[4]

In popular culture[link]

• In season 5 episode 11 of Mad About You Fran tells Jamie that Ryan's violin teacher says he is a regular Jasha Heifetz.
• Heifetz was often mentioned by Jack Benny in his long-running radio program. Benny often cited his violin playing as being on par with Heifetz.
• Heifetz is referenced in The Muppet Show (1977) where Rowlf the Dog opposite George Burns mentions "Oh listen, I can play any key. I'm another Jascha Heifetz", to which George replies, "Jascha Heifetz played the violin." Rowlf then replies, "Nobody will know the difference, George".
• Heifetz is later mentioned in The Muppet Movie (1979) when Rowlf the Dog, after being praised by Kermit the Frog for playing an impressive piece of music on the piano, shrugged modestly and replied, "I'm no Heifetz, but I get by."
• Heifetz is mentioned by Woody Allen in Broadway Danny Rose (1984). As one of Danny Rose's clients plays a glass harmonica Danny remarks "She's the Jascha Heifetz of her instrument!"
• In Season 3, Episode 5 of The Golden Girls, "Nothing Left To Fear But Fear Itself" (1987), Sophia Petrillo (played by Estelle Getty) makes reference to Jascha Heifetz in sarcastic retort, when her daughter Dorothy (Bea Arthur) asks an obvious question: "Ma, are you going to tell a story?" Sophia: "Please! Does Heifetz rosin a bow?"
• He was mentioned by the character, Data, on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Ensigns of Command" (1989) as one of the violinists he studied prior to his concert in Ten-Forward aboard the USS Enterprise.
• From Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending (2002): "If there's a brownout, Heifetz will still be on key, but your guitarist won't be."
• The character of Yasha the violinist in Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock is a reference to Jascha Heifetz.
• In the book The Jordan Rules, then-Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson made a reference to Heifetz by saying that, just as the musician was the featured performer no matter where he played in a performance, Michael Jordan would be the center of the Bulls' triangle offense, even when its design provided greater offensive opportunities for Jordan's teammates.
• Heifetz is one of the subjects of George Gershwin's 1922 song "Mischa, Jascha, Toscha, Sascha" recorded by the Funnyboners.^[18]

See also[link]

• Lithuanian Jews
• Strauss and the Nazis

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jascha Heifetz

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jascha Heifetz

Wikisource has the text of a 1921 Collier's Encyclopedia article about Jascha Heifetz.

• Jascha Heifetz official website
• Jascha Heifetz fan website
• Prominent People – Jascha Heifetz
• Jascha Heifetz at Sony BMG Masterworks
• NPR Classical Music: Heifetz at War: Behind the Scenes, Near the Front
• "The Violinist of the Century" – 3-part series on AdventuresInMusic.biz
• Jascha Heifetz at Find a Grave
•  "Heifetz, Jascha". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. 

Isaac Stern during a visit to Israel in 1961

Isaac Stern before a concert at the theatre at Caesarea, Israel, 1961

Isaac Stern (Ukrainian: Исаак Стерн, Russian: Айзек Стерн; July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was a Ukrainian-born violinist and conductor. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.

Biography[link]

Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco. He received his first music lessons from his mother, then in 1928 enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied until 1931 before going on to study privately with Louis Persinger.^[1] He returned to the San Francisco Conservatory to study for five years with Naoum Blinder, to whom he said he owed the most.^[2] At his public début on February 18, 1936, aged 15, he played Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor 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."^[3]

In 1940, Stern began performing with Russian-born pianist Alexander Zakin, collaborating until 1977.^[4] 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 1960s in saving from demolition New York City's Carnegie Hall, which later had its main auditorium named in his honor.^[5]

Among Stern's many recordings are concertos by Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi and modern works by Barber, Bartók, Stravinsky, Bernstein, Rochberg, 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 1999, he actually 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.

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 the 1960s and '70s, while also continuing his duo work with Alexander Zakin during this time. Stern later recorded a series of piano quartets in the 1980s and '90s with Emanuel Ax, Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma, including those of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Fauré, winning another Grammy in 1992 for the Brahms quartets Opp. 25 and 26.

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. Their visit was filmed and resulted in the Oscar-winning documentary, From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China.

In 1987, Stern received the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Jack Benny described Stern as the closest friend he had in the musical world.

Stern had close ties to Israel. 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 played 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 Bach. The audience then calmed down, donned gas masks, and sat throughout the rest of his performance.^[6]

Stern's November 1948 marriage to ballerina Nora Kaye ended in divorce in 1949. On August 17, 1951, he married Vera Lindenblit. They had three children together. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1994 after 43 years. On January 23, 1997, Stern married his third wife, Linda Reynolds, who survived him.

Isaac Stern died in New York City on September 22, 2001, of congestive heart failure, aged 81.

In 2001, his estate decided to sell his entire collection of instruments, bows and musical ephemera 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.^[7]

Violins[link]

Stern's favorite instrument was the Ysaÿe Guarnerius, one of the violins produced by the Cremonese luthier Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù.^[8]

Among 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[link]

• Sonning Award (1982; Denmark)
• Wolf Prize
• Kennedy Center Honors (1984)
• Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra) (1962, 1963, 1965, 1982)
• Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance (1971, 1992)
• National Medal of Arts (1991)^[9]
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992)^[10]
• Polar Music Prize (2000; Sweden)

Discography[link]

This list of songs or music-related items is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

• 1983

Bach, Vivaldi: Concertos for 2 Violins

Isaac Stern: 60th Anniversary Celebration

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto; Beethoven: Romances in G & F Major

Haydn: London Trios

• 1985

An Isaac Stern Vivaldi Gala

• 1986

Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn: Violin Concertos

• 1987

Dutilleux: L'Arbre des Songes (Concerto pour Violin et Orchestre) & Maxwell Davies: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

Celebration

Bach: Double Concerto; Violin Concertos Nos.1 & 2

Beethoven: Violin Concerto

Mozart: The Flute Quartets

Bach: Concertos for Violin, BWV 1041–43 & 1060

• 1988

Shostakovich: Piano Trio No.2; Cello Sonata

Brahms: Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 102 & Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60

Prokofiev: Violin Concertos No. 1 & 2

Brahms: Violin Concerto

• 1989

The Japanese Album

Music, My Love

Prokofiev: Concertos No. 1 & 2 for Violin and Orchestra

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos.4 & 5

• 1990

Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert: Trios

Brahms: The Piano Quartets

Rameau: Pieces de clavecin en concerts

Lalo, Bruch, Wenianski, others: Violin Concertos

Bach, Mozart, Brahms, others: Violin Concertos

Mozart, Telemann, J.C. Bach, Reicha: Trios, Quartets

Schubert: Violin Sonatas

Humoresque: Favorite Violin Encores

• 1991

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 "Emperor"; Triple Concerto

Beethoven: Complete Trios

Concert of the Century: Celebrating the 85th Anniversary of Carnegie Hall

Dvorák: Cello Concerto; Violin Concerto

Webern: Complete Works, Op. 1 – Op. 31

• 1992

Brahms: Sextets; more

• 1993

Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra & Serenade for Strings

Fauré: Piano Quartets

• 1994

Greatest Hits: Violin

The House of Magical Sounds

Greatest Hits: Schubert

Greatest Hits: Brahms

Beethoven, Schumann: Piano Quartets

Mozart: Sonatas for Violin and Piano, K. 454, 296 & 526

Beethoven: Piano Trios "Ghost" & "Archduke"

Bach: Violin Concerto, BWV 1041; Piano Concerto, BWV 1056; Brandenburg Concerto No.5; more

Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante; Violin Concerto No.5

Brahms: Sextet in B-flat major, Op. 18 & Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8

Schubert: Quintet in C major, D956 & Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D485

• 1995

Isaac Stern Presents Encores with Orchestra

Telemann, Bach Family: Trio Sonatas

Mendelssohn: Piano Trios 1 & 2

Brahms: Piano Trios, Piano Quartets

A Life in Music, Vol.3: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, more

Beethoven: Piano Trios "Ghost" & "Archduke"; Variations

Schubert, Haydn: Piano Trios; Mozart: Piano Quartet

Bartók: Violin Concertos

Bernstein/Dutilleux: Violin Concertos

Berg: Violin Concerto; Kammerkonzert

Prokofiev/Bartók: Violin Concertos; Rhapsody No.1

Stravinsky/Rochberg: Violin Concertos

Barber/Maxwell Davies: Violin Concertos

Hindemith/Penderecki: Violin Concertos

Berg: Piano Sonata; Krenek: Piano Sonata No.3; Webern: Piano Variations; Debussy, Ravel: works

A Life in Music, Vol.1: Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, more

Mozart: Haffner Serenade

Mozart: Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Vol. II

Beethoven, Brahms: Violin Concertos

Tchaikovsky/Sibelius: Violin Concertos

Bach: Violin Concertos; Double Concerto; more

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Concertos

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos.1–5; Sinfonia concertante; more

Wieniawski/Bruch/Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos

Mendelssohn/Dvorák: Violin Concertos

• 1996

More Mozart's Greatest Hits

Mozart: Violin Sonatas, Vol. III

Schubert and Boccherini String Quintets

A Life in Music, Vol.4: Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Copland, Schubert, more

Prokofiev: Violin Sonatas

Bartók: Violin Sonatas; Webern: Four Pieces for Violin and Piano

Beethoven: Violin Sonatas

J.S. & C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Tartini: Violin Sonatas

Hindemith/Bloch/Copland: Violin Sonatas

Schubert: Sonatinas Nos.1–3; Rondeau Brillant; Grand Duo Sonata

Franck/Debussy/Enesco: Violin Sonatas

Brahms: Violin Sonatas No. 1-3

Isaac Stern Presents Encores with Violin & Piano

• 1997

Barber: Adagio for Strings / Schuman – In Praise of Shahn etc.

Bartók Sonatas for Violin and Piano

Mozart: The Piano Quartets

• 1998

Isaac Stern Plays Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn

Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D

Bernstein: The Age of Anxiety; Foss: Serenade

Bach, Vivaldi: Concertos

Caprice Viennois: Music of Kreisler

• 1999

My First 79 Years

Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn: Violin Concertos

• 2000

Dvorák: Piano Quartet No.2, Sonatina in G, Romantic Pieces

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Concertos for Two Violins

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Stern, Isaac; Chaim Potok (1999). My First 79 Years. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-45130-7. 

External links[link]

• Isaac Stern at Allmusic
• Isaac Stern at the Internet Movie Database
• Isaac Stern biography at Sony Classical
• Interview by Bruce Duffie, May 27, 1991
• Booknotes interview with Stern on My First 79 Years, January 23, 2000.
• From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China at the Internet Movie Database