1959 Photo ISAAC STERN Program VIOLIN CONCERT Jewish ISRAEL Hebrew MUNCH Judaica

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Seller: Top-Rated Seller judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,803) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 285696070671 1959 Photo ISAAC STERN Program VIOLIN CONCERT Jewish ISRAEL Hebrew MUNCH Judaica.

DESCRIPTION :  Here for sale is a CONCERT PROGRAM of the renowned JEWISH Violinist of Polish descent ISAAC STERN . The VIOLIN CONCERT took place in 1959 in ISRAEL. Quite young STERN , Only 39 years of age,  played pieces by BERLIOZ , BRAHMS, DEBUSSY and ROUSSEL . The conductor was the renowned CHARLES MUNCH. The program contains PHOTOS of both STERN and MUNCH . A fine Judaica - Judaism - Music - Musical artifact.  Illust SC.  6.5 x 9.5 " . 20 pp. Hebrew & English. Very good condition . ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS  images )  Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards . SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 25  . Will be sent inside a protective packaging  . Will be sent  around 5-10 days after payment .

Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was an American violinist.[1] Born in Poland, Stern came to the US when he was 14 months old. Stern performed both nationally and internationally, notably touring the Soviet Union and China, 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 the Presidential Medal of Freedom and six Grammy Awards, and being named to the French Legion of Honour. The Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall bears his name, due to his role in saving the venue from demolition in the 1960s. Contents 1 Biography 2 Music career 3 Ties to Israel 4 Instruments 5 Awards and commemoration 6 Discography 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Biography[edit] Isaac Stern in 1975 The son of Solomon and Clara Stern,[2] Isaac 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. In 1928, he enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied until 1931 before going on to study privately with Louis Persinger.[3] He returned to the San Francisco Conservatory to study for five years with Naoum Blinder, to whom he said he owed the most.[4] 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 U.S. and Soviet Russia were simple affairs: "They send us their Jews from Odessa, and we send them our Jews from Odessa."[5] During World War II, Stern was rejected from military service due to flat feet. He then joined the United Service Organizations and performed for US troops. During one such performance on Guadalcanal, a Japanese soldier, mesmerized by his playing, snuck into the audience of US personnel listening to his performance before sneaking back out.[6][7] Stern toured the Soviet 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 ballerina Nora 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 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.[2] Stern died September 22, 2001 of heart failure in a Manhattan, New York, hospital after an extended stay.[2] Music career[edit] In 1940, Stern began performing with Russian-born pianist Alexander 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 cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Jian Wang, and violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. In the 1960s, 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.[2] Carnegie Hall later named its main auditorium in his honor.[10] Among Stern's many recordings are concertos by Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, 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, such as 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. He was also the featured violin soloist on the soundtrack for the 1971 film of Fiddler on the Roof.[11] 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). External video  Interview with Stern on My First 79 Years, 26 October 1999, C-SPAN  Booknotes interview with Stern on My First 79 Years, 23 January 2000, C-SPAN 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. 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 recorded a series of piano quartets in the 1980s and 1990s 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. Ties to Israel[edit] Stern maintained close ties with Israel. Stern began performing in the country in 1949.[1] 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 Bach. 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 the Jerusalem Music Center.[1] Instruments[edit] Isaac Stern playing with one hand in 1979 Stern's favorite instrument was the Ysa e Guarnerius, one of the violins produced by the Cremonese luthier Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù.[13] It had previously been played by the violin virtuoso and composer Eugène Ysa e. 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 (c.1850), 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.[14] Awards and commemoration[edit] Isaac Stern with the Edison in 1971 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)[15] Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992)[16] Polar Music Prize (2000; Sweden) Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur (1990) Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1991) Carnegie Hall Midtown Manhattan, New York: main auditorium was named for Isaac Stern in 1997. In 2012, a street in Tel Aviv was named for Stern.[1] Discography[edit] Bezalel Schatz painting a portrait of Isaac Stern This list of songs or music-related items is incomplete; you can help by expanding it. 1944 Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 (with Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, Milton Thomas, Pablo Casals and Madeleine Foley) 1944 Brahms: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No. 1 in B Major, op. 8 (with Myra Hess and Pablo Casals) 1952 Bach: Partita in E Minor & G Minor for Violin and Piano, Sonata No.3 in E Major for Violin and Piano (with Alexander Zakin) 1957 Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, op. 22 (with Philadelphia Orchestra; conductor: Eugene Ormandy) 1958 Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major op. 35 (with Philadelphia Orchestra; conductor: Eugene Ormandy) Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in e minor op. 64 (with Philadelphia Orchestra; conductor: Eugene Ormandy) 1959 Saint-Saens: Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso op. 28 (with Philadelphia Orchestra; conductor: Eugene Ormandy) Beethoven: Violin Concerto op. 61 (with New York Philharmonic; conductor: Leonard Bernstein) 1964 Hindemith: Violin Concerto (1939) (with New York Philharmonic; conductor: Leonard Bernstein) 1978 Penderecki: Violin Concerto No. 1 (1976)(with Minnesota Orchestra; conductor: Stanislaw Skrowaczewski) 1983 Bach, Vivaldi: Concertos for 2 Violins Isaac Stern: 60th Anniversary Celebration Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto; Beethoven: Romances in G & F Major Haydn: London Trios 1984 Barber Violin Concerto 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 Beethoven & Schumann Piano Quartets (with Emanuel Ax, Jaime Loredo, & Yo-Yo Ma) 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 Saint-Saëns: Violin concerto n°3, Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole, Chausson: Poème, Fauré: Berceuse, Ravel: Tzigane 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  *****  Isaac Stern was among the most distinguished of the world's violinists. He achieved a strong rapport with his audience through his own personality and his visible love for the music, with an unerring command of the proper style for each work in his exceptionally wide repertoire. His technique was impeccable, his tone strong and warm, though not rich. He performed and recorded virtually the entire standard violin repertoire, including most of the many great violin concertos of the 1930s: those of Hindemith, Berg, Prokofiev (No. 2), Walton, Bartok (No. 2) and other works, some quite contemporary. His repertoire extended at least from Vivaldi to Dutilleux. Stern also dubbed on-screen appearances by actors impersonating violinists; his films include Humoresque, Tonight We Sing, and Fiddler on the Roof. Stern's family moved to the United States and settled in San Francisco when he was one year old. His mother, a professional singer, gave him his first music lessons. He began studying the violin at the San Francisco Conservatory in 1928. In 1932 he became the third immensely talented San Francisco-area boy to train with the San Francisco Symphony concertmaster Louis Persinger (the others were Menuhin and Ruggiero Ricci). However, he considered Naoum Blinder, with whom he studied until the age of 15, his only true teacher. Stern made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony on February 18, 1936, with Pierre Monteux conducting the Third Concerto by Saint-Saëns. After his New York debut in 1937, he returned to San Francisco for further study. He re-entered concert life on February 18, 1939, again giving a recital in New York. Soon he was one of the leading American violinists, particularly noticed for his young age, and his January 8, 1943, recital at Carnegie Hall (his first solo performance there) was a smash hit. In 1943 and 1944 Stern entertained American troops in Iceland, Greenland, and the South Pacific. After the war he toured Australia in 1947, and made his first trip to Europe in 1948. He played at Pablo Casals' Prades Festival from 1950-1952, and the Edinburgh Festival in 1953. His tour of the U.S.S.R. in 1956 was an early sign of one of the recurrent thaws in the Cold War. In 1960 he formed a durable trio with pianist Eugene Istomin and cellist Leonard Rose; the group played the complete trio literature by Beethoven in bicentennial celebrations of the composer's birth. He recorded mostly for Columbia (which subsequently became CBS, then Sony Classics), with major orchestras and conductors, with the Stern-Rose-Istomin Trio, and in sonata and other duet repertory with his regular partner, Alexander Zakin. He made several appearances at the White House. In the late 1950s, when the City of New York planned the construction of the Lincoln Center complex, it became clear that the plans as they stood would entail the destruction of the old Metropolitan Opera house and of Carnegie Hall. The latter, one of the finest concert halls in the world acoustically, was saved for posterity by the actions of a group Stern formed in 1960. Stern was chosen president of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, formed to supervise the artistic program of the great concert hall. He also was involved in the formation of the U.S. National Endowment of the Arts, and was appointed to its initial advisory board. He served as chairman of the board of the American-Israel Cultural Foundation, which aids the careers of young musicians. Stern, among other honors, was named Officer of the Légion d'honneur of France. *****  Isaac Stern, (born July 21, 1920, Kremenets, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died September 22, 2001, New York, New York, U.S.), Russian-born American musician who was considered one of the premier violinists of the 20th century. Stern was taken by his parents to San Francisco as a one-year-old. At age 6 he began taking piano lessons, but his interest soon turned to the violin. He studied at the San Francisco Conservatory (1928–31) and with the Russian violinist Naoum Blinder (1932–39) and in 1935 made his San Francisco Symphony debut. After a highly successful New York concert in 1939, he rapidly gained recognition with his expressive playing. He began to tour regularly after his European debut in 1948, appearing all over the world and at all the major festivals. He premiered works by Paul Hindemith, George Rochberg, and Krzysztof Penderecki. In 1960 he formed a trio with pianist Eugene Istomin and cellist Leonard Rose. Among their acclaimed recordings were the complete trios of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms. The group toured extensively, and to honour Beethoven’s bicentennial they performed a series of concerts around the world. Following Rose’s death in 1984, Stern teamed up with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax. In addition to his concert performances, Stern appeared on radio and television and made numerous recordings. Active in organizations promoting the arts, he played a key role in saving New York City’s Carnegie Hall from demolition in 1960 and later became president of the corporation that administered the hall and its cultural programs; he held the post until his death. In 1964 he helped establish the National Endowment for the Arts. Stern was also noted for his encouragement of young musicians, and he aided the careers of Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman, among others. The recipient of numerous awards, Stern received the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 1984 and a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1987. A documentary of his 1979 tour of China, From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, received an Academy Award in 1981. Stern’s autobiography, My First 79 Years (cowritten with Chaim Potok), was published in 1999. *****  Isaac Stern, a violinist who in his prime was considered one of the great instrumentalists of the 20th century, and who also became an important power broker in the classical music world after he led a successful campaign to save Carnegie Hall from destruction, died at a Manhattan hospital yesterday. He was 81 and lived in Manhattan and Gaylordsville, Conn. A spokeswoman for Carnegie Hall said he died from heart failure after an extended hospital stay. The American classical music world has produced few images as characteristic as that of Mr. Stern, a violin in his hand and a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses perched atop his head. It was the image of a musician at work -- typically rehearsing and persuading rather than performing, casual rather than formal, engaged rather than passive. Countless photographs and caricatures, and miles of film and videotape, captured Mr. Stern preparing for concerts, coaching young ensembles during his master classes, or proclaiming the glories of Carnegie Hall, of which he was president. He was, in fact, nearly as well-known for his devotion to Carnegie Hall as for his violin playing. He gave more than 200 performances there, the first in 1943. When the hall was about to be demolished to make way for an office tower in 1960 -- the prevailing wisdom was that Lincoln Center, then under construction, would replace Carnegie -- Mr. Stern helped start a drive among musicians and the musical public that saved the hall. He was then elected president of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, which runs the hall. In that capacity, he played a central role in the restoration of the building in 1986, and in the celebration of its centenary in 1991. In 1997, the main concert hall was named the Isaac Stern Auditorium in honor of his efforts. Mr. Stern was neither a child prodigy nor a flashy virtuoso, but he built his reputation in the mid-1940's with a rich tone and emotional interpretive style. He was passionate about a range of works that began with Baroque sonatas and concertos, encompassed the full Romantic and early 20th century repertory, and included works composed with his warm, rounded sound in mind. That sound was captured in a vast discography that documented the full scope of his repertory. It was also heard in movie theaters: In 1946, Mr. Stern played on the soundtrack of ''Humoresque,'' and when John Garfield was shown performing, it was Mr. Stern's hands that were seen on the screen. He played the Belgian violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaye in the film ''Tonight We Sing'' in 1953, and in 1970 he played on the soundtrack for ''Fiddler on the Roof.'' He was also the subject of several documentaries, including ''From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China,'' which followed him on tour in 1979 and won an Academy Award for best full-length documentary in 1981. In the early 1960's, when comparatively few soloists devoted time to chamber music, he teamed up with the pianist Eugene Istomin and the cellist Leonard Rose to perform and record as a trio. He later undertook partnerships with the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the pianist Emanuel Ax and several other musicians. In his capacity not only as the president of Carnegie Hall, but also as an adviser to the powerful ICM Artists management agency, the chairman of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and chairman and music adviser of the Jerusalem Music Center, he was able to encourage and open doors for young musicians he considered exceptionally talented. Mr. Ma, Mr. Ax, the violinists Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, Sergiu Luca, Joseph Swenson and Cho-Liang Lin and the pianist Yefim Bronfman were all given a crucial push by Mr. Stern early in their careers. Inevitably, that ability to create opportunities caused bitterness among musicians who were unable to join his circle. But Mr. Stern took their criticism in stride. Editors’ Picks How Students Fought a Book Ban and Won, for Now Will TikTok Make You Buy It? Stanley Tucci’s Passion Was Acting. Now, It’s Food. Continue reading the main story ''I didn't make power, I was granted power, as any person who is successful in public life is granted it,'' he told The New York Times Magazine in 1979. ''What I am, I think, more than anything else, is a willing and capable catalyst.'' 'I Want to Play!' Isaac Stern was born on July 21, 1920, in Kremenets in what is now Ukraine, but grew up in San Francisco, where his parents, Solomon and Clara Stern, settled in 1921. His mother had studied voice at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and began teaching him the piano when he was 6 years old. He began to take violin lessons after hearing a friend who lived across the street playing the instrument. He progressed quickly. After two years, with financial support from a wealthy patroness who heard him perform, he began studying at the San Francisco Conservatory, where his principal teacher was Naoum Blinder, the concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony. He later studied briefly, in New York, with Louis Persinger, who had been Yehudi Menuhin's teacher, but always regarded Mr. Blinder as his principal influence, saying that what he admired in him was a teaching style that valued instinctive musicianship over scales and technical exercises. In 1936, when he was 16, he made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, collaborating with Mr. Blinder on the Bach Double Concerto under the baton of Pierre Monteux. A few months later he played the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Otto Klemperer and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He made his New York debut with a recital at Town Hall in 1937. The reviews were respectful, and several described Mr. Stern as a promising newcomer who was likely to be heard from again. Olin Downes, writing in The New York Times, praised the ''extent of his technique and his spirited, straightforward playing,'' but complained that ''his bow presses too hard and vibrates the string too little,'' and that he was frequently strident in the upper registers. ''When the reviews came out I was in a state of shock,'' Mr. Stern told The Times in 1984. ''I remember getting on one of those New York double-decker buses and riding around for five hours, thinking of my future. Should I take a safe job as a concertmaster of an orchestra? I had an offer. I didn't know what to do. Finally I said to myself, 'Dammit, I want to play!' So I came back to New York the next year and got rave reviews, and maybe I didn't even play as well.'' By 1939, the legendary impresario Sol Hurok was representing Mr. Stern who came to consider Mr. Hurok as a father figure. Within a decade, Mr. Hurok helped Mr. Stern become one of the busiest musicians of his day. In 1949, he played 120 concerts in a seven month tour of the United States, Europe and South America. Still, Mr. Hurok later said he wished he could curb Mr. Stern's desire to be constantly onstage, as well as his penchant for getting involved in causes of various kinds, musical and political. ''Stern is a man who cannot rest,'' Mr. Hurok told The New York Times in 1959. ''I have begged him not to play so much. I tell him, 'the less you play, the longer you will play.' It does no good. When he is not playing the violin he is on the telephone. I would like to abolish the telephone. It would add 10 years to his life.'' Mr. Stern's association with Mr. Hurok, which lasted until the manager's death in 1974, was one of several long-lasting relationships that dated back to the early years of his career. In 1940, he began giving recitals with Alexander Zakin, who remained his regular accompanist in concert and on recordings until 1973. He made his first recordings for Columbia in 1945 -- his debut was the Wieniawski Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic and Efrem Kurtz -- and continued to recorded exclusively for that label in its various incarnations (as CBS Masterworks and Sony Classical) for the rest of his career. In 1984, CBS Masterworks named Mr. Stern its first artist laureate, and kept much of his catalog consistently in print. Sony Classical celebrated his 50th anniversary with the label in 1995 by releasing a 44-CD collection of his recordings under the title ''Isaac Stern: A Life in Music.'' Mr. Stern's Carnegie Hall debut in 1943 was the start of his long love affair with that hall. And his New York Philharmonic debut in 1944 was the first of more than 100 performances with the orchestra. One particularly notable performance was a televised concert celebrating Mr. Stern's 60th birthday, in 1980. With Zubin Mehta conducting, Mr. Stern played a marathon program that included performances of double and triple concertos by Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart with Mr. Perlman and Mr. Zukerman, as well as the Brahms Violin Concerto. By 1950, Mr. Stern had established himself as one of the best young violinists on the concert circuit, and the first American-trained violinist to gain so great a measure of international respect. He had, by then, performed with all the major American orchestras. During World War II, he performed for Allied troops in Greenland, Iceland and the South Pacific. He undertook a 10-week tour of Australia in 1947, and made his European debut at the Lucerne Festival the following year. In 1948, Mr. Stern married Nora Kaye, a dancer. That marriage ended in divorce. So did his second marriage, to Vera Lindenblit, whom he married in 1951, and with whom he had three children, Shira, Michael and David. In 1996, Mr. Stern married Linda Reynolds, who survives him, as do his children and five grandchildren. An Artist of the World Mr. Stern was always outspoken about what he considered the necessary interchange between art and politics. In his earliest interviews, he argued that there should be a government department that supports the arts, and in the 1960's, he played an advisory role in the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts. When arts support was in danger of being cut in 1970, he appeared before Congress and told the legislatures that the United States ran the risk of becoming ''an industrial complex without a soul.'' He toured the Soviet Union with great fanfare in 1951 -- the first American violinist to do so -- but engaged Nikita Khrushchev in a debate about open artistic exchanges between the Soviet Union and the West. In 1967, Mr. Stern said that he would not tour the Soviet Union again until artists were allowed to come and go freely. He also boycotted a music festival in Athens in 1967, to protest the Greek military junta, and when the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization suspended its programs in Israel in 1974, he organized a musicians' boycott of Unesco events. He also avoided performing in Germany, declining invitations on the grounds that he did not feel right performing music in the country where the Holocaust was planned and executed. He partly relented in 1999. That April, he gave a nine-day series of master classes in Cologne. But he did not perform himself, and he made a point of encouraging the students to think not only about the technicalities of performing, but about an artist's responsibility ''to continue the search for beauty and humanity.'' ''With my visit, I forgive nothing,'' he said, adding ''but it isn't very human not to give people a chance to change.'' Despite his own refusal to perform in Germany, he encouraged Mr. Perlman and Mr. Zukerman to perform there because he believed it was important for Israeli musicians to establish an artistic presence there. He devoted considerable effort, in fact, to helping Israel develop a cultural life. In 1964, he became chairman of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, which supports young musicians in their studies and raises money for Israeli cultural organizations. He also founded the Jerusalem Music Center in 1973. Mr. Stern performed in Israel regularly, and was often on hand at important moments in the country's history. His performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto with Leonard Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic on Mount Scopus soon after the Six Day War, in 1967, was the focus of the film ''Journey to Jerusalem.'' During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he canceled several engagements and rushed to Israel to perform in hospitals, often at patients' bedsides, and for troops in the Negev, where he wove the melody of ''Hatikva,'' the Israeli national anthem, into his performances of the Mendelssohn Concerto. And during the Gulf War, in 1991, when a missile attack interrupted one of his performances, he donned a gas mask and played a Bach unaccompanied Sarabande. Rescuing Carnegie Hall His other main passion was Carnegie Hall. When the hall was in danger of being torn down, he organized the Citizens' Committee to Save Carnegie Hall, along with a list of supporters that included Eleanor Roosevelt, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein, Dame Myra Hess, Van Cliburn, Leopold Stokowski, Marian Anderson, Fritz Reiner and many other musicians and philanthropists. ''Simply for reasons of sentiment and piety, it would be wanton to destroy it,'' he said of Carnegie Hall at the time. ''Think of Tchaikovsky conducting there at the opening, in 1891! Think of Paderewski and Chaliapin! But there are practical reasons, too, for not destroying it. The young people of this country are demanding more and more music and producing more and more first-rate musicians. How dare we take away from them, the music, and the audiences of the future, one of the great music rooms of the world?'' Mr. Stern's efforts led to legislation that allowed the New York City to buy the hall for $5 million, and when the Carnegie Hall Corporation was established to administer it, Mr. Stern was elected its first president, a position he held until his death.. At the time of the Carnegie Hall battle, Mr. Stern was 40 years old and at the height of his powers. Harold C. Schonberg, reviewing one of his performances in The New York Times in 1962 put his artistry in perspective. ''Mr. Stern's playing,'' Mr. Schonberg wrote, ''is a perfect illustration of the fact that a big tone can be delicately and even vigorously colored without recourse to a heavy vibrato. There are also a few other features of his playing that differ from the masters of yore. His rhythm is unflagging and his tempos on the fast side. He is not a musician who dawdles over a phrase; there are no intermissions, no time out during a piece for a meditative dissertation on the beauties of a specific passage. And by holding to a clean musical line, Mr. Stern makes his interpretations that much more beautiful.'' During the 1960's, Mr. Stern made chamber music a central component of his repertory. The Istomin-Stern-Rose Trio made its debut in Israel in 1961 and its first New York performances the following year. The group made classic recordings of the centerpieces of the trio repertory, including all the Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn Trios. After Rose died in 1984, Mr. Stern formed a new trio with Mr. Ax and Mr. Ma, with the violinist Jaime Laredo sometimes rounding out the ensemble. Mr. Stern's other collaborations include appearances with Benny Goodman and his sextet in 1963, frequent performances and recordings with Mr. Rampal, and occasional collaborations, some also recorded, with the pianists Daniel Barenboim, Peter Serkin, Joseph Kalichstein and Mr. Bronfman; the violinists David Oistrakh, Midori, Mr. Lin, Mr. Zukerman and Mr. Perlman; the violist Michael Tree and the cellists Pablo Casals, Sharon Robinson, Matt Haimovitz and Peter Wiley. On Teaching and Music-Making He was also an engaging teacher, and in recent years he gave a regular series of master classes and workshops for young chamber ensembles at Carnegie Hall. ''You cannot force someone to think as you do, or to feel as you do,'' he said of his teaching in 1995. ''But you can teach them to think a little better, to think a little more. To listen a little more critically. To listen to what they're really doing, not what they think they're doing. To have more respect for the necessary lengthy internal and external collusion between the performer and the composer.'' Mr. Stern was also more devoted to contemporary works than many soloists of his stature. He included the Bartok, Prokofiev, Berg and Barber concertos in his repertory long before they were commonly played. He never commissioned new works, explaining that he did not want to be obligated to play the pieces if they turned out badly, and that he was more interested in whether he liked a work than in giving its first performance. Still, several works were commissioned by orchestras and other organizations on his behalf, including concertos by Krzyzstof Penderecki, Henri Dutilleux, George Rochberg and Peter Maxwell Davies. Mr. Stern gave the world premieres of those works, as well as Mr. Bernstein's ''Serenade'' and William Schuman's Violin Concerto, and he recorded all but the Schuman. He also gave the American premieres of the Bartok Concerto No. 1 and the Hindemith Concerto, and made the first recordings of both. And he collaborated with Copland and Stravinsky on recordings of their violin works. There were times, in the last decades of his career, when Mr. Stern's concert performances were less consistently polished than they had been, and suggested that he was devoting greater attention to his other preoccupations -- running Carnegie Hall, campaigning for increased government support for the arts and education, and seeking out new talent to lend his support to -- than to practicing. When critics addressed these questions, Mr. Stern responded testily. ''Whether I'm capable of the same uncaring, unworried pyrotechnics of 30 years ago doesn't make any difference,'' he said. ''What has happened is that my music-making has deepened, and that cannot be touched.'' Nevertheless, he cut back substantially on his performances in the 1990's, and when he did perform, it was more often than not in chamber music rather than as a soloist. He published an autobiography, ''My First 79 Years,'' written with the novelist Chaim Potok, in 1999, and in September 2000, Carnegie Hall honored him with a weekend-long celebration of his 80th birthday that included an exhibition of materials from his personal archives, screenings of documentaries about him, a day of chamber music and educational concerts, and a birthday concert at which more than a dozen of his colleagues and protégés performed. Mr. Stern received many honors and awards, including the first Albert Schweitzer Award (1974), the Kennedy Center Honors Award (1984), a Lifetime Achievement Grammy (1987) and an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Classical Music Performance (1987). He received the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog, from Denmark (1985), the Wolf Prize, from Israel (1987) and was made a Commandeur of the French Legion d'Honneur (1990). ''I have been very fortunate in 60 years of performance,'' he said in 1995, ''to have learned what it means to be an eternal student, an eternal optimist -- because you hope the next time will always be a little better -- and eternally in love with music. Also, as I said to a young player the other day, you have no idea of what you don't know. Now it's time that you begin to learn. And you should get up every morning and say thank God, thank the Lord, thank whomever you want, thank you, thank you, for making me a musician.'' A List of Recordings Isaac Stern's recordings document the vast expanse of the violin repertory, from Baroque works to scores composed for him. Here is a selection of some of his most highly-regarded recordings. All are on the Sony Classical label, and all are available on compact disk: ''The Early Concerto Recordings,'' Vol. 1, with works by Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Ravel; Vol. 2, with works by Lalo, Bruch, Sarasate, Sibelius, Bernstein, Saint-Saëns, Prokofiev and Wieniawski. With various orchestras and conductors. Bartok Concertos, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, conductor, and the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Beethoven Sonatas, with Eugene Istomin, pianist. Beethoven Piano Trios and Variations, with Eugene Istomin, pianist and Leonard Rose, cellist. Brahms Violin Sonatas, with Alexander Zakin, pianist. Franck, Debussy and Enescu Sonatas, with Alexander Zakin, pianist. Mendelssohn trios, with Eugene Istomin, pianist and Leonard Rose, cellist. Barber and Maxwell Davies Concertos, with the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor, and the Royal Philharmonic, André Previn, conductor. ''Encores,'' with Alexander Zakin, pianist. *** Charles Munch (French pronunciation: ​[ʃaʁl mynʃ]; born Charles Münch, 26 September 1891 – 6 November 1968[1]) was an Alsacian French symphonic conductor and violinist. Noted for his mastery of the French orchestral repertoire, he was best known as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Contents 1 Life and career 1.1 In Boston 1.2 Orchestre de Paris 2 Books 3 Recordings 4 Television 5 Sources 6 References 7 External links Life and career[edit] Munch was born in 1891 in Strasbourg, Alsace. The son of organist and choir director Ernst Münch, he was the fifth of six children. He was the brother of conductor Fritz Münch and the cousin of conductor and composer Hans Münch. Although his first ambition was to be a locomotive engineer, he studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatoire. His father, Ernst, was a professor of organ at the Conservatoire and performed at the cathedral; he also directed an orchestra with his son Charles in the second violins. After receiving his diploma in 1912, Charles studied with Carl Flesch in Berlin and Lucien Capet at the Conservatoire de Paris. He was conscripted into the German army in World War I, serving as a sergeant gunner. He was gassed at Péronne and wounded at Verdun. Though most of his career was accomplished in France and in the United States, Munch considered that "as an Alsacian and as a musician, [he was] purely and profoundly German, but that [he was] a friend of many countries and first and foremost a musician and a conductor".[2] In 1920, Munch became professor of violin at the Strasbourg Conservatoire and assistant concertmaster of the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra under Joseph Guy Ropartz, who directed the conservatory. In the early 1920s he was concertmaster for Hermann Abendroth's Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne. He then served as concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter from 1926 to 1933.[1] At the age of 41, Munch made his conducting debut in Paris on 1 November 1932. Munch's fiancée, Geneviève Maury, granddaughter of a founder of the Nestlé Chocolate Company, rented the hall and hired the Walther Straram Concerts Orchestra. Munch also studied conducting with Czech conductor Fritz Zweig, who had fled Berlin during his tenure at Berlin's Krolloper. Following this success, Munch conducted the Concerts Siohan, the Lamoureux Orchestra, the new Orchestre Symphonique de Paris, the Biarritz Orchestra (Summer 1933), the Société Philharmonique de Paris (1935 to 1938), and the Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire (1937 to 1946). He became known as a champion of Hector Berlioz, and befriended Arthur Honegger, Albert Roussel, and Francis Poulenc. During these years, Munch gave first performances of works by Honegger, Jean Roger-Ducasse, Joseph Guy Ropartz, Roussel, and Florent Schmitt. He became director of the Société Philharmonique de Paris in 1938 and was featured in the French epic Les Enfants du Paradis, filmed (1945) during the German occupation of Paris. For two years, he taught conducting at the École Normale de Musique (from 1937 to 1939). One of his pupils there was also Czech composer-conductor Vítězslava Kaprálová.[3][4] Plaque at Place Émile Dreux, village de Voisins in Louveciennes, Yvelines, France Munch remained in France conducting the Conservatoire Orchestra during the German occupation, believing it best to maintain the morale of the French people. He refused conducting engagements in Germany and also refused to perform contemporary German works. He protected members of his orchestra from the Gestapo and contributed from his income to the French Resistance. For this, he received the Légion d'honneur with the red ribbon in 1945 and the degree of Commandeur in 1952. In Boston[edit] Charles Munch in the Hungarian Radio, 1966, Budapest Munch made his début with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on 27 December 1946. He was its Music Director from 1949 to 1962. Munch was also Director of the Berkshire Music Festival and Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1951 through 1962. He led relaxed rehearsals which orchestra members appreciated after the authoritarian Serge Koussevitzky. Among his pupils at Tanglewood was Serge Fournier. Munch also received honorary degrees from Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Harvard University, and the New England Conservatory of Music. He excelled in the modern French repertoire, especially Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and was considered to be an authoritative performer of Hector Berlioz. However, Munch's programs also regularly featured works by composers such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wagner. His thirteen-year tenure in Boston included 39 world premieres and 58 American first performances, and offered audiences 168 contemporary works. Fourteen of these premieres were works commissioned by the Boston Symphony and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation to celebrate the Orchestra's 75th Anniversary in 1956. (A 15th commission was never completed.) Munch invited former Boston Symphony music director Pierre Monteux to guest conduct, record, and tour with the orchestra after an absence of more than 25 years. Under Munch, guest conductors became an integral part of the Boston Symphony's programming, both in Boston and at Tanglewood. Munch led the Boston Symphony on its first transcontinental tour of the United States in 1953. He became the first conductor to take them on tour overseas: Europe in 1952 and 1956, and East Asia and Australia in 1960. During the 1956 tour, the Boston Symphony was the first American orchestra to perform in the Soviet Union. The Boston Symphony under Munch made a series of recordings for RCA Victor from 1949 to 1953 in monaural sound and from 1954 to 1962 in both monaural and stereophonic versions. Selections from Boston Symphony rehearsals under Leonard Bernstein, Koussevitzky, and Munch were broadcast nationally on the NBC Radio Network from 1948–1951. NBC carried portions of the Orchestra's performances from 1954–1957. Beginning in 1951, the BSO was broadcast over local radio stations in the Boston area. Starting in 1957, Boston Symphony performances under Munch and guest conductors were disseminated regionally, nationally, and internationally through the Boston Symphony Transcription Trust. Under Munch, the Boston Symphony appeared on television. The first BSO television broadcast was under Bernstein in 1949 at Carnegie Hall. Orchestre de Paris[edit] Munch returned to France and in 1963 became president of the École Normale de Musique. He was also named president of the Guilde française des artistes solistes. During the 1960s, Munch appeared regularly as a guest conductor throughout America, Europe, and Japan. In 1967, at the request of France's Minister of Culture, André Malraux, he founded the first full-time salaried French orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, and conducted its first concert on 14 November 1967. The following year, he died of a heart attack suffered at his hotel in Richmond, Virginia while on an American tour with his new orchestra. His remains were returned to France where he is buried in the Cimetière de Louveciennes. EMI recorded his final sessions, including Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, with this orchestra, and released them posthumously. Books[edit] In 1955, Oxford University Press published I Am a Conductor by Munch in a translation by Leonard Burkat. It was originally issued in 1954 in French as Je suis chef d'orchestre. The work is a collection of Munch's thoughts on conducting and the role of a conductor. D. Kern Holoman wrote Munch's first biography in English, Charles Munch. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2011. Recordings[edit] Munch's discography is extensive, both in Boston on RCA Victor and at his various European posts and guest conducting assignments on various labels, including English Decca, EMI, Nonesuch, Erato and Auvidis-Valois. He began making records in Paris before the war, for EMI. Munch then made a renowned series of Decca Full Frequency Range Recordings (FFRR) in the late 1940s. After several recordings with the New York Philharmonic for Columbia, Munch began making recordings for RCA Victor soon after his arrival in Boston as Music Director. These included memorable Berlioz, Honegger, Roussel, and Saint-Saëns tapings. His first stereophonic recording with the Boston Symphony, in Boston's Symphony Hall in February 1954, was devoted to a complete version of The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz and was made simultaneously in monaural and experimental stereophonic sound, although only the mono recording was released commercially. The stereo tape survives only fragmentarily. The monaural version of this recording was added to the Library of Congress's national registry of sound. Among his final recordings in Boston was a 1962 performance of César Franck's symphonic poem Le chasseur maudit. Upon Munch's return to Paris, he made Erato disks with the Orchestre Lamoureux, and with the Orchestre de Paris he again recorded for EMI. He also made recordings for a number of other companies including Decca/London. A number of Munch's recordings have been available continuously since their original releases, among them Saint-Saëns's Organ Symphony and Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe. RCA reissued Munch Conducts Berlioz in a multi-disc set, including all of their Munch recordings. BMG/Japan has issued two different editions of Munch's RCA Victor recordings on CD, 1998 and 2006. The latter was made up of 41 CDs and encompassed all but a handful of Munch recordings with the Boston Symphony. in 2016, Sony released all of Munch's Columbia and RCA Victor recordings including performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Many of these had never been officially released on compact disc. In 2018, Warner Classics issued a comprehensive CD box set of Munch's recordings, drawn from their archives of the labels of the former EMI group. Eloquence Australia released a CD box set of Munch's complete DECCA recordings in 2020. Main article: Charles Munch discography Television[edit] The Boston Symphony appeared on television with Munch locally on WGBH-TV, Boston, and nationally through a syndicated series. NHK broadcast throughout Japan the opening concert of the Boston Symphony's tour of Japan in 1960. Munch also appeared on film or television with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Hungarian Radio and Television Orchestra, the Orchestre National de l'ORTF, and the Orchestre de Radio-Canada. Several of these performances have been issued on DVD. ****  Charles Munch (Münch) (Conductor) Born: September 26, 1891 - Strasbourg, Alsace, France Died: November 6, 1968 - Richmond, Virginia, USA The eminent Alsatian-born French conductor, Charles Munch (originally, Münch), was the son of the Alsatian organist and choral conductor Ernst Münch (1859-1928). His elder brother was the choir-master and professor of music, Fritz Münch. Charles studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory and with Lucien Capet in Paris. At the outbreak of World War I (1914), he enlisted in the German army; made a sergeant of artillery, he was gassed at Peronne and wounded at Verdun; after the end of the war (1918) and his return to Alsace-Lorraine (1919), he became a naturalised French citizen. Having received further violin training from Flesch in Berlin, Charles Munch pursued a career as a soloist; was also Professor of violin at the Leipzig Conservatory and concert-master of the Gewandhaus Orchestra there. In November 1932, he made his professional conducting debut in Paris with the Straram Orchestra. He left Germany in 1933 because he could only stay in Germany if he became German citizen, something he refused to do. He studied conducting with Szendrei in Paris from 1933 to 1940. He quickly rose to prominence; was conductor of Paris's Orchestra de la Société Philharmonique from 1935 to 1938, and in 1936 became a professor at the École Normale de Musique. In 1938 he became music director of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris, remaining in that post during the years of the German occupation during World War II; refusing to collaborate with the Nazis, he gave his support to the Resistance, being awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1945. Charles Munch made his USA debut as a guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in December 1946; a trans-continental tour of the USA with the French National Radio Orchestra followed in 1948. In 1949 he was appointed Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which he and Pierre Monteux took on its first European tour in 1952; they took it again to Europe in 1956, also touring in the Soviet Union, making it the first USA orchestra to do so. After retiring from his Boston post in 1962, he made appearances as a guest conductor; also helped to launch the Orchestre de Paris in 1967. Charles Munch acquired an outstanding reputation as an interpreter of the French repertoire, his performances being marked by spontaneity, colour, and elegance. French music of the 20th century also occupied a prominent place on his programs; he brought out new works by Albert Roussel, Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, and others. He wrote Je suis chef d'orchestre (1954). **** CHARLES MUNCH Charles Munch’s uncle was the distinguished missionary and organist Albert Schweitzer, and his father was the Alsatian choral conductor and organist Ernst Münch (1859–1928), who gave his son his first music lessons on the violin. Charles studied the violin at the Strasbourg Conservatoire, where his father was a professor, and continued with Lucien Capet in Paris in 1912 and Carl Flesch in Berlin. As Alsace was part of Germany at the outbreak of World War I, he was conscripted into the German army and saw active service: he was made a sergeant of artillery, was gassed at Peronne and wounded at Verdun. Following the end of hostilities he returned to Alsace-Lorraine (now part of France), and took French citizenship. Munch became a professor of violin at the Strasbourg Conservatoire in 1919 and leader of the Strasbourg Municipal Orchestra. He took up the same position at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1925, serving also as the leader of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, whose conductors during this period included Fritz Busch, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter. It was in Leipzig that he had his first experience of conducting. Having returned to France in 1932, Munch made his Paris debut as a conductor in a self-financed concert (which he later said he had not been able to fund earlier) with the Straram Orchestra. This was sufficiently successful to confirm his decision to pursue a career as a conductor and in 1935 he became chief conductor of the newly-formed Paris Philharmonic Orchestra which he conducted until 1938. Meanwhile he continued to teach the violin, being made a professor of violin at the École Normale in 1936. He was invited to conduct at the 1937 meeting of the International Society of Contemporary Music in Berlin and in the following year was appointed chief conductor of Paris’s oldest orchestra, the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra (Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire); he also appeared in London at the head of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and made his American conducting debut in 1939 with the St Louis Symphony Orchestra. With the outbreak of World War II Munch threw himself into his work as conductor of the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, commenting: ‘My role is to raise spirits to happier worlds.’ During the war he refused to collaborate with the Nazi regime, and gave his earnings to the French Resistance; he was made a member of the Légion d’honneur in 1945. With the coming of peace Munch’s international career took off rapidly: he appeared in Prague in 1945 at the fiftieth celebrations of the foundation of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and during the following year appeared at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, toured America with the Orchestre National de Radio France, the principal French radio orchestra, and spent a month in London recording for Decca with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. Having relinquished his post with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra in 1946, he appeared for the first time with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947 and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1948; the following year, he succeeded Serge Koussevitzky as chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and in 1952 as director of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, holding both these posts until 1962. He toured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra across Europe in 1952 and 1956, when it became the first American orchestra to visit the USSR. Munch appeared in Europe sporadically during this period: he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic again at the Salzburg Festival in 1955 and accepted the presidency of the Concerts Colonne from 1956 to 1958. Following his departure from America he conducted little: in 1965 he appeared with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and toured the USSR once again, with the Orchestre National de Radio France. Following the decision to disband the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra and to form the Orchestre de Paris in 1967, Munch was persuaded to become the new orchestra’s first chief conductor. During 1968 he toured Russia with the orchestra, but had to cancel several concerts because of ill-health; and in the autumn of the same year, during a further tour by the orchestra, this time of the USA, Munch suffered a fatal heart attack. Coming from the divided territory of Alsace, and with experience as an instrumentalist of both German and French musical cultures, Charles Munch was equally at home in the music of both countries. As a conductor he was the complete opposite of ‘intellectual’ musicians such as Pierre Boulez, being a wholly spontaneous artist, whose performances could capture the instinct of the moment: ‘literally anything could happen when he got up onto the podium.’ He was able to realise whatever he wished as he possessed an exemplary stick technique, and at recording sessions he could adjust issues of balance, phrasing and tempo simply through his gestures without a word to the orchestra. In his autobiography, I am a Conductor, Munch spoke thus of conducting: ‘Your thought, your communication must radiate with such force that your orchestra feel simultaneously the same wishes and desires as you and cannot refrain from expressing them,’ and also: ‘A friend of mine, a musician in the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, once said to me, “When every member of the orchestra feels that you are conducting for him alone, you are conducting well.” ’ By all accounts a man of great kindness both on and off the podium, Munch certainly achieved the twin goals of conducting: superb technical execution combined with the spontaneity of the moment. Munch’s discography is large and is centred upon the numerous superbly engineered recordings that he made with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the RCA label. Beside these may be set his earlier recordings made in Paris and London for the 78rpm medium and his final recordings made predominantly in France. Throughout his career Munch was a staunch advocate of contemporary music: with the Boston Symphony Orchestra he recorded Martinů’s Symphony No. 6 (which he commissioned) and Piston’s Symphony No. 6. As his autobiography clearly demonstrated Munch was a man of considerable eloquence, who viewed conducting as a sacred trust: ‘Music is an art that expresses the inexpressible. It rises far above what words can mean or the intelligence define. Its domain is the imponderable and impalpable land of the unconscious. Man’s right to speak this language is for me the most precious gift that has been bestowed upon us. And we have no right to misuse it…Let no one be astonished then that I consider my work a priesthood, not a profession. It is not too strong a word.’       ebay5552

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  • Format: 1959 Photo ISAAC STERN Program VIOLIN CONCERT
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