Great conversations: the virtuosos / Eugene Istomin [video recording]

• Part 1. MASTERPIECES
• Part 2. INTERPRETATION
• Part 3. INFLUENCES
• Part 4. STATE OF THE ART
• Part 5. DEVELOPMENT
• FOOTNOTES

EUGENE ISTOMIN (MODERATOR):

I'm Eugene Istomin, and I'm very pleased to be asked by the Librarian and the head of the Music Division to be the host of this series of dialogues and encounters at the Library of Congress. Today in this beautiful room, the Whittall Pavilion, where some of the most precious string instruments are displayed, I have asked several distinguished colleagues to join me in an unrehearsed discussion. Our conversation will focus on the violin, viola and cello as virtuoso in the spotlight, standing alone before the public or in front of an orchestra or a piano, which provide a foil to display the admirable feats of the soloist. This format has given birth to some wonderful masterpieces in the musical repertoire. I feel honored to be joined by my colleagues: violinists Pamela Frank, Jaime Laredo, Arnold Steinhardt; cellists Lynn Harrell, Sharon Robinson, Yo Yo Ma; and pianists Claude Frank and Joseph Kalichstein.

ISTOMIN:

Now, let's talk. I'm going to be opening up subjects and asking some questions. I expect and want you to cut into the conversation and take off on your own, on whatever subject that you want. We have here several scores of great works. And I'd like to mention them, and I'd like to ask you what you feel about them. First, these are works with orchestra. Mozart Violin Concerto in A Major, K. 219.

PAMELA FRANK:

Well, I remember the first time I heard that as a child, and just being in awe and shock at the violin's first entrance. Because up until that time, I had only heard concertos where there is the opening material in the orchestra, and then the violin comes in and plays the same thing. And suddenly the violin comes in, in a slow tempo, an A major triad, and I thought: "What the hell is that? That's a major miracle! How can all time stop and have that come out of that opening tutti?" I just thought that was just such a miracle. And then I started looking at the part, and I thought: "How unusual: a marking for the fast part of the first movement is Allegro aperto." Now, you don't see that word that often: aperto. So look it up; it means open. And I thought: "How redundant." Because that music is so open anyway. And when you think about Mozart's music, most of it has a certain open, embracing quality. And so if he were, bothered to write the word "aperto," that means it's really, really open. And then you get to the last movement, and there's the wild Turkish section. I just thought, this is like modern music, compared to even the four previous concertos that he had written. And then you realize that they were written in an incredibly short amount of time, and how they developed from the first to the last, even from the third to the last. The third now has winds. And - but even from the third to the fifth, I mean, that's wild, wild music. So that was the first one I decided to learn, for those very reasons. And that's the one I've played the longest and actually feel the closest to, also, for those reasons.

ARNOLD STEINHARDT:

Can I tell my George Szell ¹ story?

ISTOMIN:

Yes!

STEINHARDT:

Well, I played this concerto, and George Szell was in the audience, and afterwards we spoke, and I was, I guess, 21 at the time. And he said, "Young man, you're very gifted, but you know nothing about ornamentation." And so that was a kind of left-handed compliment, but he continued. He said, "I want you to go down to the Library of Congress and look at the manuscript, and I will instruct you all the details of the manuscript you should look for." And he wrote out a list for me. And this was around 40 years ago, and this is the first time I've seen it in...

ISTOMIN:

I bet he got it wrong, too.

STEINHARDT:

No. He didn't get it wrong. [Laughter.]

STEINHARDT:

He told me where, earlier, where he wrote "al reverso," which means to turn the bow upside down, what we call col legno now. And he told me about the grace notes that I was playing wrong. Some should be longer, some should be shorter. So I came in, and I was asked to sign something, and the guard stood there, and there I held this miraculous manuscript.

ISTOMIN:

Take it, take it. Where is it?

JOSEPH KALICHSTEIN:

The small one.

STEINHARDT:

That's it, that's it.

P. FRANK:

For such a big piece, it's such a small manuscript.

KALICHSTEIN:

This is a religious experience for all of us, touching these things.

STEINHARDT:

It's funny. So I mean, Szell had some interesting points, and he was absolutely right about the grace notes, but I had the sense, at that moment, how reverential one should be about the score. On the other hand, even for Mozart, there are a couple of things he scratches out, and one has the sense of the moment, of him as a human being saying, "Yeah, I'd like you to do this, but sure, you can go ahead and do something else, if you do it successfully," you know? So not only the sense of reverence for the score, but the sense of reverence for us as midwives, so to speak, to deliver the baby. We have to be creative, and not too reverential about it. So it was, it was just a great moment for me. And I'm scared to death holding this. [Laughter.]

P. FRANK:

I'll take it!

LYNN HARRELL:

Pamela points out this most miraculous idea, which was unique at the time: that the violin suddenly is a scena, a scene for a contessa or an operatic figure, with that opening Adagio, and then joins in with something completely different to the return of the Allegro music in the orchestra. It's a staggering achievement.

ISTOMIN:

Now, what about Schelomo, ² you cellists?

YO YO MA:

Lynn, what was your first reaction when you saw that score?

SHARON ROBINSON:

It's so neat.

MA:

Yeah, the handwriting is so pure...

ROBINSON:

And it's such a messy piece, you know?

MA:

Exactly. Look at this. I mean, it's pristine. I thought it was a copyist's manuscript, but I guess not, right? I mean, this is the actual...

ISTOMIN:

This is it.

ROBINSON:

That's it.

MA:

It is so beautiful.

HARRELL:

The sweat and the grime of ancient Egypt and Israel, and King Solomon. All that toil and all his vanity vibrates in that music so much. I mean, as Bloch said-- it, it's the Old Testament Jewish voice that vibrates throughout the Bible. And this creation that he wrote for a cellist friend of his, who had a wonderful sound and a sense of the lyricism, is a great masterpiece for us. And there it is. It's very exciting.

MA:

We think of Mozart as someone who just wrote pristine scores, but actually there was one work, in the C minor Piano Concerto, ³ where he...

CLAUDE FRANK:

Oh, very much so. A lot of corrections.

MA:

He actually changed a lot of things. So maybe it's not always, you know, one person's...

ISTOMIN:

C minor?

C. FRANK:

The C minor, yes. We saw that together. But you pointed out just now, Yo-Yo, because we looked at the sonata that you talked about, the Mozart sonata, where there are also a few corrections, not many, but most of them are in the minor, in the minor section. Don't ask about Beethoven. Let's not discuss Beethoven in that connection.

MA:

Did Beethoven ever write a pristine score?

C. FRANK:

No!

ISTOMIN:

Sometimes he'd get so messed up that he, that instead of the note, he just wrote the letter. There are some passages in the "Waldstein" ⁴ that read "C, E, G." He was so excited that he couldn't...

KALICHSTEIN:

He couldn't bother.

JAIME LAREDO:

Well, I always laugh at Beethoven when musicologists try to be so exact about exactly where the crescendo begins and where it ends, and your - or that this is an accent, and - when you look at the score, you think, "How could anybody know?" I mean, he takes something and does this. It could be, you know, it could be anywhere. You've got a radius of four bars to decide.

HARRELL:

Jonathan Miller in his book on performance talks about how we are irrevocably connected to our age, and our age now - computers and calculators - is so exact. We've so totally post-Stravinsky. And a 19th century, an 18th century mind, it wouldn't have occurred to them that we have to make it in between two metronomic indications, or make the crescendo exactly...

STEINHARDT:

So do you think we're living in the wrong century, Lynn? Is that what you're... [Laughter.]

HARRELL:

No, I just think we have to remind ourselves of that. He has duplicated in this book some authentic Shakespearean performance photographs from the Victorian age. And everyone is standing around like this, because they were in the Victorian age, and they just, they thought they were doing authentic Shakespeare, but now it's a completely different thing. So we are connected to our age, without our really knowing it sometimes.

ISTOMIN:

Usually the French have wonderful manuscripts, exquisite manuscripts. And this is as good an example of it as any. It's of the Chausson Poème. ⁵

HARRELL:

Yeah, it's like a-- a printed score.

P. FRANK:

It's perfect. Does that mean we can't slide? It looks so perfect! Looks so clean!

C. FRANK:

Speaking of manuscripts, have you seen this beautiful Mozart G Major violin-piano sonata, ⁶ the one with the second variation movement? Incredible! Let me play a little bit for you. [He walks to the piano.]

C. FRANK:

Not only is there a piano variation alone, but-that happens a lot.

ISTOMIN:

But play the beginning. Play the beginning.

C. FRANK:

All right. But - the beginning of the piece?

ISTOMIN:

The beginning of the piece.

C. FRANK:

But that's not what I want to talk about. All right.

ISTOMIN:

This is what's known as the Mozart Violin Sonata.

C. FRANK:

All right. This is the Violin Sonata. [He plays.]

ISTOMIN:

All right!

C. FRANK:

Not only is there a piano variation to this beautiful theme [he plays the variation], and so forth, then there is a piano solo variation [he plays], and so on. That happens a lot in Mozart. But one of the most beautiful variations...

LAREDO:

The one with the pizzicato. [ISTOMIN sings.]

C. FRANK:

You sing the pizzicato.

LAREDO:

Let me see that. Let me see that. [CLAUDE FRANK plays.]

Back to top

Part 2.  INTERPRETATION

MA:

Do you all get a question from various people that says, "You play other people's music. Why don't you play your own music?" So my question is, since we're talking about music that we all love, and - how do you make music your own, if it's written by somebody else? So you have a text. How do you, you know, at various times, how do you make something that is at first somebody else's...

STEINHARDT:

Yo-Yo, that's none of your business, frankly. [Laughter.]

MA:

Under the privacy act, I know I'm entitled to one question. I want to call my lawyer.

STEINHARDT:

He's a really nosy guy, isn't he?

KALICHSTEIN:

That's what actors do all the time. I don't think actors ever wonder, you know...

ISTOMIN:

I think it's even more profound than that, because actors, after they're through with a part, they've had a run, they take another part, something else. We take works of music, they become part of us, and in fact they don't really live except through us. I mean - and the composers know that, even though there may be some strife, which there is quite often these days. At least it's my view, I've never played a piece that I didn't feel I owned from the very beginning. There is something that, in one of the Platonic Dialogues, where he, Socrates, says, "All knowledge is remembering." Whatever you learn, you already know within yourself. And that is the thing that makes you fall in love with a piece of music, and have a need, an obsessive desire to possess that piece of music.

C. FRANK:

When I played a piece of my colleague's, I had a colleague where I taught in Bennington, Vermont, and he gave me his pieces to play. I said, "Would you like to hear it?" He said, "Definitely not." [Laughter.]

C. FRANK:

"I don't want to hear it. I want to hear what you do with it." So finally I played it in a concert. He said afterwards, "Thank you very much. I enjoyed it. Different piece." It's a different piece, even though I played all the markings he had said, you know, and hopefully all the notes.

ROBINSON:

Composers cannot ever hope to put everything on the page that they want.

P. FRANK:

Right.

ROBINSON:

And that's why it's our job.

STEINHARDT:

I remember Bobby Mann, ⁷ first violinist of the Juilliard Quartet, telling me the story of learning one of Schoenberg's ⁸ string quartets and going out to California and playing it for Schoenberg, where he lived. And they went to his house, and they were very nervous, and they played it. And afterwards, he got up and approached them and said, "I never imagined my music to be played like this." And he was crestfallen. He said, "Ugh, we failed." He says, "But it was wonderful this way." And so here were Americans playing in some kind of American tradition a piece that was just rooted in central Europe, and so they had done it completely differently, and it had opened up his mind to something...

C. FRANK:

Yes.

KALICHSTEIN:

This is...

STEINHARDT:

...to other possibilities, and so ultimately, he was paying them the supreme compliment.

KALICHSTEIN:

You know, this is a fascinating subject, because until the middle of the 19th century, or maybe a little beyond, most composers were, performed their own music.

ISTOMIN:

Yes, of course.

KALICHSTEIN:

I mean, in the pop world it still exists to a large extent. So this animal is a very unique animal--

ISTOMIN:

Now I want to...

HARRELL:

...Maybe it's just my background, but I very rarely, if at all, allow myself to feel as though it's my own. I start feeling guilty, unworthy, that what I possibly could think wouldn't be as good as what's probably underlying those black notes on the page. So I recognize that I feel very much at home and at one with how I feel about the piece, but whether it has a legitimacy in comparison to what's there? Very, very, very rarely.

ISTOMIN:

If you really get it the way you want to get it, and it's your own piece, and you really played it the way you want to play it, don't you, don't you have a feeling-- you don't really need to hear anybody else play it? Nobody else could play it now.

HARRELL:

Oh, that's a matter of...absolutely!

P. FRANK:

Oh... lucky you!

KALICHSTEIN:

If you see the word crescendo, which means getting louder, you can't possibly just get louder. You have to have something happening to you inside that would make you play louder.

HARRELL:

Yes.

KALICHSTEIN:

So you internalize. So that's prosaic. But I think on the more profound, you also internalize. You internalize other...

C. FRANK:

I would say one of your statements doesn't exclude the other. You can still feel owning it at the moment that you play it, and still feel inadequate in the highest sense. It's interesting to know that Mozart supposedly, when Mozart was congratulated on his compositions, that his eyes would shine, he was happier-that's wonderful. When he was congratulated on his playing, supposedly, he cried. He said, "No, no. It's not good enough."

STEINHARDT:

He once wrote to his father, after having played the first violin part in the B-flat sextet, ⁹ with two horns, four strings and two horns, which is unbelievably difficult, "Last night I sounded like the best violinist in all of Europe."

HARRELL:

Aww!

STEINHARDT:

So once in a while, he...

ROBINSON:

How old was he then?

KALICHSTEIN:

Six. [Laughter.]

STEINHARDT:

Six or seven?

KALICHSTEIN:

I'm sorry. What is the real answer?

STEINHARDT:

I don't know!

C. FRANK:

But he was hardly comparing himself to other violinists. He was not comparing himself to the music he played.

Back to top

Part 3.  INFLUENCES

ISTOMIN:

I'm going to name some string players. Paganini. ¹⁰ Sarasate. ¹¹ Ysaÿe. ¹² Heifetz. ¹³ Kreisler. ¹⁴ Piatti. ¹⁵ Davidoff. ¹⁶ Casals. ¹⁷ Piatigorski. ¹⁸ Feuermann. ¹⁹ Leonard Rose. ²⁰ Who were your greatest influences as an instrumentalist?

MA:

From the cellist's side, obviously, my cello teacher, Leonard Rose. I think, very briefly, he was someone who was extremely gentle with me, and he actually made me believe that I could really do it, while setting very high standards. Very patient. He was my great teacher; I know, your wonderful trio partner. From the Casals side, you know, just kind of someone that I always looked up to in every way. And having met him for just a short while was an amazing thing. But really, I admired so much what he did, bringing chamber music to the cello world and saying, well, these are great pieces of music. And everything that I think that I know that he's done is really etched in my memory. So - Feuermann, first time I heard a recording of Schelomo was with Feuermann. And I was just--- it was not the piece that was all over the place. It was something that was, it was a classical performance of that work.

ISTOMIN:

Pam.

P. FRANK:

Only two of the list have a profound impact on me: Kreisler, ²¹ for his vocal quality. I mean, the idea that a violin can sing and speak like that. And the warmth of that man, I think, has barely been - well, it hasn't been reproduced, and I can't even reproduce it on that beautiful instrument that he played on over there... even my pizzicato doesn't come close to his pizzicato. So that proves it's not the instrument, it's what's on the inside of the man. I would have liked to know him, actually, out of all of those, the best, because somehow his soul came through everything. One feels that one knows him from listening to his records, and that's probably one of the most important things to communicate, is what happens on the inside of you. So from a soulful standpoint, from a vocalizing, human standpoint, certainly Kreisler. And from a violinistic technical standpoint, Heifetz, of course, because my theory is that - well, and it's not just mine - that Heifetz changed violin playing forever from that time on, because up until that point, that had not been possible on a violin, and suddenly all of that was possible, and he basically wrecked everybody's life... [Laughter.]

P. FRANK:

...after his. So from, you know, a technical standpoint, obviously Heifetz. And from an internal, visceral standpoint, Kreisler.

HARRELL:

I have my heroes and mentors at various times. There was certainly Slava Rostropovich, who not only gave us so much music, but his astounding way of handling the instrument, and a new kind of approach to playing in a lyrical style and a very Slavic style. I was gung-ho on Caruso ²² for a number of years. On Heifetz. When I first saw the videos of Heifetz, because I never was, never had seen him play in public, I studied them and started practicing in a completely different way. It was rather late in my mid-teens when I went to Puerto Rico and I saw Casals play. And he came out to play the "Triple" Concerto of Beethoven. And just by the way he walked out and sat down, put his spike in the...I had goose bumps for 45 minutes, and couldn't take my eyes off him. It was a dynamic, powerful whirlwind of personality and musicianship and humanity that came across so powerfully. I think that was perhaps one of the most visceral and exciting moments that I had ever spent in my developing years. So I guess it's, the bottom line is that we all need, at some point, to be confronted with someone who, in their fach, in their work, transports us and shames us into what is possible in a way that sticks with us the rest of our lives. We are forever changed by that confrontation with the genius of an individual.

ISTOMIN:

Sharon?

ROBINSON:

Not a lot more to add. I grew up with the Casals Bach and Beethoven LPs. That was big. All my teachers, however, were of the Piatigorsky ilk, and were, had been assistants to him along the way, so that was, I, he was, of course, a big influence. And I guess some of the big fiddlers. Certainly Heifetz entered my sphere when I was a kid, and I was changed by that. I got to listen to a lot of music as a kid, so I was lucky. And my parents are musicians, so I played a lot of chamber music with good players, and I was lucky.

ISTOMIN:

And Arnold? I see that you got over your traumatic experience of playing the Ravel Trio with me and became a famous violinist. We played the Ravel Trio together for the first time. Learned it.

MA:

Oh, wow.

STEINHARDT:

I stood in for Isaac Stern. ²³ Well, the people I still listen to, and I'm still moved by, are three on your list. I mean, all of them are marvelous, of course, they're all great artists, but the three I come back to over and over again for my own enjoyment and enrichment are Kreisler, for this warmth, this lovingness that you spoke of, Pam; and Heifetz, because he makes me feel ill... [Laughter.]

STEINHARDT:

...when I listen to him. And it's not just the technique. It's something, there's almost something crazy about the stylism, the vision that he had about music. And it's sort of the perfect conjunction of musical talent and gift and being prepared, having all the right advantages, and having this, this accidental combination of things that made him such a, a hair-raising performer. I am always shocked to hear him play. And the violinist you didn't mention was Joseph Szigeti, ²⁴ who I studied with, but I am always touched listening to him play. I am always very moved, and I draw great pleasure listening to him over and over again. I play all my records, my old records, these days. I always go back to my old records. And of course, Casals, who moves me deeply and always has. And all these people have kind of ruined everything for me... [Laughter.]

ISTOMIN:

I know.

STEINHARDT:

...because once you've heard these people play, what is there for anybody else to do? You know? I always felt that about Kreisler, that I, hearing his records, that there are two ways of doing things: either I could imitate Kreisler, which is bad; or I could play it my way, which is bad. So, so in a way, they have inspired me, but they make it very difficult, you know? They make the choices that I have as a musician difficult, but not really. They inform what we do by listening to them.

ISTOMIN:

I have to tell you that - I don't know whether you've heard this before, but it happened to me, one on one. One day, I asked Heifetz which violinist did he have the greatest respect for- the same kind of question I'm asking you. And without batting an eyelash, he said, "Kreisler." It didn't take a second. Well, now, Jaime, you have to have the last word, because you're not only a violinist but you're now a maestro conductor.

LAREDO:

Two people on that list that were major influences on my life. And let's get it over with the obvious one first, and that was Heifetz. And for the same reasons that everyone here has said. And there's something about him that-- it's not just the perfection - it's thinking that this is something I'll never be able to do, but it's something I could hope to maybe touch, get near, which, of course, is not possible. But I never knew Heifetz, I never met him. And in one sense, I'm very happy, very glad of that, because there are so many stories that I've heard about him as being a very, very strange man and all that. But he will always be, you know, up there. But the other major person on that list that was probably the biggest influence of my life was Casals. And he I did know, obviously, and - for many years - and he really changed my whole outlook on music, on thinking about music, on - and I can honestly say that to this day, when - very, very often, when I'm practicing in my room, I have pictures of a lot of musicians on my wall. And very, very often, I'm looking at him and thinking what, things that he said, what would he have done, what would he have thought of, of this phrase, or how would he have thought of this. And here, I'm a violinist, this is a cellist. But it was, one never thought of him as a cellist or a conductor. He was just this extraordinary, extraordinary musician. And that's really the biggest musical influence I've ever had in my life. I will add a third person there, because - and that was Leonard Rose. Because he, when I was a kid, and I was 13, and I went to Meadowmount ²⁵ for the first time to study with Galamian, ²⁶ at that time Lenny was teaching chamber music, cello and chamber music at Meadowmount. And he was my, in many ways my first chamber music teacher.

KALICHSTEIN:

I have two names that I want to add to this list, not because they were great. Of course they were great. Oistrakh ²⁷ and Isaac Stern. Only because there are a few performances of, quite a few performances of pieces that I remember as a child hearing the recording and saying, "That's the way it goes. That's it."

ISTOMIN:

Isaac.

KALICHSTEIN:

This was it, yeah. That's the way the piece should go. The reason I added my voice as a non-string player is because it's nice to have that feeling without the baggage of saying, "I could never do this." Of course I could never do this! I could never even play one note of...

ISTOMIN:

He was a great player.

C. FRANK:

I would like to add two as a non-string player, and I'm not adding anybody, but I'm pointing out that the two things that, to me, that distinguished Casals and Szigeti from everybody else that has been mentioned is: with Casals and Szigeti, one was no longer aware of the instrument at all. One was not aware of the cello, one was not aware of the violin. One was only aware of the music and its message. It went way, way beyond the string playing.

ISTOMIN:

What about the viola as a solo instrument? Lionel Tertis, ²⁸ and then William Primrose, ²⁹ who was a splendid violist - and a splendid gentleman, too, I might add - and now we have this fellow and Pinchas Zukerman ³⁰ ...

ROBINSON:

And this guy, fellow - Arnold plays great viola...

LAREDO:

Yeah.

ISTOMIN:

You play too?

ROBINSON:

Great viola.

ISTOMIN:

How dare you!

ROBINSON:

He was born to play viola. Well, a lot of the composers played viola. Dvorák ³¹ ...

MA:

Hindemith ³² was a violist.

LAREDO:

One of my favorite pieces in the world to play, to actually play, is Harold in Italy. ³³ That's...

P. FRANK:

But why? Because it's so well written for the...

LAREDO:

Oh, it's marvelous. Well, it's such incredible music...

ROBINSON:

...the journey of it...

STEINHARDT:

It's so much fun to play. And ach, I just love, I adore it.

KALICHSTEIN:

I think a lot of the masterpieces of the chamber music cannot exist without viola.

Back to top

Part 4.  STATE OF THE ART

ISTOMIN:

What are your thoughts about the way string playing has changed in the last, during your lifetime, our lifetime?

LAREDO:

Everything is very homogenized today. And I miss, I really miss the days where I could put on a recording, an LP, or I could listen on the radio, and I could hear three bars, and I knew whether it was Heifetz or whether it was Milstein, ³⁴ whether it was Kreisler, whether it was Szigeti, whether it was Isaac Stern. It was just so easy. Today, if I tune on the radio and someone is playing the Brahms Violin Concerto, ³⁵ I listen to the whole piece and I have no idea who it is. Absolutely no idea. And at the end, when it's announced, it's somebody that I know very well. [General agreement.]

ISTOMIN:

To what do you attribute that? How is, how did that come to be?

ROBINSON:

The mass media?

LAREDO:

I can't answer that. I don't know. I really don't know.

STEINHARDT:

I think there's a fearfulness now. Students of mine have asked me: What is the right way to play Mozart? Now, that's a peculiar question. I don't know that anybody would have even thought to ask what the right way of playing Mozart is 50 years or 100 years from now. There are lots of right ways, and many wrong ways, to play Mozart. But you wouldn't have asked it. So I think the sense that you, you're a personality, you're an individual, and you carve out this turf for yourself, and you spend a lifetime trying to find out what that turf is, but you carve it out for yourself. Any one of us could hear certainly string playing from any part of our recorded past and all of us would be able to pinpoint pretty much, well, that's from the 1920s, or that's the 1930s, or that fast vibrato, that was the Heifetz era, that's got to be 1950s, you know? And now ...because of what you say, Jaime, now, you know, it's a cleaner, slightly more antiseptic way, and you wouldn't be able to tell who's playing, and so you could say: it's our era.

ISTOMIN:

Old-time recital programs such as this recording of Nathan Milstein at the Library of Congress consisted of the Vitali Chaconne, ³⁶ began with the Vitali Chaconne, Bach Sonata in G minor, ³⁷ Nathan Milstein Paganiniana Variations, ³⁸ Felix Mendelssohn Concerto in E minor ³⁹ for violin and piano, Frédéric Chopin Nocturne in C-sharp minor, ⁴⁰ and Henryk Wieniawski's Scherzo-Tarantelle. ⁴¹ That was Milstein's program in nineteen forty-whatever it was, here at the Library of Congress. What do you think about that? Are such programs possible to play today without embarrassment?

STEINHARDT:

I've tried to put small pieces on the ends of programs the way our great heroes did half a century ago. And I find that times and tastes have changed, and people are uncomfortable - even students who play these, these - we all as teachers give some of these short so-called "ice cream" numbers to our students, and I noticed that they don't know what to do with them. It's another age. And we live in an age where there are smoother, that has smoother surfaces, where we're not so interested in that kind of expressive element. They don't know what to do with it as interpreters, and the audience doesn't know anymore what to make of these short numbers.

KALICHSTEIN:

I just wish that classical audiences regained some of their innocence and some of their freedom. I'm always astounded how much freer pop audiences are. I know my kids. They didn't care that somebody's very famous. They liked the music they liked, and that was it. And I think classical music audiences are so bombarded-- there are so many layers that they-- you know, they want to be right. And that's a pity.

STEINHARDT:

But you know, finally you have to please yourself, also. Never mind the critics, never mind the audiences. You have to please yourself, and after a while, whatever it is you're doing, if you're doing all the unaccompanied Bach partitas-- well, what else is there? "Maybe I should do those ice cream numbers. I haven't done them in 15 years. Or maybe I should look at some new pieces of music." And so you, it's a little bit like a chef who's tired of the same dishes and wants to go on and try something new.

ISTOMIN:

I feel, when I'm listening to recordings, what Jaime said is absolutely true. Who's playing this? It's very good, it's very good-- somehow it isn't, somehow it isn't, it can't be this one, it can't be that one, it can't be that one. And yet the intonation is perfect, the round, hothouse tomato tone is there. There is, there are no scratches, there are no bleeps, there are no, none of these things. Everything is perfectly together.

LAREDO:

Well, I think the standard of playing is at a higher level today than it has ever been.

STEINHARDT:

Right.

LAREDO:

I mean, when I hear some, you know, young students, and they're not even professionals yet, but when I hear them play the violin, I can't believe that, you know, that we're on such a high level that it is.

HARRELL:

There's a reluctance thereby of developing your own individuality and your own voice. That own stamp. Because then you might have the wrong stamp and be criticized.

LAREDO:

One thing I fear is that a lot of young people are trying so hard to be good musicians...

C. FRANK:

Yeah.

LAREDO:

...that God forbid they should do anything that's in bad taste...

C. FRANK:

Yeah.

LAREDO:

...or not musically correct...

C. FRANK:

Yeah.

LAREDO:

...and I feel they've put themselves very much in a box.

KALICHSTEIN:

I think at the bottom, that's, it's Lynn's point: People, we have lost the need to be individuals, the...I think it's more telling with pianists, because we don't have any of the mechanical things that would - like the vibrato or the...

C. FRANK:

We play hands together now. We didn't use to.

KALICHSTEIN:

We think we do.

C. FRANK:

Most of the time.

KALICHSTEIN:

But I mean, no, but that's very interesting, because I, to this day I can tell Rubinstein. ⁴² I mean, four notes, I can tell it's Rubinstein.

STEINHARDT:

How many pianists you can recognize...?

KALICHSTEIN:

Very few. I mention...

STEINHARDT:

Horowitz, ⁴³ yes?

KALICHSTEIN:

I cannot recognize Horowitz.

STEINHARDT:

No?

KALICHSTEIN:

No.

ROBINSON:

I can. Horowitz is gorgeous. It's a certain sound he had at the piano...

STEINHARDT:

Edgy. It's sort of edgy sound, and...

KALICHSTEIN:

Yes, but if you had, if you were able-- he was of, also of a certain generation. If you had the same CD quality of a Rachmaninoff playing and Horowitz and a few of the others, you would know it's of that school. I don't know if you could point to an individual.

MA:

Do you think that it's, ultimately boils down to choices that people make? That, you know, how you choose to play a note, whether you vibrate, how you balance a chord, whether it's premeditated choices for structural reasons or spontaneous choices, that actually says who you are? Of course today is different, because people are making different choices. Why did people make those choices 50 years ago?

P. FRANK:

It's ironic that out of the, a higher standard, you have less individuality. You would think there would be more chance...

STEINHARDT:

Yeah, you would.

P. FRANK:

...of individuality. So I wonder if it has to do with the kind of teaching that goes on, or even the amount and quality of the competitions that go on? There are so many, and there are so many people, but it's always, seems to be a safe, sometimes a safer choice. Now, why is that?

STEINHARDT:

Don't you think it's the age, though? This is a cool age. It's a cool age.

P. FRANK:

Hmm. Don't show too much.

STEINHARDT:

Yeah. Don't show too much. You wouldn't say "I love you," but you might have said "I love you" in 1900, you know? And so you would have played Schumann that way, and now you don't play Schumann that way. Even though it's heart, in a certain sense, very heart on the sleeve.

P. FRANK:

So it's beyond our...

KALICHSTEIN:

The sense of competing and wrongly hoping to play something better than the next person was always there. I mean, there's that wonderful story which I... Mischa Elman's ⁴⁴ father's story, that people asked him why he doesn't concertize, concentrate in Europe, and he said, "Well, Heifetz is here, Kreisler is here. He has nobody in Europe to play against." [Laughter.]

KALICHSTEIN:

But that horrible idea somehow did not prevent them to look for their own voice. Whereas today, that horrible idea, which comes - it's great in sport, because you want to play, to run faster than the next guy, that's what running is about. Not only about how elegant you would look, or how - whereas today it's somehow the competition, which is okay on its own, causes people to try, almost ironically, to sound just like the other guy.

ISTOMIN:

Yeah.

KALICHSTEIN:

Because they want to be better than him? Which somehow made Elman find his own voice? The wrong motive is not necessarily the bad thing. It's how we use that necessity of ours to be individuals.

Back to top

Part 5.  DEVELOPMENT

HARRELL:

Sometimes a young person senses the need to develop his own personality, and yet is asking himself for a background and a training and a timing that hasn't allowed for this natural maturation to happen. An oak tree doesn't become 200 years old in two weeks. But what they will do now is do it in some way that hasn't been done before. And in doing that, they turn to perversion, and start to do some things like play loud where it's marked soft, play fast where it says to play slow. That's definitely a very unhealthy movement, because we need to have the time for an artist's personality to take the time it needs. Sometimes, for a Mendelssohn at 16 it's fine, and sometimes for somebody else, they won't be that mature until they're 40. But we should give it the time for that. And careers nowadays are being accentuated to be younger and younger, and fresher, and newer and newer. And it makes it very, very hard when we're talking about art.

C. FRANK:

Also, in that connection, we mustn't forget that when we talk about lack of personality and all that, that we hear today, we have the tendency to compare the giants of the past with the average of today, you know. It's not quite fair, because I'm sure there were always people who played without personality.

STEINHARDT:

That's true.

C. FRANK:

Always. I'm sure there were. We just don't know them anymore!

HARRELL:

But the average of today technically, physically, on the whole, is so high...

C. FRANK:

Technically, physically, very, very high.

ISTOMIN:

There are among the young people, we all know that - some of you know that better than I, because you're closer to teaching them and hearing them much more frequently - but there are serious great, what used to be called great talent among the young people. And these young people end up sounding like hothouse tomatoes, and they end up playing very well and having short careers, getting a lot of publicity, a lot of that, and then the next like fashionable thing, the next one comes, and that is a problem within the profession of management and presentation of music, which is not the fault of the youngster, the young artist. So much that these young people who are guided-- after all, I mean, when you're in your teens, you're guided by somebody and by some people who are ambitious for you to succeed, and you want to succeed, you want to follow these things. You go along with these things. And then you go along long enough to realize, ayy, you've missed something very important later on. How to deal with that, what are your thoughts about that?

KALICHSTEIN:

I think a major problem - and I do not have any solution - is that we live in a time where, of speed and result-oriented. And art, like everything else, like science, like medicine, needs space for failure, needs time to experiment. But that we cannot pooh-pooh away. And we certainly cannot blame young people for it.

ISTOMIN:

But what, what can anyone do to influence them away from some of that, at least? Because there is an abyss into which this kind of successful beginning can send a youngster that doesn't know what's happening to them and that are enjoying those moments without seeing what dangers can lurk? I mean, it's perfectly natural for a youngster to enjoy the success and to have the success. But then, somehow, the guidance changes, and people want to seize on it and - not so much prey on it, but simply build a fortune around it, both financial, take advantage of it as much as the concert world can bring, your engagements can bring, and then run Venezuela, as that song, calypso song - "Matilda, she takes me money and she run Venezuela."

MA:

Eugene, I think you mentioned hothouse environment. The opposite of that is a non-hothouse environment. Most of the people, in fact, probably every single person that you mention in that list that consists of our heroes, I think lived through wartime.

ISTOMIN:

Terrific times.

MA:

We just, of this younger generation, it's just been much less of that close up. I think there's no, you can't legislate that. You can't - but that is a fact for all of our heroes. And that's a big difference. But if we were to look in our world right now, there's also a lot of stuff going on. And I think somehow being a participant in that world makes us want to then make the choices that determine how we choose to express ourselves. It's pretty simple, but it's actually quite complicated to do.

ROBINSON:

It's also affecting, I think, today's world affecting on how people, affecting how people listen, and receive music, art, books. I think a lot of people have dug deeper and found something more interesting than what's all around us.

ISTOMIN:

Music and art was never connected to commerce as it is today. You will see a score of...

KALICHSTEIN:

But let's not forget, Mozart was exploited for financial success as much as some of the wunderkinds ⁴⁵ of today are. And by his own father. So that's...

ISTOMIN:

Yes. But--

KALICHSTEIN:

So maybe he survived, but maybe there were other Mozarts or close to Mozarts who...

ISTOMIN:

I give as an example Brahms. Brahms, who never had any money, who brought, bought two sheets of paper and wrote two pieces on the same sheet so as to save paper. He never had any money.

KALICHSTEIN:

Until much later.

ISTOMIN:

And being the god of Vienna and then Germany. Because money was not the criterion then.

KALICHSTEIN:

But to go back about what you asked about sheltering young people from - maybe, maybe schools have not done their job in the sense that you stay in school for the four, five, six years, whatever. Yes, you are there to learn, but you are also there to give yourself time and space without facing the horrors.

STEINHARDT:

But you can't have a normal life if you want to be a concertizing musician. You have to start, as we all know, at four or five...

KALICHSTEIN:

I know. But I'm talking about the nurturing. Somebody has to nurture the talent.

STEINHARDT:

Yeah. But it has to be in a slightly abnormal way. As little abnormal as possible, but...

ISTOMIN:

Yeah. I'm afraid, I'm afraid it's true. And people have to start younger. What we do, to do what we do, giving concerts and that sort of thing, and being these peacocks up in front of the audience. This means a kind of discipline and a kind of dedication, and a preparation for that, and sacrifice, great sacrifice, that it requires to accomplish this, plus the factor of talent. What we call talent. And even that, with all those things together, doesn't necessarily guarantee that someone will have a successful career.

STEINHARDT:

Yossi - Hofmann ⁴⁶ studied with Rubinstein? With...

ISTOMIN:

With Anton.

STEINHARDT:

Anton. Anton Rubinstein. I remember a story that he told about studying with Rubinstein: that he studied with him for a year or two, and Rubinstein said to him, "I will teach you, but I will never play for you, because I do not want you to sound like me, or even try to sound like me." And so that was this idea, that you, you studied to become not only proficient and wise but to also, to cultivate your individuality. If we can all take our students and say, "Your practice room is your laboratory, and in your laboratory you can dare to do something terrible, even in bad taste, because you're experimenting," and so that maybe out of some of this something beautiful will happen. I think that would be a good picture to present for students.

P. FRANK:

Well, I mean, it has something to do with the kind of teaching that goes on, because my teacher, Szymon Goldberg, ⁴⁷ was absolutely adamant that none of his students played concerts while they were in school. Now, that was the other end of the spectrum. I mean, it was a little too extreme in that sense, because there is a certain amount of on-the-job training that is necessary. I mean, performing is a skill that needs to be also practiced. But his idea - and I see now, with hindsight, that it was the right one - is that, you know, now is your time to learn. You'll have the rest of your life to play concerts, hopefully. But more importantly, playing concerts interferes with the learning process, because when you actually go out there, you rely on what you already know, not on the new thing that has been learned.

ISTOMIN:

In Israel in 19-sixty-what is it? one? - people were talking about this young twelve-year-old violinist, Pinchas Zukerman. Casals was there, and so they brought Pinchas over to the hotel to play for Casals. "Well, what should be done about this boy?" said Isaac Stern. Casals said, "Nothing. Just let him go out on the stage and play. Let him play. He's got, he has everything. Let him play."

KALICHSTEIN:

Okay. But you're looking at, really, the top of the top of the talent...

ISTOMIN:

You'll get a very different response. You have, people would want to put their grubby hands on the talent and mold this talent in this way and that way and the other way-- idea.

LAREDO:

Teaching at Curtis now, I want my kids to play all the time, they, you know, as many times as they play, in Curtis Hall. I don't care if it goes well or it goes badly, it's the...

ROBINSON:

But you just said "in Curtis Hall." You don't necessarily want them in Tokyo and in...

LAREDO:

No, no, no. Of course not.

MA:

I think the importance of dreaming is, is crucial, of being able to dream about it while you check things out. And I think that's what the Szymon Goldberg idea of not, of testing all kinds of things, but you still have to dream about it. And - because that ultimately is going to be your individuality, not how you play in tune.

ISTOMIN:

I cannot believe that many years down the road, and in a few years, many years, there won't be quite a bit of much interest to many people from what we've spoken about at this session. So I'm deeply grateful, and very proud, that you have done me the honor to join me in this event.

P. FRANK:

Oh. Thank you.

C. FRANK:

Thank you.

STEINHARDT:

And thank you for the chance.

ISTOMIN:

Thank you very, very much.

---

Back to top

FOOTNOTES:

1 George Szell (1897-1970). American conductor of Hungarian birth. Back to transcript

2 Ernest Bloch, Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for violoncello and orchestra. Back to transcript

3 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Concerto No. 24 for Piano and Orchestra in C Minor, K. 491. Back to transcript

4 Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, op. 53. Back to transcript

5 Ernest Chausson, Poème for Violin and Orchestra, op. 25. Back to transcript

6 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, K. 379. Back to transcript

7 Mann, Robert: (1920- ). Violinist with the Juilliard String Quartet. Back to transcript

8 Arnold Schoenberg, (1874-1951). Austrian-born American composer. Back to transcript

9 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Divertimento for 2 Horns and Strings, K. 287. Back to transcript

10 Nicolo Paganini, (1782-1840). Italian violinist and composer. Back to transcript

11 Pablo de Sarasate, (1844-1908). Spanish violinist and composer. Back to transcript

12 Eugène Ysaÿe, (1858-1931). Belgian violinist, conductor, and composer. Back to transcript

13 Jascha Heifetz, (1901-1987). Russian-born American violinist. Back to transcript

14 Fritz Kreisler, (1875-1962). Austrian-born American violinist and composer. Back to transcript

15 Alfredo Piatti, (1822-1901). Italian cellist and composer. Back to transcript

16 Aleksandr Davidoff, (1872-1944). Ukrainian tenor. Back to transcript

17 Pablo Casals, (1876-1973). Catalan cellist, conductor, pianist, and composer. Back to transcript

18 Gregor Piatigorsky, (1903-1976). Ukranian-born American cellist and composer. Back to transcript

19 Emanuel Feuermann, (1902-1942). Austrian cellist active in the United States. Back to transcript

20 Leonard Rose, (1918-1984). American cellist and teacher. Back to transcript

21 Fritz Kreisler, (1875-1962). Austrian-born American violinist and composer. Back to transcript

22 Enrico Caruso, (1873-1921). Italian tenor. Back to transcript

23 Isaac Stern, (1920-2001). Ukranian-born American violinist. Back to transcript

24 Joseph Szigeti, (1892-1973). Hungarian-born American violinist. Back to transcript

25 Meadowmount: School of Music founded by Ivan Galamian in 1944. Back to transcript

26 Ivan Galamian, (1903-1981). Armenian-born American violinist and teacher. Back to transcript

27 David Oistrakh, (1908-1974). Ukrainian violinist. Back to transcript

28 Lionel Tertis, (1876-1975). English viola player and author. Back to transcript

29 William Primrose, (1904-1982). Scottish viola player, teacher, and founder of the Primrose Quartet. Back to transcript

30 Pinchas Zukerman, (1948- ). Israeli violinist and violist of Polish descent. Back to transcript

31 Antonín Dvorák, (1841-1904). Czech composer. Back to transcript

32 Paul Hindemith, (1895-1963). German composer, theorist, viola player and conductor. Back to transcript

33 Hector Berlioz, Harold in Italy. Symphony in 4 parts for viola and orchestra, op. 16. Back to transcript

34 Nathan Milstein, (1904-1992). American violinist of Ukrainian birth. Back to transcript

35 Johannes Brahms, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, op. 77. Back to transcript

36 Tomaso Antonio Vitali, Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra in G Minor. Recent research by Reich and others provides evidence that this work was not composed by Vitali. Back to transcript

37 J.S. Bach, Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001. Back to transcript

38 Nathan Milstein, Paganiniana Variations for unaccompanied violin. Back to transcript

39 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, op. 64. Back to transcript

40 Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, opus posthumous; transcribed for violin and piano by Nathan Milstein. Back to transcript

41 Henryk Wieniawski, Scherzo-tarantelle for violin and piano in G Minor, op. 16. Back to transcript

42 Artur Rubinstein, (1887-1982). Polish-born American pianist. Back to transcript

43 Vladimir Horowitz, (1903-1989). Ukranian-born American pianist. Back to transcript

44 Mischa Elman, (1891-1967). Russian-born American violinist. Back to transcript

45 A child prodigy; one who achieves great success or acclaim at an early age. Back to transcript

46 Josef Hofmann, (1876-1957). Polish-born American pianist, composer, and inventor. Back to transcript

47 Szymon Goldberg, (1909-1993). American violinist and conductor of Polish birth. Back to transcript

Back to top