Flair, conviction, technically immaculate, virtuosity in spades, superb phrasing- at his best, Stern was one of the greatest for sure. Thanks for sharing this with all of us.
In some ways, I feel Stern makes the case that total focus on sound production, intonation, and the like is a full -time job. He's not emotionally uninvolved. It's just that the thinking in violin pedagogy of the time was that looking heavenward, sighing dramatically, "selling the piece" with facial expressions and exaggerated body language detracted from transmuting psychic and physical energy into sound. I'm not knocking newer styles of showing emotion on your face if it is genuine. But reinventing old wine and putting it in new bottles is achieved at a price. Sometimes the old timers were onto something. Thanks for posting.
Thanks to the beautiful and deep performance, I am immersed in the memories of sleeping in and out of the music listening room in my youth that I had forgotten for a while.
Wonderful! Thankyou for giving us violin fanciers these treasures. Here it becomes evident that Stern in his prime was also an eminent technician. I grew up with the anecdote that Stern was scheduled for the Tschaikovski Concerto, then his agent phoned th local mangers to change the program: Mozart's G-major instead, then before the concert he phoned them again to inform that it would be Bach's a-minor.
He absolutely was equal to them, for the period shown above. His sound was extraordinary. The window of this level was an extremely narrow one, as I experienced him in concert. Oistrakh, on the other hand, played beautifully his entire life.@@violaisreallycool
Something that sometimes happen in old recordings (and footage) to show the virtuoso talent of a violinist is a slight acceleration of the source material. Not sure if it this is the case but it's a little sharp nonetheless.
absolutely astonishing, just listened to Itzhak as a "kid" on Ed Sullivan doing the same thing, no comparison , Stern when he played like this was a god, I begged Miss Delay for years to let me play for him, but finally she said . "Sweety" he won't be interested, because you are not Jewish .
Nah, it's probably the way that it's recorded. Don't get me wrong, the violin could have a dark sound. I'm just saying that the reason it sounds dark and mellow in this video is because of the old recording quality that distorts the sound, not necessarily because the violin actually has that sound.
Stern's prime was indeed a strong prime. There are very few violinists today of this calibre. Sadly, later in his career he got quite sloppy, as also happened to some others (e.g. Ricci, Menuhin, Perlman, Mintz), and to some degree he became more of a politician. However, here, he is a delight still, at a level not too far from the likes of Heifetz or Oistrakh.
Trying to compete with Heifetz. Right up there! Did you you know that part of the Jewish faith is not to be perfect. This is to humble oneself before GOD.
i think last vid I watched he explains you question clearly himself. no competition, some have moved past this type of competition and thinking which is kinda shallow to say the least. nothing wrong with competition but some aspire for other aims. never stop learning even if you have to travel by foot to China. if your in your faith, might want to stop assuming cause assumptions are much worse then competition in any regards. and as far as perfection, we all have our aims and no one has reached perfection [if there’s such a thing] since it’s never ending even after this earth phase
@@lxtrem1284 Yes, Ysaye. Stern is portraying Eugene Ysaye in this movie. Ysaye, Sarasate, Joachim, De Beriot, Dounis, Enesco, Auer, Flesch, and a host of other fiddlers from that old era never played as well as people give them credit for. Today's violinists are much better technically, although not as expressive. In this clip, Stern conveys the emotion in the music while playing it nearly flawlessly technically..... Technique involves no more than control of intonation, rhythm, and sound.
![[Restored, 1953] Isaac Stern - Sarasate Zigeunerweisen & Wieniawski Concerto No.2](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
