Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern – Lucerne Festival Historic Performances Vol. II – Isaac Stern plays Tchaikovsky and Bartók (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:09:41 minutes | 440 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Audite Musikproduktion

“To make the violin speak”, was Isaac Stern’s succinct artistic maxim. These live recordings, made in 1956 and 1958 at the Lucerne Festival, exemplify how Stern realised his concept of musical rhetoric on the concert platform. Stern never performed in Germany; in Switzerland, however, he gave concerts frequently. He was a regular guest at the Lucerne Festival, appearing ten times between 1948 and 1988, both as soloist and as chamber musician, including with his Piano Trio alongside Eugene Istomin and Leonard Rose. Only a small number of live recordings with Isaac Stern exist. The Lucerne recordings of the Tchaikovsky and Bartók Concertos, issued here for the first time, are thus of particular documentary value, as well as important elements within the extensive discography of the violinist who died in 2001.

This release is furnished with a producer’s comment by producer Ludger Böckenhoff on www.audite.de/en/product/CD/95624/multimedia.

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Isaac Stern – Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, FWV 8 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 27:47 minutes | 515 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

In 1921, his parents, Solomon and Clara Stern, had emigrated to the USA, where he grew up. His mother had studied singing at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and gave Isaac piano lessons from the age of seven. He heard violin playing from a boy in the neighborhood, whereupon the violin became his instrument.

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Isaac Stern – Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1, Sz. 36 – Viotti: Violin Concerto No. 22 in A Minor (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 50:01 minutes | 2,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was an American violinist.

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.

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Isaac Stern – The Very Best of Sibelius (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:04:27 minutes | 1,72 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BnF Collection

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.

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Isaac Stern – Lalo: Symphonie espagnole – Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 (Remastered) (1956/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:06 minutes | 577 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was an American violinist.

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.

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Isaac Stern – Brahms: Violin Sonatas 1, 2 & 3 – Dietrich & Schumann & Brahms: F.A.E. Sonata (Remastered) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:33:56 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

Isaac Stern is awarded the 2000 Polar Music Prize for a unique and consummate artistry distinguished by a personal musicianship without compare for half a century, for his pioneering achievement on behalf of young people the world over, for his patient and energetic commitment to preserving and developing places where music is played, and for his uncompromising attitude concerning the humanistic power of music.

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