Buttered Beethoven

At 33, Isaac Stern is one of the world's finest violinists. He has a big tone, an impressive technique and immense warmth. In Manhattan's Carnegie Hall one afternoon last week, Stern and his fiddle were in top form. Playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony under George Szell, Stern flaked warm, buttery tones off the violin with deep tenderness. As his bow drew the music from the strings, his body seemed to play its own accompaniment. Now he rose on his toes, now he shrugged with a phrase, now he twisted and bent forward. The hall's matinee audience had not often heard Beethoven tinged with anything so remarkably like schmaltz, but it loved every minute of it.

"Today," bubbled one overwhelmed fan to Violinist Stern, "you scaled Mt. Everest." Stern, a little weary from his climb, was pleased too, but not altogether satisfied. Said he: "We were experimenting a little... You can work on the Beethoven concerto for 50 years and never find a final answer. It is capable of any kind of expansion and new ideas. It's an alive thing."

Stern is a voluble, pudgy man with dimples and a cheery, puckish smile. His family brought him to the U.S. from Russia when he was only a year old, and not long after that, decided that he should be a violinist. In the course of time, Isaac dutifully obliged. Trained wholly in the U.S., he has become the special idol of a big following of younger American musicians; he feels that they have gained hope from his success.

Just returned from a 60-concert world tour, Stern is now beginning another series, this one to total about 200 appearances. After that, he will take a year off. He wants to rest, restudy his technique and absorb new ideas. Says he: "I've been on the stage professionally for 18 years, and developed a certain attitude just to be a professional concert player. But I don't want to be known only as a violinist. I want to be a player of music--one whose instrument just happens to be the violin." Now that he is established, he feels an "inward calm" that comes, he says, "from getting away from purely commercial competitiveness. I've now arrived at the point at which the only thing that can stop you is your brain--and how keenly you are aware of the possibilities in music."

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