He Aimed Music at Listeners’ Hearts

Isaac Stern was a magnificent violinist. He was a lot more as well--an international cultural ambassador, one of the best classical music scouts ever, a man committed to speaking out about human rights and education. His name was synonymous with New York’s preeminent musical icon, Carnegie Hall. He mounted a campaign to save it when was about to be torn down in 1960; he then became its president and oversaw its rise to new glory.

So it is somehow grimly appropriate that this beloved violinist, who died Saturday night at 81, would be the one who could, Sunday morning, get a story on the front page of this newspaper and others that was not about the terrorist attack or its aftermath. Stern lived his life as a man committed to our most worthy creations, be it the music he performed or the concert hall he saved. And, on some level, it feels as if he died for that cause, reminding us about what is meaningful and good in life.

In another sense, one also has to wonder if Stern’s death wasn’t perhaps one more awful instance of collateral damage from Sept. 11. Even though his health had been fragile after heart surgery last year, he seemed to be holding up well. He was at USC last spring to give master classes and perform. Friends of the great violinist, however, say that the news about the destruction in Manhattan, where he had been part of the cultural life for well over half a century, was simply too much for him. In that sense, when Stern’s heart stopped beating Saturday night, it was one more blow to America.

For many thousands (perhaps millions) of us, Stern’s death is also personal. When I was growing up, two violinists held the highest positions of musical honor in my household. Yehudi Menuhin was a god, but Isaac Stern was family. Menuhin walked on water; Stern walked among us. When he played the violin, Stern made people feel that music was not something abstract or spiritual (as Menuhin might) but aimed directly at our hearts and minds. Stern excited us, moved us, entertained us, thrilled us. And when it came down to it, we loved him the most.

In his prime Stern had a terrific technique, and he was always an outstanding musician. But I don’t think anyone would call him the greatest violinist of the 20th century. Heifetz was the more astonishing player; Joseph Szigeti was a more profound interpreter; Menuhin, of course, was more exalted; and, today, Gidon Kremer is more stimulating. But none could match Stern in his ability to make a listener feel that he was speaking through music person-to-person, with each member of the audience. The music under his fingers was immediate and very real.

Though born in a region that was then part of Poland (now Ukraine), Stern grew up in San Francisco and was really the first great violinist who seemed truly American. There was no pretense about him. There were no tricks to his playing. He looked a musical score squarely in the face, as if each note on the page were had been a baseball pitched to him, as if, in each of those notes, there was the potential for a home run.

There was nothing fancy about Stern, which helped a lot in building our affection for him. He was plain-spoken, quick with a joke, an inveterate and wonderful storyteller. Short and plump, he was not a romantic figure. If he could play a concerto by Beethoven, Brahms or Tchaikovsky in such a way as to make it seem as if the music’s spirit was being injected directly into your blood stream, straight from him to you, no wonder he won over politicians and businessmen. No wonder his first wife was a beautiful ballerina, Nora Kaye.

“I think the thing about Isaac is that he simply inhaled life, and when you were with him you breathed bigger, too,” Deborah Borda, the general manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said on the phone Monday. Having first met Stern when she was a young artistic administrator, she was one of many who turned to him often for advice and friendship.

For Borda, Stern was as authentic an American hero as the others we currently celebrate when “he showed that a musician’s and an artist’s voice could spread far.” But Stern also showed the kind of bravery everyone is talking about these days. One of the enduring images of Stern will be his performance in Israel during the Persian Gulf War when he refused to leave the stage during a missile attack. The audience donned gas masks, but not the soloist. He was determined not to let the sound of music be stilled.

My last encounter with Stern was two years ago. He had just written his autobiography, “My First 79 Years,” and I had been asked to interview him before an audience for the Writers Bloc series in L.A. I agreed, in part, because I figured it would be a piece of cake, knowing how much Stern liked to talk. When the violinist arrived in the Green Room before the show, I suddenly feared that this was not going to be so easy after all. He had aged since I’d last seen him a couple of years earlier. He was tired and grumpy, as only a book tour can make an author. But once on stage, once the spotlight was on him, he was himself again, amusing, illuminating, inspiring with his stories of a wonderful life.

Afterward, people came up to me with much praise for the job I had done. I had, in fact, barely opened my mouth. I asked a few standard questions and played the straight man. But for a few minutes, I too got to breathe a bit bigger thanks to Stern. And so must we all now. That is his legacy.