ISAAC STERN'S PROGRAMMES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 428, 5 September 1947, Page 16

ISAAC STERN'S PROGRAMMES

Contemporary Works Included

HEN Isaac Stern, the American violinist who is coming to New Zealand under contract to the NZBS, gives his first recital in the Auckland Town Hall, on Tuesday, September 16, he will adhere to his principle of including at least one contemporary work in his programmes. This time it will be the Hindemith Sonata (1939). The recital will open with Handel’s Sonata in D Major.. The violinist will then bridge a century to give a performance of Mendelssolm’s Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64. In the second half of his programme Stern will move on another century tothe Hindemith Sonata. Then will come a bracket of four pieces -Rondo (Mozart-Kreisler), Four Rumanian Dances (Bartok Szekely), Romanze (Wagner Wilhelm), and Tzigane (Ravel). A little less than three months ago Stern was in Manhattan as first soloist of the season with the New York Philharmonic Symphony in the annual summer concerts in the Lewisohn Stadium. Now he is on his first tour outside the Wan He was 10 years of age when a wealthy woman living in San Francisco’s Pacific Avenue started to finance . his training. He played in recitals in private homes, gave luncheon’ solos, and appeared at a formal recital in the Veterans’ Auditorium. In 1937 he was ‘ready for the Town Hall, At least he thought he was, for of this concert he has said: "I hired an accompanist and # —

had three rehearsals. I should have had a tested programme which I’d played on the road and had embedded in my fingertips. A concert such as the 6ne I gave is just sales talk unless you’ve such. tremendous talent that it sweeps every y thing before you; and I wasn’t the greatest thing since Mozart." The New York Herald-Tribune’s critic wrote: "An unusually promising young musician whose talent seems to be following a normal and judicious course of development, he should become an artist of exceptional consequence." That was a better criticism than most boys of 17 years receive. In June last, at the Lewisohn Stadium, Stern played with the big tone and brilliant ‘technique which resemble the work of Heifetz, the violinist he admires most. His second New Zealand concert will be heard from the Auckland Town Hall on Thursday, September 18. The Wellington recitals will be from the Town Hall on Saturday, September 20, and Monday, September 22; in Dunedin he will be heard in the Town Hall on Wednesday, September 24, and in Christchurch, from the Civic Theatre, on Thursday, September 25. Composers represented in these re_citals will include Vitali, Brahms, Prokofieff, Wieniawski, Pugnani, Debussy, Bruch, Beethoven, Bloch, Serasate, Tartini, Lalo, Bach, Szymanowski, Falla and Saint-Saens. Each concert will be broadcast in its entirety from 8.0 p.m. to 10.0 p.m. Isaac Stern’s accompanist will be the Russian pianist Adexander Zakin.