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Issac Stern
Bridge
Solution to
Crossword
Isaac Stern
in his own words
The
life-loving violinist Isaac Stern has confidently entitled his new
autobiography My First 79 Years.
When he was in Cambridge, Mass., last month to do some musical
coaching at Harvard University, Stern talked about his book (published by
Knopf) and the life in music that it records. And he made a joke about the
title. “My wife came up with the title we used -- my own idea was
‘Have Mouth ... Will Talk.’”
Yet
for all of his cheerfulness, the book ends on a note of uncertainty. Some
of his playing in recent seasons has distressed the violinist as much as
it has troubled his admirers. The cause, he explains, is arthritis in both
hands and carpal tunnel syndrome.
At the time of writing, he was
planning for surgery and hoping that muscle and nerves would regenerate.
“Should this happen,” he said in the book, “I will have regained the
physical and musical control with which I can live proudly, and will be
able to continue playing chamber music with friends and to give an
occasional solo performance. By the time this book appears, I should have
the answer.”
And now he could cheerfully report
that the surgery had been a success. “I am working every day and
analyzing myself -- it’s fun, and I’m having a good time figuring out
how I did things I never had to think about. The hand and the bow arm are
coming back, and I am determined to be on the stage for a concert in
Beijing that will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the filming of the
documentary about my first trip to China, ‘From Mao to Mozart.’ I will
play the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the young cellist from the movie
-- who has grown up -- and my son, David, will conduct. Later in the
season, I will play chamber music concerts in several cities with my
friends.”
Stern, twice divorced, remarried in
1996 and seems a very happy man today. Once portly, he has lost a great
deal of weight and attacks every conversational subject with vigor. His
book, written in collaboration with Chaim Potok, is entertaining,
informative, thoughtful, generous, and dignified. He didn’t write it to
settle old scores, and its primary virtue is honesty.
Conductor George Szell once told
Stern that if he hadn’t spent so much time doing other things and had
just practiced more, he could have been the greatest violinist in the
world -- a remark reported, as a matter of course, in Stern’s book; a
lesser man might have omitted it.
Stern says other people have wanted
him to produce a book for decades. He became interested a few years ago
following triple-bypass surgery. “I’ve been around young musicians for
40 years in what I like to call ‘encounters’ rather than classes. And
over the years I’ve become exercised about what they don’t know --
because nobody has bothered to tell them; for some young people, history
began six months ago.
“But without a knowledge of
history, you can’t make sense of anything. You can’t understand
anything about musical styles if you don’t know why things happened --
without this knowledge you may be a good player, but you will not be a
musician.”
The book traces Stern’s life from
his youth in San Francisco through the difficult launch of his career, the
wartime concerts for soldiers, the years of triumph and
traveling, the efforts to save Carnegie Hall from the wrecker’s
ball, his three marriages (Stern discusses his former wives with reticence
and respect).
What makes the book significant are
the themes that emerge, reappear, and interact -- the importance of
playing chamber music; what it takes to be a soloist (“Two things are
necessary for a life in music: a clear idea of what you want to be, and
the arrogance to pursue it. You can’t walk onstage and say to the
public, ‘Excuse me, I’m here.’ You must believe in yourself and make
immediately clear to everyone, ‘I’m going to play. Listen!’”); his
love for his family (two of his sons are conductors and his daughter is a
rabbi); his affection and respect for colleagues; the relationship of the
violinist to the violin and, above all, to music.
One of the most important characters
in Stern’s book is his beloved violin, the Ysaye Guarnerius that once
belonged to the great Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye and that Stern has
owned since 1965.
“It has strength, excitement,
songfulness, masculinity -- a thrust that resonates in my inner ear,” he
writes.
In his book, Stern displays an
affection for the lively and characteristic anecdote -- a particularly
amusing one concerns his debut with the Boston Symphony under Serge
Koussevitzky in 1948.
“Suddenly Koussevitzky screamed,
‘Eet ees not fantastical!!’ I didn’t know what he meant; no one
in the orchestra knew what he meant. But at the performance that evening
-- with the concentration, the ineffable wonder of playing a concert -- it
was fantastical.”
But the book is also serious to the
core, as Stern is, despite all his affability. The violinist is as aware
as anyone of widespread concern about the state of musical culture today,
but he remains optimistic.
“I don’t believe that any great
art form, any part of the history of man’s accomplishments and
civilization, is as discardable as a used tissue. Music has seen times as
difficult as this. Today we can be overwhelmed by the flow of information
scudding across the computer or the television screen -- but it is
predigested information, controlled information. The excitement of
discovery, of finding out something for yourself, of thinking and feeling
-- is almost gone. Yet what makes us human is the ability to think and ask
the question ‘Why?’”
Today Stern lives with his wife,
Linda Reynolds Stern, in the Connecticut countryside and maintains a
pied-a-terre in New York, where he can keep a watchful eye on Carnegie
Hall. Stern is particularly excited at the latest development at Carnegie
Hall, the construction of a 650-seat auditorium in the space formerly
occupied by the Carnegie Hall Cinema.
And it’s clear that he can’t
wait until his return to the concert platform, where he has spent some of
the richest hours of his life. “I have a weakness, I have to confess --
I love music. George Bernard Shaw once remarked that the greatest thing in
life is to die young -- but to delay it as long as possible.”
BACK TO TOP
Bridge: Should you be
an optimist
or a pessimist?
Julian Laderman
Professor of Math and Computer Science
When an expert player becomes a
declarer in a contract that is likely to be successful, he will be a
pessimist. Declarer will imagine an undesirable location of the East-West
cards (for example: bad trump break) where some reasonable lines of play
may fail. He will therefore choose a line of play that will be successful
even with this unlikely lie of the cards.
When an expert player is declarer in
a contract that is likely to fail, he will be optimist. Declarer will
imagine a favorable location of the East-West cards where the contract
will be successful. He will then play the hand under the assumption the
cards are placed in that lucky fashion.
On the illustrated hand, declarer is
in 2 NT after North invited him to go to game. Since South opened with a
minimum hand for a 1 NT bid, and North had a minimum hand for an
invitation, declarer found himself in a difficult 2 NT contract.
The defense won the first 4 tricks
by running the spade suit. On the fourth round of spades a heart was
discarded from both North and East, and a diamond from South. West led a
club on the fifth trick. Declarer had to decide where to win the club, and
how to play the diamond suit.
Since declarer had already lost 4
tricks it was necessary to play diamonds in such a way as to not lose more
than one diamond. Declarer must now be an optimist and envision a
distribution of the East-West diamonds where this is possible. His only
hope is to assume that one defender has specifically ace-doubleton and
that he can properly guess which defender that is.
On this hand declarer does not have
to guess which defender has the ace of diamonds. Since during the bidding
West elected to pass with the ace, king, and queen of spades, it is clear
East was dealt the diamond ace. Therefore, declarer must be an optimist
and assume East has the ace-doubleton. Based on this assumption, declarer
should win the club trick with the king in dummy in order to play the
diamond 3 from North. After East correctly plays the 9, declarer wins this
trick with the queen. Then declarer can play the diamond 4 from his hand
and the diamond 5 from dummy, while praying that East will have to play
the ace on this trick. When the diamond ace hits the table a relieved,
smiling, and, unfortunately, probably gloating declarer can claim the rest
of the tricks. Declarer needed good luck, good technique, and an
optimistic approach in order to succeed in this 2 NT contract.
Since on this hand South was certain
East held the diamond ace, the probability of finding East with
ace-doubleton was 27%. If declarer had to guess which defender held the
diamond ace and whom to play for ace-doubleton, the probability of success
would be only 13%. At times declarer must be an optimist and assume it is
the actual situation.
This is an example of bridge
offering a lesson in life. When one finds oneself in a difficult
situation, one must be optimist and envision a positive outcome.
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