It's About Time; Janos Starker

music . .

. . . . Music has always been a mainstay of the human experience. Happily, one of the world's foremost musicians is with us this evening. He is Janos Stacher and his instrument is the cello. Mr. Stacher, you've been quoted as saying that there's no mystery to art. The only mystery is why some people can do it and some people cannot. Have you discovered the root of your own mystery and why you have excelled so with the cello? Well, my own mystery is plainly luck. Luck? That I've received from higher powers, some talent.

And I was born to parents who cared about music and who wanted their children to become musicians. Because he considered it as a high form of human existence and it's a great achievement to play music or succeed or fully with it. And therefore, at the early age, he led me to music. At a very early age, wasn't he? I was six years old when I first started the cello. And they made a strong point of giving the best possibilities for studying, the best teachers, and they helped in any way they could. And it also meant that my mother insisted that I practice. And later on I was also lucky to have found the circumstances which contributed to as good an education as possible. Not a regular kind of education, mind you, but education. The whole business about teachers and children, that's a very important thing for many people. And I suppose around the world they find a child who may or may not have talent and they take them to a music teacher. Do you encourage young children having musical instruction?

I encourage, maximally, all parents to induce their children to study music and help them and force them in even at certain stages. Not necessarily with the idea that they become musicians, but to expose them to music and enrich their lives thereby. The thousands and thousands of people who study music, they don't necessarily study with the hope or with the chance of becoming professionals. But these are the people who are going to buy the tickets for the concerts. It's a self-serving idea that the more people study music, the more people have a chance to understand it. Some but more, therefore I have a better chance to have audiences. Musically literate people have a wider spectrum of life from which to experience, too. It's not necessarily self-serving. Since you spoke about quotations from me, I don't necessarily like to quote myself, but I think I have been heard to state that I don't consider that music is the kind of essential for all people as it is for me. For me, it is just like eating and sleeping and love or whatnot.

I cannot live without music. I don't expect that the rest of mankind feels the same way. But on the other hand, it's an enriching experience and whoever enjoys music has a much richer life than those who do not. You really had music at the center of your whole life since you were a very, very young child. In fact, you were known to have been a child prodigy. You just didn't simply practice when you were a little boy. You were performing by the time you were 11 or 12. I was a child prodigy except I was not an exploited child prodigy, which means my parents luckily did not want to become rich or famous through me at an early age. And therefore I wasn't exploited. But I was performing already at the age of 8, 9, 10, 11 and so on. Does that affect one's life? It does, certainly, it depends in what way, whether it makes a child into a mechanic dull kind of thing, who is pushed on stage and performs on a push button manner. For me, it's implemented. I enjoyed the success, obviously, but I think at the other early age I felt that being gifted and being given the chance to perform successfully means a great deal of responsibility.

And I was 8 years old. I started teaching and at the time when I was 14 years old, I had 5, 6 students and I was performing professionally and playing in orchestras and so on. So it was not the type of child prodigy existence that you are familiar with. It's implemented. I performed successfully at an early age. Was there a time when you did not perform? Well, the war interfered with my performances, so for one whole year I didn't touch the cell. But that was about the only time in certain political situations during the war in Hungary prevented me from regular concertizing or something. That's what I could not leave the country until after the war passed Hungary, but except for that one year. And then there was a certain amount of time, what I call as my dark period after the war came a stretch, but I couldn't perform because of the nervous tension most likely of the war affected me. And that's when I decided to spend the great number of years in various orchestras and I came to the United States and acted as a professional musician in the Metropolitan Opera in Chicago Symphony and Dallas Symphony.

So I did not concertize in the regular sense for 8 years. Was there a process of study going on there as well as being part of an orchestra? Well, I have pursued my studies in order to reprepare myself for the life that I contemplated from early childhood and which I interrupted purposely and with a very clear cut view that I'm going to spend so many years in the orchestras, learn everything about music and teach in the mean time and find out all the aspects that prevent people who supposedly are talented and gifted and are child prodigies to function successfully later on. Well, that leads to the next and perhaps obvious question that there are many, many young people who are not children, but in their late teens and early twenties who come to the flush of success and then within 10 years you hear nothing more of them. Well, that was exactly the reason why I went into that stretch of my life to try to find out as much about the instrument playing and music making and the psychological aspect that goes into concertizing and musicians' life. So as to avoid the pitfalls and...

What did you decide the pitfalls were? Well, primarily about what I'm always speaking in my class is that what happens that these young children are led into instrument playing or music making in a way like the birds saying on the tree that they are very gifted and they start playing not knowing what they do and one day if they intellect to some unfortunate coincidence develops the point that it may ask a question that what happens if I don't get from one note to another. So then they collapse unless they find the answer. That is what happens to the well-known medical miracle situation that the person who could cut and operate eyes and so on without knowing what he does and that he was enlightened of the dangers and he stopped. Well, once a young person discovers the dangers and the problems involve the instrumental playing. Then in that moment unless somebody explains it to him or he finds the answers he's incapable of continuing. Is that how you approach your students in terms of technique?

Well, when the question is asked in terms of technique, technique meaning simply to learn the skills that allows one to express oneself through an instrument through the masterpieces. So the technique simply means the road to the ability to express oneself without the hindrance of mechanical difficulties. So in that sense, yes, I approach it to try to enlighten them about what are the difficulties, what are the problems which are not their personal problems alone but most everybody's and what are the various solutions to these problems. And there are indeed a variety of solutions to each of these problems. There are many varieties. Thank goodness there are many varieties because the same piece, the same bit of piano concert was played by hundreds of pianists of whom maybe dozens are outstanding Marvel superparties. They all play differently so they must be logically deducted that there are various solutions because we like, when Toscani conducts a bit of symphony and well-freed sriner conducts it or karaoke and all the others, there's still a great bit of symphonies. So which means there are very solutions and they all approach the subject differently. So which means that the idea is not for a teacher to tell the students to play the way I do because that happens to be working from me.

I have arms of such length, I have the brain of such size or such type of training went into developing my entirety toward music so I cannot expect that other people approach music the same way. So I try to enlighten them that this is the problem, we find it and these are the various ways of finding your own solutions. That's a very intellectual approach to music and I assume that... I call it pseudo-scientific in some sense. What's the line between interpretation and technique then? Where do you cut between skill and interpretation? There is no, the ground is simply that technique leads to the liberty of finding your interpretative solutions or expressing yourself. Without technique you can't express yourself and everything but that certain quote that you mentioned that there is no mystery that refers to the fact that if somebody plays a given piece or a given theme or whatever. Take as an example, if somebody plays it differently from another and one performance affects you and the other one doesn't, it can be measured and defined that what actually happened.

A sound is either longer or shorter or louder or softer. The time between notes is definable. The mystery is why someone chooses that solution, what leads him to choose that, and why some person have the ability or the talent to arrive with a solution and with a choice that affects the public and that serves art in some sense. That's the mystery, but what actually happens is definable, which means if I play something, let's say very beautifully, you see, it was beautiful. What happened? I played certain things in a certain order, notes which constitute that phrases and phrases constitute the movement or a theme or whatnot. But it's definable actually what I've done. It's not necessary for the listener to understand exactly what I've done, but the professional musician supposed to know so as to be able to recreate it at will. And this is the issue behind this mystery definition that all I'm talking about usually is the professional's job is.

The professional concept artist is required to perform at a given time, and that time is chosen sometime three years in advance. I'm sitting here and there are no three years from now I will play at St. Australia. On such and such night and the program you'll eventually be sent in, it's some instances I even know what the program will be. It's very unlikely that that particular evening the chosen program will be the type of music that I will really feel desperate that I want to play the piece of music on the other and I signed the contract. I have to get there and regardless whether the plane ride was bad or good. I still have to perform and regardless whether maybe the conductor of that particular concept is not a favorite of mine or the orchestra. Obo player had a difficult night and it's going to miss notes. I still have to perform as well as it's expected from somebody in that situation. So therefore, unless I know as a professional how to recreate the maximum of what I'm prepared to do under good circumstances, I won't be able to stay there where I am and I won't be recalled to perform again. So this is where the professionals are separated from great artist, great musicians and dilatants.

The fact that if somebody cannot do that, it doesn't mean that the person is not a great artist. The person can be a great artist except he's not a great performing artist and this is the distinction that very few people are aware of. The fact that somebody succeeds in being so to speak in the international musical limelight that he gets the high fees for the concerts and the number of concerts are the envy of all his colleagues and the envy of all the young ones who aim for it and imagine that great career supposed to be. It simply means that that person is a professional concert performer. In some instances, very successful, great concert performers are not truly great artists. How do you think the great artist is something which has different objectives than performing at? Performing artists in some sense and entertainment form. Somebody goes to a concert by the ticket he wants to have a lovely evening. And that artist who is on stage supposed to give that person rudely said his money's worth.

That is not what art is truly all about. It's a lovely coincidence if that evening's entertainment is given with the means and the tools that great art truly allows us to do. But it means, for instance, that there are certain theatricals involved. You know, a lot of people go to concerts because they like the light, they like the man sitting there in an elegant dress and so on. And throwing his head left and right some instances or making commotions with his instrument or with the piano or with the guitar or whatever. And that gives the entertainment. The ideal thing is that the conductor, no matter what, he does still, Beethoven's music and message should come through. And that part of true art usually takes place in rehearsal rooms and in one's own studio. And it also formulates one views and expressive ideas through the masterpieces. The dress is simply a lucky coincidence that in order to succeed in the international concert field, you have to have, for instance, about all a very strong stomach. Do you have that strong stomach?

I have a very sensitive stomach, but obviously a very strong one because I play even if I have 102 fever or stomach poisoning, which I've done many times in my life. For instance, there are people who arrive to a new continent and they serve that evening dinner. They cannot perform because they are not accustomed to the food. They cannot adjust to the jet lag. They cannot be accustomed to the daily change of beds and mattresses and whatnot. All these contributes to success or lack of success. I have very, very great artist friends who could never succeed through the international field because they could not take these beating in some sense. But it is required from a concert artist. That sounds like a very brutal kind of a life. You say glamorous, but the life doesn't sound glamorous. It is about as brutal as it can get. But obviously, don't for a second at any time accept when an artist, a concert artist, a successful concert artist, seemingly complains about the brutal elements involved in his life. Because all it needs to say, no, all it needs to call the management, say, don't pick me. Which means that a concert artist says that how brutal it is this whole thing.

It's bragging in some sense that I am so successful that I have to take all this beating. A concert life is brutal, it is difficult, it's very hard, but that's what we prepared ourselves for and that's what we want. Is the teaching part of your life as compelling as the performance? That's certainly another important part of my life. Since it's more compelling than I think I've also stated many times in my life that I find far more significant the activities of a pedagogued and a concert artist. Because no matter how successful you are, a concert still is an evening entertainment, which the people delightedly applaud at the end and stand and ovation come at the end. It's still a passing sort of a thing, while education, if you are succeeding in giving to your students something that they carry for a lifetime and which they may even carry through other generations as they becoming teachers, I find the most important satisfaction in that aspect that what I believe very strongly in may be carried on through generations. I called it my historic hang-up.

You teach in a variety of ways, you have individual students, you have master classes, you have string seminars. Do they vary, are you trying to accomplish different things as you approach the different groups? Very different, you said your teaching profession has various aspects, for instance, that in the university teaching situation alone, great number of students come and go and very few of them will make a great concert career, most of them will be essential members and vital members of the musical community, so they will play in orchestras and they will teach, they play chamber music. That means that without these people there is no musical life. But when they come to study, you have to evaluate at what are their chances, in which direction to gear them. As individuals go, some of them who do give the promise of becoming a performing artist, obviously we approach the literature differently and the understanding of music in general differently, and to elaborate far more on the concert performing art aspect than anything else. In the meantime, I insist that everyone should, regardless of what turn their lives will take, learn as much about the professional aspect of instrumental playing,

the skill part as music making and all kinds of music and all epochs and so on. Sometimes the time is limited, but I'm much more concerned about those who will be teachers than anybody else, because the really talented and the gifted ones will find their answers and will be truly, if they are as gifted as they promise to be, then they will get there. So actually what I'm doing for them is simply giving them shortcuts. Now, for a concert artist's teacher, it's less important to shine through their students than for those who only live their lives as pedagogues, because for them it's important to be hailed as great teachers. And as I'm concerned, I have far more interested in those maybe nameless players all over the country who have maybe succeeded living a little easier life, for a better life and more satisfying life, because of what they've learned, and then the ones who go out on stage and be right up here as a student of mine, I'm not particularly interested in that one.

You're very interested in the dynamics of the cello itself, the instrument itself seems to hold some fascination for you. What is the starker bridge and how did you come to put that together? Pretty obvious, you see that as a cellist I'm fascinated by my instrument, but the starker bridge is in some sense, almost a childish kind of invention in some sense. And on the other hand, it has significant advantages for the string players, it's not just for the cello, it's for all string instruments. It's for violin, viola, bass and cello, and then the thousands of them being used all over the world. It's simply based on a sort of, again, pseudo-scientific theory, which has been proven to be true afterwards without my knowledge and by scientific measurements. I drilled conical shaped holes in the legs of the bridge, and for those who are not too familiar with the instrument, that's the thing across which the strings lie. And the idea was that the cello sound is always criticized for not being as a volume as strong as the others.

Which is not a volume question, except that because of its range, tone or range usually the orchestra accompaniment is in the same range, so therefore it doesn't stand out as much as the piano stands out or the flute or the clarinet or the violin, especially. But it's a lifelong suffering for all cellists, they're always criticized. We couldn't hear the cello, we couldn't hear the cello. So every cellist is usually trying to figure out ways of how to increase the sound of the cello. That was basically the idea, which it did not completely fulfill because it did not increase the sound of the instrument as much as through some of the publicity people were inclined to believe. But it does, that it makes the instrument's response faster, so it's easier to play on it. So I'm basically a lazy person, so I try to find some ways of how to play the instrument as well with less effort as possible. What about the repertoire for the cello? It is said to be somewhat more limited than for other stringed instruments, in that the technique changed. That's a frequent question, it's not limited, you see, the problem is the way I explained it usually, that while the violin repertoire already reached its almost maximal height with paganini, the cello only reached its technical potential with gazelles.

And that means almost a hundred years time lag, during which time the 19th century masterpieces were written. And that also means that the time when Mozart and Beethoven were writing, they wrote very immediately for the cello. And plus all the great composers of our time or age or our world, were instrumentalists themselves and they wrote for their own instruments. And then of course the symphonies and the operas and string quartets and so on, three music works. Beethoven wrote primarily for the piano and for the symphony orchestra. So which means that when the people here compose the associate instruments with it, or certain type of music. And there are no composers between people associate the cello, because they have a no great cellist composer truly.

It's only one name that was a creative artist, was significant, that was Bokarini and very few people are familiar with the name of Bokarini. Unless the Bokarini manually went into sort of at one time in the public consciousness. But unfortunately all the concertos and all the pieces that we are playing, they are not as popular through the composer's name and through the association with the cello. Usually people think of the cello when they hear the swan of sensile or something. That is truly the problem. We have a great literature, I mean great number of pieces to be performed. And if I think that in last season alone and the season previously, I performed twenty to twenty three different works with orchestra and dozens and dozens of sonatas and the number of dozens of other pieces and boxweeds and so on. It's just the unfortunate part of it is that we do not have the truly great masterpieces like the Brahms Violin Concerto and Bit of Violin Concerto and the Prokofiev Concertos, Bato Concertos and all the Mozart Concertos and so on. But we do have enough pieces to keep us busy for a lifetime and a lot of pieces are being written right now and have been written.

We have enough to play except that the conductors do not like to schedule sometimes lalo concerto because lalo is not their favorite composers and so on and a number of other pieces. Is the temptation for you to compose? It's not in form of a temptation, I did study composition and I did write certain things but I don't find that I'm particularly gifted as a composer so I don't want to suffer playing my own pieces which I don't consider good. And I don't know how the people suffer through it like my creative instincts are expressed elsewhere. What about conductors? Conductors in you have in your press at least a rather varied history. How does one approach in the vast international world of music? All of these different personalities and certainly I would think a conductor for you would present some of the most difficult problems. How does one resolve the very real personal differences one may have about the music?

The personal differences are resolved by not playing the conductor but the fact is that one is booked to play certain concerts and after a certain number of years in the concert field you find your old friends and you play with them. And there are some marvelous conductors, marvelous musicians and not so good as collaborators. I don't like over the companies but let's use that word, the companies. Some people are marvelous companies and not so great conductors and so on, not so great musicians. But music as in anything else, standards are very broad and it's very hard to define that who is the top one and who is the second class and there are certain number of musicians in every field. Who are what I like to call the dual class, the outside of class conductors, who are the fact that they are your second, first, third, fifth doesn't matter. They are above that line where the definition simply comes out of the subjective feelings that some people like him, some people like somebody else. Below that dual class things are a lot of outstanding musicians and somewhat below and then there are second class and third class but this definition is purely subjective and everybody thinks differently.

Some conductors that I consider are fifth-trade, somebody else considers first-trade. The important thing is that one arrives to a town to play a concert which has been determined long before and the orchestra is supposed to have prepared it and if you are not prepared it then troubles starts or if the conductor did not learn the score then it troubles starts. And then the resolution is usually the top to the concert either you're part as friends or you're part as enemies and he's not going to invite you to his orchestra and I'm not going to be anxious to play with his orchestra with him. So these are things that happen to every musician and we all have dozens and dozens of after dinner stories to tell. Of course some of them is published sometimes and some of them isn't. Some of them shouldn't be published but this is the hazard of concertizing and the same way as there are certain halls one plays in and one shouldn't because it has better acoustics and some places one plays by the audience is the kind that one shouldn't play. But of course we always see that bad audience is always happens to other artists and never happen to us.

We have a lot of hardships coming our way in this sense and as a professional you still have to perform. You had a very happy relationship with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony. Was it an unusually fine symphony? Was it a good time and place and a musical accommodation between you and the orchestra and the conductor? Well previous to our composition we mentioned the fact I think that Chicago is the city to which I have my strongest family ties in the United States and the fact is that I spent five years in the Chicago Symphony under and prior to which I was with him for four years in the Metropolitan Opera and I consider him then and I consider him now as the greatest conductor of all times. It's a pretty tall statement. It has to be qualified by saying that I consider him the greatest conductor who acted with the baton in hand and knew more about music and more about the score than anybody else alive or dead I haven't met knew. It doesn't mean that his concerts were always the greatest excitement the greatest event in somebody's life who went in to read the concert.

But as far as what conducting means and should mean to everyone, nobody knew any more than he did and nobody did the better than he did. Some people mere more exciting concerts and more fascinated, more fascinating communications to the audiences than he did. The orchestra itself, I went a little bit around to state the fact that the only type of chambitism I ever developed in myself is in some sense toward the Chicago Symphony. I consider the Chicago Symphony as the unquestionably greatest orchestra in the world. It was at that time when done a little bit for a number of years and now it is again. And what do you base that? Well, the Chicago Symphony is the kind of orchestra that plays on a standard regardless who conducts it, which means it's an instrument is almost infallible. And if somebody conducts it on a higher level, they will play on a higher level.

But the level they play all the time is always high. Do you have time in your not deadly series life for things other than this brutal international touring? Do you have time to be a person? First of all, enjoy my wife's cooking and all the great restaurants in the world and I enjoy the in Bloomington possible six o'clock cocktails. And I also enjoy ping pong playing and playing pool and jumping into the pool and swimming and so on. Whenever I have a chance, of course I read a great deal and I write a great deal and that's my most important recreation that I write. Not music, that's what I was referring to the fact that I don't compose, but I write about music and about other things. And irrespective of the fact that my accent and all the grammatical errors I make are still and fairly successful with my writings because my wife corrects my English. Well, thank you very much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. I'm sure that you've made a lot of new friends as well as people who have admired you before.

It's been a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.