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| Janos Starker cellist July 5 1924 - April 28, 2013 |
He hailed from Budapest prior to WWII and the Nazis who killed his brothers. He was, in simple terms, incredibly gifted - born with the muse on his shoulder. From his picture, he appears somewhat "severe" and that is accurate in his professional demeanor. I saw him in Chicago a zillion years ago playing with the symphony there; perhaps one of the most magnificent orchestras in the history of the world. He portrayed very little emotion -passive almost - to the point that I often pictured him in some sort of dark, 1930s realism/fascist type of painting. Obviously he was anything but that but it was covered a bit by his silent manner broken only when talking about music.
I saw him give a master class in Stillwater, OK about 30 years ago. One of the players in my orchestra was a volunteer "red meat" to be a learner under his eye. He stopped her pretty quick, smiled, was gracious and then suggested they turn their attention to "making a sound out of each note", meaning that the notes didn't have the same sound all the way through but we kinda jagged; some parts louder, some nicer, some parts downright ugly. He wouldn't go on until she could play at least one note correctly.
I'm sure you have seen/heard actors and actress who do this - their diction, their way of pronouncing a word or sentence - effortless and clear. Others (e.g. Snookie, Kim, et all) sound like they have a mouthful of a disagreeable substance and can't figure out if they should spit it out first. Starker's cello sound had "diction". Every note was even and uniform. It was as if every note was a whole sentence perfectly spoken.
Starker died. Age 88. He lived a life of great clarity.