The World of Music According to Starker [Hardcover]

Janos Starker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

"Few cello players currently before the public have enjoyed the kind of international success in all conceivable musical career roles as Janos Starker. In his lifetime, Starker has gained renown as teacher, soloist and orchestra player." —Chicago Tribune

"Starker...remains one of the wonders of the musical world, an artist who finds innumerable ways to shape and color lines." —Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Starker is not just a cellist. He is widely recognized as one of the finest of the last 50 years." —Indianapolis Star

"Starker emerges here as the rare artist who respects the past but lives enthusiastically in the present... Essential. All readers; all levels." —Choice

Janos Starker is universally acknowledged as one of the world's great musicians. Known for a flawless technique paired with expressive playing and interpretation, the Hungarian-born cellist is arguably also the premier teacher of his instrument in our time. String players flock to his masterclasses from all over the world, and cellists compete vigorously to study under him at the Indiana University School of Music. More than the consummate musician, however, Starker is also a raconteur and writer, occasionally quirky and droll, always witty and with a pointed opinion to share.

The World of Music According to Starker is a colorful autobiography spanning the author's fascinating life. From his early musical education during World War II in Hungary, to his world tours, educational philosophy, and recording and pedagogical legacy, Starker takes the reader on a riveting, entertaining, and informative journey. Included in the book are several of Starker's short stories and commentaries on world events, academia, and—of course—music that have appeared in newspapers, music periodicals, and trade magazines.

Also includes a bonus CD recording of Starker's last public recital, which is unavailable commercially and includes his only recording of the Strauss Sonata in F, Opus 6.

Included on the CD:
Richard Strauss, Sonata in F, Opus 6
Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata in C major, Opus 102 no. 1
Johannes Brahms, Sonata in E minor, Opus 38
Franz Schubert, Sonatina in D, Opus 137 no. 1 (Starker edition)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

Starker, one of the most technically pristine cellists of the past half century, has had a dramatic life. In wartime Budapest, his Jewish family struggled to avoid displacement and imprisonment; two brothers were almost certainly shot, and Starker himself worked in a labor camp. After the war, he formed part of an extraordinary diaspora of musicians leaving Hungary—he recalls that many of them participated in a 1946 competition in Geneva because it got one a visa—and, arriving in America, slotted his early solo career around stints as an orchestral musician. (In the pit at the Met, he would work forty-eight-hour weeks, and the conductor moved his seat to stop him ogling the women onstage.) Starker includes stories about such apparently unpromising subjects as the cellos and bows he has used through his career and improvements he designed for the instrument's bridge, which demonstrate the cellist's obsessive love of his craft.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From Booklist

Master cellist Starker was born in Budapest in 1924. His mother supported his early musical training, and in 1938 he made his debut with orchestra. His Jewish heritage, however, marked him as an alien. When the Russians came to Hungary, he went to Romania and Austria to play, returning to be principal cellist of the Budapest Philharmonic. In 1948, he came to the U.S. as the Dallas Symphony's principal cellist. He subsequently spent four years with the Metropolitan Opera and followed its musical director, Fritz Reiner, to Chicago. Five years after that, he joined the Indiana University faculty, EMI began to record him, and he began a worldwide solo career in earnest. Between narrative sections, Starker comments on music, world cultures, and the future; in sidebars he discusses the cellos he owns, traveling in Spain, and Bobby Knight's motivational capabilities. Starker presents his life and comments concisely in what must be reckoned the self-portrait of a great musician and a lover of his fellow people whose life constitutes an example worthy of emulation. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press; First Edition edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253344522
• ISBN-13: 978-0253344526
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unfurling the World of Music According to Starker, January 30, 2007

By 

Mister Quickly "Amazon epicurean" (Victoria, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World of Music According to Starker (Hardcover)

Written without the technical competence his fingers are usually spirited with, this is still an intriguing book. Janos Starker barely disguises that he composed this book while bathing. The narrative of his life is interrupted several times with present tense statements concerning his hygiene at the time of writing. "I am flecked with pheasant grease as I compose these words" he writes. "But back to my time in Budapest, or I shall return to it soon. Presently I am bathing, removing these irascible grease spots. I remove the grease with a coarse loofah, then I write a sentence. This is the slow fugue of Janos Starker's life. A sinuous musk snakes from my armpits. The odor, she returns my thoughts to the pungency of Lady Hungary." A strange journey through the life of the notable cellist, his mind, and what is on his mind as he bathes.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An odd object, perhaps, but a beautiful one, April 9, 2006

By 

David A. Baer (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The World of Music According to Starker (Hardcover)

In terms of quality of writing, the famous cellist might have stuck to his principal art rather than venturing into autobiography. But then we would be without this odd little gem of self-reflection. That would be a pity.

Starker makes no bones about the fact that he writes from the twilight of his life. That is part of this book's occasionally coarse charm. Like many professional musicians, Starker comes across as something of a crotchety fellow, not only determined to maintain the high artistic standard he early established for himself, but dismissive of those who prove less demanding of themselves.

It could hardly been foreseen that this Hungarian-born Jewish child prodigy, denied a passport from the land of his birth, would play in the great halls of Europe and America-and a number of less great ones far from those cultural centers-and then settle in Bloomington, Indiana with all the fierce loyalty to his midwestern university town that is typical of the emigr?-by-choice. There he became the revered teacher of a cellist friend of my wife's and so found his way onto my reading list.

The World of Music According to Starker reveals the stitchery side of the unglamorous practice room and backstage world that appears to concert-goers as a well-ordered tapestry. Starker's loyalty to his friends-for-life is endearing, as is his enduring respect for the consistently great artists like the idiosyncratic Fritz Reiner. Indeed, consistency is one of Starker's most-admired virtues and in eyes the truest measure of artistry.

Starker occasionally wishes aloud that his contribution might have enriched the lives of others. Indeed.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Starker: a great musician and writer., August 8, 2005

By 

J. H. Hornsby "John H H" (France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The World of Music According to Starker (Hardcover)

This autobiography proved immensely enjoyable for its revelations about the world of music, all the more so coming from a musician originating from a country which knew so much tragedy in the 20th century. Janos Starker's wit and wisdom shines throughout the book and he really knows how to write - he is much more than a mere raconteur intent on self-advertisement. I would definitely recommend this to any music-lover or indeed to anyone with a curious turn of mind - such a person would start off with something in common with maestro Starker.