Isaac Stern, a concert, and a critic’s botched review

One of the 20th century’s most celebrated and influential musicians, violinist Isaac Stern performed on our stage more than a dozen times over 50 years, from his first concert in 1943 to his last in 1994. On a May evening in 1979 – just a month before his historic, groundbreaking trip to China – Stern performed an evening of chamber music in Kaufmann Concert Hall. The concert was to open with a solo violin performance, which Stern originally planned to be Bach’s B-Minor Partita. A few days before the concert, he decided to open, instead, with Bach’s Chaconne.

The program books for the concert had already been produced – designed, amazingly, by Avery Fisher, who had worked as a book designer before he went on to revolutionize audio design. An insert was printed so the programming change wouldn’t need to be announced from the stage. But the insert didn’t make it into all of the program books – including that of a very prominent New York City music critic in attendance.

The next day’s review spoke glowingly about Stern’s performance of the Partita – going into great detail about how wonderfully and “seamlessly” Stern had connected the work’s eight individual movements. (The Chaconne is one long, continuous piece!). “Isaac found the review hilarious, and laughed hard at the blunder,” says violist Jaime Laredo, who also performed on the program that night. “But he never had the heart to correct the critic.”