Isaac Stern, who will be 67 on July 21, is very much in the news these days as the guiding force behind New York City`s Carnegie Hall, recently restored for $57 million.
Some critics have sounded sour notes about the restoration, claiming the excellent acoustics of the old house have been diminished.
Stern disagrees.
”Tell them the old lady on 57th Street is flourishing, and people are flocking into concerts with great delight,” he says. ”She sounds wonderful, with the same burnished warmth of sound she has always had, but with more clarity. When visiting orchestras hit fortissimos, it is a heroic sound. When the Philadelphia Orchestra was there recently, their basses sounded like thunder out of China.”
Stern adds that he is ”enormously proud of what happened” at Carnegie Hall.
”We had two major goals: To preserve the outer shell of the hall for the next 100 years for New York and the world, and second, to keep the concert hall exactly as it was, except to clean it and return it to its original concept.
”There was extreme care taken in returning the 50 tons of plaster in the ceiling to its original state. The main floor has exactly the same kind of wood as was used previously, although I think it will take about a year for the wood to dry. The stage is the same, except brighter and newer.”
Part of the renovation included improving backstage facilities, and here, Stern is ”not satisfied.
”We changed facilities quite a bit, but we had no way to go, sideways or upwards. But in 2 1/2 years we will have use of adjacent space and then will have eight floors in which to provide a great deal of office, rehearsal and dressing room space.
”So while we are not satisfied backstage, we think we batted .982 in the hall`s improvement. In baseball, if you hit that kind of average, you could command the highest salary in the history of the game.”
According to Stern, people who complain that the new floor may have something to do with the alleged change in sound don`t realize ”this is the third floor change in the past 25 years. They just never noted the others. ” As for Stern`s playing these days, he says, ”I want to play less and enjoy it more. I`m down to under 80 performances annually, and I usually take off four or five months without any touring.
”In 1989, I`ll only be out about three months. I want to play where I want, with the people I want to play with.”
