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2024 marks the 100th anniversary of J\u00e1nos Starker<\/a>‘s birth, a legendary cellist who redefined the future of classical music. Fellow Hungarian cellist\u00a0Ildik\u00f3 Szab\u00f3 \u2013 who Starker dubbed \u2018an exceptionally gifted young cellist\u2019 when she was just 14 \u2013 spoke about her memories of the great musician.<\/strong>..<\/p> I first met J\u00e1nos Starker in Bloomington, in the corridor of Indiana University\u2019s round building<\/strong>. I was 14, attending the summer string academy on a scholarship. I didn\u2019t speak English\u00a0(my first foreign language was German), so encountering a living legend was both astonishing and oddly comforting because of our shared \u2018secret\u2019 language. Having been brought up in the David Popper tradition at the Liszt Academy, I likely practised on the same chairs as Starker.<\/p> I soon became a frequent guest in Studio 155, the only room without smoke detectors. I attended as many classes as possible and, thanks to Starker\u2019s generosity, received numerous lessons. He loved teaching in front of an audience, reminiscent of the\u00a0methods of the\u00a0old Liszt Academy\u00a0and that generation of artists,\u00a0like\u00a0Leo Weiner, later Gy\u00f6rgy Kurt\u00e1g<\/a><\/strong>, Ferenc Rados, etc. His acerbic humour and rigour were well-known, yet he ensured criticism was constructive, never demeaning. He was like a doctor with X-ray eyes, diagnosing and curing problems efficiently. I remember him as an elegant, generous gentleman who took his profession seriously, but not himself.<\/p>
J\u00e1nos Starker… ‘acerbic humour’, but ‘never demeaning’<\/h2>