Robert Starer

January 8, 1924 to April 22, 2001

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This home page was written by Robert Starer before his death:

 

Welcome to my Web Site.  To begin with: a brief biography.  Longer, more detailed ones are available from a number of sources.  Included here is an autobiographical story called CONTINUO, which deals with my early years in Vienna and Jerusalem.

 

To help you locate one of my compositions I have prepared two lists of work: one by publisher and one by instrument.  (A complete list of works with the dates they were written can be found in the 2001 edition of Grove's Dictionary). 

 

On this web site recordings, books and articles are separate.  PhD. theses are not included.  Neither are reviews.  My feelings about listing reviews are that if you like my music, you don't need them and if you don't like it, they won't convince you.

 

I hope you find this information useful and I thank you for your interest.

    

Biography


ROBERT STARER was born in Vienna in 1924 and entered the State Academy of Music at the age of 13. Soon after Hitler's annexation of Austria, he went to Jerusalem and continued his studies at the Palestine Conservatoire. During World War II, he served with the Royal British Air Force. In 1947, he came to New York for post-graduate study at the  Juilliard School and also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1948. He became an American citizen in 1957. He has taught at Juilliard from 1949 to 1974 and at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1963 to 1991. He was named a Distinguished Professor in 1986. Among his honors are two Guggenheim Fellowships and grants from the National Endowment and the Ford Foundation. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994, awarded the Medal of Honor for Science and Art by the President of Austria in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate by the State University of New York in 1996 and a Presidential Citation by the National Federation of Music Clubs in 1997.

His stage works include three operas with libretti by Gail Godwin and several ballets for Martha Graham. His orchestral works have been performed by major orchestras here and abroad under such conductors as Mitropoulos, Bernstein, Steinberg, and Mehta. Interpreters of his music include Janos Starker, Jaime Laredo, Paula Robison and Leontyne Price. The recording of his Violin Concerto (Itzhak Perlman with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa) was nominated for a Grammy. Excerpts from his book CONTINUO: A Life in Music have appeared in the New Yorker, Musical America, and the London Times. In 1997 the Overlook Press published THE MUSIC TEACHER, his first work of fiction. The opening chapter was excerpted in The Keyboard Companion. CD recordings of his music are available from CRI, VOX, Albany Records, Transcontinental and MMC. 

 

From: Continuo: A Life in Music, Random House, New York, 1987:

"Nations go through stages just as human beings do; in essence there are only three such stages (not counting birth and death), the first being ascent and the vigor of youth; the second maturity and the height of power; the third decline and the diminishing of vital forces.

The Austria of my childhood was already past the third stage. The Jewish Palestine I knew in my teens had just begun its youthful ascent and was the most idealistic society I have even known. The British were just beyond their highest peak when I proudly wore their uniform. They fought valiantly, but while they did win the war, it cost them dearly.

The United States that I came to as a student in 1947, was young, pure and strong when I arrived. It had beaten evil and felt itself untainted by it.

Why all these observations? Mainly to see my own life in relation to that of societies I have been part of. It appears that I have swum against the stream; that I moved from an old, decaying civilization to a young, powerful one, having touched others in between.

How has all this affected me and my music? I have probably selected what suited me from all the cultures that have touched me, and rejected or ignored what was incompatible with my nature. In my music, I have been told, there are elements of Viennese sentiment, Jewish melisma, Near Eastern playfulness and American jazz. These elements must have been compatible with my nature to have become part of my style and musical personality. Other features of the cultures I have known did not become part of me. This has led me to believe that while our lives are shaped by events that others control, we do have the choice of accepting from the worlds around us only what can coexist with our essential self."

Nations go through stages just as human beings do; in essence there are only three such stages (not counting birth and death), the first being ascent and the vigor of youth; the second maturity and the height of power; the third decline and the diminishing of vital forces.

The Austria of my childhood was already past the third stage. The Jewish Palestine I knew in my teens had just begun its youthful ascent and was the most idealistic society I have even known. The British were just beyond their highest peak when I proudly wore their uniform. They fought valiantly, but while they did win the war, it cost them dearly.

The United States that I came to as a student in 1947, was young, pure and strong when I arrived. It had beaten evil and felt itself untainted by it.

Why all these observations? Mainly to see my own life in relation to that of societies I have been part of. It appears that I have swum against the stream; that I moved from an old, decaying civilization to a young, powerful one, having touched others in between.

How has all this affected me and my music? I have probably selected what suited me from all the cultures that have touched me, and rejected or ignored what was incompatible with my nature. In my music, I have been told, there are elements of Viennese sentiment, Jewish melisma, Near Eastern playfulness and American jazz. These elements must have been compatible with my nature to have become part of my style and musical personality. Other features of the cultures I have known did not become part of me. This has led me to believe that while our lives are shaped by events that others control, we do have the choice of accepting from the worlds around us only what can coexist with our essential self."

 

Contact:

Daniel Starer (son and executor)
59 West 85th St.
New York, NY 10024


email: danstarer@gmail.com

 

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