CelloBello János Starker Remembrance Week: Janos Starker, Who Is, Was, and Always Will Be My Master

Starker with pianist Gyorgy Sebok – life-long friend and musical partner of Starker.

Many years ago, I was on a family trip to Israel. In a hotel in Beersheva, I was surprised to find Mr. Starker standing in the lobby together with the conductor of the Israel Sinfonietta. I greeted Mr. Starker………”Janos Starker, who is, was, and always will be my master.”

What has remained with me since my final lesson with Mr. Starker in August 1966 is his personal brilliance as a man and his deep patience and kindness. His way of being kind, which often meant an uncompromising honesty, was perhaps not for everyone. But what is more kind, in a teacher/student relationship, than taking a student seriously enough to share with them what you truly think, in the hope that these insights will help them move forward in their work?

I was only a bit more than an amateur when I came to Bloomington in summer 1965. I had dropped out of Harvard grad school the year before. I needed someone to tell me how to touch the instrument, how to practice, how to think in an organized way about the challenge of eventually learning to play well. He gave me all of this, lesson after lesson. The freedom of motion on which his cello playing was based, and the deep dignity of his music making and his feelings about music as an art, have always been the ideals to which I aspire and for which I look every day.

Mr. Starker never gave up on me despite the fact that progress came slowly. I still have the notes I took after every lesson. Step by step, muscle by muscle, gesture by gesture, etudes and exercises, and piece by piece, he helped me with explanations of how to use my mind and body in relation to the cello and to my daily practicing. He had a beautifully designed exercise for every obstacle I needed to overcome: I improved. Were it not for the one year I spent with him, I never could have learned to play on a high level and would never have had the one life which mattered to me and still does, the life of a serious musician.

Although the way I play and sound has of course changed since my study with him, all of the teaching I have done in my own life, at Oberlin, IU, Eastman, NEC, Boston University, and at many summer festivals and master classes worldwide, has ultimately been based on what I learned from him.

Mr. Starker’s mind was one of unusual depth, clarity, quickness and insight. He was a truly brilliant man and undoubtedly would have distinguished himself in many other fields had he chosen to do so.

I think of him every day with a deep respect, gratitude and affection. If I had to name the one person to whom I owe the fact that I have had the life I dreamed of having as a young person, it is Janos Starker.