Continuo, a life in music

In 1937, Robert Starer was enrolled in the State Academy of Music in Vienna, at thirteen one of the youngest students ever admitted. In 1938, after the German invasion of Austria, the child prodigy was expelled because he was a Jew. A few weeks later his parents wisely sent him to Palestine, where he survived for the next nine years by his musical wits, taking odd jobs accompanying singers, transcribing music, giving piano lessons and learning how to play the harp simply because the Jerusalem Symphony lacked a harpist. During the war Mr. Starer served in the British army, and in 1948 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a teacher at Juilliard and later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Today he is a well-known composer whose work has been performed and recorded by symphony orchestras throughout the world. He has also written for the Broadway musical theater, television and films, and has composed works for several dance companies. Continuo is divided into twelve chapters, each focusing on a particular period of the author's life or on a performer or musician with whom he has worked--among others, Martha Graham, William Steinberg, Herbert Ross and Itzhak Perlman. Astonishingly, Mr. Starer turns out to be as elegant a writer as he is a composer: clear, spare and vivid in his portrayal of characters and description of events. As a result, this memoir is a joy to read, whether the subject is music, personalities, triumphs and failures, audiences or memories of childhood [Publisher description].