Retirement

July 15, 2026

Approaching the age of eighty some years ago, the time seemed right to retire as a performer. Better to stop now than risk various types of rotten fruit being thrown at me.

 I was eight years old when I performed for the first time, in a student concert organized by my violin teacher. I played an eight-bar theme from both the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Brahms First Symphony. So nervous was I backstage that I dropped and shattered a glass of water given to me. But as I walked onstage my nerves vanished with the encouraging applause of parents and friends, and I played my best.

More than seventy years later I gave my last performances with dear friends and colleagues. We played the Dvořak Piano Quintet, and several weeks later the Brahms B Flat Major Sextet. At those moments I felt blessed to be a musician, and to have had such a meaningful career as soloist, orchestra musician, teacher, writer, and, above all, a member of the Guarneri String Quartet, which had performed for forty-five years on the world’s concert stages.

One performance differing from all the others still awaited me, however—Bela Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin, one of the most daunting and revered 20th-century works for the instrument. I had promised myself that before retiring I would learn and perform this remarkable piece. A few weeks later, after a mountain of challenge, I was able to play all four movements of the Bartók Sonata, not in a concert hall filled with people, but in my living room, empty except for Banksy, my dog. With the exhilarating experience of the sonata’s Chaconne and Fugue still ringing in my inner ear, I said goodbye to performing.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was indeed retired. Day after day the alarm clock didn’t wake me at an ungodly hour to let me know that a taxi would be taking me to the airport in an hour. There, after a quick coffee, I would board a plane to Des Moines, or Phoenix, or Baden Baden, or who knows where, stay in a Holiday Inn, or a Best Western, or a Sheraton, or who knows what, and play a concert that night. But not any more. Most mornings I was able to have a leisurely breakfast with my wife, Dorothea. And here I would like to thank the partners of peripatetic musicians who leave and return, leave and return. Not everyone can cope with a musician gone for as much as two or three weeks at a time, or home day and night for just as long.

An unexpected surprise did await me as retirement began. I no longer felt the necessity to play the violin regularly. Upcoming performances had always motivated me to practice seriously. With concerts no longer in my future, why should I even take the violin out of its case? At first, I questioned my lack of interest. The tender sound of a violin in my parents’ recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto had brought tears to my five-year-old eyes. The violin’s lure had led me to spend years mastering its thorny difficulties, to revel in the instrument’s rich repertoire, and to thrill with having it as my companion in performance. And yet, when I listen to the deeply moving Beethoven Concerto now, things have changed. Yes, I still love the violin, but I’ve come to realize I love music more.

So what do I do with my days in retirement? Santa Fe, while a relatively small city, is bursting with things to enjoy: an outstanding chamber-music series, a fine orchestra, a world-renowned opera company, art, film, dance, and, through it all, the coming together of Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo cultures. I go to concerts, listen to music at home, hang out with family and friends, write my monthly blog, and sometimes just sit on my terrace and meditate on the breathtaking views that seem to stretch endlessly into the New Mexico horizon.

I’m often asked whether I miss our Guarneri String Quartet and the wonderful career we’ve had performing some of the most heavenly music ever composed. We’ve had our day of prominence, for which I’m extremely grateful, but now it’s time for younger wonderful groups to shine with their individual gifts. What I do miss is the guys in our quartet, and the inevitable jokes as rehearsals begin, the fierce battles over whether a simple ritard serves the music well, but, above all, their artistry. Sometimes, when I’m coaching young string quartets I’ll hear an individual of the group play a certain passage and think, ah, you should have heard how John, or Michael, or David, or, later, Peter played it. I do dream about the quartet from time to time. The other night I showed up for a rehearsal and found to my consternation that I didn’t have the music we had planned to work on. “No problem,” I said to my colleagues. “My music is at home and I’ll be back in no more than twenty minutes.” First, I couldn’t find a taxi so I took the subway, which decided for the first and only time to bypass my stop. When I finally got home, our building’s elevator was out of order. Needless to say, I never made the rehearsal. 

After all these years, some habits of my former life stubbornly remain. Without warning I’ll stop in my tracks and think, “Oh my god, I forgot to practice today!” Then I have to talk to myself. “Steinhardt, you have no concerts anymore so you don’t have to practice.” And while traveling I’ll have these panic attacks when I can’t find my very valuable violin in an airport, on the plane, or in a restaurant. Again, I talk to myself. “Steinhardt, you no longer travel with your violin because you don’t have concerts anymore and your violin is safely at home. You are now a civilian.”

Recently, my eight-year-old grandson asked me to join him in violin duets for his class talent show. We played “Andantino” by Suzuki. The day of the show he had no musical suggestions but requested that we wear matching shirts, jeans, and orange shoes, the latter which I balked at. But never mind. We played well, the audience, mainly parents, clapped energetically, and both of us were very pleased. As I put my violin back in its case it occurred to me that for “Andantino’s” forty-five seconds in length I had come out of retirement. Did I enjoy playing with my grandson? Oh, yes. But after having performed literally thousands of concerts during my lifetime, did I miss the thrill of walking on stage, of making music, and of receiving the enthusiastic audience reception time and again?

Let me think about it.