The great cellist János Starker would have been 100 years-old today. Hard to make out what this commercial might actually be for, since he’s living quite large, enjoying some music (on vinyl), a cigarette, and what looks like a glass of scotch – interestingly at odds with his ascetic sartorial and decorative choices. Spoiler: the ad is for a stereo system.

That looks like a portrait of composer Zoltán Kodály on the wall. By coincidence, Kodály’s educational system of solfège hand signs plays an important part in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” which I only just posted about this morning. Starker knew Kodály, who was on the faculty while he was a student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.

Starker survived internment in a Nazi concentration camp (he was Jewish) to become one of the world’s most celebrated cellists. He served as principal with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and with the Chicago Symphony, and left his mark as an outstanding soloist and chamber musician. In all, he made over 150 recordings.

For over 50 years, he was on the faculty of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He died in 2013 at the age of 88. Not bad, considering he smoked 60 cigarettes a day and consumed copious amounts of scotch.

It’s doubtful American television would have aired a 90-second ad like this, even back in 1982.

Starker plays the third movement of Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello

Starker first played the sonata for the composer in 1939, at the age of 15. He did so again, shortly before Kodály’s death in 1967. Kodály told Starker, “If you correct the ritard in the third movement, it will be the Bible performance.” The cellist recorded the work four times, in 1948, 1950, 1956, and 1970.

François Truffaut lectures on Kodály hand signs in this scene from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”