Guarneri Quartet
The Guarneri Quartet was an American string quartet founded in 1964 at the Marlboro Music School and Festival. It was admired for its rich, warm, complex tone and its bold, dramatic interpretations of the quartet literature, with a particular affinity for the works of Beethoven and Bartók. Through teaching at Harpur College (which became Binghamton University), University of Maryland, Curtis Institute of Music, and at Marlboro, the Guarneri players helped nurture interest in quartet playing for a generation of young musicians. The group's extensive touring and recording activities, coupled with its outreach efforts to engage audiences, contributed to the rapid growth in the popularity of chamber music during the 1970s and 1980s. The quartet is notable for its longevity: the group performed for 45 years with only one personnel change, when cellist David Soyer retired in 2001 and was replaced by his student Peter Wiley. The Guarneri Quartet disbanded in 2009.
Instruments[edit]
Despite the group's name, only one instrument made by the celebrated Guarneri family of Cremona was played for any significant time by a member of the quartet: for many years David Soyer used an Andrea Guarneri cello made in 1669. He later switched to a Gagliano cello made in Naples in 1778. After trying several violins (including a Guarneri), Steinhardt settled on a Cremona instrument made by Lorenzo Storioni in the late 18th century. Dalley plays a French violin made in 1810 by Nicholas Lupot. In the quartet's early years Tree played a viola (patterned after Andrea Guarneri's "Conte Vitale") made by Harvey Fairbanks, a luthier from Binghamton, New York.[17] Later, his primary instrument became a 1750 viola made by Dominicus Busan of Venice; he also plays a modern instrument made by Hiroshi Iizuka. Wiley plays a cello made around 1700 by Matteo Goffriller of Venice.[18][19]
At one point in the mid-1990s the quartet was offered the extended loan of a set of four rare Stradivarius instruments owned by the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. After considering the offer, the Guarneri musicians declined, preferring to play the instruments each had chosen for himself. Steinhardt has compared the task of finding a violin well matched to a performer's style to that of finding a spouse, and he adds, "After much trial and error, each of us has found what could aptly be called his musical soul mate."[20]
History and activities[edit]
Steinhardt, Dalley, Tree and Soyer coalesced into the Guarneri Quartet at the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro VT, where all of them spent summers during the early 1960s. During the summers of 1962 and 1963, the four played chamber music together in various permutations, and with encouragement from Festival director Rudolf Serkin and from Alexander Schneider (second violinist of the Budapest String Quartet) the new quartet was launched on 20 July 1964 with a concert at Nantucket, Massachusetts.[21] The name Guarneri was suggested by Boris Kroyt (violist of the Budapest String Quartet), who had played with a short-lived group of that name in Germany before World War II.[22]
In the fall of 1964, the quartet began a four-year residency at Harpur College (now known as Binghamton University) in Binghamton, New York, where they taught advanced students, held a series of open rehearsals, and played 15 public concerts per year. Steinardt relates that the group found the situation attractive because Binghamton was within driving distance of their base in New York City, and it would provide an opportunity to rapidly build a repertoire, gain performing experience, and develop working relationships among themselves.[23]
The Guarneri's New York City debut took place on 28 February 1965 at the New School for Social Research as part of a concert series arranged by Alexander Schneider. The enthusiastic audience included Fritz Steinway, of the concert management firm Judson, O’Neill, Beall and Steinway (which would shortly become the group's manager) and Max Wilcox, a record producer for RCA Victor, who quickly secured a recording contract for the Guarneri.[24] Soon afterward, the group replaced the retiring Budapest String Quartet in a series of concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a series that extended across the Guarneri's lifespan, ending only when the quartet disbanded in 2009.[25] They appeared at the Mostly Mozart Festival beginning in 1966, and an ongoing series at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall began in 1975. Other frequent New York venues included the Frick Collection, the 92nd Street Y, Rockefeller University and Washington Irving High School.[26]
The Guarneri began touring almost immediately, with a concert in Cleveland on 20 April 1965. In the summer of that year they embarked upon their first European tour, performing in Geneva, Basel, Amsterdam, Cologne, and at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.[27] As the quartet's reputation grew, both domestic and international tours became a way of life – often a grueling one.[C] In the early years they played as many as 130 concerts per year, although by the 1980s they were attempting – not always successfully – to limit their appearances to 100 per year.[30]
While the members of the quartet unanimously and emphatically preferred live performances to studio recordings,[31] they were, from the beginning, prolific recording artists. Their first session for RCA Victor took place in June 1965, and included quartets by Mozart, Dvořák and Mendelssohn.[D] By 1998 the Guarneri's catalog exceeded 50 LPs and CDs, including numerous recordings with pianist Arthur Rubenstein.[32] A partial discography can be found below.
The Guarneri musicians were active in teaching throughout the quartet's life. The affiliation with Harpur College continued until 1968, and in that year Steinhardt, Tree and Soyer were appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.[16] The members continued summer teaching at Marlboro, and in 1983, all four were appointed artists-in-residence at the University of Maryland at College Park, where they continued teaching up to and beyond the formal dissolution of the Guarneri Quartet in 2009.[33]
David Soyer, who was about a dozen years older than his colleagues, retired in 2001, and his place was taken by Peter Wiley, Soyer's former student. The transition was symbolized in a Carnegie Hall concert that year, in which the Guarneri performed the Beethoven Quartet in B-flat major, op. 130, with Soyer playing cello, followed by the String Quintet in C by Schubert, with Soyer and Wiley taking the two cello parts.[25] The incorporation of Wiley as cellist was a smooth one: "I don't feel like the new guy," he remarked. "I was a fan of the quartet since I was 11 years old…It was a very natural transition for me."[19] Dalley added "It was actually very good for us when Peter came in, even though the quartet field was new to him…I think I learned more from Peter than he learned from us. He had a lot of good ideas that were brand new to us."[19]
The members of the quartet decided to disband at the end of the 2009 season, with the intention of going out on a high note. Steinhardt remarked on the difficulty of their work, and added "We all had the sense that we're still playing pretty well, and it's better to quit at that point than to go past our time. We had surprisingly little discussion; everybody came to that conclusion rather quickly."[19] Critics agreed that it was time to bow out; while still praising the Guarneri's tone and style, they perceived increasing technical imperfections and a decrease in the intensity of the group's emotional connection with the music.[34][35] For some of the final concerts, David Soyer rejoined the Guarneri as the group once again played the Schubert Quintet in C, which is scored for two cellos.[25][34]
David Soyer died on 25 February 2010, and Michael Tree died on 30 March 2018. As of 2018, the other Guarneri musicians continue to teach and perform under their own names.[E]
The Guarneri String Quartet has made numerous recordings during its long history, including some of the most important works in the string quartet and chamber music literature. They recorded for Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Philips and Surroundedby Entertainment. All recordings are with David Soyer as cellist unless it is noted that the cellist is Peter Wiley.[67] A partial discography includes: