Opposite page: The Juilliard String today, with (l to r) Smirnoff, Krosnick, Rhodes and Copes. Inset: In the late 1950s with Hillyer, Mann, Isidore Cohen and Claus Adam.

he Juilliard is arguably America’s best-known ensemble—and certainly one of the most admired. And although its current members are only in middle age, the quartet itself cannot escape the adjective “venerable.” Violinist founded the T group in 1946 with violist Raphael Hillyer, cellist Arthur Winograd and the late violinist Robert Koff. With Mann in the first violinist’s chair for an amazing fifty of the ensemble’s sixty-one years— and with remarkably few other personnel changes—the quartet has performed and recorded, taught aspiring chamber musicians, championed American com- posers, and introduced at least two generations of concertgoers to the European masterworks. In 1962—with Isidore Cohen as second violinist and Claus Adam as cellist—the Juilliard succeeded the legendary as ensemble-in-residence at the and went on to perform there often broadcasting live nationwide for 40 years. In recognition of its extraordinary contribution to the nation’s cultural life, the has been named the 2008 recipient of Chamber Music America’s Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, the organization’s highest honor. On January 6, 2008, founding members Mann, Winograd, and Hillyer will join Earl Carlyss ( II from 1966 to 1986) and the current quartet— violinists Joel Smirnoff and Ronald Copes, violist Samuel Rhodes, and cellist —to receive the award at CMA’s Thirtieth Anniversary National Conference in City. In honor of the occasion, Chamber Music magazine invited some of the ensemble’s colleagues, collaborators and former students to offer some views and some memories. Their contributions follow on these pages. AMERICA’S QUARTET AMERICA’S JUILLIARD 30 february 2008 31 With in 1991: Mann, Smirnoff, Krosnick and Rhodes

he Juilliard String Quartet was formed the Juilliard: even if they are preparing their very young Juilliard right after World War II, at a time when umpteenth Beethoven cycle and getting together String Quartet first Tall the established, important to go through, say, Op. 130 once again, they A appeared here at here were European in origin. Young men require themselves to take a new look. They the Library of Congress on (including violinist Robert Mann) had just don’t accept that what they did before is the December 10, 1948, per- come back from the armed services; many way it should be now. Consequently, rehearsals forming Mozart, Beethoven, were going back to school. America was a can be provocative, because you’re dealing and—what would be a spe- power, and America had a profile of not being with real issues. round 1960 I was commissioned by a cialty—Bartók. (Bartók’s hidebound by European traditions, of having a For them, every rehearsal and every string quartet in Ann Arbor, Michigan. fifth string quartet, a 1934 fresh way of looking at things. Those are is approached as though one’s life depends on AThe piece turned out to be my second commission from the clichés, I suppose; but the Juilliard did play in it. Not such a bad idea, but one that’s pretty String Quartet. I was rather slow in completing Library’s Coolidge Founda- a different style from everybody else. They difficult to maintain. Yet in various ways they the piece, and by the time I finished it and sent tion, was on that first pro- were the Young Turks, known as “these brash have maintained that that kind of intensity—in them the score, they determined that it would gram.) For Robert Mann, LEAN Americans,” as much for their style as for their their life, their teaching, in their own work. not fit into their pattern. In the meantime, they the performance was the nationality. They don’t take for granted the responsibility had engaged a student at Ann Arbor to copy realization of a dream. As

It’s not easy to characterize their way of and challenge of, for instance, maintaining a the individual parts. I then showed the score a teenager in Portland, C playing, but if I had to describe it, I’d certainly say high standard in every lesson they teach and to the Juilliard Quartet, and they said they Oregon, he had listened to they were bold, direct, incisive—less “civilized,” with every group they coach. The Juilliards are very much wanted to perform the piece. So we the Budapest String Quartet’s the Europeans might term it. Of course, you concerned that every aspect of their musical got the parts from Ann Arbor and then dis- Library of Congress radio can’t really make any single statement about life be of high quality; I know how much they covered that these parts were not very easy to broadcasts and had imag- their playing: over the decades their approach practice, separately and together. read, so we had to recopy a new set of parts. ined playing, as the older evolved; the personnel changed, and of course They don’t know what it means to be routine, The piece was finally presented by the quartet had done, on our individual people develop and mature. or to take a concert for granted—or, for that Juilliard Quartet many times on tour, and it Stradivari instruments. “THESE BRASH AMERICANS” “THESE BRASH You’d think that for any group of musicians matter, to take their standard for granted. I won quite a few awards. It all turned out quite Already in those early days who play a lot of concerts, at least some concerts think that makes them kind of special, and it successfully due to their remarkable efforts. It the Juilliard was known for would have to be routine. But the Juilliard String defines the Juilliard String Quartet. was also the first time they had played a quartet uncompromising musical Quartet doesn’t know how to do that. Some of mine. They then decided to learn and per- standards and a passion- musicians that you work with, when they’ve is Distinguished Professor of Music ate engagement with new form my first quartet. Then the LIBRARY THE NATION’S AT done the piece before, might say, “How did we at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. commissioned my third quartet, and it was also music. The group shared with do this? Didn’t we make a crescendo there? He chaired the faculty at Tanglewood (1985–1997), the Library’s producers— co-founded the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, performed by the Juilliard Quartet. This quartet Wasn’t this faster?” Well, that’s a normal, natural and received the Richard J. Bogomolny Award from had been previously played by another American and its visionary benefactor, human thing to do. But that’s the thing about CMA in 2002. string quartet who had felt it necessary to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge— devise a click track to enable them to stay a firm commitment to

GILBERT KALISH together as an ensemble, since this piece was American . From rather complicated rhythmically and extremely the beginning, the quartet ANNE M difficult, I think. But the Juilliard Quartet decided presented important Amer- that they would not use a click track, and I think ican works: by Babbitt, they were right in their decision, since using Barber, Cowell, Diamond, this device often produced a rather dreary continued on next page performance. This decision did require them THE SECOND STRING QUARTET STRING THE SECOND to rehearse an unbelievable number of hours to learn how to fit all the parts together. These quartets received the Pulitzer Prize on two occasions, all due to the efforts of the Juilliard Quartet and their beautiful perform- ances of my music.

Founders Mann, Renowned American Elliott Carter turned 99 in December 2007.

Hillyer, Winograd CARTER ELLIOTT and Koff, circa 1948 Mann, Carlyss, Krosnick, Rhodes, circa 1976

32 february 2008 33 he Juilliard String Quartet has been in and inviting us to share his enlightened point my life since I was a kid. They first entered of view, in a spirit of excitement and compan- Tmy consciousness through a series of ionship. I first played for Sam Rhodes around LPs that became iconic for me. I first came to the same time, and was later to become his understand and be inspired by the Ravel and graduate student at Juilliard. Sam’s gift to me Debussy String Quartets; the Dvorˇák Piano was the example of his artistic commitment, of Quintet with Rudolf Firkusny; the Schumann an eminent performer whose love of the music quartets; and later, the Bartók quartets. As I he plays is as fresh as a fifteen-year-old’s. got to be an older teenager, I evolved (with my In 1989 my student quartet had the oppor- quartet-head buddies) to the point of comparing tunity to coach with Robert Mann on Bartók’s recordings, often of the same works, by earlier Sixth Quartet, a session that we anticipated with and later Juilliard Quartets, and marveling at some trepidation, as Mann’s fierce reputation the differences in the group’s style and character, preceded him—after all, this was THE Robert the extent to which each personnel change Mann, who had been the Juilliard Quartet’s A STUDENT’S VIEW A STUDENT’S affected the quartet and caused it to grow, leader since our parents were small children. It adapt and unfold. A particular watershed, to turned out to be a magical experience, one my way of listening, was the moment Samuel shared by many student groups over the years, Rhodes became the quartet’s violist, where- where Mr. Mann, almost by just singing with us, upon the whole feel of a Juilliard performance, seemed to raise the bar of our performance. Rehearsing at the Imbrie, Laderman, Lehrdal, Martino, Perle, Fine Fund. And throughout this long and fruitful up until then taut, brilliant and electric, took Now I am with the Brentano Quartet; and LOC in the late Piston, Shapey, Thomson and many others. residency, they played the Library’s Strads in on a sensuous depth, extra layers of sound and since every one of us has been a private student 1980s And the performances spoke for composers more than 560 concerts. meaning, new interpretive dimensions. of a Juilliard quartet member, many people with authority, for the Juilliard knew some of the A few Library of Congress snapshots of the I was fully primed by the time I met my first wonder if we see ourselves as that quartet’s composers personally, and in some instances Juilliard: Seeing them as master teachers, Juilliard Quartet member in 1984—it was Joel “descendant.” In fact, there can be no genetic were able to play for—or even with—them. working with students at all levels, from inner-city Krosnick, who coached my group in Haydn’s code handed down from one group to another, The Juilliard began its remarkable 40-year youngsters, new to the stringed instruments, “Emperor” at Charles Castleman’s quartet pro- and I suspect we make a radically different tenure at the Library in 1962. In a series known to young professionals. Hearing remarkable gram. I also had Joel as a coach in two different interpretive impression in a performance. But for hosting renowned ensembles, the quartet solo or duo performances by each player— groups at Tanglewood in 1987, and he was an in countless ways, in their playing and in their was now the home team, playing as many as Sam Rhodes playing Hindemith sonatas; unforgettable inspiration of energy and insight. attitude, conscious and subliminal, these lov- MISHA AMORY 24 concerts in some seasons. The tremendously Joel Krosnick’s amazing retrospective He never spoke down from on high; the sense ing teachers have entered into our musical enthusiastic and sophisticated audience for the with Gil Kalish; Bobby and Nicholas Mann in a was that rather he was pulling us up to his level bloodstream. library’s chamber music series, who had long duo recital; wonderful violin-and-piano chamber followed the Budapest String Quartet, continued performances by Ron Copes and Christopher Misha Amory is the violist of the to queue up at dawn at Campbell’s Music Oldfather, Earl Carlyss and Ann Schein. Having and serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School. Store, where the coveted tickets went on sale the chance to hear Joel Smirnoff play jazz, or every Monday morning. co-host a radio program. Colleagues bravely The roster of the Juilliard’s guest artists was going out to the street to turn away a large, an all-star lineup and included (to mention overflow crowd for Bobby Mann’s last Washington only a few) Arthur Rubinstein, Aaron Copland, appearance with the quartet. Taking the Juilliard , Walter Trampler, and Claudio on a run-out tour to California to celebrate its Arrau. Like the members of the Budapest, the 40th anniversary. Juilliard players were avid baseball fans, in one We all send our warm congratulations to Samuel Rhodes with Juilliard student Dawn Smith, 2006 instance checking out World Series scores until past and present members of the Juilliard String only moments before one of the live broadcasts Quartet, a magnificent product of a rich European that took the their music to fans throughout heritage and a uniquely American musical the country. In concert and on the air, they environment. They have played an unforgettable continued to introduce new compositions, part in the history of great performances at including works written expressly for them, the nation’s library. such as ’s Ainsi la nuit, a Koussevitzky Foundation commission, and Anne McLean is senior producer for concerts and spe- ’s Horn Quintet, a 40th- cial projects at the Library of Congress Music Division anniversary commission of the Library’s Irving and a board member of Chamber Music America.

34 february 2008 35 With the Billy Taylor Trio, 1990

y musical collaborations with the being unfinished, and we needed to work out Juilliard String Quartet started about problems with dynamics and phrasing. That M fifteen years ago. Of course, we all are takes time and a lot of experimentation. Does on the faculty at the Juilliard School, but I had this voice come out here; does that? Does the known Bobby Mann since I was a teenager, indicated tempo really work? Even so, in work- because I had gone to the same school that ing with the Juilliard, approaching a new work his son and daughter went to. Later on, win- is not fundamentally different from rehearsing ning the Naumburg Competition brought me the most familiar part of the repertoire. closer to the Manns. So—except, perhaps, for In a way, the quartet as it exists now is quite the very beginning—performing with the quar- different from the first one I played with—but tet is not like being a “guest artist,” but like the essence of the group hasn’t changed. That being a member of the family. really has to do with that sense of openness The wonderful thing about both incarnations and experiment and the improvisatory nature of the quartet I have played with is their cre- of performance. I felt that from the very first ativity—how open they are to different ways of time, and I feel exactly the same way today. playing and different interpretations. Of all the Clarinetist and conductor Charles Neidich is a member groups I have played with, they are the freest of the New York Woodwind Quintet and on the faculty and most open. We’re very close, because our of the Juilliard School; School of Music; approach is to find the essence of the music— Mannes College of Music; and the Aaron Copland it’s for the music—for the piece itself—that we School of Music, Queens College, CUNY. omage, my jazz work for the Juilliard, When the Juilliard and I started to work play. I also love their great spontaneity in actual

came about after I happened to run together on the piece, all the things I had seen AND FREEDOM OPENNESS performance. We rehearse and rehearse and H into Joel Smirnoff in Washington, DC. and admired from afar, I then saw up close. Each rehearse—and the performance can be totally We were both taking the same plane back to one had something to add, and the way they different in a wonderful way. We don’t try to . (Washington is my hometown; played off of one another in shaping the music etch things in stone. The rehearsals are there Joel was coming back from a concert at the was very interesting to me. Except for Joel so that we can come to an understanding of Library of Congress.) We struck up a casual Smirnoff, they were not comfortable improvising what the piece is all about, but the perform- talk about my writing something for the quartet jazz, and I wrote the second movement with ance is a totally different thing. sometime. I didn’t think about it again until a Smirnoff in mind. I wrote out solos for each of We recently premiered a work by the late while later, when I got a call from Bobby Mann, them to play. But after the first performance, . We all knew Shapey well and asking if I was interested. everyone made his own solo personal, working knew the peculiarities of his notation. But He said that the quartet admired my work, from what I wrote as a basis. because it was a late work that the composer Premiere of Ralph Shapey's clarinet quintet but he didn’t specify the kind of piece they As we toured, it really was a unique experience had never actually heard, it had an element of with Charles Neidich, 2007 wanted. I was mainly familiar with them doing to play with musicians that I respected so much A JAZZ COMMISSION A JAZZ a beautiful job with the classical chamber and to see how they handled the material and repertoire—how can you compete with that?— how it grew from their shaping it. and started to write something very contem- I’ve learned a lot from a lot of people, but certainly the Juilliard String Quartet were four

porary, but not in the jazz style. Then I went to CHARLES NEIDICH see the group in concert. They were commu- of the best! nicating just like a jazz group—so I scrapped all the stuff I had started on and decided to Composer, pianist, and educator Billy Taylor write a jazz piece for the four of them plus my received CMA’s Richard J. Bogomolny Award in 2005. He is the artistic advisor for jazz at the own trio. John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I titled the piece Homage, because as I wrote, I also had in mind several of the great

BILLY TAYLOR BILLY jazz string players I’d had the privilege of playing with: the violinists Eddie South (who’d studied in Budapest) and Stuff Smith (a straight- ahead jazz player) and, for the low strings, the bassist Oscar Pettiford (who also played cello) and Slam Stewart (probably the best jazz bassist to play arco).

36 february 2008 37 At Tanglewood, circa 2002

mong Tanglewood diehards, the JSQ is chamber players through his inspirational first got to know the Juilliard Quartet because known as the Joel-liards, because of the coaching at the New England Conservatory and I knew Sam Rhodes, who spent several summers Atwo Joels. Joel Krosnick has for many at the Tanglewood Music Center. His legacy has I as a youngster with us at the Marlboro School years played a wonderful role as a teacher and passed to many “younger” groups, including and Festival in Vermont. I got to know the others chamber music coach at the Tanglewood Music the Emerson Quartet.) quite well through many experiences, but espe- Center, the Symphony’s summer academy More enTanglewoodments exist. In 1948, not cially because my wife [the soprano Benita Valente] for up-and-coming young musicians. The other quite two years after the quartet’s founding, it appeared with them many times, premiering and Joel is Smirnoff, a BSO violinist for a memo- gave—at Tanglewood—one of the first per- recording works for string quartet and voice by rable seven years. As a BSO staff member, formances anywhere of the complete cycle of hen I think of the Juilliard String Ginastera, Harbison and Wernick. admirer, and friend of the latter Joel, I watched Bartók quartets; this was one of the most Quartet, I think first of the Bartók Later on, the Juilliard became one of the seminal with mixed emotions as he auditioned for the important musical events in the festival’s history! Wquartets. As a college student I was groups that helped to establish and develop the quartet in l986 and then left the orchestra to And in a fitting conclusion to his fifty-year simultaneously fascinated and mystified by Chamber Music Society. The quartet join the illustrious ensemble as second violinist. career as the first violinist and guiding spirit of the Juilliard’s path-breaking 1949 LPs of the has appeared on our series during each of the As it turned out, he was following in the foot- the JSQ, Robert Mann gave his final perform- cycle. I didn’t know (and wouldn’t have cared) 22 years of our existence. PCMS having now grown steps of the quartet’s original violist, Raphael ance with the quartet at Tanglewood on a warm that this was the ensemble that introduced to 63 concerts per season, I wonder where we Hillyer, who—forty years earlier—had left the July day in 1997. One month later, Tanglewood the Bartók cycle in the . I just would have been without them and their willing- Boston Symphony to join the JSQ. hosted the first performance of the “new” knew that this music, in these impassioned ness to help us get started in those early years. But that’s not the only JSQ/BSO/Tanglewood quartet, with Joel Smirnoff now as first and performances, spoke of important things in If I had to choose a word to describe the quartet, connection. Eugene Lehner, yet another BSO Ronald Copes as second violinist. a 20th-century language. that word would be “integrity.” They have a will- violist, was in many ways the éminence grise Happily, for more than thirty years violist Much later in life, I became a music critic and ingness to explore new horizons, while at the same for the original JSQ. As a member of the Sam Rhodes has come down from his perch at had many occasions to hear the Juilliard in time affirming the importance of past master- , Lehner gave the first per- Marlboro to join the other three, so that this warm both standard and new repertoire. I especially pieces. That has been the credo by which the BURNISHED BARTÓK formances of many of the most important relationship between Tanglewood and the recall Bobby Mann’s 1997 farewell concert at Juilliard has lived. Their contribution to the music string quartets composed in the first half of Juilliard continues, with the quartet performing Tanglewood, a powerfully emotional affair that world over these many years has been enormous! DAN GUSTIN DAN and teaching there nearly every summer. ended his tenure as the last founding member the 20th century, including those by Anthony P. Checchia is artistic director of the Philadelphia Schoenberg and Bartók. As a member of the of the ensemble. The program was a typically Chamber Music Society and administrator of the BSO—which he joined in 1939 at the invitation Dan Gustin, director of the Gilmore International meaty one, chosen by Mann himself for the Marlboro School and Festival. Keyboard Festival & Awards, is vice president of of Serge Koussevitzky—he inspired Robert occasion: Beethoven’s Opus 132 followed by Chamber Music America’s board of directors. From Opus 130 and, as an encore, the Lento from Mann and the quartet in many ways, including 1984 to 1997, he was assistant managing director of their devotion to new music. (In fact, the the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the manager of Opus 135. No gentle swan song here. Boston appointment put Lehner in position to Tanglewood. Not long after that, I began work on a be an important mentor to generations of book that featured the Juilliard, with a picture of the reconfigured ensemble on the cover. During my interviews with past and present

ALL TANGLED UP WITH TANGLEWOOD ALL TANGLED members (but not with Mann, who was saving his stories for his memoirs), I got to know the Juilliard from the inside. This only increased my admiration for its 100 percent commitment to everything it did, whether new music or INTEGRITY old. When the Juilliard made the Bartók cycle the centerpiece of its 60th-anniversary cele- brations last year, the quartets I heard were burnished and deepened beyond those in the 1949 recordings. Bartók was unmistakably a successor to Beethoven and Brahms in the great string-quartet tradition, and I was the richer for it.

Andrew L. Pincus is critic of The Berkshire Eagle and author of Musicians with a Onstage at Mission: Keeping the Classical Tradition Alive and Tanglewood in other books.

2006 ANDREW L. PINCUS ANTHONY CHECCHIA 38 february 2008 39