Norbert Brainin, Primarius of the Amadeus Quartet

Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 14, Number 1-2, Spring-Summer 2005 Norbert Brainin: Founder and Primarius of the Amadeus Quartet he death of violinist Norbert exactly the kind of violin playing TBrainin on April 10, 2005, which you need in order to play came as a shock, and is still Beethoven’s music,” said Brainin. difficult to grasp. He died at the “It means, producing a certain age of 82 in London. With him the singing tone. It’s like the bel canto world loses one of those truly great technique in singing. And, like a artists and human beings, who, singer, you have to rehearse this because of their moral integrity every day. Every day.” Yet, aside and extraordinary charisma, are from all the talent and able to shape an entire epoch, since industriousness, as well as the they are able to successfully enthusiasm and joy in doing mediate in all cultures precisely creative work, the cultural and that which makes man unique: the personal background of the joy in creative work. Anyone who members of the Amadeus Quartet has seen firsthand only once, how was also a decisive reason for its intensively, precisely, and success, and for that the career of rigorously—but never ever Norbert Brainin is exemplary. pedantically, always inspiring, EIRNS loose, and with a lot of jokes— The Development of a Great Norbert Brainin was capable of Musician teaching especially young IN MEMORIAM Born in 1923 in Vienna, Brainin’s musicians, how great Classical enthusiasm and talent for playing works are to be performed, so that the violin became clear already at the listeners can be reached and 2004—an interview which now the age of 6, when he saw the 12-year- ennobled in the best Schillerian sense, unfortunately has become the very last old prodigy Yehudi Menuhin perform understands the deeper meaning of of his life. in concert. Initially, Norbert was taught Beethoven’s famous challenge So streng “We simply listened into the music. by his uncle Max—an amateur wie frei (As rigorously, as free). This Again and again,” was his typical musician and later architect in New high moral challenge, which is not only answer to the question of how the York, who nevertheless played so well valid in Classical art, but also in all Amadeus Quartet was able to reach this that he was allowed to play in quartets science, accompanied Norbert in his great mastery of interpretation. with professional string players, a long artistic life; with “his” Amadeus Similarly, his stating the fact, that he passion which he still indulged in at the Quartet, he consciously chose to take it was one of the last living violinists who age of 90. But when Norbert’s on—and fulfilled it. was educated in that very technique of extraordinary talent became evident, he “To bring out adequately in quartet violin playing, which had been was taken under the wing of Riccardo playing the great art of the four-part “authorized” by Beethoven himself, and Odnoposoff, the then (very young) setting,” of which Beethoven became an without which “you simply can’t play concert master of the Vienna unsurpassed master with his late Beethoven’s late quartets adequately.” Philharmonic, and violinist Rosa quartets—the very domain of the Brainin stood in this tradition with two Hochmann-Rosenfeld, who also legendary Amadeus Quartet—“so that of his teachers: Rosa Hochmann- introduced him—at the early age of the audience starts to understand this Rosenfeld in Vienna, as well as Carl 12—to playing string quartets. Later, concept, is, for an artist like me, the Flesch in London, were pupils of Jakob she arranged his contact with Carl raison d’être, the sense of an Grün, who in turn had been the pupil Flesch in London, who at the time was accomplished artistic life.” How often of Joseph Böhm in Vienna. Böhm, the by far the world’s most famous violin in our many discussions and interviews “father of the Viennese violinists,” and pedagogue. with Norbert did we hear this sentence founder of the so-called “German,” or After Hitler’s Anschluss, the from him, which he said very “Viennese School,” had worked with occupation of Austria, in March 1938— deliberately at the end of his last Beethoven directly, especially right on Norbert’s sixteenth birthday— interview with Ibykus (the German concerning the interpretation of his late his family, being Jewish, decided to sister-publication of Fidelio) in July quartets. “Technically speaking, it is send their children to England for their 111 © 2005 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. safety. Flesch accepted Norbert as a was wide open. While preparing for quartets—above all Beethoven’s late pupil and everything seemed to develop this concert, he often played string quartets, the raison d’être of these four “normally,” until World War II ended quartets with his friends Peter and musicians. Until the premature death of his studies with Flesch. When the Nazis “Siggie,” who were joined by the cellist its violist Peter Schidlof in 1987, the started to bomb England, Flesch fled Martin Lovett—“because through this I Amadeus Quartet played together with from London to the Dutch harbor of wanted to develop myself further no changes in its personnel, which is a Rotterdam, which was later largely musically and artistically. But then unique record in the history of music. destroyed in a terrible bombardment. something decisive happened, in my This part of Brainin’s In London, Norbert initially head, my soul, and my heart; and this extraordinarily successful artistic and continued his studies with Flesch’s was entirely caused by the music we equally influential cultural-political life, assistant Max Rostal, but as an “enemy played. Above all, by Beethoven’s which secures him an acknowledged alien,” he soon was put into an quartets, but also by those of Schubert, place in the history of music, is internment camp, where he met Peter Mozart, and Haydn. I couldn’t generally known. The London Times, Schidlof, who was also a young Jewish think about anything else. Already in its obituary on April 12, honored refugee from Vienna who played the in 1947 I sensed, that playing string Brainin’s extraordinary artistic and violin. Through joint performances of quartets would become the purpose of moral qualities, and did not forget to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in the my life.” mention his appropriate use of jokes. camp (Schidlof playing the solo part, And this is exactly what happened. (Once, in order to loosen up his Brainin “the orchestra”), the two boys The (unofficial) debut of the “Brainin colleagues, Brainin suddenly became inseparable friends—for life. Quartet” in 1947 was already a huge interrupted the Amadeus rehearsal of When Brainin was able to resume his success; the proper debut of the Schubert’s Quintet, and told a joke studies with Rostal, his teacher Amadeus Quartet on April 10, 1948 in about the conversation of two street announced that he was ready to teach London was even a sensation. So, too, violinists in New York: “What’s your two Jewish violin students without any its 1950 debut on German soil, in violin?” “Strad, 1699.” “Boy, that’s means—Peter Schidlof and Siegmund Hamburg, where “the audience in its cheap!”) Nissel, who had also emigrated from enthusiasm almost smashed the entire But also another part of Norbert’s Vienna—for free. Three of the future hall.” life deserves to be told, because it members of the Amadeus Quartet Since that time, Norbert Brainin and demonstrates in an exemplary way, that became close friends because of their “his” quartet developed more and more for him the question of morality and joint fate as refugees and their life in the into a powerful musical institution, absolutely strict artistic rigor and internment camp; artistically, they which set international standards in integrity—his constant truth seeking— became close later in Max Rostal’s terms of adequate interpretation of the was not only a matter of “pure art,” but chamber orchestra, and while playing great Classical works for string also of practical everyday life—i.e., string quartets together. In addition, there was another challenge to be mastered: the duty to undertake “war- related activity.” Up to eight hours’ work in an armament factory, and about four hours studying the violin— that was the typical wartime “day of study” for these future outstanding musicians. After this tough education, Norbert accepted another challenge, a true baptism by fire for the musicians: In 1946 he took part in the Carl Flesch Competition, founded in memory of his recently deceased teacher, with the firm intention to win it. His interpretation of Brahms’ Violin Concerto fully convinced the jury. The first prize being a concert with the BBC Symphony in London, Brainin chose (typically for him) Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and with that, the door to a great international career as a soloist The Amadeus Quartet in performance. 112 politics. We are talking tuning in opposition to about his relationship today’s absurdly high with the American “Karajan tuning” of A politician Lyndon well above 440 Hz, LaRouche, with whom Brainin, who of course he developed a close had grasped the friendship over the last meaning of this twenty years. question for singers immediately, studied Friendship with this problem intensely. LaRouche Using the Adagio from The basis for this was Bach’s Sonata for Violin laid, as usual in such solo in G-minor, he matters, with the demonstrated for the intensive exchange of first time in a private great ideas.

Load more