Amar Quartet
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Amar Quartet, also known as the Amar-Hindemith Quartet, was a
musical ensemble A musical ensemble, also known as a music group, musical group, or a band is a group of people who perform Instrumental music, instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist ...
founded by the composer
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
in 1921 in Germany. The quartet was active in both classical and modern repertoire until disbanding in 1933. It performed for many European concerts, broadcasts and recordings.


Personnel

First violin * Licco Amar (1921–1933) Second violin * Walter Caspar (1921–1933) Viola *
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
(1921–1929) * Erich Kraack (1929–1933) Cello *
Rudolf Hindemith Rudolf Hindemith, since 1951 officially Paul Quest, pseudonym Hans Lofer (9 January 19007 October 1974) was a German cellist, composer and conductor. He was solo cellist of the Vienna State Opera, and played chamber music in the Amar Quartet. He ...
(1921) * Maurits Frank (1922–1924) * Rudolf Hindemith (1924–1927) * Maurits Frank (1927–1933)


Origins

From c. 1914
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
, a graduate of
Hoch Conservatory Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium – Musikakademie was founded in Frankfurt am Main on 22 September 1878. Through the generosity of Frankfurter Joseph Hoch, who bequeathed the Conservatory one million German gold marks in his testament, a school for ...
at
Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
, had taken the second violin desk in the Rebner Quartet of Frankfurt, led by his violin teacher Adolf Rebner. He continued to play in quartets during the war while in military service, and after the war took up the viola and asked to be moved to that desk. He had written string quartets in 1915 (Op. 2) and 1918 (Op. 10), and in 1920 produced another (Op. 16) which was accepted for performance in the new 1921
Donaueschingen Festival The Donaueschingen Festival, or more precisely ''Donaueschingen Music Days'' (), is a three-day October event presenting new music in the town of the same name, where the Danube River starts, at the edge of the Black Forest in southern Germany. F ...
. However Gustav Havemann, leader of the Havemann Quartet engaged for it, refused to perform the work, and therefore Hindemith was obliged to form a group to give his own premiere. He chose his younger brother Rudolf (dedicatee of the work) as cellist, and recruited Licco Amar, a
Budapest Conservatory The Franz Liszt Academy of Music (, often abbreviated as ''Zeneakadémia'', "Liszt Academy") is a music university and a concert hall in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875. It is home to the Liszt Collection, which features several ...
graduate and 1915–1920 concertmaster of the
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra The Berlin Philharmonic () is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. Throughout the 20th century, the orchestra was led by conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922†...
, and then of
Mannheim National Theatre The Mannheim National Theatre () is a theatre and opera company in Mannheim, Germany, with a variety of performance spaces. It was founded in 1779 and is one of the oldest theatres in Germany. History In the 18th century Mannheim was the cap ...
, as first violin and Walter Caspar as second. The violinist Licco Amar remembered:
"Shortly before the holidays I ..received a telegram from Donaueschingen from Heinrich Burkard, a music director completely unknown to me. He proposed that I participate at the upcoming music festival in Donaueschingen, the first of its kind, with another violinist alter Casparand perform the quartet of a composer utterly unknown to me named Paul Hindemith. I of course accepted with pleasure. Without knowing any further details, I went to the Black Forest during the holidays and received the score and parts of the ..String Quartet, Op. 16. I would not claim that I understood this new kind of music from an initial reading of the score, but I remember very well that something special grabbed me from these notes: an energy and vitality that I grasped more instinctively than consciously. I was most astonished when I came to Donaueschingen as agreed and was received by two slight young people, who in fact looked like children, at the railway station. One was Paul Hindemith and the other was his brother Rudolf, who took on the cello part in this quartet. These two, who looked so slender, took possession of my baggage – I can still see this before me – and carried it away. ..In eight days we had rehearsed this quartet very well, whereby both Hindemith brothers proved themselves outstanding quartet partners. The performance was – to put it briefly – a thunderous success."
The performance was duly given, and in 1922 the Quartet became permanent and began giving recitals, specialising in modern music, and was soon extremely busy. Rudolf Hindemith, who found working under his brother's authority irksome, left and was replaced by Maurits Frank; but Rudolf returned for a period during which the quartet's recordings were made and the
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
(
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
-sponsored) debut was given (December 1926). Soon afterwards he left again permanently and Frank returned as cellist. The personnel of the Quartet with Amar and Caspar as violinists and Paul Hindemith as violist remained unchanged until Hindemith's departure in April 1929. Erich Kraack became Hindemith's successor in 1929. The Quartet disbanded in 1933.


Repertoire

The Amar Quartet performed about 500 concerts from 1921 until 1933. They played in the major German metropolises as well as in numerous provincial towns. With travels to Denmark, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia, the Quartet became renowned beyond German borders as well. During the winters of 1927/28 and 1928/29, the Quartet undertook two extended concert tours to the Soviet Union, during which Hindemith was able to gain an impression of contemporary Russian music. He also encountered Dmitri Shostakovich at this time. The Amar Quartet presented an extraordinarily extensive and varied repertoire at its concerts, including not only string quartets but also works for trio, quintet or sextet combinations. They intentionally concentrated on works that were not considered standard works of classical and romantic chamber music. For this reason, quartets of Haydn and Beethoven were relatively rarely played on their programmes; instead the Amar Quartet played works of Schumann, Verdi and Dvořák. The ensemble rapidly became known for its unfussy, clear interpretations of the classics. The Amar Quartet was of towering importance in concert life of the 1920s thanks to its indefatigable commitment to contemporary music. The fact that the works of Paul Hindemith stood at the centre of these efforts is not surprising, in view of the personal union of composer and interpreter. But the Amar Quartet was also committed to performing the works of other composers. Strings quartets by Béla Bartók, Max Butting, Alfredo Casella, Alois Hába,
Philipp Jarnach Philipp Jarnach (26 July 1892 17 December 1982 in Börnsen) was a German composer of contemporary music ("Neue Musik"), pianist, teacher, and conductor. Jarnach was born in Noisy-le-Sec, France, the son of a Spanish sculptor and a Flemish mothe ...
, Ernst Krenek, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern and many others were included on their programmes. A considerable number of premieres of contemporary works were given by the Amar Quartet.


Style of interpretation

The interpretations of contemporary music by the Amar Quartet met with unanimous enthusiasm amongst composers and reviewers. Anton Webern wrote to Alban Berg from the music festival in Salzburg in 1922 about performances of his Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5 and Schoenberg's F-sharp minor Quartet, Op. 10 as follows:
"I don't need to tell you about the incredible effect of the F-sharp minor Quartet. Or maybe I do: for it was a very rare event. The Hindemith Quartet played excellently. As far as my Quartet was concerned: performance (Hindemith) very good. Really played like music."
The Quartet attracted particular interest when they interpreted Hindemith's own works. A critic was both fascinated and amazed when he wrote the following in November 1927 after a concert in Zurich:
"Hindemith writes for his viola, his quartet, so that they follow his lead, only that his viola part sometimes jerks through the ensemble like a snake and carries everything away with it. The result is that the artists can perform their pieces in a tempo that would make one dizzy without sacrificing a single note. For example, if the first movement of the String Trio (Op. 34) could be performed more modestly, it might be seen that the piece is actually quite pretty."


Recordings

The Amar Quartet made recordings for
Polydor Records Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in ...
and
Parlophone Records Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 1923 as the Parloph ...
: *Paul Hindemith: String Quartet No.4, Op.22; World Premiere Recording 1925 (Polydor 66198/200) *
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
: Concertino for String Quartet; World Premiere Recording 1925 (Polydor 66201) *
Ernst Krenek Ernst Heinrich Krenek (, 23 August 1900 – 22 December 1991) was an Austrian, later American, composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including ''Music Here and Now'' (1939), a study of Johannes Ock ...
: String Quartet No.3, Op.20, 4th movement; World Premiere Recording 1925 (Polydor 66201) *
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...
: String Quartet No.23 in F major, K.590; World Premiere Recording 1926 (Polydor 66416/18) *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No.16 in E-flat major, K.428, 4th movement; rec.1926 (Polydor 66416/18) *
Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 â€“ 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma ...
: String Quartet in E minor; World Premiere Recording 1926 (Polydor 66419/21) *
Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8September 18411May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predec ...
: String Quartet No.12 in F major, Op.96 "American", 4th movement; World Premiere Recording 1926 (Polydor 66419/21) *Paul Hindemith: String Quartet No.4, Op.22; rec.1926 (Polydor 66422/4) *
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
: String Quartet No.2, Op.17; World Premiere Recording 1926 (Polydor 66425/8) *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No.16 in E-flat major, K.428; rec.1927 (Polydor 66568/70) *
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
: String Quartet No.11 in F minor, Op.95 "Serious"; rec.1927 (Polydor 66571/4) *Paul Hindemith: String Trio No.1, Op.34, 1st & 2nd movements; World Premiere Recording 1927 (Polydor 66571/4) *
Max Reger Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University Chu ...
: String Trio No.1 in A minor, Op.77b; World Premiere Recording 1927 (Polydor 66575/7) *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No.15 in D minor, K.421, 3rd movement; rec.1928 (Parlophon P 9351) *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No.21 in D major, K.575, 2nd movement; rec.1928 (Parlophon P 9351).


Sources

*Arthur Eaglefield-Hull, ''A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians'' (Dent, London 1924). *Robert Donaldson Darrell, ''The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music'' (New York 1936). *Tully Potter
CD liner notes for ''Hindemith as Interpreter: The Amar-Hindemith Quartet''
(Arbiter Records 139, 2003).
''Amar-Hindemith Quartet: Historical Recordings''
(Polydor Records, Parlophon Records, 1925–1928).


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amar Quartet German string quartets Musical groups established in 1921 Musical groups disestablished in 1933 1921 establishments in Germany 1933 disestablishments in Germany