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30th Annual National Conference Banquet
January 6, 2008
New York, NY
I am very honored to be able to introduce the members of the Juilliard String Quartet, both present and past, as they receive the 2008 Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, in recognition of the Quartet's artistry, dedication, and leadership in chamber music.
The Juilliard String Quartet is not only one of the educational and artistic pillars of The Juilliard School. It has also created a legacy outside of the School through its promotion of chamber music and the education of future generations of chamber music ensembles, with particular emphasis on string quartets. The JSQ has also been one of the strongest forces on the international music scene in the creation and performance of new music for the string quartet, for other instrumental ensembles, and for individual instruments as well.
I am now in the final stages of completing the first complete biography of William Schuman, who played an exceedingly important role in the creation of the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946. You may know that Schuman was the driving force in the creation of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in the mid- to late 1960s while he was president of Lincoln Center. In fact, it was Bill's passionate belief that Lincoln Center absolutely had to have a constituent representing chamber music within the new arts center.
When Schuman became Juilliard's fourth president in September 1945 at the age of 35, he was committed to starting a revolution in how music was taught to young artists. The firebrand president reworked the teaching of music theory through the creation of the Literature and Materials of Music program; he brought dynamic new faculty members to the School; he even started a dance division. So much was being created in those early years that he once facetiously promised his Board that he would not start a medical school. But of all the innovations that Bill realized, the most long-lasting and profoundly powerful idea was the creation of the Juilliard String Quartet.
The young president was very intent on creating a resident string quartet that would become an important part of the School and "would stand for something specific: It would play all the standard literature with the sense of discovery that should apply to new music, and play new music with the reverence that should be applied to the classics." Schuman also wanted "an American string quartet that would achieve international stature."
Schuman found the first violinist of this quartet in Robert Mann, a recent graduate of Juilliard and who was a winner of the Naumburg Competition in 1941. Bobby's passion for chamber music captivated Schuman and soon the new quartet was created, composed of Mann as first violin, Robert Koff, second violin, Raphael Hillyer, viola (he left the Boston Symphony Orchestra only after a personal contractual release from Serge Koussevitzky at Schuman's behest), and Arthur Winograd, cello.
Mann remarked to Schuman, "I've got a wonderful cellist [Arthur Winograd]. We've been in the army together, and we were so starved for chamber music that we played the outer voices of quartets just to play some chamber music, with violin and cello. But he's not from Juilliard, he's Curtis." Schuman said that he didn't care where he was educated, and the first version of the Juilliard String Quartet came into being.
The new quartet's birth was not entirely painless. A member of the school's board, John Perry, was concerned that the quartet might not be up to the standards of the Juilliard name. Schuman's response was direct: "Then we'll change the personnel, but we'll have a Juilliard Quartet." According to Schuman, the faculty also raised questions regarding the quartet. Some faculty members questioned the quartet's approach to certain classics, especially when it performed the Beethoven String Quartets according to the composer's metronome markings, which were viewed at the time as overly fast.
As of the fall of 1947, before the quartet had made its formal New York debut at Town Hall on December 23, 1947, Juilliard had scheduled about 20 professional engagements for the group, many of them at universities and colleges. The quartet also coached chamber ensembles regularly and presented several concerts at the School, including lecture-concerts through the Extension Division on the quartets of Beethoven and Bartók. Curiously, it was not until the late 1980s that the members of the Quartet were invited to teach their individual instruments.
What was quite remarkable about Schuman's educational/artistic model for the creation of the Juilliard String Quartet was that the Juilliard name was made known throughout the nation, and eventually the world, based on the extraordinary artistic excellence of the ensemble. In 1958, the Quartet met great successes with triumphant performances in several European capitals sponsored by the United States International Cultural Exchange and UNESCO. In Budapest, only two years after the Russian invasion, the Quartet won enthusiastic accolades, with Time reporting, "The audience yelled so loudly for encores that the quartet gave an additional concert for students, who almost dismantled the hall with enthusiasm."
Ultimately, the Juilliard String Quartet has become a legendary ensemble which has set the standard for string quartets of the twentieth century, many of them formed or coached at Juilliard. The ensemble remains the most visible entity representing Juilliard outside of the School. Schuman's vision of creating the group was a brilliant one that has reflected positively on Juilliard ever since the quartet's formation in 1946.
Independent of the considerable collective success of this remarkable ensemble, I should also emphasize the individual artistry and commitment of the extraordinary artists who have been members of the quartet over the years, almost all of whom are with us this evening. All are exceptional and sought-after teachers on their own instrument. In addition, they are active as composers, conductors, new music performers, and, of course, chamber music coaches. Their integrity, both artistically and personally, is above reproach, and their humanity has touched thousands of individuals, both young and old, over the years.
From a simple idea has grown one of the most important artistic and educational institutions of our time, and for this we are eternally grateful.
I end with a favorite and frequently told story. I beg the forbearance of those who have heard this story before, but it is appropriate at this moment in the celebration of the JSQ and its confluence with the life of Bill Schuman. It also represents a jocular morality tale about the defense of artistic integrity.
When Schuman was a young man, before he became the president of Juilliard and of Lincoln Center, he was asked by Billy Rose, the well-known Broadway producer, to help put together an elaborate musical review entitled "The Seven Lively Arts," featuring new songs by Cole Porter, choreography by George Balanchine, and a new work by no less a composer than Igor Stravinsky, who eventually entitled his work "Scènes de Ballet."
When the Stravinsky work arrived, Rose was concerned to see that the composition required a much larger orchestra than the one Rose had planned to put in the pit for the run of the show. In an effort to reduce the orchestra size and thus its payroll, Rose told Schuman to contact Stravinsky and ask for a re-orchestration of the work.
Schuman was, of course, highly reluctant to start such a conversation with one of the giants of 20th-century composition without some assurance that Stravinsky would be open to the idea. So in an effort to start the process, Rose sent the following telegram to Stravinsky: "Your ballet a colossal success. Would be even greater success with slight modifications in instrumentation."
Stravinsky wired back, "Quite content with colossal success."
On that note, may I state the obvious by saying that the Juilliard String Quartet has enjoyed a colossal success of its own over the decades and we look forward to their artistry and leadership in the time ahead.
Good evening everyone! I'm Dan Gustin, vice-president of the Chamber Music America board of directors and chairman of its awards committee. Please forgive me for interrupting your dinner, but i want to say a few words between courses (just a few!) about our guests of honor-the Juilliard String Quartet, who are receiving CMA's highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award this evening. In making this award, Chamber Music America honors not just the present members of this eminent ensemble but also the former members, two of whom are with us tonight.
For a quartet that has a 61 year history, it's remarkable in fact that there have been only seven members prior to the present four. The founding 1st violinist, Robert Mann, led the group for an astounding 51 years. You know, Bobby himself won this award in 1991, so in effect the Juilliard has been honored twice by Chamber Music America with the Bogomolny-four times, if you count the two great chamber musicians who had such an impact on the performing style and musicianship of the group at its inception: Eugene Lehner who was honored in 1989, and Felix Galimir in 1990. Five times if you count the 1985 Bogomolny Award given to William Schuman, who established the group at The Juilliard School!
Oh well-as my mother used to say, you can't get too much of a good thing, and a good thing the quartet has been and continues to be. There are several things that make the JSQ so special: first of all it has always comprised four gentlemen who, each in his own individual way, have contributed to music not only as instrumentalists but also as important artistic leaders, as ambassadors of American music, as conductors, as composers, and as teachers and mentors to several generations of musicians for whom chamber music became a holy calling. In doing so, they made sure that "made in America" has stood for something very proud and distinctive in music. As coaches and mentors, individually and collectively, they have fathered (legitimately, I might add!) many of the best of the string quartets of the last half century. Some of their "children" are sitting among us tonight: the Lasalle, Tokyo, Emerson, American, Concord, Mendelssohn, Brentano, Shanghai, St. Lawrence, Cassatt, Lark, Colorado, Biava (the group that we will hear later this evening), and many others.
I think you can agree, it's a pretty stupendous record. At the same time, this quartet has kept its performing standards very high throughout the last six decades, never compromising the musical ideals that have inspired them from their beginning. How do they do it? One insight into "how" comes from Eugene Lehner, who said of them: "They were, and they are, an ensemble not weighted down by tradition. From their beginnings they have approached each piece of music as if it were newly written." And, of course, all of this is complemented by their fierce commitment to the music of their time-what Joel Krosnick calls "a passion for music outside the marketplace." Right from the beginning that has been their credo.
And consider what they accomplished: by their 50th anniversary alone the Juilliard had given the premieres of over 60 brand-new works by American composers, not to mention their groundbreaking advocacy of 20th-century masters such as Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartók and, of course, of many of the important composers today. It's hard to overestimate how important that advocacy was (and continues to be). They were the chamber group that insisted on sandwiching a new or fairly new work into most of their programs-beginning and ending with a classic quartet. The practice is a familiar programming approach for all of us today-but it was not so in the 1940s or '50s. They managed to record all the Bartók quartets only four years after that composer's death!
I had one of those vinyl records when I was a kid in the '50s. The music made no sense to me when I first heard it. But because the Juilliard recorded it, I figured it must be something important, so I listened to it again and again and-lo and behold!-the incredible beauty of the Bartók quartets began to reveal themselves to my then-unschooled and naïve ears and brain. And they are doing similar evangelical work for important composers today, like Elliott Carter, whose second quartet we heard them rehearse yesterday in one of the highlights of this conference.
This was all accomplished not without some mighty effort and considerable strain on the strong-minded members of the quartet. The early quartet was, as Bobby Mann said at this afternoon's showing of the 1998 documentary on the quartet (and I'm quoting), "somewhat incompetent at getting along together." This has led to a number of legendary backstage stories. It is said, for example, that some of their rehearsals became so rambunctious that the Juilliard School had to move them to another studio to keep them from "bothering" the other faculty. Once Earl Carlyss and Bobby Mann in rehearsal took very strong opposite positions on the interpretation of a certain passage in a late Beethoven quartet. The matter seemed intractable. Finally they decided to rehearse it each way-after which Carlyss and Mann switched positions and passionately took up for the other's former point of view! (That story may be apocryphal, but if it isn't true, it should be!)
Their overall approach, however, is perhaps best articulated by Joel Smirnoff (and I've never heard a better explanation of why the JSQ is so special): "Every voice should truly suggest the possibility of a living, breathing being spontaneously uttering its own, unique musical phrases." This "is the basis for real counterpoint, after all, which is not only a counterpoint of melodic line but counterpoint of gesture and personality as expressed through individual nuance and quality of sound." Has it ever been said better than that? That's always been their approach to music-making, and one of the many things that hasn't changed over the years.
Another is their rather tempestuous stage manner. One early critic of the quartet wrote that they moved around so much on stage he wanted to nail Bobby Mann's shoes to the floor and today-well, suffice it to say that Joel Smirnoff's early training was as a dancer! (It's true!)
The Juilliard quartet in fact has reached such a pinnacle of renown today that they actually have received that ultimate accolade (maybe as important as receiving the Bogomolny!) of being featured in a New Yorker cartoon. Two snakes are stretched out facing each other. One of them has four bumps along its torso, and the other one is saying to him: "The entire Juilliard quartet!?! You glutton!!!"
We'll have more to say about the "entire" Juilliard String Quartet at the end of dinner. But I hasten to close by admonishing the members of the present quartet that the Bogomolny award is not necessarily to be considered a career-capping, "lifetime achievement" award.
We all know you have plenty yet to accomplish, and we have great expectations for each of you and from the quartet in the future. In another couple of decades our successors will surely be making this award to the Young Turks of the JSQ of the future!
Thank you very much.
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