New England Conservatory; #3 (Reel 1)

This is going to show her. As president of the New England Conservatory of Music. I invite you to listen to this series of concerts which represents some of our more interesting efforts in recent months. These concerts involve both faculty and students. And encompass a wide variety of performing groups soloists and types of concerts. The New England Conservatory proudly boasts a very broad curriculum encompassing many directions and manifestations of music often considered peripheral by traditional music educational institutions. This curriculum is taught by a faculty which identifies with such a broad educational spectrum. Therefore these concerts can only give a partial glimpse of the wide range of reforms is available to our conservatory audiences and the Greater Boston concert going public. We hope however that such as sampling may demonstrate that although the New England Conservatory is the oldest conservatory in the United States it is in its educational philosophy and in its attitudes. One of the youngest.

I hope you will enjoy this series. Good evening this is Robert Daley welcoming you to another program. Of music here in Jordan Hall the New England Conservatory of Music. Tonight we present a program of chamber music featuring the Boston string quartet. The New England Conservatory has now graded this year a program in chamber music which offers these four talented strength players the opportunity of performing in a resident string quartet for a period of two years members comprising a string quartet arcana Sarge violin style violin viola and Jay humorist and cello. These four players were selected through national auditions and they studied here under the direction of Rudolph Gaulish founder of the famous Polish quartet and conservatory artist in residence. And Joseph Silverstein concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and chairman of the conservatory string Department. They have no obligations other than to their quartet and

accordingly are exempt from all coursework and other allied conservatory activities. The Boston string quartet is in fact I thought all ship string quartet. And its members receive stipends observation importance to freedom from financial need during their residency. They will be heard this evening in a performance of two rather extended works. First the second string quartet an F sharp minor Opus 10 with soprano by Arnold Schoenberg and. With Mary sing Donnie soprano soloist in this way. This from Schubert squat out in G major opus 161. The second string quartet an F sharp minor Opus is a very significant work in terms of music history and western music. In that it is the first work. In 12 tone row. The serial technique which Schoenberg was to develop even further. Later on in his career is introduced in the last movement. But this work. Marked as a

setting of a poem by Stephen Georg and Rikan or rapture the four movements are as follows messy Morato second movement of Osh third movement long as I did it and I another poem setting by Stephan Yaga sung by Maurice and Donny and the final movement see Alonzo and brethen and a few moments we can expect the Boston string quartet to appear here on the Jordan Hall stage. Can a sarge first violin post-Iowa second violin viola and Jay humans do. And will have the performance of the second string quartet and have shot minor overstand with soprano by Arnold Schoenberg. A

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Very different. From. The second string. F sharp minor Opus 10. We'll return to Jordan Hall for the final portion of tonight's concert but now here is Donald Paris to interview members of the Boston string quartet. I'd like to introduce to you the memories of the Boston Strong quartet and tell you a little bit about them and where they're from. Perhaps we should start first with the with the ladies with the one female member of the quartet. Yeah. Orbach violist in the Boston string quartet is a native of Israel. She graduated from the telomere conservatory and did graduate work in the United States primarily at University of Wisconsin with rebel call ish who is also the principle coach of the Boston string quartet. Mrs. Orbach was a student of park Toshi in Israel. Also how do you

see the nice thing in this. I least anybody's guess. The first violinist of the Boston quartet is Ken a sarge who studied at Juilliard with Eve on Colombian and has also studied violin with Dorothy the late Robert Carr as timeless and age shop. He study chamber music wicking gold car and also with golf. CORNISH And has made State Department tours to go to the south and south America principally to Venezuela. The second violinist just who was born in Hungary and came to the United States I believe in. Six thousand nine hundred fifty six. He has been a student of the newly conservatory having stayed with Robert cauldron and with shock the no mystical study is equally a conductor and a composer as well as a very talented violinist. Another former student of the new in the

conservatory who was in the Boston train quartet is cellist Jaison Jae how Mr. and Mr. Hama Sten received his basket music degree from the Curtis Institute in colored our Philadelphia however he studied with Larry Rosen Orlando call at the New England Conservatory with Benjamin Zander and Jules asking me. The stone was formally in the group for contemporary music of the University of Buffalo on the direction of Lucas cross and he has toured with the audience Chamber Players and the Marlborough players. I'd like to ask each member of the quartet. How they feel about this opportunity playing and what really is a professional string quartet under the auspices of the conservatory how they feel about this opportunity of being more or less free from financial pressures during their two year residency and being able to devote all of their time

exclusively to the fine art of string quartet playing and perhaps I'll begin with Mr. Sarge. Well I think the biggest advantage it for me quite often after graduating you may be join a quartet in residence at university if you play chamber music or you form your own. You are basically on your own and this gives us a two year chance to test out our ideas in our interpretation of the score with the experienced chamber music people especially Mr Kolisch Mr Silverstein. It's easy enough to form your own ideas but to have them checked out and to have you constantly feeding back information from the coaches is a great help and it sort of gives us a perspective. There are many problems which we would have

solved in different ways if we hadn't had the coaches listening to us. I think this is the greatest advantage to this project. Do your own study. You both as a composer and as a conductor. Do you find this experience much different this than these other experiences of your musical life. A. Well I think I'd like to think of all the musical things that I do as well as more or less channeling to the same purpose. My intention is to be as well-rounded as a musician as I can possibly be and I think the greatest advantage in being in the quartet is having the opportunity both because of more or less financial independence and because of the tremendous amount of time which we spend at it to delve into these compositions which we

do very deeply both just as fires and out of the gloom musically. And also working out musical ideas with other people and I think that in situations where I. Perform as a conductor. It has been a great help to know how to approach people and perhaps in the realms of the quitter this doesn't come out. To approach people with definite musical ideas and perhaps to work them out. But I really don't find the experience totally different from working with musicians and that has occurred it is a very very human experience and I'm wondering I've often felt this is a rather unique experience in conservatory life for educational institutions. And I wonder if if there are similar projects as this in Israel which is also a land of many cooperative

projects. Well General Music is involved from the early stages of the conservatory and come to me for music and but it's always along with other of the Demy courses in the schools. Such an opportunity just to play to music without. With the possibility of devoting all your time to eat is given only in German music something I was doing to someone in one of them. You need to use a coach course called which has devoted all of his life to the fine art of string quartet playing his quartet was world famous renowned in every city every country of the world were string quartets are performed and loved and the Boston quartet has adopted many of the procedures which which the college were formally I believe initiated one of the most

interesting parts there that that is the fact that they play from score. Of course a lot of quartets are doing this today to compose a string quartet. Also a record of Cortef and residents at a new conservatory plays all of their music from score. Jane I want you fired. Playing from scar where you see all of the parts all of the what all the other instruments are doing as well as hearing them of course by this much more difficult or complicated play from the from a part as most orchestral players do. At first it's much easier. You're easy to become aware of what's happening in the other parts. But we have all found this interesting that we tend to follow visually to certain extent and not orally and after we become quite familiar with the parts and how they line up. I find it in a way I stop looking at the Four score and rely on my ears that

watching visually you don't react as quickly as to what's happening if it's a terribly complicated piece. It's a great help to have visual contact with the music and know if you or someone else happens to be slightly off and it's much easier to get back on the track of course. I know that you well rehearse something between four to six hours a day and usually very often toward six hours a day which gives you the opportunity of really getting to know almost to memorize each piece before you perform it so that you do work with this floor pretty soon no one will. Composition becomes second nature to you when you first approached the piece it saves hours to have the full score constantly available as you're playing. How do you prepare the score for performance and that which you didn't have the score in front of you turn the pages very quickly or what do you do. OK well we always thought that the conservatory scenes to

institute a program called Score mounting. It's like that's going to continue because what we have to do is cut out the two scores and paste them on large sheets and then they open up like a book. Some and some of us have bought art those big Live sketch books and just mount the score in lines of three on a page on those books and then it just opens like a big book on the music stand. I've often felt that one of the other fascinating. Aspects of the Boston string quartet is the fact that they haven't tackled Easy Pieces at all. Nobody has any quartet has thought of doing an early Mozart or a very open opposite. They've been doing the toughest pieces in the literature and their repertory has been good about who would like to tell you what the repertory has been for the past year.

J When all the pieces you perform we'd play a G major chord which is seldom tackled by anybody and I just hope we can associate with that piece for about a year and a half and it's certainly been worth it to let it absorb it over that period of time. I think we. Approached some sort of acceptable performance of the piece. Well there really are many quartets even today who would lay a program including the Schomburg second quartet and the Schubert G major. It's not only a long program the very last thing a very difficult job and I know that your next year's plans include bar talk sixth quartet and de Barrick Gold has three and they're sure death and they and they don't one twenty seven. And probably the most difficult most complicated but the most loved and cherished and beautiful works of string quartet literature. Well thank you very very much for spending some time from this base the rehearsal schedule to

chat with with me here and I hope that your future geysers will be as successful as the one that you're doing right now. Thank you. You have heard a pre recorded interview between Donald Harris assistant to the president here at the New England Conservatory of Music and members of the Boston string quartet.