Amar Quartet

The Amar Quartet, also known as the Amar-Hindemith Quartet, was a musical ensemble founded by the composer Paul Hindemith in 1921 in Germany and was active in both classical and modern repertoire until disbanding in 1933. It made several recordings and many broadcasts.

Personnel

First violin
* Licco Amar (1921–1933)

Second violin
* Walter Caspar (1921–1933)

Viola
* Paul Hindemith (1921–1929)
* Erich Kraack (1929–1933)

Cello
* Rudolf Hindemith (1921)
* Maurits Frank (1922–1924)
* Rudolf Hindemith (1924–1927)
* Maurits Frank (1927–1933)

Origins

From c. 1914 Paul Hindemith, a graduate of Hoch Conservatory at Frankfurt am Main, 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. 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 graduate and 1915–1920 concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and then of Mannheim National Theatre, 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, but returned for a period during which the quartet's recordings were made and the London (BBC
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