The Berkshire String Quartet was an American classical chamber group founded and funded in 1916 at the height of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
by
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. The quartet, originally, was the Kortschak String Quartet, named for
Hugo Kortschak (1884–1957), a member of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenu ...
from 1907 until 1914 (serving as assistant concertmaster from 1910 until 1914). Kortschak was a key figure in organizing the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival founded by Coolidge. The original Berkshire String Quartet disbanded sometime after 1941.
In July 1948, the successors of the Gordon Quartet were about to disband for a lack of funding and loss of its founder, Jacques Gordon (1897–1948), who had disbanded the quartet in 1947 due to ill health. Coolidge came to the rescue. She underwrote enough additional performances to make the quartet's summer season possible. But, according to ''
Time magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...
'', Coolidge, for one of the few times in her life, asked a sentimental favor in return. "Would the quartet please call itself the Berkshire Quartet?" The quartet agreed and, at the urging of
Wilfred Bain, moved its permanent residence to the
Indiana University School of Music. The quartet continued to maintain its summer residence at
Music Mountain, a hilltop near
Falls Village, Connecticut
Falls Village is a village and census-designated place in the town of Canaan in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 538, out of 1,234 in the entire town of Canaan. Because Falls Village is t ...
, where, in 1930, Gordon had founded a Chamber Music Festival named after the hilltop.
Former members
Founding members in 1916, in residence at Pittsfield, Massachusetts
*
Hugo Kortschak (1884–1957) (first violin)
* Serge Kotlarsky (1893–1987) (second violin)
* Clarance Evans (viola)
* Emmeran Stoeber (1882–1945) (cello)
Other members at Pittsfield
* Hermann Julius Felber, Jr. ( –1892) (second violin, debut 1917) †
* Émile August Ferir (1873–1949) (viola)
*
Edouard Dethier (1885–1962) †
:† In 1917, Hermann Felber was drafted into the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
;
Edouard Dethier of New York played in his place.
"New Music Hall at Yale"
''The New York Times'', November 26, 1917.
Successor of the Gordon Quartet beginning in 1948, in residence at Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
and Music Mountain
Founding members in 1948
* Urico Rossi (1916–2001) (first violin), formerly a student of Kortschak
* Albert Lazan (1914–2003) (second violin)
* David Dawson ( –1975) (viola)
* Fritz Magg (1914–1997) (cello)
Other members after 1948
* Jerry Horner (1935–2019) (violist from 1975–1976)
* Paul Biss (viola)
See also
* Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson, David Dawson's wife
References
External links
* National Register of Historic Places
Daniel Gregory Mason:The appreciation of music (Volume 4). (page 5 of 12)
The Berkshire Festivals
The Harlem Valley Times Thursday, March 8,1979
THE SECOND FESTIVAL, 1919
MUSIC; The Berkshire String Quartet. Miss Rosalie Miller's Recitals
''The New York Times''. November 19, 1919
''The New York Times''. September 26, 1919,
* ttp://www.thecrimson.com/article/1920/1/20/berkshire-string-quartet-gives-concert-this/ The Harvard Crimson January 10, 1920
Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music (1918–38)
{{Authority control
Musical groups established in 1916
American string quartets
Jacobs School of Music faculty