Rudolf Kolisch (violin) ; Felix Khuner (violin) ; Eugene Lehner (viola) ;
Benar Heifitz (violoncello)
The Kolisch Quartet is one of the foremost of European string quartets. It is noted for its remarkably wide sympathies and understanding of all music from Haydn to Schönberg. An interesting feature of the Quartet's performances is that the members play everything from memory. Furthermore, the leader and founder of the Quartet, Rudolf Kolisch , is probably unique among violinists in that he holds his instrument with his right hand and bows with his left. *
The G major Quartet, Op. 161, was
Schubert's last string quartet. It was composed in 1826, two years before his death. It is a remarkable and interesting work because both in technique and in feeling it foreshadows the romantic style of later composers. This is particularly true of its harmony which is closely woven in texture and very 'advanced' for the period.
Bela Bartok, one of the most intensely national of all present-day composers. became early in life deeply interested in the genuine Magyar folk-music, both in the original and in its corrupted gypsy form, and he resolved to make a thorough study of this music. In this study he had the collaboration of Zoltan Kodaly , and together they collected and preserved in published form a valuable amount of folk-music.
The effect of this activity on the music of Bartok is here and there evident in all his later works. But as a creative composer, his is one of the most profoundly original minds of today, and owes only its origin to nationalism. His work is like that of no other living composer, and its style and treatment derives from Bartok's disregard of much that passed for essential in the music of a long tradition. His art is a law unto itself, and Bartok differs from most of his contemporaries in being a slave to nothing but his deliberate and reasoned intentions. He has for his own purposes deposed law and set up logic in its place.