The Hart House String
Quartet:
James Levey (violin)
Arn Adaskin (violin)
Milton Blackstone (viola)
Boris Hambourg (violoncello)
The Hart House String Quartet is the leading chamber music organisation in Canada. Attached to the Hart House Theatre, which in its - turn is a branch of the University of Toronto, it is endowed to an extent that makes its members independent of any other work so that they can devote their entire energies to rehearsing and playing in public. It is interesting to note that the leader, James Levey , used to be well known in London as principal of the New Symphony Orchestra and leader of the London String Quartet. The 'cellist, Boris Hambourg , is a brother of Mark Hambourg.
The Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2, a fine work of Brahms's maturity, was first played, from manuscript, by the Joachim Quartet in 1873, when Brahms was forty. It shows his easy command of the richest beauties the quartet of strings can show, and that easy spaciousness which is so attractive a feature of the composer's style. The very opening bars give us that feeling. In them we note, incidentally, two of Brahms's characteristics: his fondness for melodies moving in arpeggio and his effective use of cross rhythms