Word: budapesters
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What is one Russian? An anarchist. Two Russians? A chess match. Three Russians? A Communist cell. Four Russians? The Budapest String Quartet...
...years, that was one of the music world's favorite jokes. Alas, no one will tell it any more: the Budapest String Quartet has apparently decided to call it a career. Its three oldest members-First Violinist Josef Roisman, 68, Violist Boris Kroyt, 71, and Cellist Mischa Schneider, 64-are in poor health. Although there has been no formal announcement, they have agreed not to perform in public any more. Mischa's brother Alexander, 60, the second violinist, thinks that that is probably just as well. "Most artists play past their prime," he says. "How long could...
...Budapest probably went on longer than any quartet in musical history, maintaining a continuity of style despite changes in personnel. It was a first-rate group when, in 1917, four string players from the Budapest Opera gave their first concert in Kolozsvar, Rumania. But it was the present members, all Russian-born, joining forces and talents in the late 1920s and early '30s, who made the Budapest the century's most popular string quartet-and the best...
...everything they played, the foursome brought a Toscanini-like elegance of outline within which the music pulsed with expressive passion. Says Violist Walter Trampler, their "fifth man" in quintet performances since 1955: "They had temperament and fire. Some people have lots of that, but they get carried away. The Budapest players were always in control...
...Budapest Quartet probably hit an interpretive peak in the late 1930s and early '40s. Nothing reflected that better than its way with the mysterious, deeply spiritual last quartets of Beethoven. The ensemble's recordings of that period captured their particularly expansive style, in which they seemed to move as much above the music as with it. Although they lost some of their ease and sparkle in later years, they never sank below a remarkably high level of interpretive excellence. Even on an off night, they played with exactitude of tempo and emotional involvement that few other ensembles could...