Word: quartets
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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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...
Although aristocratically Old-World in manners, the members of the group were thorough democrats when it came to running the quartet. They shared its profits equally-at their financial peak in the '50s, they made about $40,000 a year each-and put all disputes to a vote. Deciding interpretive questions at rehearsals, they avoided 2-to-2 deadlocks by assigning one player two votes for the music at hand. Roisman could sometimes swing a vote his way, even when in the minority. He would say quietly: "Doesn't Mozart get a vote...
...Taverna lounge, where a Greek go-go quartet rocks till 2 in the morning, a 26-year-old stock-exchange clerk sets his sights on a life-begins-at-forty redhead, while on the dance floor a New York City detective (41) is cheek to cheek with a schoolteacher (32) from Pennsylvania. A deck below, his inhibitions all but obliterated by bon voyage champagne, a portly ex-footballer from Fordham (class of '56) runs the length of the ship, yelling jovially: "The cruise is canceled! The cruise is canceled...