As PSC is about to celebrate its’ 125th season of providing the best music at affordable prices to music-lovers on a limited budget, we continue to find all sorts of fascinating stories in our history, that we’ll share with you as part of our PSC Storytelling series.
Today we have our second installment, uncovering a through link tying generations of PSC quartets and violinists all the way to celebrated American composer, George Gershwin.
Arnold Steinhardt, first violinist of the Guarneri Quartet, was taught by Toscha Seidel, who played for PSC in the 1934-1935 season. Other performers that season were the Budapest String Quartet, who continued to play for PSC annually for over 40 years. Seidel presented many solo recitals with PSC, and was immortalized alongside another PSC performer, Sascha Jacobsen of the Musical Arts Quartet, and two other great Russian virtuosos, Mischa Elman and Jascha Heifeitz, in a song by none other than George Gershwin!!
In 1934, Toscha Seidel performed at PSC, both solo and with the Budapest Quartet. Sasha Jacobsen also performed that year, with the Musical Art Quartet.
The connection from 1933 to today continues with The Dover Quartet, PSC’s first Resident Artist, "One of the greatest quartets of the last 100 years" (BBC), they were mentored by the Guarneri quartet, who in turn had been mentored by the Budapest Quartet,
The Dover Quartet returns in the 24-25 season, along with the Takacs, Juilliard, Elias and Calder Quartets, with the latter two making their first appearances on the series.
Throughout our 125 year history, chamber music has been at the heart of PSC and we are proud of our legacy of intergenerational music making. For a list of the many string quartets who have performed for us over the years, click here!
Photo Credit: Advertising image for the Budapest String Quartet's recordings on the Columbia Masterworks Records label, printed in ''Life'' (volume 16, number 25), page 45