Eminent Quartets

with thanks to Lytton Strachey.

(Liberace’s early stomping ground in South Milwaukee.)

*********************************************************************************

“I don’t give concerts, I put on a show.”

Liberace

It surprises me that I haven’t gone to hear the Fine Arts Quartet-fest happening now in Milwaukee. This is even though the venerable ensemble played my favourite piece of chamber music last week. As of now, it looks like I’ll miss their work this week as well; not because I’ll be off to Bloomsbury or because their programming doesn't appeal. The group’s repertoire is rich, even addictive. I love the Brahms Sextet that they played (with extra personnel) on Sunday almost more than a July weekend in “The Dells.“ It’s not that the members aren’t virtuosos. They are.  And certainly it’s not because I consider them “old news” Such a label doesn’t have a place in the pages of this journal. Their current publicity photos do show a group visually different from more recently-hatched string quartets; no pictures of four hipsters brooding and gazing with malignant introspection down a gritty urban alley; no alto clef “tats.”  But who would go to a string quartet recital to check out the violist’s tattoo choice?  On the other hand, maybe it’s the best reason to go. I make no judgments. The pushing down of aesthetic buttons follows no law. And shouldn’t

Why then my absence from hearing this distinguished quartet? What’s the problem?

An answer doesn’t come. That makes me curious. Given the ensemble’s numerous and impressive advantages, I’m surprising myself. That’s what is motivating me right now; to do some delving and grubbing into the turbulence of my musical prejudices; not a pleasant occupation. With any luck, by the time you get to the penultimate paragraph, the mystery will be solved. 

A brief history of the Fine Arts Quartet and a consideration of where they stand in relation to Milwaukee music make for an interesting prelude to some reflections. 

The Quartet is part of a musical trinity that has for generations shone high and lustrous in the firmament of Milwaukee’s musical and cultural life. In short, they, along with the other two groups, “made it big”; or at least as big as a string quartet can reasonably expect to get.  Don’t complain that I haven’t included Les Paul in the list. He comes from Waukesha.

The first of these musical groups, in chronological order, was an ensemble unto himself of at least four voices if not more: the inimitable Walter Busterkeys. (My theory is that his agent led the phenomenon astray by updating his stage name to the more prosaic “Liberace.”  If the pianist had kept going by “Walter” he might have had a career instead of being a footnote in Grove’s Dictionary.) His memory is a blessing,  especially in West Allis.

The second is the only band in the history of alternative rock that some scholars say could give Captain Beefheart a run for his money: The Violent Femmes.

Third in line is the subject of this essay, the Fine Arts Quartet.  Although not founded in Milwaukee as the original musicians were, in their salad days, members of the Chicago Symphony, they soon moved north and settled in for the next half-century (give or take a decade) to a comfortable residency at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Though the personnel has changed over the years (especially in the viola section), they still not are not only extant, but vigorous. They tour regularly at significant concert venues around the world. 

At first it could be said that the University benefited from the partnership with the Quartet, as much as the Quartet did with the University.   It’s always nice for musicians to have a musical “day job,” especially if the job comes with the benefits and the perks given to tenured academics at public universities. The members could  go on tour, but when they came home from Lucerne or Toledo, Ohio they would teach string lessons at the University. They were famous in the capitals of Europe for their performances and they were admired at home for maintaining teaching studios where they could pass on their venerable wisdom to a new generation.  It is fascinating to reflect on the fact that, although the early members of the group (Sorkin, Sopkin et al) were born in the early twentieth century, their teachers were trained in the previous one.  Thus those musicians, though they made it into the new-fangled 20th, were fundamentally 19th century teachers.  To hear the first generation of the quartet was to hear music-making imbued with an exotic 19th century ambiance. These remarkable adumbrations the quartet willingly and heroically carried, and continue to carry to this very day. A rare and olden torch! For anyone who likes to hear the standard string-quartet repertoire played as if the group had been coached by Fritz Kreisler, get in line now.  The chances are good that you will hear sacred ghosts turned into sound.

https://www.naxos.com/News/Detail/?title=The_Finer_Arts__Ralph_Evans_Talks_to_Jeremy_Siepmann)

To hear this quartet is to hear a concoction of sublime and dusty beauties.  At least it was last time I heard them a decade ago. The chances are good that they have continued to play at an extraordinarily high level. An added advantage for their audiences is that they are, in a round-about way, attending a seminar in late-19th century performance-practice. Who doesn't want to do that?

When the quartet toured, offered local performances and taught, their students benefited from the quartet’s pedagogy and Milwaukee gained some cultural cachet.  The Chamber of Commerce could brag that it was home to not only a Motorcycle factory, professional wrestling, and Miller Beer, but also to an internationally renowned string quartet.  Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue and brews.  What tourist with any discernment could stay away from such a place?

In those days, their work reached everywhere.  Even to Denver.  When I was a kid in that provincial town circa 1967, my first quartet-listening experiences came from hearing the Quartet via VOX BOXES LP recordings. Their discography was impressively prolific and extensive. They  traversed the quartet repertoire, from Haydn to Bartok, as easily as Jack LaLane could dispatch a century of “military push-ups.” Hearing them, I came to imagine with the flamboyant imagination of a confused adolescent, that Milwaukee was a cultural hotspot. New York had a decent symphony orchestra and blintzes, but they didn’t have the Fine Arts Quartet. I never imagined that in the vague and distant future I would not only come to live in Milwaukee and enjoy their concerts, but even more fortunately (despite endemic intonation problems) be permitted to to enroll in coaching sessions offered by members of the ensemble.

Then the path of the group took a new turn.   The Chancellor of the University agreed to a new contract.  The Quartet would be released from teaching responsibilities. They could retain their professorships and they could tour the globe; their only performance obligations in Milwaukee was to offer (if memory serves) six concerts per year. 

That was one generous Chancellor, especially if you were a member of The Fine Arts Quartet.

Through the “grapevine” (I won’t vouch for their accuracy but it does sound plausible), rumours sprang up that the rest of the UWM music faculty were not as happy with the contractual agreement as the quartet was. If these reports from the front lines were true, who could blame them?  Imagine trudging down unshoveled sidewalks on Kenwood Boulevard at 7:30 A.M in early February to teach a classroom full of sullen sophomores the rudiments of 2nd species counterpoint when somewhere in the background of your drowsy cognition a strange ringing intrudes. What could it be?  Not tinnitus thank God. But it was certainly annoying; the repetitive clicking of toasting champagne glasses.  Somewhere in the world, Lisbon perhaps, or the 14th arrondissement, a post-concert reception (complete with smoked-trout croquettes, the transatlantic fragrance of which sent those left behind in the UWM Music School faculty lounge into apoplexy) was being held in honour of a certain musical group.

Congratulations for guessing right.   Chin-Chin to The Fine Arts Quartet.

That easy-going bureaucrat has long since departed to higher administrative spheres. She could well be criticized for her overly-generous offer, but I won’t criticize the Quartet. It was a gig too good to refuse, and like any sensible musician, they didn’t. After a time, this idyllic existence came to an end. The Quartet retired from the College. And with that, so does this brief history.

When compared to the past and present turbulence of the world. the drama just told is a minor one. The rise and fall of dynasties, the death of tyrants, creeping (make that sprinting) authoritarianism, and the quality of the hamburger buns at KOPPS on Port Washington Road: aren’t those the things we should reflect on? Yet something in me can’t let go of an imaginary scene: a earnest and delving young violin student, fresh out of rural Oshkosh, no longer had the chance to grasp on to a noble chord; a grouping of intwined golden threads that could connect the fast dissipating aural treasures of Kreisler, Heifitz, and Mischa Elman (don’t leave out Bronislav Gimpel) into her hands, fingers, and perspectives.

The string was broken and the golden dust scattered.  That student had to search elsewhere. The Fine Arts Quartet was far away doing what Liberace did.

Putting on a show.