Fine Arts Quartet - Early Recordings and Performance

Early Recordings and Performance

The Quartet performed on the ABC Radio Network's Sunday morning broadcasts from 1946 until 1954. In the mid-fifties, there was an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performances on the Today Show, and starting in 1958, the Quartet began to tour Europe annually. In the late sixties, the United States Department of State sponsored the Quartet's tours to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, and by the late seventies, the Quartet had performed in 270 cities in 28 countries. The Quartet continued to broadcast for radio in America (especially for WFMT-Chicago), in Europe (e.g. the BBC), and for television (concerts and educational programs for National Public Television).

The Quartet released over 100 works during its first 30 years of existence, including cycles of chamber music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, on such labels as Decca, Vox, Vanguard, Saga, and Concert Disc. The Quartet also performed contemporary music in performances, commissions, and recordings, and helped to make composers such as Bartók, Shostakovich, Bloch, Babbitt, Wuorinen, Martinon, Hindemith, Shifrin, Crawford-Seeger, Johnston, and Husa better known and accessible to the public. Their recordings of the six quartets of Béla Bartók followed a television series featuring a performance of each, preceded by interviews and commentary by the performers, with musical illustrations. The quartet was an advocate of what was then still comparatively unfamiliar and avant-garde repertoire.