New Hollywood String Quartet Pays Homage to Legendary Original Chamber-Music Group
Back in the 1950s, four Los Angeles musicians were widely acclaimed as the finest performers of chamber music in America. They called themselves the Hollywood String Quartet, because they spent their days recording movie music and their evenings playing classical music; their last concerts were in 1960.
This summer, the New Hollywood String Quartet will celebrate its 25th anniversary by performing music associated with the original group. Each concert in the series will be introduced by veteran conductor Leonard Slatkin, son of its two founding members.
Slatkin’s father was violinist Felix Slatkin, longtime concertmaster of the 20th Century-Fox orchestra under legendary composer Alfred Newman. His mother, Eleanor Aller, was first cellist in the Warner Bros. orchestra during the 1940s and ’50s, playing regularly for such giants as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Leonard grew up listening to his parents and their friends play chamber music in their Hollywood living room.
“During the day, they would do the studio work,” he recalls, “then they’d come home and we’d have dinner together, and at 7 o’clock the other members would come over and they would rehearse. Often I would be on the staircase listening, because I was just fascinated, and then I’d fall asleep and somebody would come and take me to bed.”
The concept of the Hollywood String Quartet originated in the late 1930s, Slatkin says, but “the war got in the way” and they began in earnest in 1947, joined by Paul Shure on violin and Paul Robyn on viola. “They were steeped in the Russian school of music training,” Slatkin explains, “a very free kind of playing that focused not just on the clarity of sound but the actual production of the sound. But they also brought the kind of rich intensity of sound that you hear in those phenomenal Hollywood films.”
They recorded a series of albums for Capitol beginning in 1949. “When you listen to the recordings, it’s almost like they’re improvising,” Slatkin says. “And yet, of course, it was all very well prepared and rehearsed.”
A favorite memory is Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album “Close to You,” featuring the crooner backed not by the usual Nelson Riddle orchestra but rather by the Hollywood String Quartet (with Riddle arrangements). Sinatra insisted upon Felix Slatkin as concertmaster on many orchestra sessions, “and a few times my father actually conducted on Sinatra albums. He became very close to the family.”
The Hollywood String Quartet consistently won rave reviews (“incredible tonal nuance and expert musicianship… among the world’s great chamber-music ensembles,” said the New York Times; “breathtaking virtuosity… authoritative performances,” declared England’s Gramophone magazine). It won the first-ever Grammy awarded for chamber music; its last Capitol recordings were in 1958.
The New Hollywood String Quartet carries on the tradition with four seasoned studio players (Tereza Stanislav and Rafael Rishik, violins; Robert Brophy, viola; Andrew Shulman, cello) who also love playing chamber music. Rishik knew and performed with original HSQ member Shure back in the 1990s. “My love for chamber music and the legendary discography of the Hollywood String Quartet made my meeting with Paul really special,” he says.
“We were all trained, when we were younger, playing all those quartets and chamber orchestra pieces,” adds Shulman. “So it’s a great outlet for us, when we’re working in the studios, to be able to do that in the evenings. We like a good mix: we do a lot of the classics, but also quite a lot of contemporary stuff, and we’ve also commissioned works.” The New HSQ recently recorded a new piece by Jeff Beal (“House of Cards”).
The modern-day version will play four concerts over four consecutive nights (July 10-13) in Rothenberg Hall at the Huntington in San Marino, Calif. Slatkin will introduce each concert and talk about the original quartet.
The ensemble will perform 10 works that the original HSQ recorded between 1950 and 1955, and will be joined by guests each night: pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will join them for César Franck’s piano quintet on July 10; cellist Alban Gerhardt, for the Schubert string quintet on July 11; Gerhardt and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama for Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” and pianist Olga Zado for the Schumann piano quintet on July 12; and Zado for the Brahms piano quintet on July 13.
Other works to be performed include Hugo Wolf’s “Italian Serenade,” Joaquin Turina’s “La Oracion del Torero,” and quartets by Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Walton. For more information, check out New Hollywood String Quartet’s site.
This summer, the New Hollywood String Quartet will celebrate its 25th anniversary by performing music associated with the original group. Each concert in the series will be introduced by veteran conductor Leonard Slatkin, son of its two founding members.
Slatkin’s father was violinist Felix Slatkin, longtime concertmaster of the 20th Century-Fox orchestra under legendary composer Alfred Newman. His mother, Eleanor Aller, was first cellist in the Warner Bros. orchestra during the 1940s and ’50s, playing regularly for such giants as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Leonard grew up listening to his parents and their friends play chamber music in their Hollywood living room.
“During the day, they would do the studio work,” he recalls, “then they’d come home and we’d have dinner together, and at 7 o’clock the other members would come over and they would rehearse. Often I would be on the staircase listening, because I was just fascinated, and then I’d fall asleep and somebody would come and take me to bed.”
The concept of the Hollywood String Quartet originated in the late 1930s, Slatkin says, but “the war got in the way” and they began in earnest in 1947, joined by Paul Shure on violin and Paul Robyn on viola. “They were steeped in the Russian school of music training,” Slatkin explains, “a very free kind of playing that focused not just on the clarity of sound but the actual production of the sound. But they also brought the kind of rich intensity of sound that you hear in those phenomenal Hollywood films.”
They recorded a series of albums for Capitol beginning in 1949. “When you listen to the recordings, it’s almost like they’re improvising,” Slatkin says. “And yet, of course, it was all very well prepared and rehearsed.”
A favorite memory is Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album “Close to You,” featuring the crooner backed not by the usual Nelson Riddle orchestra but rather by the Hollywood String Quartet (with Riddle arrangements). Sinatra insisted upon Felix Slatkin as concertmaster on many orchestra sessions, “and a few times my father actually conducted on Sinatra albums. He became very close to the family.”
The Hollywood String Quartet consistently won rave reviews (“incredible tonal nuance and expert musicianship… among the world’s great chamber-music ensembles,” said the New York Times; “breathtaking virtuosity… authoritative performances,” declared England’s Gramophone magazine). It won the first-ever Grammy awarded for chamber music; its last Capitol recordings were in 1958.
The New Hollywood String Quartet carries on the tradition with four seasoned studio players (Tereza Stanislav and Rafael Rishik, violins; Robert Brophy, viola; Andrew Shulman, cello) who also love playing chamber music. Rishik knew and performed with original HSQ member Shure back in the 1990s. “My love for chamber music and the legendary discography of the Hollywood String Quartet made my meeting with Paul really special,” he says.
“We were all trained, when we were younger, playing all those quartets and chamber orchestra pieces,” adds Shulman. “So it’s a great outlet for us, when we’re working in the studios, to be able to do that in the evenings. We like a good mix: we do a lot of the classics, but also quite a lot of contemporary stuff, and we’ve also commissioned works.” The New HSQ recently recorded a new piece by Jeff Beal (“House of Cards”).
The modern-day version will play four concerts over four consecutive nights (July 10-13) in Rothenberg Hall at the Huntington in San Marino, Calif. Slatkin will introduce each concert and talk about the original quartet.
The ensemble will perform 10 works that the original HSQ recorded between 1950 and 1955, and will be joined by guests each night: pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will join them for César Franck’s piano quintet on July 10; cellist Alban Gerhardt, for the Schubert string quintet on July 11; Gerhardt and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama for Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” and pianist Olga Zado for the Schumann piano quintet on July 12; and Zado for the Brahms piano quintet on July 13.
Other works to be performed include Hugo Wolf’s “Italian Serenade,” Joaquin Turina’s “La Oracion del Torero,” and quartets by Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Walton. For more information, check out New Hollywood String Quartet’s site.