THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN

In spite of historic discrimination against women having careers as professional musicians during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many first-class all-female string quartets flourished at the time. In the first of two articles, Tully Potter provides a survey of some of these pioneering groups

The Olive Mead Quartet in 1909 (l–r) Olive Mead, Lillian Littlehales, Gladys North and Vera Fonaroff

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Alow point in my love affair with the string quartet and its players came when I walked into the first day of the inaugural London International String Quartet Competition in 1988 to see a solid phalanx of twelve males at the jury table. ‘Where are the women quartet experts?’ I asked the organiser Yfrah Neaman. ‘There aren’t any,’ he stated, with such airy arrogance and self-assurance that I was thrown off guard. Had I recovered my presence of mind quickly enough, I could have said: ‘But what about Tutter Givskov (Copenhagen Quartet), Elisa Pegreffi (Quartetto Italiano), Pina Carmirelli and Montserrat Cervera (Carmirelli Quartet) or Mariana Sîrbu (Academica Quartet), not to mention our own Margaret Major (Aeolian Quartet), Nona Liddell and Diana Cummings (both English Quartet)?’

In truth, women have a long history of sitting on equal terms alongside men in professional quartets and an even longer record of participating in all-female quartets. Chamber music was originally sponsored by the aristocracy, but as the middle classes expanded their participation through the 19th century, it became a suitable ‘accomplishment’ for girls. Yet there were social pressures: a young lady could look decorous as a singer or at the piano, but other instruments were not encouraged as much. Brass instruments were out; the violin had a slightly lascivious reputation (and marked one’s neck); and as for the cello… Yet there were enough role models to make the violin attractive, and by the last quarter of the century, as conservatoires began to welcome women, fashionable violin teachers had all the female students they could cope with. Meanwhile, the emergence of the endpin made the cello easier for the player to handle while wearing a long dress.

Women were excluded from orchestras, so they founded their own, beginning in 1898 with Mary Wurm’s Berlin ensemble. The Wiener Frauen-Symphonie-Orchester was founded in Vienna in 1920, and Britain – where Henry Wood hired women string players from 1913 – had several such organisations.

The string quartet, which was a feature of both the domestic soirée and the concert hall, was a natural recourse for musical, like-minded women. From 1866, Paris had the Quatuor Sainte-Cécile, led by Fanny Claus (1846–77) and reconstituted after her early death by her second violinist Marie Tayau. But for me, the story of the all-female professional quartet begins in America with Julius Eichberg, founder of the Boston Conservatory and a strong believer in equality of the sexes. In 1877 he brought four of his best female students together to form the Eichberg Quartet: they were led by the brilliant Lillian Shattuck (1857–1940); the others were Lillian Chandler, Abbie Shepardson and Lettie Launder.

In 1881 Eichberg sent them for further experience to Berlin, where their concerts met positive responses and Joseph Joachim was so astonished that he allowed them to study with him for a year at the Hochschule (which had only been open to female students since 1876). The foursome toured all over North America until 1895, in one year racking up more than 215 concerts. Shattuck remained leader throughout but there were various changes in the other parts. She taught at the Boston Conservatory, then from 1895 to 1936 had her own music school in the city. As a soloist she crossed the Atlantic 44 times.

Lillian Shattuck, who led the Eichberg Quartet, pictured in 1874

(l–r) Johannes Brahms, Marie Soldat-Roeger and two string players

SHATTUCK PHOTO TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

The next two notable examples of such groups were both launched in 1887. The more illustrious leader was Marie Soldat-Roeger (1863–1955), who began and ended her productive life in Graz. Her mentors included Spohr pupil August Pott and Joachim, and she was part of Brahms’s circle – conductor Hans von Bülow dubbed her ‘Brahms’s understudy’. At a time when many men refused to play the Brahms Violin Concerto, she championed it; and she also played the ‘Double’ Concerto with Robert Hausmann. In 1887 she formed her first quartet in Berlin, the other members being Agnes Tschetchulin (later replaced by Mary or Marie Schumann, whom we remember because her 1698 Stradivari violin still bears her name), Gabriele Roy and the American cellist Lucy Campbell, a Hausmann pupil. The ensemble appeared mainly in Berlin but also in Frankfurt.

In 1889 Soldat married Wilhelm Roeger, a police commissioner from Trieste, adding his name to her original surname. They had a son but did not stay together long. In 1892 she set up home in Vienna and soon founded another quartet – her famous one, the Soldat-Roeger Quartet – with Elly Finger-Bailetti as second violinist (succeeded by Elsa von Plank), Mahler’s friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner as violist and Campbell (replaced from 1903 till 1913 by the Popper pupil Leontine Gärtner) as cellist. All four were well-known personalities on the Viennese musical scene and the quartet was sponsored by the Wittgenstein family, whose palace in the Alleegasse was a haven for artists of all kinds. The Wittgensteins lent Soldat Roeger her main concert instrument, a 1742 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’. ‘The tone is of extraordinary beauty, and suits the violinist’s virile style admirably,’ wrote Barbara Henderson in The Strad in February 1910. Clara Wittgenstein also bought Soldat-Roeger her concert gowns.

IN 1881, JOSEPH JOACHIM WAS SO ASTONISHED BY THE EICHBERG QUARTET THAT HE ALLOWED THEM TO STUDY WITH HIM FOR A YEAR AT THE HOCHSCHULE

During a 28-year career the Soldat-Roeger Quartet achieved a high reputation, playing classics by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Cherubini alongside works by ‘moderns’ such as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. The foursome’s artistic home was the old Bösendorfer Hall, Vienna, where they first appeared on 11 March 1895, but they toured Austria, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy. They came to England in November 1896, visiting Manchester, Oxford, London and Huddersfield. From 1896 to 1906, mostly in Vienna but also in Berlin and Graz, they appeared regularly with the great Meiningen clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, usually playing the quintet Brahms had written for him and often adding the Mozart.

THE WIT TGENSTEINS LENT SOLDAT-ROEGER HER MAIN CONCERT INSTRUMENT, A 1742 GUARNERI ‘DEL GESÙ’

Other joint repertoire choices were Weber’s Clarinet Quintet and Schubert’s Octet. In the first of the quartet’s 1899–1900 Bösendorfer Hall recitals, the group’s pianist was Ilona Eibenschütz. At the 1901 Bonn Chamber Music Festival, the foursome shared programmes with Ignacy Paderewski and the Joachim Quartet. In March 1913 they gave two recitals at the Bösendorfer Hall: at the first, Oskar Nedbal and Pablo Casals were the extra violist and cellist in a quintet and sextet by Brahms. Soldat-Roeger herself was often heard in other combinations: in January 1914 she gave a sonata recital with Max Pauer and a trio evening with the Meiningen cellist Karl Piening, the Viennese violist Franz Jelinek and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein.

Sadly, the war that cost Wittgenstein his right arm also disrupted the quartet’s career in 1914, although as late as 26 March 1917, with Clara Nigrin as violist, the group played Robert Fuchs’s A minor Quartet op.62 in a chamber concert in the Schubert-Saal of the Konzerthaus, Vienna. Campbell, married to an Austrian and appearing as Lucy Müller-Campbell, was initially persona non grata in the German-speaking world during the Great War; but presumably by 1917 this problem had been ironed out. After the First World War, Soldat-Roeger retired to Knittelfeld in Styria. Her quartet did not record but in around May 1921 she herself made records for the Union label.

The other pioneering 1887 quartet was founded by Cheltenham-born Emily Shinner (1862–1901), who began learning the violin at seven and in 1874 went to Berlin, where she studied privately for two years under Heinrich Jacobsen, a pupil of Joachim. When the Hochschule was subsequently opened to women, Shinner was admitted, studying with Joachim himself from October 1877 as his first female pupil. Her public debut was made in 1882 at Kensington Town Hall, where she played Brahms’s G major Violin Sonata, among other works. On 29 June 1882 she performed Ferdinand David’s E minor Concerto at a London Musical Society concert and from then on until her death, she was regarded as one of Britain’s best violin soloists. She also made up a sonata duo with the pianist Leonard Borwick, a Clara Schumann pupil, and led the Charles Williams Orchestra. She was a great favourite with the royal family.

The Shinner Quartet in 1887 (l–r) Emily Shinner, Lucy Stone, Cecilia Gates and Florence Hemmings

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For her quartet, Shinner was joined by Lucy Stone, the multi-instrumentalist Cecilia Gates (who could play the violin and the cello as well as the viola) and Florence Hemmings. The Stone family owned the 1679 ‘Parera’ Stradivari and generously lent it to Shinner; and Lucy Stone presumably played on Shinner’s own 1721 Strad. The quartet’s repertoire was founded on that of the Joachim Quartet: the classics as well as Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák. On 30 March 1895 Shinner, by then Mrs A.F. Liddell, having married an artillery captain in 1889, partnered Joachim in Bach’s ‘Double’ Concerto at Crystal Palace, London, with Arthur Sullivan conducting. On Shinner’s untimely death in 1901, the Austrian Joachim pupil Gabriele Wietrowetz (1866–1937, above) took over leadership of the quartet, before forming her own all-female Wietrowetz Quartet in Berlin in 1905.

That same year, Stone and Gates became members of the Clench Quartet, which was active in London under the leadership of Canadian violinist Nora Clench (1867–1938) – the cellist being May Mukle – until Clench’s retirement in 1908 on her marriage to Australian artist Arthur Streeton. Wietrowetz’s Berlin group continued until 1923.

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Back in the US, Mrs Hahn’s String Quartet – Mrs Adolf Hahn, Mary Louise Wright and sisters Ada and Nina Parke – gave their first concert in November 1900 in Home City, Ohio. But the honour of being the first female quartet to record must go to the fine ensemble that flourished in New York from 1903 to 1923. It was led by Olive Mead (1874–1946), with Elizabeth Houghton (replaced in 1907 by Helen Reynolds and in 1909 by Vera Fonaroff), Gladys North and Lillian Littlehales. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mead began the violin at seven with Eichberg and later studied with the great quartet leader Franz Kneisel – he and his wife took her to Europe in 1897, introducing her to Brahms shortly before his death. She made her London debut in 1900. The Olive Mead Quartet toured the US and gave annual New York series. As early as 1904 the New York Times reported: ‘They have already set a standard that none of their masculine competitors in the domain of chamber music are in the habit of reaching.’

By 1905 the quartet was tackling Beethoven’s op.132 successfully and generally received excellent notices. In 1912 the group made cylinders for Edison: the variations from Haydn’s ‘Emperor’ String Quartet and the Lento from Dvořák’s ‘American’. Beautifully played, both performances (each four and a half minutes long) can be heard on the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive.

The Olive Mead Quartet took part in the first Berkshire Festival, organised in 1918 by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, alongside other well-known American or US-based chamber musicians. In private life Mrs Merrill Holden Green, Mead lost her husband in 1918 and one of her three sons was killed in the Second World War.

In the north of England, Edith Robinson (1867–1940) held sway from 1905. Her quartet, originally with Isabel and Mary McCullagh (second violin and cello) and Edith Craven (viola), were the first female players to perform a Beethoven cycle.

They introduced their audiences to much new music, including Reger – they gave the first London performance of his F sharp minor Quartet op.121 in 1920; and in 1923 brought the lovely E flat major op.109 to the capital. My favourite critical comment (The Academy, 5 November 1910) dubbed the Edith Robinson Quartet ‘a company of most intelligent young ladies from musical Manchester’.

Born in that city, Robinson studied with Luigi Risegari at the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), with Adolph Brodsky in Leipzig and with César Thomson in Liège, and for several seasons she had a trio in Leipzig with pianist Fritz von Bose and cellist Julius Klengel. She also had a solo career in Germany. But after Brodsky went to Manchester, she followed to teach with him at the RMCM. She had a sonata duo with Fanny Davies but became best known for her quartet; by 1910 Lily Simms was violist, in 1915 Isabel McCullagh was succeeded by Gertrude Barker and Simms by Hilda Lindsay, and in 1920 Mary McCullagh gave way to Kathleen Moorhouse.

The Edith Robinson Quartet was known for Brahms, Franck, Ravel, Debussy and such novelties as Eric Fogg’s A flat Quartet and Ernest Walker’s Fantasia. The musicians appeared in Scotland and played for Margaret Deneke’s Oxford Ladies’ Musical Society. Among their guest artists were pianist Frank Merrick, oboist Léon Goossens and the Hallé clarinettist Harry Mortimer. They first broadcast in 1926 and their last hurrahs were the Beethoven and Schubert centenaries. In 1933 Robinson wrote ‘Some Reflections on the Interpretation of Haydn’s Quartets’ for The Strad, calling for a return to a pure style of playing them, without exaggerated tempos or dynamics, with less vibrato and with bow strokes that would have been known to Haydn. She stressed that Haydn’s music was not dainty or graceful, but witty.

IN 1933 EDITH ROBINSON WROTE FOR THE STR AD, CALLING FOR A RETURN TO A PURE STYLE OF PLAYING HAYDN’S QUARTETS

The Lucas Quartet: sisters Miran, Janet, Maud and Patience

LUCAS QUARTET PHOTO TULLY POTTER COLLECTION. SCOTT PHOTO ROYAL COLLEGE OF MUSIC

In 1906 we find the violinist, writer, musicologist and teacher Marion M. Scott (1877–1953, below), a lovely personality, playing second in a mixed London quartet led by Helen Egerton. Poor health prevented her from persisting with her own Marion Scott Quartet, formed in 1908 with Herbert Kinze, Sybil Maturin and Ivor James, but in three concerts at London’s Aeolian Hall she featured music by Stanford (who had taught her composition at the Royal College of Music), Parry, d’Indy, and a Walford Davies premiere. She also advanced her contemporaries’ lives by helping to found the Society of Women Musicians in 1911.

Two young female groups, the Solly and Lucas quartets, emerged in London in 1909. Harriet Solly had first appeared with a quartet at the Aeolian Hall in 1906, her colleagues being the Misses M. Noverre, Sybil Maturin and E. Nettleship: they played Haydn,

Dvořák’s Terzetto and a new quintet by Bertram Luard-Selby with the composer at the piano. Her more permanent quartet featured Bertha Tressler, Maturin and Margaret Izard and its repertoire took in Beethoven, Reger, d’Indy and Ravel – it excelled in French music. The last glimpse I have of that group is a 1921 performance of Schubert’s C major Quintet with Joyce Feldtmann playing the additional cello part.

MARION SCOTT ADVANCED HER CONTEMPOR ARIES’ LIVES BY HELPING TO FOUND THE SOCIETY OF WOMEN MUSICIANS IN 1911

More durable and talented were the Lucas sisters Miran, Janet, Patience and Maud, three of whom had attended the Royal College of Music while the youngest, cellist Maud, studied with Paul Ludwig. All four spent three years in Prague with Otakar Ševčík, then four years in Vienna with Arnold Rosé. By the time they returned to London they had played many concerts in Bohemia and Austria, including performances of the Mendelssohn, Grädener and Svendsen octets with the Rosé Quartet. The Lucas Quartet’s repertoire took in Bridge, Dvořák, Glazunov, Howells, Tchaikovsky and Charles Wood. Janet was in 1916 first by Helen Gough and then by Elsie Avril, also known as a folk fiddler. The group continued until 1930, the year Patience became a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra – but in the meantime she had been playing in Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra and moonlighting in the Queen’s Hall Ladies’ Quartet, with violinists Doris Houghton and Gay Handcock and cellist Doris Griffith.

In the second and final part of this survey I shall deal with the explosion of mixed and all-women quartets after the Great War.