FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

In the second and final part of his survey, Tully Potter reveals the extent of the explosion of all-female quartets that occurred after the First World War in the UK, Europe, the US and the Soviet Union, as well as notable mixed ones

The Ebsworth Quartet (l–r) Elizabeth Hunt, Eleanor Warren,Eileen and Phyllis Ebsworth

TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

By the beginning of the First World War, music lovers in Britain were quite used to seeing all-female quartets on the concert platform. Two ensembles were closely involved with the Society of Women Musicians. Helen Egerton formed hers in 1912 with Helen Gough, Sybil Maturin and Edith Hanson, but by 1913 the viola and cello positions had been taken by Dorothy Jones and Gwendolen Griffiths. Rhoda Backhouse (1889–1980), a Quaker who owned the 1702 ‘Lord Newlands’ Stradivari violin from 1921 to 1961, had a piano trio with cellist Felix Salmond and Harold Samuel at the piano, and she founded her quartet in 1919 with Jean le Fevre, Margaret Savory (replaced in 1926 by Rowena Franklin) and Lily Phillips.

During the war, front-rank musicians Adila Fachiri, Jelly d’Arányi (violinist sisters), Rebecca Clarke and Guilhermina Suggia came together to play quartets. Only Clarke, who had participated in the last months of the Clench Quartet, knew much repertoire, but the foursome took part in Tovey’s Classical Concert Society. They gave themselves the title Pro Musica Quartet but were usually listed by their separate names.

Notably well connected – and intrepid – was the Kendall Quartet of London: Katherine Kendall, Marjorie Clemens (from 1922, Dorothy Brook), Dorothy Jones and Edith Hanson. ‘The ensemble began [in 1920] by giving small concerts in country villages,’ Walter Willson Cobbett tells us in his Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music (1929), and Kendall would offer brief introductions to the pieces. The quartet’s concerts in the capital were often given under the auspices of such organisations as the League of Arts and the Guild of Singers and Players, and frequently enjoyed the patronage of royalty – the Prince of Wales and especially princesses Mary and Marie Louise. It was the first quartet to play at the Victoria and

Albert Museum and appeared at the National Gallery. In 1926 the group took off on a world tour of countries in the old British Empire, giving 110 concerts in ten months and covering more than 40,000 miles. In 1931, with violist Winifred Stiles, the ensemble premiered Elizabeth Maconchy’s String Quintet. It appears to have disbanded the following year.

In part one, we met the McCullagh sisters – violinist Isabel and cellist Mary – members of a talented musical clan, in the Edith Robinson Quartet. In Liverpool in 1920 they formed their own McCullagh Quartet, with Gertrude Newsham and Helen Rawdon Briggs taking the inner parts, and they were the city’s sole quartet during the interwar years. In March 1921 the group gave its first London recital at Mortimer Hall, playing Nováček’s E flat major Quartet, joining pianist-composer Joseph Holbrooke in his G minor Piano Quintet and accompanying baritone John Goss in songs. In 1923 the players introduced the revised version of Walton’s First Quartet, with a scherzo added, at the Royal College of Music, London, on 5 July; they repeated it in Liverpool and took it to the Salzburg Festival in August. In 1927 they marked Beethoven’s centenary with a Liverpool cycle of all his quartets in six concerts. They also became known for Good Friday performances of Haydn’s Seven Last Words at Liverpool Cathedral. By 1933, Betty Grundy was second violinist and the quartet was still going strong in 1936.

IN 1926 THE KENDALL QUARTET OF LONDON TOOK OFF ON A WORLD TOUR OF THE OLD BRITISH EMPIRE, GIVING 110 CONCERTS IN TEN MONTHS

Violinist and quartet leader Jelly d’Arányi pictured in The Strad in 1926

Composer Rebecca Clarke (here playing the violin in 1906) was violist in Jelly d’Arányi’s quartet

Another 1920 entrant was the Wayfaring Quartet, led by Dorothea Christison with Rhoda Legge, Dorothy Jones (from 1923, Emily Nicholas) and Valentine Orde; they broke up in 1924 on Christison’s marriage, but in the 1930s Christison, Jones and Orde played in the Bessie Rawlins Quartet. Orde (1889–1983) – from the border country and a pupil of Jean Gérardy, Julius Klengel and Camille Delobelle of the Capet Quartet after she left the Royal Academy of Music in London – was a great character. She played in the actress Lena Ashwell’s concert parties for the troops during the Great War, became an important conductor and teacher and brought together the Gabrieli Quartet. From 1923, Londoners could hear weekly lunchtime concerts at Christ Church, Westminster, given by the Westminster Quartet (Dorothy Ewens, Phyllis Newton, Ada Stuart and Dorothy Dening), who also gave numerous school recitals and out-of-town performances.

Across the Channel, the interesting Quatuor Capelle arose out of post-war euphoria. Among the most brilliant pupils of Henri Berthelier and Lucien Capet and herself a teacher at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, Fernande Capelle (b.1897) is forgotten now, but she and her colleagues Alice Piantini, Marguérite Lutz and Marika Bernard were close to composers of Les Six. Capelle and Lutz had taken the inner parts in the quartet led by Ravel’s friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange in the closing years of the war, with Adèle Clément as cellist; their own group had barely got started when, in April 1919, it premiered Milhaud’s Fourth Quartet at the Concerts Delgrange, Paris. In June it introduced Honegger’s First Quartet at the Société Musicale Indépendante – his Violin Sonata no.2 had been dedicated to Capelle – and in 1933 the quartet revived his Pâques à New York with the mezzo Jane Bathori. The musicians also worked with Auric, Germaine Tailleferre (below, the only female member of Les Six) and Poulenc. They occasionally came to London, broadcasting for the BBC in 1924 and 1936, and returning in 1952.

The German-speaking lands had their entities, notably the Bentz Quartet in Berlin and the Riele Queling Quartet in Cologne, which both started in 1922, and four Viennese groups, the Weiss, Kolbe, Alberdingk and Steinbauer quartets – all active by the time of Beethoven’s centenary in 1927.Beatrice Bentz (1895–1976) and her original colleagues Hilde Schirmer,Agnes Ritter and Lena von Hippel were trained by the great quartet leader Karl Klingler. Riele Queling (1897–1980), like Grete Eweler a pupil of Adolf Busch’s teacher Bram Eldering, led the Cologne Chamber Orchestra. She and her colleagues Lotte Hellwig-Josten, Gerda van Essen and Ilse

Bernatz made beautiful records in 1939, including the complete ‘Lark’ Quartet by Haydn, his ‘Emperor’ variations, the Cavatina from Beethoven’s op.130 and the second movement from Tchaikovsky’s op.11. The ensemble dissolved in 1943.

The four Viennese ensembles knew each other. Herta Schachermeier-Martini (violin/viola) and Lotte Hammerschlag (viola) played at different times with both the Kolbe and the Weiss quartets, cellist Frieda Krause was with both the Weiss and the Steinbauer, Erny Alberdingk-Walter was with the Kolbe Quartet for a while, and Edith Steinbauer was the Weiss’s violist in the 1930s while leading her own group. Like Bentz, Margarethe Kolbe (1890–1974) was a proponent of new music: her quartet originated in 1912, and the 1920s line-up gave numerous premieres. Alberdingk-Walter (1892–1961), an Arnold Rosé and Carl Flesch protegée, led two groups: one before her 1920 marriage to organist Karl Walter, an ensemble that gave troop concerts in the war; the other with Tina Koppensteiner – who soon gave way to Lissy Sieber – and the Wimmer sisters Hilde and Luitgard, which ran from 1925 to the early 1930s, specialising in Reger and making many broadcasts. Lily Weiss’s group toured the most, coming to Britain several times and broadcasting for the BBC. Steinbauer (1901–96) was an exceptional artist whose quartet outlived the other three, lasting into the post-war era. In 1949 she became the first female professor at what is now the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and taught many members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and its concert wing the Vienna Philharmonic, while being excluded from both ensembles herself! She also had a viol consort – among guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream’s earliest records were Dowland songs made with the Golden Age Singers and Steinbauer’s consort.

VALENTINE ORDE PLAYED FOR THE TROOPS IN THE GREAT WAR AND BECAME AN IMPORTANT CONDUCTOR AND TEACHER

The Steinbauer Quartet in its 1920 iteration (standing, l–r) Herta Schachermeier-Martini, Maria Capellmann, Hilde Folger-Lobe (seated) Edith Steinbauer

STEINBAUER PHOTO TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

In 1936, Hammerschlag (1904–2005) joined the Palestine Orchestra; but in 1938 she followed her conductor husband Carl Bamberger to New York, worked in Busch’s chamber orchestra and played in the Busch Quartet through the 1943–4 season, the sole woman to be so honoured – moreover, she maintained the tradition of a Viennese violist in the legendary ensemble. The Bambergers’ New York apartment became a haven for musicians to play Hausmusik as a relaxation from their stressful careers.

The first female quartet to record a complete work on disc was the Marie Wilson Quartet, founded in 1925 with Gwendolen Higham, Anne Wolfe and Phyllis Hasluck. They played Bax’s G major Quartet at Wigmore Hall in March 1929 (with the Delius and Haydn’s ‘Sunrise’), and a year later recorded it for the National Gramophonic Society (right). Marie Wilson (1903–96) and her colleagues were regular broadcasters from 1927, and in 1930 she and Wolfe became founder members of the BBC SO. Wilson was made sub-leader and often led the orchestra. Her quartet was still active after the war.

Three influential British ensembles launched in 1931. Isolde Menges (1893–1976) started out leading three men but soon had at least one other woman in her group – and once Jean Stewart became violist in 1941, there were three. Irish violinist Anne Macnaghten (1908–2000) had an even wider grassroots influence, in keeping with her strong left-wing sympathies. A pupil of d’Arányi, she was much impressed by Busch, whom she met in 1927 during her Leipzig studies. Her quartet consisted of women until 1937 but suffered many changes. Her Londonbased Macnaghten Concerts, founded with conductor Iris Lemare and composer Elisabeth Lutyens, ran in conjunction with the ensemble and introduced a wide range of British music, championing women composers. The indefatigable Birmingham Ladies’ Quartet was led by Muriel Tookey (pupil of Flesch, Paul Beard and Arthur Catterall), with Dorothy Hemming, Lena Wood and sister Elsa Tookey. The group brought much fine music to the Midlands and in the 1930s was a regular broadcaster.

MACNAGHTEN PHOTO TULLY POTTER COLLECTION CELLIST ELEANOR WARREN, WHO STUDIED WITH PIERRE FOURNIER AND PABLO CASALS, BECAME A BBC PRODUCER

The Macnaghten Quartet (l–r) Anne Macnaghten, Elise Desprez, Olive Richards, Phyllis Ebsworth

England was becoming a happy hunting ground for female quartets. In 1937 the Ebsworth sisters, Eileen (violin) and Phyllis (viola), pupils of the redoubtable Editha Knocker, formed a London ensemble with Elizabeth Hunt as second violinist and Eleanor Warren as cellist. Not content with her younger sister’s group, Phyllis also played in Macnaghten’s quartet until the Second World War broke out. In 1940, the sisters helped found the Circle of International Art, to give refugee musicians the chance to meet and perform: sessions were held every Sunday afternoon in the Ebsworth Quartet’s studio in Hampstead, north London, despite air raids and a barrage balloon site in the garden of the house.

The Ebsworth Quartet first broadcast in 1940, and during the war it was reserved by CEMA (the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts) to play in factories, in army and RAF camps and in air raid shelters, and they appeared many times at Myra Hess’s National Gallery concerts. Warren wed conductor Walter Susskind in 1943, and when she had her son, Joy Hall took over as cellist for a time – Jean Layton (later Eisler) similarly filled in for Hunt. The quartet lasted into the early 1950s. Warren, who after 1945 furthered her studies with Pierre Fournier and Pablo Casals, became a BBC producer. Phyllis Ebsworth taught the violin and coached quartets for Benslow Music Trust. Eileen continued her chamber music career into the 1960s.

Rewinding to the 1927–8 season at the Royal Academy of Music in London, we find ensemble professor Lionel Tertis coaching the McDonald Quartet (Phyllis McDonald, Adna Ryerson, Winifred Copperwheat and Joan Mulholland) to play the entire corpus of 68 Haydn quartets, in chronological order, on Thursday afternoons in Duke’s Hall – an astonishing feat. Violist Copperwheat, despite her small stature, could handle a large viola and later was among the first devotees of the Tertis–Richardson model (she had no.4). In 1942 she became the internal combustion engine of the remarkable Zorian Quartet, which blazed a trail for British chamber music over seven short years. Leader Olive Zorian (1916–65) was integral to the UK scene for 25 years, with a repertoire ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary music. Trained at the royal colleges in her native Manchester and in London and counting Catterall, George Enescu and Szymon Goldberg among her teachers, she founded her quartet in 1942: Marjorie Lavers was second violinist and Norina Semino cellist. Like the Ebsworth, the group toured widely to boost wartime morale. It made its first broadcast in December 1942, and in March 1943 premiered Tippett’s Second Quartet at Wigmore Hall, giving it several other airings that year including a broadcast in April. It made two attempts to record the work for Decca, in June 1945 (unpublished) and December 1947, when the version that still sounds superb was produced. Also close to Britten, the group premiered his Second Quartet at Wigmore Hall in November 1945, the 250th anniversary of the death of Purcell, a major influence on the work. For its HMV recording in November 1946, it set down Purcell’s Fantasia upon One Note as a filler, persuading Britten to play the sustained C – his sole viola record. The Zorian Quartet disbanded in 1949; they had trouble getting the best work when men returned from the services and the Amadeus Quartet was formed. The Zorian began again in the 1950s with another female line-up, but soon had to admit men.

Zorian Quartet (l–r) Olive Zorian, Eleanor St George, Maureen Flinn, Joy Hall

THE REMARK ABLE ZORIAN QUA RTET BL AZED A TR AIL FOR BR ITISH CH A MBER MUSIC OVER SEV EN SHORT YEARS

British-based Australian violinist Margot MacGibbon (1906–98) had a quartet just before the Second World War with Evelyn Ruegg (later Jessie Stewart), Olive Davidson and Peers Coetmore (future wife of Moeran); but she really got going in 1947 with Ruth Fourmy, Muriel Tookey and Lily Phillips. By 1953, Lorraine du Val was second violinist and Jean Stewart violist; and for a decade (1958–68), Anatole Mines was in the viola seat. Also during this era (1950–73), the longrunning English Quartet was led by Ruth Pearl, then from 1957 by the great Nona Liddell (right), with Lesley White (later Marilyn Taylor), Marjorie ‘Bunty’ Lempfert (daughter of former leader Marjorie Hayward) and Helen Just. Both these ensembles were much appreciated by Britain’s wide-ranging network of music clubs.

ZORIAN PHOTO TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

There have been quite a few Amati quartets, but the one founded in Los Angeles in 1955 was unusually promising, especially (in a remarkable example of nominative determinism) being led by Jeannette Violin, wife of violinist and conductor Mischa Violin. The second violinist was Mary Laporte (married to Lucien, Paganini Quartet cellist), Maxine Johnson was the violist and Marie Manahan (aka Marie Fera) the cellist.

The Lafayette Quartet (l–r) Sharon Stanis, Pamela Highbaugh Aloni, Anne Elliot-Goldschmidt, Joanna Hood

Kaprálova Quartet (l–r) Simona Hečová, Veronika Panochová, Eva Krestová, Simona Hurníková

THE GR E ATEST TRIBUTE ONE CAN PAY TO THE FEMALE QUA RTET PIONEERS IS THAT NOWADAYS NO ONE TURNS A HAIR WHEN A NOTHER GROUP EMERGES

They got off to a good start, inter alia introducing László Lajtha’s Ninth Quartet and playing works by Henry Hadley and Miklós Rósza. Alas, by the time the group made its New York debut in 1963, only Johnson remained of the founders; Shirley Marcus was second violin and the other two players were men.

Of the same vintage was the Quatuor Margand of Paris, which had Michèle Margand and Claudine Lasserre at the top and bottom of the range from 1957 into the 1980s, and maintained an exclusively female line-up. In its first year, it won the Grand Prix in Joseph Calvet’s class at the Paris Conservatoire. Among its recordings, I especially love Saint-Saëns’s two quartets, released c.1985 by the line-up of Margand, Brigitte Roth, Sylvie Vesterman and Lasserre: here is the true French style, so easy to recognise, so hard to achieve.

Amati Quartet of Los Angeles (l–r) Jeannette Violin, Mary Laporte, Maxine Johnson, Marie Manahan

LAFAYETTE PHOTO FRANCES LITMAN. KAPRÁLOVÁ PHOTO DANIEL HAVEL. AMATI PHOTO TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

In the Soviet Union, the hegemony of male quartets was not broken until 1957, when Ella Brakker, Nadezhda Baikova, Galina Odinets and Kira Tsvetkova founded the Prokofiev Quartet of Moscow. The group became known in the West through its recordings, including Bartók’s op.7 (released 1961). By the time it made its outstanding LP of Prokofiev’s two quartets, the violinists were Polina Guberman and Ludmila Granova; and altogether a dozen women played in the group, maintaining a superb standard. In the 1980s the Russian Quartet emerged: Tatiana Berkul, Maria Suchkova, Elena Ozol and Ludmila Krushkova. Pupils of David Oistrakh and violist Fyodor Druzhinin among others, they had success both at home and abroad: their excellent Borodin and Prokofiev recordings were published on CD in the West (1997 and 2000 respectively). In 1995 another bastion fell when the great Czech tradition acquired a female ensemble, the Venus Quartet – wisely renamed after the composer Vítězslava Kaprálová in 2000 and still active.

I mentioned Tutter Givskov and Pina Carmirelli in the introduction to my first article in this survey, but many other first-rate women players have led quartets: Maud Powell and Miriam Fried in the US, Kathleen Parlow in Canada, Gunna Breuning-Storm in Denmark, Stefi Geyer in Switzerland, Marie-Ange Henry in France. Since the 1960s, female quartets have proliferated and the greatest tribute one can pay to the pioneers is that nowadays no one turns a hair when another group emerges. One recalls so many of these dedicated women from over the years, among them the Colorado Quartet in the US, the Sorrel Quartet in the UK (which left us such satisfying Elgar recordings) and the Lafayette Quartet in British Columbia, which stopped playing in August 2023 after 37 years with the same personnel, a record for a female string quartet. Their careers rested on so much more than their skills as musicians – their abilities to get along together and reason things out could be studied by some of the men who keep getting the world into a mess!