INTERPRETATION
"If the leader of the quartet has lived himself into and mastered a composition, together with his associates, the result is sure. I must live in the music I play just as an actor must live the character he represents. All higher interpretation depends on solving technical problems in a way which is not narrowly mechanical. And while the ensemble spirit must be preserved, the freedom of the individual should not be too much restrained. Once the style and manner of a modern composer are familiar, it is easier to present his works: when we first played the Reger quartet here some twenty years ago, we found pages which at first we could not at all understand. If one has fathomed Debussy, it is easier to play Milhaud, Roger-Ducasse, Samazeuil—for the music of the modern French school has much in common. One great cultural value the professional quartet has for the musical community is the fact that it gives a large circle a measure of acquaintance with the mode of thought and style of composers whose symphonic and larger works are often an unknown quantity. This applies to Debussy, Reger, the modern Russians, Bloch and others. When we played the Stravinsky pieces here, for instance, his Pétrouschka and Firebird had not yet been heard.
SOME IDEALS
"We try, as an organization, to be absolutely catholic in taste. Nor do we neglect the older music, because we play so much of the new. This year we are devoting special attention to the American composers. Formerly the Kneisels took care of them, and now we feel that we should assume this legacy. We have already played Daniel Gregory Mason's fine Intermezzo, and the other American numbers we have played include David Stanley Smith's Second Quartet, and movements from quartets by Victor Kolar and Samuel Gardner. We are also going to revive Charles Martin Loeffler's Rhapsodies for viola, oboe and piano.
"I have been for some time making a collection of sonatas a tre, two violins and 'cello—delightful old things by Sammartini, Leclair, the Englishman Boyce, Friedemann Bach and others. This is material from which the amateur could derive real enjoyment and profit. The Leclair sonata in D minor we have played some three hundred times; and its slow movement is one of the most beautiful largos I know of in all chamber music. The same thing could be done in the way of transcription for chamber music which Kreisler has already done so charmingly for the solo violin. And I would dearly love to do it! There are certain 'primitives' of the quartet—Johann Christian Bach, Gossec, Telemann, Michel Haydn—who have written music full of the rarest melodic charm and freshness. I have much excellent material laid by, but as you know," concluded Mr. Betti with a sigh, "one has so little time for anything in America."