Guarneri String Quartet Archives

Objects — by Arnold Steinhardt

Last summer I was once again a participant in the Marlboro Music Festival. As always, the school generously provided my wife, Dorothea, and me with a house off campus. This time we were given the former home of David Soyer, the cellist of our Guarneri String Quartet for thirty-seven of its forty-five-year existence. Dave passed away in 2010, his wife, Janet, in 2011. I knew Dave and Janet’s house rather well, a charming, rustic old place set in the woods, and I looked forward to staying in it. When people asked me whether I wouldn’t feel funny living in their house now that they were gone, I laughed and said no at first without really thinking much about it. But then I began to wonder whether Dave and Janet would [...]

By Arnold Steinhardt|2018-03-18T18:30:07-04:00March 4th, 2014|Categories: Interpersonal Relationships|Tags: Jacqueline du Pré, memories, Marlboro Music Festival, David Soyer, memory-inducing objects, Arnold, musical world, career, Guarneri String Quartet, obituary, cello, Steinhardt, Peter Wiley, cellobello, beauty of phrasing, remembrance, students, In the Key of Strawberry, Spoleto, teacher, incisiveness, string quartet, intelligence, Italy, posters|

Dave — by Arnold Steinhardt

David Soyer, cellist and founding member of the Guarneri String Quartet, passed away on February 26, 2010—one day after his 86th birthday. Michael Tree, violist, and John Dalley and I, violinists, the other founding members, played in the quartet with Dave for almost forty years and we knew him for close to fifty. Peter Wiley, a former cello student of Dave’s and his successor in the Guarneri Quartet, has known him for easily forty years. Given the close musical and personal relationship that we had with Dave stretching over decades, it is hard to believe that he is no longer with us. Dave and I first met at the Marlboro Music School—quite literally at a rehearsal for Brahms B Major Piano Trio. In the course of that two-hour rehearsal, I [...]

By Arnold Steinhardt|2017-09-28T04:16:26-04:00February 24th, 2014|Categories: Artistic Vision, Chamber Music, Interpersonal Relationships|Tags: Brahms B Major piano trio, University of Michigan, Touring, distinctive, writer, Ford Honors, Arnold Steinhardt, Soyer, Ford Motor Company, cello, bow control, Guarneri String Quartet, cellobello, Style, historian, music, artist, impeccable intonation, tribute, John Dalley, Travel, David Soyer, Marlboro Music School, musicians, Arnold, Michael Tree, David, bold, Steinhardt, cellist|