The Juilliard Quartet
The legendary American string quartet explains its tradition to Brian Wise and says how its performing style and devotion to new music continues to give the ensemble its signature edge
“What keeps music fresh is always having the sense that there is in-the-moment imagination going on”
When composer William Schuman became president of the Juilliard School in 1945, one item on his to-do list was ‘form a resident quartet’. Rejecting some of the top string quartets of the day, he instead gathered three hungry young string players who had dabbled in jazz while serving in the US Army and a violist raided from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. ‘It was greater than anything I’d ever dreamed of,’ Schuman said of their debut concert. ‘Here were four men on fire with what they were doing… just on fire with it.’
As the Juilliard Quartet celebrates its 75th anniversary, aspects of that fiery,
