Amar Quartet

The Amar Quartet, also known as the Amar-Hindemith Quartet, was a musical ensemble founded by the composer Paul Hindemith in 1921 in Germany, and was extremely active in both classical and modern repertoire until being disbanded in 1929. It made several recordings and many broadcasts.

A string quartet founded in 1987 by the sisters Anna Brunner and Maja Weber adopted the same name in 1995 in tribute to Hindemith and is increasingly active at the present time. It plays on four Stradivarius instruments. See external links.

Personnel

1st violin

2nd violin

viola

violoncello

Origins

From c1914 Paul Hindemith, a graduate of Hoch Conservatory at Frankfort-am-Main, had taken the second violin desk in the Rebner Quartet of Frankfort, led by his violin teacher Adolf Rebner. He continued to play in quartets during the war while in military service, and after the war took up the viola and asked to be moved to that desk. He had written string quartets in 1915 (op 2) and 1918 (op 10), and in 1920 produced another (op 16) which was accepted for performance in the new 1921 Donaueschingen Festival. However Gustav Havemann, leader of the Havemann Quartet engaged for it, refused to perform the work, and therefore Hindemith was obliged to form a group to give his own premiere. He chose his younger brother Rudolf (dedicatee of the work) as cellist, and recruited Licco Amar, a Budapest Conservatory graduate and 1915-1920 concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and then of Mannheim Nationaltheater, as first violin and Walter Caspar as second.