Flonzaley Farewell

Some years ago after a concert by the Flonzaley Quartet in a small U. S. town, a man in the audience rushed up to the second violinist and said: "Beautiful, but not like old times." "What do you mean?" asked the second violinist, bewildered. "You should have heard Mr. Flonzaley himself at the head of this quartet, his bowing, his musical feeling!" The second violinist bowed his head. "Yes, we never could come up to the old man," he murmured.

The second violinist was courteous, but the misguided show-off had blundered. He might as well have told one of the six Floradora girls that not one of them could sing like old Senora Floradora. For the Flonzaleys are as unrelated as most teams which have a single name.* There was no Mr. Flonzaley who fathered them all. There was instead a Swiss banker, Edward J. deCoppet, who wanted chamber music in the U. S. He appointed Violinist Alfred Pochon to establish a string quartet, and he named it after his Swiss villa, Flonzaley, which translated means "brooklet."

This year, the twenty-fifth of its existence, the Flonzaley Quartet is making a transcontinental tour of farewell concerts. Last week, they played what was to be, save for a supplementary benefit to be given March 17, their farewell concert in Manhattan. Two of the players will join a new Stradivarius Quartet, (socalled because they all own Stradivarius instruments) in which Wolfe Wolfinsohn is to be violinist, Gerald Felix Warburg, son of Banker Felix M. Warburg, the 'cellist. The remaining two announced no plans. But their work as a unit is done and, last week, their story was reviewed, their achievement attested.

The Record. When the Flonzaleys first came to the U. S., the sole chamber ensemble of any importance was the quartet of Franz Kneisel, violinist of the Boston Symphony. Kneisel was the pioneer. The Flonzaleys have spread the gospel, making it possible for many to become acquainted with much of the world's most satisfying music. Some 2,000 concerts in 500 U. S. cities, some 500 more in Europe--so have they done what Banker deCoppet meant them to do. For balance, clarity and unity they have been and still remain the best of their kind in the U. S., without challenge. Comparable to them abroad might perhaps be the London String Quartet, the Vienna, the Busch (Berlin), and three Hungarian -- the Leuer, Budapest and Roth.*

The Players. The original Flonzaley players were Adolfo Betti and Alfred Pochon, violin player; Iwan d'Archambeau, 'cellist; Ugo Ara, violinist. The first three are in the Quartet today but Ara left to join the Italian army in 1917. Ill health prevented his return and Louis Bailly, now of the Curtis Institute, succeeded him until 1924. Then Felicien d'Archambeau, brother of Cellist Iwan, played for a season and since then Nicholas Moldavan. The Quartet now stands with Betti, an Italian; Pochon, a Swiss; d'Archambeau, a Belgian; Moldavan, a Russian. Yet so dominated are they all by the name Flonzaley, so bound by their playing and rehearsing together, that they have rarely been considered individually.

"The Flonzaleys," a critic once wrote, "must certainly eat of the same loaf, drink of the same cup." This critic, too, guessed wrong. Away from their music they have led friendly but separate lives. They traveled together, by necessity, but each one sat by himself, usually reading. In Manhattan, where they were most often, they stayed at separate hotels. For a month in the summer they took vacations apart. Two other months a year they spent in making programs and practicing in a chalet high in the Swiss Alps near the Villa Flonzaley.

Violinist Pochon is the wittiest and most talkative of the four. He had studied medicine, composed chamber music. His wife is a Virginian; he has a stepson of 14 and one child of his own. Cellist D'Archambeau is also married. Violinist Betti and Viola-player Moldavan are both bachelors, the one confirmed, the other eligible.

The quartet has been bound by a rule which prohibited the four men from giving private or solo performances, and from teaching. Of all audiences they have preferred those in the U. S. The reason for their farewell was not announced. Some say that they agreed to separate after 25 years. Others say that it is because venerable Violinist Betti is threatened with that next-to-the-worst affliction a musician can suffer--blindness.

*Notable exception: the Four Marx Brothers. Groucho (Julius), Harpo (Arthur), Chico (Leonard) and Zeppo (Herbert) have the same mother, Minnie, the same father, Adolf. *Brought, last fall, to the U. S. by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge of Manhattan.