For the Joy of It

"What this country needs," Conductor Fritz Reiner once observed, "is more lousy string quartets." It is not for lack of trying. Indeed, the compulsion of amateur musicians to get together for an evening of chamber music is all but irrepressible. An Army officer's wife one day was approached by a stranger who noticed a telltale mark on her neck: "You must play the violin. Would you like to join our group?" A Boston doctor, hearing a man whistling a Mozart theme on the street, whistled back and soon had a date for duets. One desperate violinist pinned notes to trees in his neighborhood.

Today, fortunately, there is a more organized way for these weekend musicians to seek one another out--the Amateur Chamber Music Players. It was conceived in 1947 by the late Leonard Strauss, an Indianapolis incinerator manufacturer who grew bored playing his violin in his hotel room while on business trips. Today the A.C.M.P. publishes a directory that lists 6,000 amateur musicians in 50 states and 61 countries. By consulting the directory, a member can arrange a living-room concert in virtually any city in the world.

Better than Stereo. Helen Rice, 64, one of the founders of and now the guiding hand behind the A.C.M.P., operates the organization out of her Manhattan apartment. The A.C.M.P. directory includes a large number of noted doctors, professors and diplomats, but the only distinctions A.C.M.P. members care about are their musical rankings: from Pro for professional and A for excellent down to D for "et cetera," which, says Secretary Rice (violin-B) "is a delicate way of saying bad." Each member rates himself according to a detailed questionnaire.

Though a member may play badly, the only real requirement is that he play gladly. Dr. E. A. Baker of Edinburgh, Scotland, says that his listing of "violin-D" means that "my talents lie rather in making coffee," but he offers "room with piano, stands, refreshment and car parking." Still, there are drawbacks to being a less-than-A performer. Explains Carleen Hutchins (viola-D), a Montclair, N.J., housewife who makes violas in her spare time: "We Ds don't often get calls; we have to do the calling."

Coal Bin Sessions. The ebullient Miss Rice publishes a yearly newsletter filled with members' adventures in impromptu music-making in far-off lands and chatty items about "an intradirectory wedding, bassoon-C to cello-D." Membership ranges from Foreign Policy Association President Samuel Hayes (viola-B) to a Manhattan night elevator operator (cello-B) who held wee-hour sessions in the coal bin of his building. Says Miss Rice: "There are a great many of us queer ducks who really love to play just for the sheer joy of it."

For those who might be wary of complete strangers' dropping into their homes, Henry Simon (violin-C), executive editor of Simon & Schuster, contends that "people who play chamber music are nicer than other people. One retired doctor (viola-B) totes around a trailer outfitted with chairs, music stands and a well-stocked music library. Author Catherine Drinker Bowen (violin-B) takes her directory with her on lecture tours, has driven as far as 250 miles to play in a quartet. "Sometimes I go to the quartets worn out," she says, "but somehow I always come away refreshed. It is a great renewing thing."

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