Description
Correspondence, photographs, recordings,
programs, clippings, datebooks and other personal papers from the estate
of the violinist Feri Roth.
Background
Born July 18, 1899, at Zvolen, Czechoslovakia, Feri Roth received his
musical training at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest where
he graduated in 1917. His first position was the concertmastership of the
Budapest Opera from 1919-1920; a year later he joined the Berlin Volksoper
in the same capacity. In 1922, he founded the string quartet which bore
his name for forty-seven years. Two years later, the quartet made a
successful debut in Paris, then embarked on a tour of Europe and Africa.
On an invitation from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1928, the quartet,
reorganized to include Jeno Antal, Ferenc Molnar, and Janos Scholz, made
its first appearance in the United States at the Pittsfield
(Massachusetts) Music Festival. Subsequently, the quartet concertized
throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, participating in
concerts at the Library of Congress, giving many concerts of modern works
in New York City and Washington, and performing all of Beethoven's string
quartets including his Grosse Fuge.
Restrictions
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Music
Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to
determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or
her heir for permission to publish if the Performing Arts Special Collections does not hold the
copyright.