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Finding Aid for the Feri Roth Collection of Papers, Photographs
and Recordings, 1930-1969
197
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Title: Feri Roth Collection of Papers, Photographs and
Recordings,
Date (inclusive): 1930-1969
Collection number: 197
Creator:
Roth,
Feri
Extent:
9 boxes
(4.5 linear
ft.)
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library.
Performing Arts Special Collections
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Abstract: Correspondence, photographs, recordings,
programs, clippings, datebooks and other personal papers from the estate
of the violinist Feri Roth.
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice
is required for access to the collection. Please contact Performing Arts Special Collections
Special Collections for paging information.
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research.
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.
[Identification of item], Feri Roth Collection of Papers, Photographs
and Recordings, 197, Performing Arts Special Collections, University of
California, Los Angeles.
Marissa Roth, June 2001
Processed by: Hermine Vermeij, June 2004
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.
In 1937, the quartet joined the faculty of Westminster Choir College at
Princeton University. Resigning from the college in 1939, Mr. Roth
assembled a new group consisting of former members of the Manhattan String
Quartet: Rachmael Weinstock, Julius Shaier, and Oliver Edel. In 1947, Roth
began his long association with UCLA, joining the Department of Music as
Lecturer. In 1960, he was named full professor. During his years at the
University, he made further changes in the personnel of the quartet. The
group that was most familiar to concert goers included Thomas Marrocco,
professor of music at UCLA; Irving Weinstein; and Cesare Pascarella, UCLA
lecturer in music. It was principally this combination that Roth led in
his yearly festivals of Beethoven's chamber music. He made many other
important contributions. Occasionally he would exchange his violin and bow
for the conductor's baton and lead larger chamber music ensembles in
performances of concertos by Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach, and of Bach's The
Art of Fugue. For more than ten years, he organized the Tuesday Noon
Concerts, a weekly production of the Department of Music in Schoenberg
Hall Auditorium. His authoritative and stimulating teaching found
expression in a continuing series of chamber music classes, and his course
on the music of Bach and Beethoven attracted thousands of students.
A champion of modern music, Roth's quartet performed in concert many
works by composer-colleagues in the department, and gave public readings
of newly composed works by graduate students. This service was invaluable.
In its off-campus appearances, the Roth Quartet concertized widely, not
only on the west coast, where it gave many performances each year, but
also on the east coast, in Canada, and in Great Britain. During 1963 and
again in 1966, the quartet played a series of concerts in London; and in
the spring of 1968, it presented the entire cycle of Beethoven's quartets
in New York City's Lincoln Center. A further presentation of the cycle,
scheduled for Elizabeth Hall, London, in the spring of 1969 had to be
cancelled because of Roth's death, on May 7, 1969.
During its long history, the Roth Quartet recorded thirty-five albums
for Columbia Masterworks and five for the Society for Forgotten
Masterpieces. Especially important is the quartet's recording of Bach's
Art of the Fugue, in the Harris-North transcription. In 1966, the Roth
Quartet was televised at UCLA during performances of two Beethoven
quartets: Opus 74 (The Harp) and Opus 95 (Serioso). The video tapes are
valuable to students, and also to amateurs, for their visual clues to the
secret of successful quartet performances.
Feri Roth was the recipient of the Award of Merit from the National
Association of American Composers and Conductors in 1942 for outstanding
service to American music, and he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of
Music from the New York College of Music in 1949. He was a member of the
Beethoven Association of New York, the International Society for
Contemporary Music of London, the Mozart Society of Salzburg, and the
Triton Music Society of Paris.
Collection consists of correspondence, photographs, recordings,
programs, clippings, datebooks and other personal papers from the estate
of the violinist Feri Roth. Correspondents include George Antheil, Alfredo
Cassela, Carlos Chávez, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Aaron Copland,
David Diamond, Lukas Foss, Benny Goodman, Morton Gould, Roy Harris, Andre
Previn, Artur Schnabel, William Schuman, Roger Sessions, Marcel
Vertés, and Meredith Willson.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this
collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Roth,
Feri--Archives