{"id":270433,"date":"2021-06-16T13:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradomusicfestival.org\/?p=270433"},"modified":"2021-06-30T10:25:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T16:25:57","slug":"honoring-chamber-music-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradomusicfestival.org\/honoring-chamber-music-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring a Chamber Music Giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Marc Shulgold<\/p>\n

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Robert Mann wanted to be a forest ranger. When that didn’t pan out, he settled on another passion \u2013 music. Which worked out pretty well. <\/span><\/h2>\n

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Known as \u201cBobby\u201d to music lovers everywhere, Mann served as first violinist and founding member of the celebrated Juilliard String Quartet<\/a> for a mind-blowing 51 years. Following a long, productive life as a performer, teacher, and as a beloved, enthusiastic source of inspiration for aspiring musicians, he passed away in 2018 at the age of 97.<\/p>\n

In a conversation about the Colorado Music Festival’s new Robert Mann Chamber Music Series<\/a>, Nicholas Mann mentioned his father’s dream of working in the woods, as he pointed to a love of the outdoors. \u201cHe always had a connection to the mountains. We would take hikes everywhere we could \u2013 in Aspen, in the Tetons, in Glacier National Park. So, it’s appropriate that the [Boulder-based Colorado Music Festival] has named this series for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mann family’s link with the Colorado Music Festival also flows through music director Peter Oundjian<\/a>, going back to those early days at the Juilliard School. \u201cI played in a student quartet with Peter,\u201d Nicholas remembers. \u201cWe were coached by my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Robert Mann (right) courtesy of Nicholas Mann<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.9.6″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n

The Mann Chamber Music series<\/a> will make its Festival debut with five Tuesday evening concerts in Chautauqua Auditorium. Those programs offer an intriguing range of intimate music-making, from String Quintets played by members of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra to performances of new and old music by such noted visiting ensembles as the St. Lawrence Quartet<\/a>, Brooklyn Rider<\/a>, and the Emerson String Quartet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise that the younger Mann has followed a career in music similar to his father’s. Not that he was instructed to march along in Dad’s footsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike so many parents who pressure their kids (toward a specific career), my parents didn’t do that,\u201d Nicholas recounts. \u201cYes, I was swept into his world, and he was my mentor. Early on, I thought I’d try music for a year, and see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It went well. Nicholas was second violinist in the Mendelssohn String Quartet for 31 years, while teaching at numerous schools. He currently serves as president of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, which offers support to gifted musicians through sponsorships and competitions (Robert Mann was a competition winner in 1941). Nicholas heads the string department at the Manhattan School of Music and is also a longtime Juilliard faculty member.<\/p>\n

In counseling young string players at those two prestigious New York conservatories, Mann the younger leaned heavily on his years observing his father’s quartet, and, naturally, on his own concert experiences. \u201cI knew the life of a quartet,\u201d Nicholas says. \u201cI understood that every group has its own dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Robert Mann courtesy of Nicholas Mann<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.6″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n

The dynamic of the fabled Juilliard Quartet revolved around Bobby Mann for all of his half-century in the first violinist’s chair. The Chicago Tribune called him the group’s \u201cresident spark plug,\u201d while Donal Henehan of the New York Times got more specific in 1980: \u201cRobert Mann has been largely responsible for the ensemble\u2019s continuity of style and the maintenance of its stature in international chamber music circles.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1946, the Quartet was formed by Mann, then a member of the Juilliard School’s faculty. Encouraged by the conservatory’s president William Schuman, Mann enlisted a couple of Army buddies \u2013 violinist Robert Koff and cellist Arthur Winograd \u2013 and Boston Symphony violist Raphael Hillyer. The foursome debuted in 1947, determined to upgrade the image of chamber music from dusty museum pieces to something that was immediate and alive \u2013 as Mann later said in a radio interview, to perform \u201cclassical music as if it had been just composed (and) contemporary music as if it were classical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through Mann’s energetic support of 20th-century composers, the String Quartets of Bart\u00f3k were elevated to an exalted place with the masterpieces of Beethoven. The group introduced American audiences to the Hungarian’s six Quartets through concert premieres and sets of brisk-selling recordings on Columbia. Similarly, Elliott Carter’s Quartets entered the standard repertory, boosted by the passion and commitment of Mann and company. The violinist famously noted that the Juilliard used two full rehearsals to get comfortable with the opening measure of Carter’s Third Quartet, a work dedicated to the ensemble.<\/p>\n

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Here are some facts that speak volumes about the Juilliard’s contribution to music in general, and chamber music in particular:<\/p>\n