Synopsis

On today’s date in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a string quartet by 32-year old composer Charles Martin Loeffler.

For the past 10 years, Loeffler had been the associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, and just the previous year they had premiered his first orchestral piece.

Loeffler told people he was born in the Alsace region of France in 1861, which would account for his French manners and the French titles he gave some of his pieces. In fact, he was born in Berlin, but he never forgave the Prussians for the political persecution and imprisonment of his father, and left Berlin for Paris as soon as he could.

In 1881, at 20, Loeffler came to the United States, where, as he put it, he found Americans “quick to reward genuine musical merit and to reward it far more generously than Europe.” In 1887, he became an American citizen, and in short order established himself as one of our leading composers.

After his death in 1935, Loeffler’s music fell into neglect for many decades, but his elegant and well-crafted music is attracting renewed interest — and recordings — today.

Music Played in Today's Program

Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935): String Quartet; DaVinci Quartet; Naxos 8.559077