Today in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a String Quartet by a 32-year old composer named Charles Martin Loeffler.

It was one of the young composer's earliest works, but Loeffler was already a familiar name in Boston music circles. For the past 10 years he had been the associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, and just the previous year that orchestra had premiered his first orchestral piece, called "Evenings in the Ukraine".

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, Loeffler 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 the age of 20, Loeffler came to the United States, where he found Americans "quick to reward genuine musical merit and to reward it far more generously than Europe." In 1887, Loeffler became an American citizen, and in short order established himself as one of the country's leading composers. His music was played by many of the major orchestras and conductors of his day.

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.