Budapest String Quartet

The Budapest Quartet's original members were Emil Hauser, Imre Poganyi, Istvan Ipolyi, and Harry Son, all of whom had played in the Budapest Opera Orchestra. Their debut concert in 1917, at Kolozsvar in Hungary, was a great success, and by the early 1920s they'd begun touring Europe. The group was acclaimed by audiences and critics everywhere for their superb ensemble playing and the depth and insight that they brought to their repertory, which extended from the Classical to the contemporary […].

The group flourished during the late 1920s and early 1930s despite numerous membership changes. Joseph Roisman, who joined on second violin in 1927, became the leader of the group a few years later, replacing Emil Hauser in the 1930s. Ipolyi was succeeded by Alexander Schneider, while Son was replaced by Schneider's brother Mischa, and in 1936 Boris Kroyt joined on the viola.

The second generation Budapest Quartet was, if anything, even more technically impressive than the first […]. Roisman's leadership brought the group to America, at first simply on tour, and also into the recording studio in a serious way for the first time. From 1938 onward, amid the growing uncertainty of life in Europe, the Budapest Quartet moved to the United States and was based for the next 24 years as the quartet-in-residence at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., before moving to the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1962. Among their more notable work for the Library of Congress, they recorded Schubert's "Trout" Quintet and other works with the conductor George Szell on the piano during 1945 and 1946. […]

Key to the group's repertory during their American era were the Beethoven quartets, which they recorded several times and performed complete nearly every year. […] Their work continued until 1967, when they gave their last performance. The ravages of age and illness forced the retirement of Mischa Schneider, and then Roisman and Kroyt. […] Allmusic