Cleveland Quartet

Active from 1969 to 1995, the Cleveland Quartet was formed around its first violinist, Donald Weilerstein. Born in Washington D. C. in 1940, Weilerstein was teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio when director Victor Babin suggested he form an in-house string quartet. The violinist surrounded himself with Paul Katz (cello) and his wife Martha Strongin Katz (viola), as well as second violinist Peter Salaff, all of whom would accompany him to the Marlboro Festival in Vermont in the summer of 1969. The quartet became known as the New Cleveland Quartet, before moving to the University of Buffalo, New York, in 1971. Under its new name, the Cleveland Quartet they recorded the complete Brahms string quartets for RCA, in a boxed set released in 1973, followed by other discs such as the Schubert: Octet for Strings and Winds in F Major, D. 803 with Barry Tuckwell, Jack Brymer, Martin Gatt, and Thomas Martin (1975). In 1976, the Cleveland Quartet moved to a new home in Rochester: the Eastman School of Music. After the release of new recordings of chamber music by Brahms, Haydn, Barber, Ives, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, and Schubert's famous String Quartet Op. 114, known as "The Trout," with pianist Alfred Brendel, the Cleveland Quartet began recording the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, before the departure of violist Martha Strongin Katz, replaced in 1980 by Atar Arad. Present until 1987, he was in turn replaced by James Dunham, while William Preucil succeeded founder Donald Weilerstein in 1989. Signed to the Telarc label, the quartet expanded their repertoire with works by Debussy, Ravel, Borodin, Smetana, Mozart and a second cycle of Beethoven's string quartets, until the announced their break-up and a farewell concert given on December 17, 1995, in Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center. After six nominations during their career, the quartet was finally honored at the 39th Grammy Awards in 1997 for The Farewell Recording, which featured works by composers Haydn and John Corigliano. In 2023, a 23 CD box set The Complete RCA Album Collection brought together all the quartet's recordings for the RCA Red Seal label.

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