Steinhardt, Arnold 1937-

PERSONAL:

Born 1937, in Los Angeles, CA. Education: Attended Curtis Institute of Music; privately trained.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—mail@arnoldsteinhardt.com.

CAREER:

Violinist. Made debut at the age of fourteen as guest soloist with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; Guarneri String Quartet, founding member and first violinist, 1964—; recitalist and soloist with orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra; has recorded albums for RCA Victor, Philips, Arabesque, Sheffield Lab, Biddolph Records, Town Hall, and Surrounded by Entertainment. Professor of Violin at University of Maryland, Rutgers University, Bard College, and Curtis Institute of Music.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Philadelphia Youth Competition winner, 1957; Leventritt Award, 1958; Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competition, bronze medalist, 1963; honorary doctorates from University of South Florida and Harpur College. The Guarneri Quartet has received numerous honors, including the New York Seal of Recognition, 1982; Award of Merit, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, 1992; Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America, 2004; and Ford Honors Award, from the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony (memoir), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1998.

Violin Dreams (memoir), with compact disc recording by Steinhardt, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Chamber Music America, Musical America, and Keynote.

SIDELIGHTS:

Arnold Steinhardt, an accomplished violinist and a founding member of the esteemed Guarneri String Quartet, is the author of Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony and Violin Dreams. Indivisible by Four chronicles Steinhardt's solo career as well as his decades-long association with violinist John Dalley, violist Michael Tree, and cellist David Soyer. "Musicians' memoirs are rarely addressed to other musicians: instead they are meant for the authors and their fans, as a sort of interior investigation," observed New York Times Book Review critic Benjamin Ivry. "At its best, the musical memoir can try to address the question of how the artist did it. This is what Steinhardt accomplishes in a satisfying way." Describing Indivisible by Four as a "cheerful, informative chronicle," Library Journal contributor Bonnie Jo Dopp noted that the work "will be welcomed by all who know and love their work."

In Violin Dreams, Steinhardt traces his rise as a professional musician, offers a history of the world's finest violin makers, and discusses his fondness for Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne, a long piece for solo violin. Steinhardt "shapes his story with a series of almost mythical odysseys and visions that parallel his technical and intellectual progress," remarked a Publishers Weekly contributor, and a critic in Kirkus Reviews noted that the violinist's "passion is undeniably contagious; even the uninitiated will savor the technical sections for their revelations about the relationship between career performer and instrument."

Steinhardt told CA: "I began to write about my profession primarily because people seemed so curious about such basic questions as: what does it entail to learn an instrument, how does one study music, and what is the interaction between musicians in the learning process like?

"I am surprised at how much the act of writing resembles practicing music. Whether working obsessively on a paragraph or a musical phrase, the hope is to make it detailed, clear, effortless, and uplifting. My model, my inspiration is the writings of E.B. White.

"My wish is that my writing will inform, entertain, and uplift readers."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Blum, David, The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri in Conversation with David Blum, Knopf (New York, NY), 1986.

Ruttencutter, Helen Drees, Quartet: A Profile of the Guarneri Quartet, Lippincott & Crowell (New York, NY), 1980.

Steinhardt, Arnold, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1998.

Steinhardt, Arnold, Violin Dreams, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 1998, Alan Hirsch, review of Indivisible by Four, p. 462.

California Bookwatch, December 1, 2006, review of Violin Dreams.

Choice, May, 1999, E. Gaub, review of Indivisible by Four, p. 1629.

High Fidelity, November, 1986, Thomas Willis, "The Art of Quartet Playing," p. 15.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2006, review of Violin Dreams, p. 774.

Library Journal, November 15, 1998, Bonnie Jo Dopp, review of Indivisible by Four, p. 70.

New Yorker, January 25, 1999, review of Indivisible by Four, p. 93.

New York Times, February 24, 1985, Bernard Holland, "Guarneri Stands for Durability," p. H27.

New York Times Book Review, November 29, 1998, Benjamin Ivry, "Fab Four," review of Indivisible by Four.

Publishers Weekly, September 21, 1998, Indivisible by Four, p. 36; July 31, 2006, review of Violin Dreams, p. 62.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 1999, review of Indivisible by Four, p. 141.

ONLINE

Arnold Steinhardt Home Page,http://www.arnoldsteinhardt.com (April 20, 2007).

OTHER

High Fidelity: The Guarneri String Quartet (documentary film), Four Oaks Foundation, 1989.