The Budapest String Quartet <br> Great Performances Vol. 21 <BR> BRIDGE 9175

Bridge is pleased to continue its survey of the Budapest String Quartet's great concert legacy. The Budapest Quartet was the resident group at the Library of Congress from 1940 to 1962, playing more than 450 concerts in the Coolidge Auditorium, and Artur Balsam was among their most frequent guest artists. This superb pianist, born in Warsaw in 1906, became Nathan Milstein’s accompanist in 1938 and in 1940, and followed the violinist to America. Among the other string players with whom Balsam worked were Adolf Busch, Zino Francescatti, Yehudi Menuhin, Erica Morini, Zara Nelsova, Oscar Shumsky and Joseph Szigeti. He died in New York City in 1994. The Hindemith sonata features Balsam with the oldest member of the quartet, Boris Kroyt (1897-1969). Hindemith is a composer many people will not associate with ‘the Budapest’, but in 1943 the quartet commissioned Hindemith's Sixth String Quartet in E flat, premièring it at the Library. The famous Op. 11, No. 4 Sonata was more youthfully romanti