Guarneri Quartet: Michael Tree Continues to Branch
Out Performing and Teaching
By Joan Baum Ph.D
|
The
members are (l-r): Arnold Steinhardt (violin), John Dalley
(violin), Michael Tree (viola), and Peter Wiley (cello) |
It’s relatively rare
that famous musical artists credit their audiences and students
for helping to educate them, but then Michael Tree, the violist
in the internationally renowned, much celebrated Guarneri String
Quartet seems to be an unusually humble and gracious musician
who wears his expertise with a confidence borne of a long and
successful career and a continuing love for what he does. Indeed,
2004-2005 marks the group’s
40th anniversary and he, Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, and
Peter Wiley seem to be everywhere, giving special performances,
such as the free and open master classes and rehearsals that
took place last month at Lincoln Center, and receiving more
tributes – they will receive the Ford Honors Award from
the Musical Society of the University of Michigan this month.
Noting that he left New Jersey at the age of 12 to attend the
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied
with Efrem Zimbalist, Michael Tree modestly disavows the term
prodigy – even though his 1954 introductory concert
at Carnegie Hall was described by the New York Herald Tribune as “the
most brilliant debut in the recent past”—and adds
that the Institute accepts even younger players. With affection
and pride he indicates that until he was 12 his father, a professional
violinist and a teacher, “seven days a week” in
their home, had been his sole instructor. Obviously, his
legacy to his son was not only performing but teaching.
Michael
Tree also puts in a good word for Philip Roth’s Newark, which was his
own home town as well (he is a year younger than the famous
author) and wistfully looks back to a time when his neighbors
all had pianos, children were given music lessons and families
listened to classical music on the radio. Yes, arts programs
must be in the schools but more essential music should be
in the home. Music is music and knows no ethnic divisions—it
belongs to and should be loved by everyone. To that end,
Michael Tree says, the Guarneri try to accommodate younger
audiences, as they do in Philadelphia, and talk and play
for the kids, even though the concert’s over.
Although
there have been several significant mentors in his life,
Michael Tree still gets a kick from the chamber music “take no prisoners,” nitty-gritty, “strong
opinions” crowd, usually composed of sharp, outspoken
amateur musicians. Their appreciation, their criticism, drive
him crazy in a lovely way, by causing him to reflect on his
performance. Artists should serve music as it is written
but they also are interpreters. Leave it to a savvy chamber
music audience like the Washington Irving stalwarts or the
University of Maryland College Park regulars the Guarneri
has been visiting once a month for the last 20 years “to
keep the quartet on its toes.” “The score in
measure 5 has a dot—you didn’t follow the crescendo
marking in measure 70—why!” One of the reasons
the Quartet loves doing the Maryland concerts, rehearsals
and master classes is to get such comments from such a dedicated
following. The Washington Irving audiences are, well, a little
more “willful,” but the Maryland folks “throw
us every time we’re there.” Audiences know beforehand,
of course, what the Quartet will be playing and they prepare. “Oh
do they ever!” Significantly, at Maryland “they” are:
undergraduates (all majors), graduate students, faculty,
townspeople, “it’s an “open house” with
the same people showing up month after month, year after
year. What a boon these visits are for the audience, Michael
Tree says, because they’re like flies on the wall,
getting to overhear musicians arguing about interpretation.
Though
he’s already
on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard
School, the Manhattan School of Music and the University
of Maryland, Michael Tree is about to add Bard College to
his roster. Slow down? Impossible. “I can tell you
where I’m going to have lunch for the next two years,” he
laughs. And it’s true because the Guarneri must schedule
cities and repertoire well in advance. #