The Tokyo String Quartet.
This just in: the Tokyo String Quartet will disband at the end of the 2012-13 season.
The news comes as a bit of a shock. Only a few months ago the quartet announced it would be replacing retiring violist Kazuhide Isomura and second violinist Kikuei Ikeda with new players.
The news comes as a bit of a shock. Only a few months ago the quartet announced it would be replacing retiring violist Kazuhide Isomura and second violinist Kikuei Ikeda with new players.
In the official announcement (which you can read here) no reason was given for the decision to dissolve the ensemble. Perhaps suitable replacements could not be found. Or perhaps Yale University decided it no longer wanted a prestigious quartet-in-residence. Or perhaps the quartet’s management, Opus 3, discovered that presenters didn’t want to engage a Tokyo Quartet that didn’t include Isomura and Ikeda.
Yet all of these theories strike me as unlikely, in varying degrees.
Personally, I like to think that the quartet, founded in 1969, decided to pack it in because they realized that any new configuration that didn’t include any of the original members just wouldn’t be the Tokyo Quartet. (I hammered on this point in a blog back in November, which you can read here.)
If so, their decision is a triumph of artistic integrity over marketing expedience – and I applaud them for it.
I’m tempted to add something about hoping the individual members of the quartet will continue to have active careers in chamber music. But I’m sure that’s hardly necessary.
© Colin Eatock 2012
Yet all of these theories strike me as unlikely, in varying degrees.
Personally, I like to think that the quartet, founded in 1969, decided to pack it in because they realized that any new configuration that didn’t include any of the original members just wouldn’t be the Tokyo Quartet. (I hammered on this point in a blog back in November, which you can read here.)
If so, their decision is a triumph of artistic integrity over marketing expedience – and I applaud them for it.
I’m tempted to add something about hoping the individual members of the quartet will continue to have active careers in chamber music. But I’m sure that’s hardly necessary.
© Colin Eatock 2012
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