Key: A minor
Verse 1
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C
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Am
During the war years,
the Budapest Quartet
opened all of its concerts
with the Star -Spangled
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Banner.
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This broadcast is a selection of
classic performances
from those wartime concerts,
of the Budapest's 22
-year residency
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When Roy Harris made his strikingly
the quartet adopted that version
for one concert
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and was scathingly reviewed by a Washington
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Post critic chastising these four foreigners
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who dared to desecrate our National Anthem.
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the next day.
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We were luckily from the same,
you see, the same direction
of making music.
And our direction, mind you, we were four Russians,
as you know, we were not Hungarian.
You know that story.
Should I tell you that now?
You know that. Go Tell the story.
Heifetz made it up.
One Russian is an anarchist,
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two Russians is a chess game,
three Russians is the Communist party,
and four Russians is the Budapest
thing for that.
And you see, were four Russians,
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you see.
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or Hamburg, you understand?
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And our dir ection was musically
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Stravinsky, Bar tok.
Nice composers.
Not bad.
you see, mentioning conductors,
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Huberman, you know,
Everything,
it was a fantastic life he had.
music.
When the war broke out in Europe
in the fall of 1939,
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States.
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Although this was the third American tour for the quartet,
it was the one that made the group famous,
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I remember very well how
we as a quartet
We were stateless at that time.
Well, we had visas to
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come to America to play.
And the visa said,
you know, what day you arrive.
And we arrive one day earlier by boat.
One day earlier, we can't go into United
States.
You have to go to Ellis Island.
So we were taken to Ellis Island,
the whole quartet.
At that time, like, Guardia was
the mayor of New York,
and he was also the chairman
of the Society of Chairman, you see.
So they said, you know, the Budapest,
they took them to Ellis Island.
He said, what? I take them out.
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So, he sent specially a boat
We came backstage,
Next day, the critic wrote
the most incredible press notice.
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wrote that never was a quartet here,
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you know, which played so perfect,
so beautiful,
and from one day to the other,
we became famous in America.
We asked Alexander Schneider
about the Budapest's feelings
on becoming resident artists here.
We felt, all four of us,
especially honored,
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you know, my God, to be at the Library of Congress, you know, that was really like you were becoming the prime ministers,
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you know, or in the cabinet, you know, four of us.
And also to have five incredible instruments,
Not that you had to play them, know, you were very proud to play,
to play five Stradivarius.
You could choose which one you wanted,
you know.
It was really something very special.
We had very good instruments already,
but certainly nothing like those five, you
know, Strads.
For a time during the war,
the Strads were evacuated,
along with other rare materials
in the library's collections,
and sequestered in special
underground storage vaults
from possible bombing attacks.
The Library of Congress
was heavily involved in the war effort,
and in spite of the war,
Chamber Music
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was held at the library in October of 1944,
of Igor Stravinsky's
Sonata for Two Pianos
and Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring,
a Library of Congress commission.
radio broadcasts
By the time the Budapest
began its residency
our concerts were being heard
via shortwave radio
in Canada and Latin America as well.
The Budapest Quartet
made radio history
in the early years of the war
by becoming the first group to play
the 16 Beethoven string quartets
over the air.
During the war
we were the first ones to broadcast
at from 11 7 o 'clock
till 12 o 'clock
every Sunday during the war,
all over the United States,
to Brodkast, the Beethoven's Tinkertest.
That was something extraordinary, you know.
How did you like the song?
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