The members were all protégés of Jenő Hubay (violin), a Hungarian pupil of Joseph Joachim and David Popper (cello), a Bohemian.

Hubay and Popper had helped to make Budapest a major center for musical education, attracting famous students such as Joseph Szigeti.

The debut recital of the new Budapest String Quartet (in Hungarian: Budapesti Vonósnégyes), took place in December 1917 in Kolozsvár, then in Hungary, now called Cluj-Napoca in present-day Romania.

[1] In 1920, Indig resigned in the hope of advancement; he was replaced by Imre Pogany, a native of Budapest who had studied under Hubay and Zoltán Kodály.

[1][3] In 1921 or 1922, owing to political unrest in Budapest, the quartet moved to Berlin where the group developed a large repertoire but received only mixed reviews.

The other members of the quartet were furious because if he had left, they would have found it very difficult to find and rehearse a replacement player in time for the new season.

Roisman was born on 25 July 1900 in Odessa, and was started on the violin at the age of six with Pyotr Stolyarsky, who was also the first teacher of David Oistrakh and Nathan Milstein.

After the tragic early death of Joe's father, a wealthy Odessa woman made it possible for him, his sister and mother to relocate to Berlin so that he could study with Alexander Fiedemann.

Moreover, Roisman had his own issues, in particular involving Hauser and Ipolyi's inability to play in spiccato (German Springbogen, or with "bouncing" bow), so that the quartet was forced not to use it.

After the Germans invaded the Netherlands, he and his wife Marianne were arrested in Amsterdam, and died in 1942 in the notorious Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp.

He helped eminent Polish-Jewish concert violinist Bronisław Huberman rescue many Jews from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany, and was instrumental in founding the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.

[12] After Sasha's arrival, the Quartet's level of performance improved immediately and the group began attracting larger audiences.

[13] By 1934, Jews had been expelled from all German orchestras but the Quartet, as 'Hungarian' visitors, had been spared until one night, when they received threats from a Nazi group.

He settled in Norway, and during the German occupation was arrested but freed thanks to the intervention of Count Bernadotte, head of the International Red Cross.

[19] In 1939 they again had good results in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Norway and Britain but not in Spain and Italy, where fascism reigned and people were consequently more concerned with political issues.

They never returned, their leader Alphonse Onnou died suddenly in Milwaukee during an American tour, and the Budapest resided at Mills for the next fifteen summers.

In 1924 he moved to Berlin for greener pastures just as Joe, the Schneiders, and Boris had done, where he immediately got a scholarship at the Hochschule für Musik.

As soon as he returned, they all felt happier than they had for many years, their playing showed resultant rejuvenated strength and the critics were fulsome in their praise.

He persuaded Mrs Coolidge to sponsor free outdoor concerts in Greenwich Village, and played guest second violin with the Budapesters when Ortenberg or Gorodetzky was indisposed.

It was the most popular and world-famous quartet, with 55 record albums published by Columbia and two million copies sold, and was playing in many famous venues and festivals.

The school had been founded in 1950 by incomparable chamber violinist Adolf Busch and eminent flautist Marcel Moyse, and their families.

[35] In 1962 Sasha persuaded Mischa to come too, and the next year the whole quartet came, followed by many other outstanding experienced musicians and many talented younger players, all reaching high standards.

Some students found Sasha assertive to the point of aggressively demanding, and his manner was a bit hard on those who were nervous or not dedicated to strive for the highest standards, while Mischa and Boris were gentler.

[35] Sasha persuaded Michael Tree, Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley and David Soyer to form a brilliant new quartet – a daunting challenge for any player – and Boris suggested the name Guarneri.

[36] The newest super-virtuosic New York group, the Emerson String Quartet, takes a similar view, and solves it by the two violinists, Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, alternating between first and second.

Then Mischa, Boris and the Guarneri performed and recorded Tchaikovsky's D minor Sextet "Souvenir de Florence" with success.

He never played again but he did teach extensively, including 25 summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, until his death on October 3, 1985 in Buffalo, New York.

The concerts in Washington and New York, the radio broadcasts and the many records gradually raised audience numbers, made them famous and wealthy, and set high performance standards for later quartet and other chamber groups to follow and even improve upon.

Thus with the exception of István Ipolyi, who stayed until 1936, the quartet had nearly completed its transformation to its relatively stable line-up of four Russians, and achieved its long-lasting reputation.

However this Sony discography contains a number of errors in identifying recording dates, personnel, and in some instances even compositions and composers.