The Cantilena Chamber Players/Cantilena Piano Quartet was an ensemble founded and led by Edna Michell that included pianist Frank Glazer, violist Harry Zaratzian (later Jessie Levine and Phillip Naegele), cellist Paul Olefsky (later Stephen Kates, Marcy Rosen, Hakuro Mori, and Steven Thomas), and mezzo-soprano Elaine Bonazzi.
These rediscovered works included piano quartets by Sergei Taneyev,[1] Gustav Mahler, Alfred Schnittke, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Vincent d’Indy, among others.
[2] Michell inspired over twenty compositions to be written, premiered and recorded by the ensemble including works by Josef Tal, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Yehudi Wyner, Herman D. Koppel, Robert Starer, Tzvi Avni, Ben-Zion Orgad and Ödön Pártos.
[2] Partos’ was inspired after he and Michell were sitting on a balcony overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem when both were struck by the six o’clock toll of the Christian Church bells and the call of the muezzin.
They were featured in articles including pieces by Shirley Fleming in Musical America and Harold Schonberg in The New York Times,[2] and were described by Stereo Review as “a first-rate piano quartet.” Politiken praised Cantilena’s “splendid, wonderfully stirring, passionate performances,” and the London Sunday Times described them as “a piano quartet of outstanding quality,” that gave a “breathlessly exhilarating performance.” The Washington Post wrote that “Among the excellent chamber music performances at the Library of Congress, an occasional one positively glitters.