The quartet as an entity was formed in 1932[1] with initial members Jascha Brodsky, Benjamin Sharlip (violins), Max Aronoff (viola), and Orlando Cole (cello).
The ensemble's origins are actually a bit earlier: they were initially called the Swastika Quartet[2] upon their founding as students in 1927, with Gama Gilbert and Benjamin Sharlip as violinists, Sheppard Lehnhoff as violist, and Orlando Cole as cellist.
[4] Shortly before this tour, on 13 May 1935, the Curtis Quartet had made a recording at the RCA studios in Camden, New Jersey, of Barber's Dover Beach, with the composer singing.
In 1942 they left Curtis briefly, owing to disagreements over the direction of the institution, and founded the New School of Music, Philadelphia to train chamber and orchestral players; they became the resident string quartet there.
[6][7] Violinist Charles Jaffe resigned from the quartet during the war years (joining the Philadelphia Orchestra and later the NBC Symphony under Toscanini before becoming an acclaimed Tony Award-winning Broadway music director) and was succeeded by Louis Berman, with whom the ensemble undertook its recording career in earnest.