LEADER TELLS STORY OF REFUGEE STRING QUARTET

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 13

LEADER TELLS STORY OF REFUGEE STRING QUARTET

Three young Hungarians in one week in December, 1956, each separately left Budapest, where they had lived, studied music, and played together, to meet again in a new world to reform a combination they had founded seven years before. Their dramatic story was told last evening by Otto Feld, founder and first violin of the Feld Quartet, just before the combination played at the St. James’ Theatre.

He said that Peter Halmi, second violin, George Szende, viola, and himself, slipped away from Budapest in the same week at the time of the Hungarian uprising.

They had long planned to leave Hungary and the uprising was their first chance. Their belongings they left behind, but each brought with him his instrument. Reached Vienna

Their rendezvous in the West was simple. "We said that the first to reach Vienna would go to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, try for a job as a substitute member, and leave his address so

the others would know where to find him,” Mr Feld said. One by one they reached Vienna and the Feld combination, formed when the three were students together at the Budapest Academy of Music in 1949, played again. Mr Feld said that first they became substitute members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and also played with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. “We played two, perhaps three, times a week. It meant that we had money and we could move out of the refugee camp and take a room in Vienna.”

Making scrubbing motions with his hands, Mr Feld said: “One of the first things we did when we had money was each to buy a white nylon shirt. You see we had to have the correct dress to play in the orchestra. We wanted nylon shirts so we could wash and dry them quickly.” Later the group got black shoes, and dark suits to play in. About that time they were joined by Wladyslaw Przybyla, now cellist with the group, a refugee from Poland. U.S. Journalist A chance meeting with an American journalist seemed to open the way to the United States, but the combination had little money. Then one night after a concert a San Francisco businessman, Mr Harold L. Zellerbach, came backstage to meet them. Mr Feld said Mr Zellerbach promised to sponsor them and when he returned to the U.S. he went to the University of Redlands, in California, where they had been offered posts, and arranged to provide money for the quartet to take up residence. Since then the group has settled comfortably in its new world. The four have just spent three weeks in Australia and before coming to Christchurch visited Wellington, Rotorua, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, and Tauranga, giving concerts at each place.

Mr Feld said the quartet was pleased with its reception in New Zealand. “It is amazing that a country with only two million people can support chamber music societies giving five to six concerts a year in quite small towns.”