Rudolf Kolisch

Rudolf Kolisch (July 20, 1896 – August 1, 1978) was a Viennese violinist and leader of string quartets, including the Kolisch Quartet and the Pro Arte Quartet.

Kolisch was born in Klamm, Schottwien, Lower Austria and raised in Vienna, the son of Henriette Anna Theresia (Hoffmann) and Rudolf Rafael Kolisch, a prominent physician and Dozent at the University. One of his two sisters was Gertrud Schoenberg. His father and maternal grandfather were Jewish, while his maternal grandmother was Catholic. Due to a childhood injury to the middle finger of his left hand, Kolisch, who had already begun to play the violin, relearned the instrument with the functions of the hands reversed. Following service in World War I, Kolisch attended both the University and the Musikakademie, where he studied violin with Ottokar Ševčik, composition with Franz Schreker and conducting with Franz Schalk, intending at first to make a career as a conductor.

In 1919 he began studying composition with Arnold Schoenberg, who later became his brother-in-law (1924). He put Kolisch to work in the "Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna" (Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in Wien). This led to the creation of a string quartet ("Wiener Streichquartett") to perform both Schoenberg's music and the classical string quartet repertoire in a manner that would take into account the principles of Schoenberg's teaching. Schoenberg directed many rehearsals of this quartet. By 1927 the ensemble had become known as the Kolisch Quartet. Numerous works were written for this ensemble by composers including Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Schoenberg, and Béla Bartók.

Stranded in New York by the entrance of the United States into World War II, Kolisch at first tried to keep the Quartet together. When this failed, he took a position on the faculty of The New School, lecturing on "Musical Performance: The Realization of Musical Meaning". With Otto Klemperer, he co-founded a chamber orchestra at the school, with which he gave the first U.S. performances of Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Igor Stravinsky's l'Histoire du Soldat and Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1. During this time he prepared the ensemble and participated in the recording of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, conducted by the composer. He researched and wrote an article, "Tempo and Character in Beethoven's Music" which was presented to the New York chapter of the American Musicological Society and later published in two installments in the magazine Musical Quarterly.

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