Zoellner Quartet

Zoellner Quartet
An Edison recording by the Zoellner Quartet, dedicatee of the music
Background information
Origin	Brooklyn, New York, USA
Years active	First quarter, 20th century

The Zoellner Quartet was a string quartet active during the first quarter of the 20th century. It was once described as "the most celebrated musical organization in the West which devotes its energies exclusively to the highest class of chamber music." After training in Europe, the group in its prime years toured widely throughout the United States. Although all members were natives of Brooklyn, New York, the ensemble formed a strong early association with Belgium and in publicity often billed itself as “The Zoellner Quartet of Brussels”; its ultimate base of operations was in California. With one brief interruption at the end of World War I, the membership remained constant throughout the quartet’s existence: Joseph Zoellner and his children Antoinette; Amandus; and Joseph, Jr. A second “Zoellner Quartet” was later formed by Joseph, Jr. and three unrelated musicians.

Joseph Zoellner founded the quartet, most likely in 1903 but possibly in 1904, in Brooklyn, where he operated a music school. From the group's founding until 1906 the members lived in , where he had opened a similar school or music store. Under sponsorship of Ethel Crocker, wife of San Francisco banking magnate William Henry Crocker, the Zoellners then went to Belgium for several years to hone their skills with the celebrated Belgian pedagogue César Thomson, who had also taught three members of the group's contemporary, the Flonzaley Quartet.

The Zoellner Quartet's first European appearances were at César Thomson’s private soirees, but the group soon began performing more widely in Belgium and in Paris and Berlin. Of particular note, late in the period of its European residency, the mother of King Albert I of Belgium presented the quartet with a gold medal specially struck by goldsmith C.H. Samuels after the group performed as royal guests of the Belgian king and queen in 1911.

Following its journeyman years in Europe, the quartet in the 1912–1913 season embarked on what would be a constant round of activity in Canada and the United States, keeping to an intense schedule during annual coast-to-coast tours. During an early 1919 tour of western Canada starting in Victoria, British Columbia, in the final city of Winnipeg the quartet gave its 500th performance in six years of touring; by 1921, its total was reported to be 1,100 performances upon return from a tour of the US East and Midwest, within a week of which it was scheduled to perform yet again in Los Angeles. In nine weeks ending in late March 1923 alone, the quartet performed 46 concerts in connection with its twelfth tour of the US East. In later years, Amandus was said to have participated in more than 2,500 performances during his career with the quartet. The quartet prided itself on keeping to non-stop schedules in its numerous transcontinental tours without letup or delays, even when on one occasion in 1921 Joseph, Jr. fell in Topeka, Kansas and was relegated to use of a crutch for a few days.