Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1910-11-22
THE KNEiSE QUARTET.
Wausau Favored by Visit From This
Greatest of Quartets.

The Kneisel quartet was greeted by
an audience which filed Castle hall
last Saturday evening, and everyone
present thoroughly enjoyed every
moment of the concert given by these
great artists.
The entertainment was given under
the auspices of the Tuesday Musical
club and it was the wish of its men,
bers to make the event social as well
as musical one. The members of
the club met the guests, ushering
them into rooms where wraps were
laid aside, they were then shown to
seats in the assembly room.
1t would be useless for the Prior
to attempt even in the slightest de-
gree TO enter into the details of this
great concert, suffice it to say that
the attention of all was held spell
bound from the opening to the closing
NUMBER.
If a concert was to be given by
the Kneisel quartet in any city of
the size of Wausau in America, its
people would know exactly the char
acter of the musical entertainment
that would be rendered, sogreat is the
reputation it has acquired in its
twenty-five years before the public.
The organization was formed in 1885,
and is now composed of the following
named: Franz Kneisel, 1st violin;
Julius Roentgen, I'd violin; Louis
Soecenski, viola, and Willem Willeke,
violoncello.
1t might be well for our readers to
know what this quartet is thought
of in our great cities. In it's COM
ments on a concert given by the
Kneisels, the Evening Transcript of
Boston, Mass, said: GAS the Kneisel
quartet sang the intricacies of C9ser
Franck's great Larghetto, there was
a consent of the four players, subor-
dination of each to the ensemble that
LAlboO bAlO Addl ICO SOQllQ dSdlll dIlO
again like some single instrument,
hitherto unheard of yet oddly famil-
lar. Each player of the group has the
endowment of the virtuoso's dexter
ity, and yet it was impossible to think
of any one of the performers as such;
it was equally impossible to follow
one instrument singly, so completely
had they merged themselves to a gen.
eral voice and a single utterance.
These four players have renounced
the individual. They have yielded
themselves up to become medium
through which such music may ex-
press itself. Often, in their perform
ance, their preoccupation with the
core of the matter is as if they were
passive agents. 1t is almost possible
to conceive of them as played upon.
That, at least, is the spirit of their
surrender.
'"This, then, for an observance of
their anniversary. There have been
changes of personnel in the quarter of
century. OF the original group Mr..
Kneisel and Mr.. Svecenski remain.
But steadily from 1885 to 1910 the
fourfold single instrument has gained
in richness and resonance and as new
members have come to the desks of
the second violin and the violoncello,
the tradition has been transmitted
and the.spirit of the group maintained.
All apart from the qualities of its
separate players, even the Kneisel
quartet of ten years ago could not
have played as it played last night.
This was the true significance of the
event. 1t was the anniversary of an
organization, perhaps. 1t was much
more the anniversary Of an artistry"
The Tuesday Musical club is to be
congratulated on bringing to our city
an organization of such worldwide
reputation. The concert on Saturday
evening was the first of course of
four entertainments which are to be
given under the auspices of the club
the coming winter, and all are of
very high character ard should be
literally patronized by those who de-
sire to further the interests of music
in our CITY,
The next entertainment will be
Miss Anne Shaw Faulkner and Morx
Obendorfer, on Dec. Ii, 1910.