↑ Top
↑ Top
 
Site navigation
Next/Previous page is accessible by arrow key.

Performing groups

Show/hide extra information

If a name occurs multiple times in the drop-down menu, click on the search icon twice

 
Name Reference in name Residence Began Ended  
Pro Arte U H

Principles/mandate?

Belgium 1912
USA 1940
  M T R R
Notes

Before the name Pro Arte was chosen, presumably in 1917, the Quartet may also have been known briefly (and jokingly) as Quatuor 0h11 (11 Minutes after Midnight Quartet) (after the initials of Onnou, Halleux, Loicq, and Lemaire) and Quatuor en ut dièse de Bruxelles (C-sharp Quartet of Brussels). After the war into 1921, it was also known as Quatuor à archets du 1er régiment de guides (String Quartet of the 1st Guides Regiment). Another group in which Germain Prévost played during the war and slightly after was the Quatuor à archets de l’armée de campagne (String Quartet of the Army on Campaign).

In specific years after World War II, the members did not perform as a string quartet much if at all, e.g. when Albert Rahier was ill in 1952–53, when Rudolf Kolisch was on leave in 1954–55, when Bernard Milofsky was ill in 1956–57, and from 1962 for about five years. (See Problems, questions under Won-Mo Kim, to the right.)

Photo: from the celebrations of the Quartet’s 100th anniversary 

Problems, questions

Determining who the members were during and just after World War I is difficult and the results uncertain. Membership varied much and for some was probably informal until after the war. Other names appearing in the Quartet in the war period, during which there were very few concerts by the Quartet, include Waersegers (violin) and Jaugneau and Philippe (viola). Members of the Pro Arte Quartet also played in other quartets during that time. 

Additional references

van Malderen 1998; University Archives, University of Wisconsin at Madison

ext Given name Family name   Start Stop    
VIOLIN I   Alphonse Onnou b. 1893 1912 1940 d. 1940  
 
 
Problems, questions

Désiré Defauw, sometimes listed as a founding member, is said to have founded a different quartet in 1912. (He founded the Allied Quartet in London around 1914.) See Additional references at the bottom of the column to the left.

Additional references

An unsigned short biography of Germain Prévost in the archives of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, probably written in 1943

Photo: At Alphonse Onnou’s grave, April 22, 2012

  Antonio Brosa b. 1894? 1940 1944 d. 1979  
 
 
Problems, questions

In a letter dated September 21, 1943, Antonio Brosa indicates he was born in 1897.

  Rudolf Kolisch b. 1896 1944 1967 d. 1978  
 
  Norman Paulu   1967 1995    
 
  David Perry   1995    
 
VIOLIN II   Laurent Halleux b. 1897 1912 1943 d. 1964  
 
  Albert Rahier b. 1894? 1943 1960 d. 1983  
 
  Robert Basso b. 1924 1960 1964    
 
  Won-Mo Kim b. 1939 1964* 1967*    
 
 
Problems, questions

*Won-Mo Kim was not really a member of the Pro Arte String Quartet. Probably he would have been if it had played as such during his three years at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where the Quartet had resided for more than 20 years. From 1962 to 1967, various Pro-Arte-like formations resided and performed there, including a string trio and a piano quartet, but not the string quartet. Usually the group was designated something other than Pro Arte, or noted as “members of the Pro Arte [String] Quartet” plus other players.

  Thomas Moore   1967 1972    
 
  John McLeod   1973 1974    
 
  Martha Francis Blum   1974 1988    
 
  Jae-Kyung Kim   1988 1995    
 
  Suzanne Beia   1995    
 
VIOLA   Germain Prévost b. 1891 1912 1947 d. 1987  
 
 
Notes

Prévost did not play much music of any kind during World War I. During the war, Alphonse Onnou’s group, the nascent Pro Arte Quartet, would have had a different violist.

  Bernard Milofsky b. 1916 1947 1957 d. 1993  
 
  Richard Blum   1957 1991    
 
  Sally Chisholm   1991    
 
CELLO   Fernand Auguste Lemaire b. 1894 1912 1916?    
 
 
Problems, questions

His membership in the Quartet is uncertain, if likely.

  Fernand Quinet b. 1898 1916? 1922 d. 1971  
 
 
Problems, questions

He may have played in the Quartet beginning in 1918.

Additional references

He indicates his birth date in a letter dated 1913-12-02, reprinted in van Malderen 1998.

  Robert Maas b. 1901 1922 1940 d. 1948  
 
  Charles Warwick Evans b. 1885 1940 1941 d. 1974  
 
  Victor Gottlieb   1941 1942 d. 1963  
 
  George Sopkin b. 1914 1942 1943 d. 2008  
 
  Ernst Friedländer b. 1906 1943 1955 d. 1966  
 
  Lowell Creitz b. 1931 1955 1976 d. 2020  
 
  Parry Karp   1976    
 
 
Notes

Both Lowell Creitz and Parry Karp played in the Quartet during the latter’s year away in 1978–79.