Born July 18, 1899, at Zvolen, Czechoslovakia, Feri Roth received his musical training at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest where he graduated in 1917. His first position was the concertmastership of the Budapest Opera from 1919-1920; a year later he joined the Berlin Volksoper in the same capacity. In 1922, he founded the string quartet which bore his name for forty-seven years. Two years later, the quartet made a successful debut in Paris, then embarked on a tour of Europe and Africa. On an invitation from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1928, the quartet, reorganized to include Jeno Antal, Ferenc Molnar, and János Scholz, made its first appearance in the United States at the Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Music Festival. Subsequently, the quartet gave concerts throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, including the Library of Congress, giving many concerts of modern works in New York City and Washington, and performing all of Beethoven's string quartets. In 1937, the quartet joined the faculty of Westminster Choir College at Princeton University. Resigning from the college in 1939, Mr. Roth assembled a new group consisting of former members of the Manhattan String Quartet: Rachmael Weinstock, Julius Shaier, and Oliver Edel. In 1947, Roth began his long association with UCLA, joining the Department of Music as Lecturer. In 1960, he was named full professor. During his years at the University, he made further changes in the personnel of the quartet. The group that was most familiar to concert goers included Thomas Marrocco, professor of music at UCLA; Irving Weinstein; and Cesare Pascarella, UCLA lecturer in music. It was principally this combination that Roth led in his yearly festivals of Beethoven's chamber music. Occasionally he would exchange his violin and bow for the conductor's baton and lead larger chamber music ensembles in performances of concertos by Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach, and of Bach's The Art of Fugue. For more than ten years, he organized the Tuesday Noon Concerts, a weekly production of the Department of Music in Schoenberg Hall Auditorium. His authoritative and stimulating teaching found expression in a continuing series of chamber music classes, and his course on the music of Bach and Beethoven attracted thousands of students. A champion of modern music, Roth's quartet performed in concert many works by composer-colleagues in the department, and gave public readings of newly composed works by graduate students. This service was invaluable. In its off-campus appearances, the Roth Quartet performed widely, not only on the West Coast, where it gave many cncerts each year, but also on the East Coast, in Canada, and in Great Britain. During 1963 and again in 1966, the quartet played a series of concerts in London; and in the spring of 1968, it presented the entire cycle of Beethoven's quartets in New York City's Lincoln Center. A further presentation of the cycle, scheduled for Elizabeth Hall, London, in the spring of 1969 had to be cancelled because of Roth's death, on May 7, 1969.
From the description of Collection of papers, photographs, and recordings, 1930-1969. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 63149490
