Orlando Cole

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Orlando Cole (August 16, 1908 – January 25, 2010) was an American cello teacher who taught two generations of soloists, chamber musicians, and first cellists in a dozen leading orchestras, including David Cole, Lynn Harrell, Jonah Kim, Ronald Leonard, Lorne Munroe, Peter Stumpf and Marcy Rosen.^[1]

Early life

Born and raised in Philadelphia, the son of Lucius Cole, a violinist in the Philadelphia Orchestra, he entered the first class of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1924 as a pupil of Felix Salmond and graduated in 1934. He was a founding member in 1927 of what was then known as the Swastika Quartet.^[2] In 1932, shortly before Adolf Hitler's election and adoption of this symbol (albeit rotated), the fledgling quartet renamed itself as the Curtis String Quartet after the school's founder, Mary Louise Curtis.^[2]

Collaboration with Samuel Barber

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During this time, Cole was a classmate and friend of the composer

The ensemble played this work from manuscript for several years, and it was only when the time of publication arrived that Barber chose to make major changes: the first movement was shortened significantly, with its coda ultimately becoming the finale of what is now the third movement, and the original contrapuntal third movement was abandoned entirely in favor of a reprise of the first movement's basic thematic material.

In the years since, several ensembles have sought to perform this original version, but Barber's longtime companion, Gian Carlo Menotti, the holder of his copyrights, forbade it. Barber acknowledged to Cole in a letter accompanying the manuscript score sent from Rome attesting to the composer's great confidence in the slow movement.^[4] The quartet's first performance of the work in Curtis Hall is testament to the same - so rapturous was the audience's response following the adagio that the ensemble was compelled to encore it right away before continuing on to the finale. Samuel Barber also composed for the Curtis String Quartet his work for voice and string quartet, Dover Beach, set to the lyric verse of the same name by Matthew Arnold. The vocal line was originally sung by Rose Bampton in its premiere in Curtis Hall and recorded in this form, but as the composer was dissatisfied with the work's dramatic impact given the male personage of the text, Samuel Barber chose to sing it himself for its recording in 1935. An earlier piece, the Serenade, was also written for the Curtis String Quartet, though it fell quickly from the composer's favor and is rarely played today.

The Curtis Quartet

The

At a time when gramophone recordings were still a rarity and chamber music had not yet taken hold in the United States, the Curtis String Quartet served as ambassadors, giving over 5000 concerts in its career and often presenting the first quartet performances heard by the communities in which they played. Before disbanding in 1981 due to the death of Max Aronoff, the founding nucleus of Brodsky, Aronoff, and Cole remained intact. The quartet was formalized in 1932 with members Jascha Brodsky, Benjamin Sharlip, Max Aronoff, and Cole, but shortly after, Sharlip resigned and they engaged Charles Jaffe as their second violinist; it was with him that they achieved many of the aforementioned milestones.

Cole's primary instrument, the 1739 '

.

Teaching career

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Cole taught at the Curtis Institute of Music for seventy-five years, first as Salmond's assistant while still a student and then in succession of his own teacher.^[5] There was a brief gap in his tenure at the school, however, during the years following World War II. The members of the quartet had grown dissatisfied with certain of the objectives and policies of the school and decided to found their own institution for the training of chamber and orchestral musicians, called the New School of Music which was located just a few blocks from Curtis and, for more than thirty years, served as an important training center.

After returning to their duties at Curtis in 1953, Cole and the members of the quartet taught concurrently at both schools. After the 1981 death of the ensemble's violist, Max Aronoff, who was also director of the New School, the school was absorbed into Temple University where Cole and Brodsky continued to teach.^[6]

Cole gave master-classes all over the world. In 2005 he was appointed to the emeritus faculty of the

Cole helped to found the Encore School for Strings in Hudson, Ohio, along with David Cerone, who had left his position as violin teacher at Curtis to assume the directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music.^[8]

References