Product Review

Two full-length CDs are included with the book: DISC 1: The Zaslav Duo (Bernard Zaslav, viola Naomi Zaslav, piano) DISC 2: Contains performances with the various string quartets of which Bernard Zaslav has been a member.

During the 1950s and the early 1960s Bernard Zaslav played viola in Broadway shows like Fiddler on the Roof, Once Upon a Mattress, and the Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess, while commissioning and performing works written by the most innovative composers of the time, like Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, and Ben Johnston for string quartet and the viola/piano Zaslav Duo with Naomi Zaslav. He made the first recordings of Charles Ives Quartets and many of the Dvorak String Quartets before joining the world-famous Fine Arts String Quartet, and touring with them all around the world. His life as a string quartet violist reached a zenith when he joined the Vermeer Quartet, and became one of the world s most celebrated string quartet musicians. Bernard Zaslav tells the story of his musical life and his travels from the perspective of a musician on the inside--literally, one of the inner voices of a string quartet. From the earliest days of his career he came into close musical and personal contact with iconic musicians, and he describes them and the musical world of the later 20th century with candid honesty, humility, and humor. This book is a document not only about the life of a string quartet musician, but a document about the professional, social, and artistic musical life that flourished in America during the pre-digital age. It was a time when a string quartet in residence was a university s crowning glory, a time when the audience for classical music was at its most sophisticated and its most demanding, and a time when the creation and performance of a new piece of music was something to be celebrated.