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• 1 media/notenblatt-music-vintage-alt (1).jpg media/_92480281_mediaitem92480278.jpg 2022-03-07T19:57:07+00:00 Meet Henri Temianka 54 “Chamber music is not for stuffed shirts. It is no more difficult to understand good music than bad music.” - Henri Temianka image_header 2022-04-20T15:56:08+00:00 It's January 17, 1962, and you've got front-row seats to a chamber music performance in UCLA's Royce Hall.
  
  As the lights dim, a man steps out on stage. Instead of raising his violin to begin playing, however, he turns to the audience. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he begins.
  
  This is Henri Temianka, born November 19, 1906. Tonight, he's the 1st violin of the Paganini Quartet, performing music by Joseph Haydn, sometimes called the "Father of the String Quartet."
  
  But Temianka has worn many hats. Throughout his career, Temianka's received international acclaim as a violinist virtuoso, conductor, author, and music educator. By the time of his passing in 1992, he will have performed in over 30 countries, received praise from names like Ray Bradbury and Ronald Reagan, and published more than 100 writings on the music world.
  
  Outside of his career, Temianka was also a world traveler, a voice for political change in light of events like the Vietnam War, and had a hand in the Allied war effort in World War II, including arranging the successful extraction of his parents from a Nazi concentration camp.
  
  Now, he stands at the front of the stage, accompanied by his knowledge and experience.
  
  
  
  "All music — and all art —  has to be a fusion of form and content," Temianka adds. "If it is form without the content, it's an empty shell, and if it is content without form, then it's a mass of jelly."
  
  The commentary continues, touching on everything from the history of string instruments to the similarities between symphonic music and theatre performance. Even Temianka's own experiences make an appearance in the speech, demonstrating how he — like anyone in the audience — could stumble across a musical revelation at any given moment.
  
  At one point, he even guides the audience through different melodies by playing them on his violin.
  
  [Haydn Performance with violin playing]
  
  Ten minutes later, applause crescendos in the hall as Temianka's dive into music history and theory comes to a close, and the performance begins.
  
  
  
  Musical commentaries like these have become commonplace in the modern day. But at the time, Temianka received harsh criticism for these attempts to verbally educate audiences. Some felt it was too condescending. Some believed that verbal commentary was for people "too lazy" to read program notes.
  
  Many, though, found Temianka's lectures to be insightful — and often more accessible — gateways into the deeper musical world. Temianka himself saw these commentaries as part of a performer's duty to democratize music literacy wherever he performed.
  
  Among the numerous titles and accolades Temianka received throughout his life, the virtuoso also went down in history as a strong advocate for infusing performance and education in ways that have since become the norm in concert halls around the world.
  
  But before that, in the early 1950s, Temianka shared a revelation that would shape his efforts for years to come.
  
  After visiting a small Idaho town to perform recitals, organize formal lectures and meet with public school music teachers, Temianka told the Los Angeles Times of his shift in focus as a performer, from merely playing music to actively educating his audiences: "As time goes on I become less and less interested in dashing into a town, giving a recital … and immediately making a mad dash for the first train to the next stop."
  
  "What interests me now," Temianka said, and what drove his famous commentaries, "is music as a way of life."