First violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet, 1964–2009
Few musicians have shaped American chamber music as profoundly as Arnold Steinhardt.
Born in Los Angeles in 1937, Arnold Steinhardt began studying the violin as a boy and made his solo debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at just fourteen. He went on to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia under the legendary Ivan Galamian, and later worked with Joseph Szigeti in Switzerland.
After winning the Leventritt Award in 1958 and a bronze medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1963, Steinhardt served as assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell — an apprenticeship that shaped his lifelong devotion to ensemble playing.
"A string quartet is a marriage of four people, with all the joy and friction that implies. For forty-five years, it was the great privilege of my life." — on the Guarneri String Quartet
Forty-five years, one first violinist — an unmatched record in chamber music.
In 1964, at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, Steinhardt co-founded the Guarneri String Quartet together with John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer. The ensemble quickly rose to become one of the most celebrated string quartets of the twentieth century, admired for its warm, singing tone and its profound interpretations of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms.
Remarkably, the Guarneri performed for forty-five years with almost no change in personnel — Steinhardt remained its first violinist from the founding until the quartet's farewell season in 2009. The quartet recorded the complete Beethoven cycle twice, collaborated with pianist Artur Rubinstein, and was the subject of the acclaimed documentary High Fidelity: The Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet (1989).
Steinhardt's books turned a musician's inner life into literature.
Subtitled A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony, this memoir tells the inside story of the Guarneri Quartet — how four strong-willed musicians stayed together for decades, balancing artistry, friendship, and ego in equal measure.
Part memoir, part love letter to the instrument itself, Violin Dreams traces Steinhardt's lifelong obsession with the violin and with Bach's Chaconne — the towering work he calls the Mount Everest of the violin repertoire.
Beyond his books, Steinhardt has long shared essays and reflections on musical life through his writing, and has taught generations of violinists at the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Maryland, and Bard College Conservatory.
Arnold Steinhardt's influence reaches far beyond the concert stage. As a performer, he set a standard for quartet playing that ensembles still measure themselves against. As a teacher, he shaped countless professional violinists. And as a writer, he opened a window into the working life of a musician with rare honesty, wit, and warmth.
His recordings with the Guarneri String Quartet — above all the Beethoven quartets — remain touchstones of the chamber music discography, and his books are read by music lovers and string players around the world.