Few violinists have been more closely associated with quartet playing
than Ferdinand David, in his way one of the most celebrated violinists.
Little is known of his early youth except that he was born at Hamburg in
1810, and was there at the time of the French occupation. It has been
said that he played in a concert at ten years of age and at thirteen
became a pupil of Spohr at Cassel. He made a concert tour with his
sister, Madame Dulcken, and in 1827 entered the orchestra of the
Koenigstadt Theatre at Berlin. Here he became acquainted with
Mendelssohn, with whom he was from that time on terms of the greatest
intimacy. While in Berlin he was heard by a wealthy musical amateur
named Liphart, who lived at Dorpat, and who maintained a private
quartet. He engaged David, who eventually married his daughter, to lead
this quartet, and for several years the young violinist remained in
Dorpat, though he found opportunity to make some concert tours through
the north of Europe.

When Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the Gewandhaus concerts at
Leipzig, he sent for David and made him concert master, which post he
occupied from 1836. Seven years later the conservatory was founded by
Mendelssohn, and David became professor of violin, in which position his
influence became great and beneficial.

In Leipzig David established a quartet, which was one of the best, if
not the very best, in its day, though it may have been surpassed later
by the Florentine Quartet and those of Joachim, in London and Berlin,
and possibly by Brodsky's later Leipzig quartet.

David died in 1873, beloved and respected, and will be remembered as one
of the most refined musicians and admirable teachers of the century.

Josef Hellmesberger, one of the most brilliant violinists and noted
teachers of Vienna, founded, in 1849, a quartet which achieved an
immense reputation. His associates were Heissler, Durst, and
Schlesinger. Hellmesberger made a point of finding works of merit which
had sunk into oblivion, but which were worthy of a hearing.
Hellmesberger spent the whole of his life in Vienna, with the exception
of a tour in 1847, and he held the highest musical office in the
Austrian Empire, that of director of the Imperial Band.

A story which is told of him bears testimony to his remarkable musical
instinct. Teresa Milanollo, in 1840, took a new manuscript by De Beriot
to Vienna. She wished to keep it for her own use, and did not show it to
anybo