Our Daily Dead

NY Times
Robert Koff, a founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet and a concert violinist who performed on modern and Baroque instruments, died on Tuesday at his home in Lexington, Mass. He was 86.

His family said that he had been ill for two years.

Mr. Koff, along with the violinist Robert Mann, the violist Raphael Hillyer and the cellist Arthur Winograd, formed the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946, at the request of the composer William Schuman, who was president of the Juilliard School.

Schuman’s mission for the ensemble was that it would champion contemporary music as part of a rounded repertory and that, as Juilliard’s resident quartet, it would coach younger chamber ensembles. Although none of the original players remain in the lineup (the last to leave was Mr. Mann, who retired in 1997), for nearly six decades the group has maintained its affiliation with the Juilliard School and its original commitment to new music.

As the group’s original second violinist, Mr. Koff helped shape its sound when the Juilliard Quartet was establishing itself as the pre-eminent American chamber ensemble, and he performed on many of the group’s classic recordings, including its first traversal of the six Bartok quartets, which was recorded in 1950 and recently reissued by Pearl, an English historical label. Mr. Koff left the group in 1958 when he became director of performance activities at Brandeis University.
Bartok:String Quartets

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