QUEST FOR THE LOST STRING QUARTET
The Story of the Zoellners, America’s Forgotten Chamber Music Pioneers 1904 - 1954
By Joseph Zoellner’s great-granddaughter Alexandra Foley and Liane Schirmer
The Zoellner Quartet….
Performed in Europe prior to World War I and across North America
The first professional family ensemble (and led by a woman) to perform both sides of the Atlantic
Acclaimed for democratizing chamber music across North America
Female leader: Antoinette Zoellner was first violin
Established the Zoellner Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles in 1922
Gave over 3000 concerts across North America in over 100 cities, towns and rural communities
First professional string quartet to perform Native American music to Native Americans
Entertained audiences from all strata of society, practicing and performing “on the fly”, from the forest floor, train carriages and station platforms to Aeolian and Carnegie Hall
Loved by people of influence including the Belgian royal family, the last Tsar of Russia, Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Charles Lummis, Arthur Farwell, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Will Rogers, Paul Revere Williams and Albert Einstein
Contributed to the emergence of Los Angeles as a cultural center
History
The Zoellner Quartet was founded in 1904 by Joseph Zoellner, Sr. with his three children, Antoinette (first violin), Joseph, Jr. (cello), Amandus (violin). Joseph Zoellner, Sr. had been director of Niblos Garden and first violin at the Theodore Thomas Orchestra prior to this. The Brooklyn family were of German descent and eventually moved to California. Their they met the San Francisco arts patron, Ethel Crocker who decided the children should further their music studies at the Brussels Conservatory of Music. While there they became popular in high society and diplomatic circles championed by the charismatic director of the Brussels Conservatory, Cesar Thomson, who had taught the Flonzalay Quartet. Achieving success in Europe, and much press coverage, the Zoellner’s came to the attention of famous personages. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia summoned Joseph Zoellner, Sr. to perform for him and the Countess of Flanders, mother of the King of the Belgians, invited the Zoellners to undertake a command performance at the Royal Palace in January, 1912.
Returning to America before World War I, the Zoellner Quartet embarked on numerous transcontinental tours with a missionary zeal that would redefine chamber music in North America. Between 1915 and 1929, they played more than 3,000 concerts, performing in a range of venues, from Carnegie Hall and major institutions to music clubs, churches, frontier schools, railroad stations, and, famously, in Chilocco, Oklahoma, Charles Sanford Skilton’s Two Indian Dances for 600 Native Americans in 1916.
They were sought by the deaf and blind activist Helen Keller, spending two consecutive summers with her in her home in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Keller famously wrote after hearing them play: “You are masters of a wondrous art, sight is given, the blind and deaf ears hear sweet, strange sounds.”
Settling in Los Angeles in 1918, the family founded the Zoellner Conservatory of Music in 1922 and its main branch at 3839 Wilshire Blvd. is now the site of the Wilshire/Western LA Metro station currently nearing completion in preparation for the LA 2028 Olympic Games. The Zoellner Conservatory became a mecca for foreign and American musicians and composers such as Eugene Goossens, Arthur Farwell, Ernestine Schumann-Heink and Albert Einstein during his tenure lecturing at Caltech in 1931. The Zoellners were known for championing foreign and hitherto unknown American composers and premiering their works with an energy and passion that was exalted by the American press. Frank Bridge, Johann Fasch, Alfred Hill, Jules Mouquet, Eugene Goossens, and Jan Brandt-Buys and were among these.
The Zoellner Quartet’s weekly KHJ Radio broadcasts and regular performances at venues such as the Biltmore Hotel, Royce Hall, U.S.C.’s Bovard Auditorium, and the Ebell Club helped bring chamber music to a broader public.
Antoinette Zoellner, as first violinist, broke barriers as one of the first women to lead a professional quartet. She was so admired that on their 1915 Canadian tour a suffragette shouted mid-performance, “A woman leading three men! Votes for Women!”
By the time Joseph Zoellner, Sr. passed away in 1950, the family had performed more than 4,000 concerts and left an enduring legacy. These musical pioneers made chamber music accessible, inclusive, and popular across North America in the 20th Century.
Discovery of the Zoellner Archive
Alexandra Foley’s childhood friend, Liane Schirmer - the great granddaughter of Gustav Schirmer, founder of the famous G. Schirmer music publishing company - discovered the existence of a massive Zoellner archive in February 2020. She immediately contacted London-based Alex, who was coincidentally in California at the time. Several days into their research at the Charles E. Young Library at UCLA, the pandemic struck, and Alexandra returned to London. During the lockdown, Alexandra decided to write the book and began to engage with her mother, conducting a series of informal interviews over the next several years.
Unbeknownst to Foley, the archival material collection had been donated to UCLA in 1985 by her mother’s estranged cousin, Ruth Jalof, the granddaughter of Amandus Zoellner. She had rescued the material from an old barn in Northern California, upon the death of Alexandra’s uncle Joe Zoellner III. After much agonizing and research, Ruth Jalof finally decided to donate the archive to UCLA, whose Special Collections department had the will and proper resources to professionally preserve it.
Spanning the early 1900s to the 1950’s, the Zoellner Archive contains hundreds of performance programs, press clippings and reviews, correspondence, photographs and diaries. It is a treasure trove that fills a missing chapter in the story of American chamber music. It also offers rare insight into Los Angeles’s early cultural history and the evolution of classical music in post–World War I America.
Together Foley and Schirmer have researched and pieced together the Zoellners remarkable story, which also speaks to Foley’s heartfelt search for her own American roots.
With a powerful foreword by Professor William Deverell, Dean of Humanities at USC, Quest for the Lost Quartet aims to restore the Zoellners rightful place in the canon of American chamber history.
The authors hope their book is a suitable homage to Joseph Zoellner’s dedication to bring classical and chamber music to wider audiences.
As Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, the Zoellners story offers depth and breadth to City of Angels emergence as a center for culture and the arts.
The following academics have passionately supported the project:
Professor William Deverell, Professor of History and Divisional Dean of the Social Sciences, University of Southern California (USC) and Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
Andrew Justice, Head of the Music Library at USC
Dr. Christopher Brellochs, Dean of Music, SUNY Schenectady
Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, Head of Violin Department at SUNY Schenectady and founder of the Musicians of Ma’alwyck Quartet
John Koegel, Professor of Musicology at California State University, Fullerton
Professor Joshua Goode, Department of History at Claremont Graduate University
David Bahanovich, Associate Provost, Curtis Institute of Music
Dr. Max Yamane, Ethnomusicologist, Oklahoma University
The authors are engaging with potential publishers having now finished the book after six years of deep dive research and investigation (2020-2026). For further information please contact: Alexandra Foley: alexfoley1066@gmail.com and/or Liane Schirmer: lianeschirmer@gmail.com