Bizarre Court Case Puts a Violinist, and Leipzig String Quartet, in an Unflattering Light

The New York Times ^ | 12 June 2015 | Michael Cooper

[Theoria]

The violinist Stefan Arzberger had planned to play the music of Beethoven, Haydn and Mendelssohn with his colleagues in the Leipzig String Quartet later this month at Wigmore Hall in London, where he fondly recalls once sipping sherry with patrons after a concert.

Instead he finds himself facing a charge of attempted murder in New York City, accused of barging naked into the room of a 64-year-old woman at a Midtown hotel he was staying in while on tour this spring and trying to strangle her. His defense is hardly less lurid: His lawyers say he was drugged by a prostitute he had brought to his room earlier that night.

In his first extended English-language interview since his arrest, Mr. Arzberger — who has received support from a number of musicians, including Kurt Masur, the former music director of the New York Philharmonic, who conducted him in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra — said he did not remember what happened in the early morning hours of March 27, when the attack took place, according to a criminal complaint.

“I spend my time now investigating what happened that night, to find out — because I have no memories,” Mr. Arzberger, 42, who is out on $100,000 bail, said the other day over lunch. “This is something I never had in my life, something like this. No memories at all.”

Now, he faces criminal charges of attempted murder, burglary, strangulation and assault, and a civil suit from the woman.

[left that other site]

He may have even Beethoven her body!

[Publius]

He should have just written her a Janacek.

[left that other site]

And Borodined so the Janacek won’t bounce

[Publius]

Just a chip off the old Bloch.

[Publius]

He should have been more Franck with her.

[Red Badger]

I’ll be Franck, he wound up in Copland, because marched to the beat of a different drum.....................

[Publius]

Weill I find that interesting, it’s all Grieg to me.

[left that other site]

It’s stuff like this that keeps these threads very Bizet.

[Theoria]

Wasn’t Virginal at all.

[ex-snook]

He was playing in the wrong key.

[left that other site]

What he did was RITARDed.

[Red Badger]

Instead of playing the violin, he was blowing a fagotto .............

[left that other site]

He was too Bizet fretting about the Hart that the ol’ Hammerstein came down on him.

[ArGee]

Say, didja hear the one about the violinist who was playing in unflattering light?

Seriously, I would think it would be hard to Copeland with something like this.

[Theoria]

That’s nothing I would Harp about.

[DFG]

bookmark

[Red Badger]

Bassooner or later his lifestyle was bound to catch up with him................

[Publius]

Gershwin!

Gezundheit!

[left that other site]

This whole thread is getting quite Viol!

[Red Badger]

Fugue....................