Alban Berg String Quartet
With the Guarneri Quartet playing its final concerts this Spring, the Alban Berg Quartet is beginning its final season’s worth of concerts this season as well. A good article from the Times of London on the internal life of the string quartet. There’s really nothing like it, and the chemistry is incredibly delicate, just as they describe. It doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with how good a player the replacement member is, it’s more like how a couple determines they’re ready for marriage, and what makes a good fit. A lot of intangibles involved. It’s why we in the Ethos Quartet couldn’t really make it past the tragic loss of Marty Jennings.
What makes a string quartet more than the sum of its parts, more than four breathtakingly gifted musicians playing four priceless instruments? The answer is something far less tangible than music. No, without the peculiar bonds and excruciating tensions that lie at the heart of a chamber foursome, they might as well play Hot Chip as Haydn.
After nearly 40 years the Alban Berg Quartet are bowing out at the top of their game, with a farewell London season beginning next week. In 2005 Thomas Kakuska, the ABQ’s original violist, died of cancer. “We were 25 years together,†says the cellist, Valentin Erben, who made the decision to quit, supported by his fellow Albans.
“It was a strange thing when Thomas died,†he goes on. “All of us wanted to go on and he wanted us to go on.†Kakuska nominated a pupil, Isabel Charisius, as his successor in the quartet. “And Isabel does an incredible job,†Erben continues. “But there was a big rupture in our hearts. She could do, the best one could do but there has been a break.â€
Anyway, here’s the link to the complete story.