I know that this will come off as a bit extreme, but I have to say, if you are a string player and you do not regularly indulge yourself in playing string quartets: you are a fool. You are missing out of the best of the best of music, and of musical experiences. I’m not saying that you should perform several
concerts a year for paying audiences. Just get together with some friends and colleagues and read some quartets that you’ve practiced on your own over a glass of wine or two. An ‘informed reading’ can be every bit as satisfying as an extended rehearsal period, and can reap surprising dividends in your orchestral life.
I cannot tell you how much playing the string quartets of Beethoven has informed my playing of his symphonic music. The same with Mozart, Brahms, Haydn, Shostakovich, and Bartók. Not to mention the string quartets by those composers not so well known for their chamber music: Verdi, Sibelius, Janacek, and Tchaikovsky. When you play a composer’s string quartet, you are peering deeply into that person’s musical soul. As you study more and more of their quartet output, you begin to see how their musical language strengthens and deepens, and perhaps how their personal narrative begins to make itself visible in their musical oeuvre.
In addition, there is that sense of connection that you seldom get (short of a long-term friendship or physical relationship) with your fellow quartet mates. You begin to understand them on a deep emotional level that comes from hours spent rehearsing on good days and bad – with rehearsals either matching the mood of the day, or defiantly opposing it. There is something so deeply satisfying about opening the score to an unparalleled masterpiece and diving right in for the sheer joy of it. Something that we seldom get to do in our orchestral lives.
7 replies on “playing string quartets”
Hardly extreme. Now if we could only start younger students playing chamber music earlier…
Charles, I certainly agree with your comment that everyone should play string quartets. My question is more of a technical one: I notice your quartet in the photo has the cellist in the middle and violist on the outside. Do you and your colleagues find this offers specific advantages compared to traditional layout of having the cellist on the outside? If so, what are they?
I don’t have any well-reasoned answer for you, sadly. It’s just the way we’ve always sat, in both of the string quartets that I’ve played in over the past 15 years or so. I think having the cello next to the second violin makes sense in having the instrument pointing out towards the audience. The viola has fewer leading lines than the cello (usually), and we can turn out our bodies to get a bit more sound projection. Plus it’s nice to have the bass voice in the center of the group, instead of out on the end.
You sound like a cellist Charles. I HATE IT!!!!!! When a violist sits on the outside you have to turn left for solos and right to glance at the cellist. No bueno. I somehow lost the battle in my quartet. I need to go back to this. Outside is too far away from the 2nd violin. I can’t hear.
Ok – let’s have a test! When you guys want to do a run through, I’ll come over and listen to one movement played each way, and see how it sounds. I’ve never done that before!
My 45th Parallel colleagues and I had a particularly rewarding experience rehearsing Ives 1st String Quartet for the recent Club Mod concert. I couldn’t agree more Charles!
Totes agree! So glad Shin and Marilyn forced me to play chamber music. It’s like relearning to play the viola every concert.