Heartstring Quartet

Heartstring Quartet

A marriage made in heaven…

 

I always imagined that a string quartet would be like a faithful marriage. I believed that it would be a perfect harmonious relationship that, over time, would lead to an almost psychic connection between the four players. Every nuance and glance would be understood completely and reflected in a seamless exquisite musical performance.

 

I had read about quartets that had been together for many decades.

 

When we formed our string quartet over three years ago it was a very exciting time. We gave our quartet a name, a name made up of fragments of our own names; a bit like ABBA but without the satin trousers and dangerous footwear.

 

We bought special files to hold our music and proudly inscribed them with our name in our best calligraphy.

 

I took my second violin parts of Mozart’s evocatively named “K156” and “K168” to my teacher and practiced them diligently. I listened to recordings. I wanted to be the best I could be. Each player is important in a quartet; every instrument has its own voice which is essential to the whole.

 

My teacher told me that she had heard someone say that a string quartet was like a bottle of wine. The cello is the bottle holding everything together. The first violin is the fancy label, the part that gets noticed first. The viola and second violin together are the middle voices, the substance, the wine itself.

 

We all thoroughly enjoyed playing together, met almost every Sunday morning and made a steady improvement.

 

Then one day the lead violinist said “I love our quartet! It’s wonderful that we practice together so regularly… much more regularly than our other quartet.”

 

The viola player nodded in agreement “Yes, our other quartet doesn’t meet very regularly. Sometimes we forget what we have been working on.”

 

“Our other quartet.” I felt devastated by those words. Too wounded to even speak.

 

I went home, took out my violin, and played Gabriel Fauré’s suitably tragic “Élégie”, sniffing miserably between each note. I missed out the middle section, partly because it seemed too optimistic and partly because it was too difficult to play.

 

Another time it was suggested that Brenda the clarinettist join us. “There are some lovely pieces for clarinet quartet, and Brenda doesn’t get the chance to play with other people very often.”

 

I couldn’t believe that such an obscene suggestion was being proposed.

 

Thankfully the violist dismissed the suggestion, saying that she preferred to play in a string quartet and that she wasn’t interested in playing with a clarinet.

 

If I could have uttered any words, I would probably have been rather less coherent and detached. There would undoubtedly have been some sobbing and, had I possessed one, pitiful waving of my lace handkerchief.

 

Since this time, I have (more or less) come to terms with the situation and now accept that it is normal and perhaps even healthy for musicians to play in different, often overlapping groups.

 

I have even had a few dalliances playing in other groups myself.

 

The latest quartet has me playing first violin, which, like eating brussel sprouts, is difficult to do but is also good for me. I also get to set the tempo; inevitably moderato. Definitely no allegro or, as I call it, rushing.

 

Whichever group I have played in though, there has always been one constant companion; my darling faithful cellist – together forever.

 

As Audrey Hepburn said “If I get married, I want to be very married.”