#12: Imaginative gestures are rarely ‘in parentheses’
Section 1: Josef Suk – Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn ‘St Wenceslas’ Op.35a
In this passage the Czech Quartet’s imaginative gestures often felt ‘big’ in comparison to our own instincts. But these players also had a curious way of ‘catching’ such inflections immediately, as if less tempted to put them in parentheses by taking further time on either side. (We were more familiar with ‘saying something, having a space to think about it, and then moving on’). Allowing extra time for expressive intent to ‘tell’ is especially useful if an ensemble’s aim is to synchronise their gestures within regular phrase-shapes – indeed these two conventions may be mutually self-reinforcing. When copying, we found that although the Czech players’ imaginative contributions were frequently more ‘active’ than ours, their inclination to ‘move on’ very quickly provided significant compensation. Once something had been stated or offered, these players had no need to draw further attention to it as a self-conscious, knowing gesture – nor to magnify it by demanding that it be taken up by the whole collective.
Notice, for instance, how in b.36 first violinist Hoffmann seems to wait just long enough for the logic of the lower two parts’ pizzicati to ‘complete’ before setting off on his next phrase. Our instincts were for the (halting) final pair of notes to generate a proportionally-sized breath before the violin’s continuation. (The next phrase’s timing would then follow the trajectory set up by the relationship between those two notes). Our historical players, by contrast, handled this moment with a ‘dovetail’ that combined breath and continuation: the violin enters slightly early, tying the new entry into the preceding phrase, and effectively ignoring the trajectory set out by the timing of the lower parts. Their rendition resembles the overlaps of a subduction zone, more than the gently opposing inclines of a valley. At the same time, the two violins modulate the tone of their long A, lifting out of the string ‘with a wiggle’ somewhere between the middle and upper third of the bow. This culminates in a moment of remarkable fragility, in which the utterance feels all-but-completed, yet the life of the stroke is never relinquished entirely.*
The precarious unfolding of this note was a valuable indication of the conversational, interactive, real-time qualities of their musical logic. Our attempts to capture this made use of deceptively simple heuristics; as our own second violinist put it, “it sounds as though I play our unison bars truly with you (first violin), and then into b.36 you just… stop waiting.” In general, we had to unlearn the habit of waiting for each other’s contributions to ‘clear’ before moving on, and to become accustomed to committing in a subtly different way, which was based on the expectation that gestures would (have the option to) run into one another, rather than be clearly delineated or emphasised.
*String instruments are well suited to this effect, in which the bow ‘hangs on’ almost to the point of total expiry, yet without ever losing the thread of tone such that continuity into the next phrase is compromised. The tension in that ‘close-to-death’ contact makes a compelling moment from what may easily have been a routine join.
