#22: Dispositions towards synchronisation
Section 2: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.51, ii: Dumka
The passage b.14-25 exemplified a curiously disciplined type of swing, which we felt was oriented towards the organisation and projection of ‘content’ rather than flippant playfulness. This feeling of rigour, associated with ‘showing’ the angles and directions of harmonic progressions, was relatively familiar to us, and meant that in this case we were repurposing existing conventions more than entirely relearning. (Sometimes we also experienced a ‘domino effect’ of reactions to each other’s subtle nuances of tone and timing during the span of a phrase). On the other hand, embracing the potential for ‘asynchrony’ opened up new horizons for achieving this, especially in encouraging much greater agogic inflection. This introduced a whole new spectrum of challenges, not least in terms of evaluation.
Most interestingly, this subtle change in our disposition towards ensemble had a discernible impact on our playing even in passages that remained closely synchronised. It is worth remembering that the Czech Quartet often played with very close synchronisation, for this can easily be subsumed under general rosters of ‘stylistic features’. The point is that the potential not to be synchronised has an impact on the character of their style that is not capable of explanation by isolating particular moments of ‘untogetherness’. We found that focusing our attention more closely on the physical feeling of each harmony, and treating synchronisation much more implicitly, we were able to find more active differentiation in the tone and timing of specific moments while retaining sensitivity to one another’s inflections. This shift operates on a very different ‘level’ to conscious (or ‘interpretative’) decisions. This realisation was important in re-learning how to judge effective ensemble interactions in a different light.
