#53: Timing, feel, and context

Section 7: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.51, ii: Dumka

We found it useful to reverse the basic metaphor of #52, to think less of the viola being early (in b.18), and more as if the other parts had been artificially expanding time until that moment. This recalibration meant that the viola could adopt a much more ‘neutral’ manner. This example was extremely effective in showing how far the surrounding context determined whether a particular inflection was experienced as being more ‘actively’ rushed, or whether it was more passive — and thus allowed to ‘roll’ more easily. We felt that the original recording was more inclined towards the latter here, and that it had a ‘just so’ quality which we had missed when the viola’s entry was conceived as more interventionist (i.e. intentionally early). The ‘feel’ of the original was replicated much more successfully when we imagined this entry to be ‘for free’.

Again, the metaphor of conversation is particularly apt here, because it suggests something more immediate and intuitive than could ever be ‘fully’ rehearsed, let alone determined, or scripted. (In any case, there is always ‘space within’ verbal descriptions of ‘musical ideas’). We reminded ourselves in words that a tail-end affirmation will always have a subtly different tone to something that has been said for the first time. But stating that understanding in words would never be enough to determine its precise inflection in a particular moment of performance. It will be experienced slightly differently on every occasion, according to the irreducible specificity of its context.