#68: Voice (and role) exchange
Section 7: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.51, ii: Dumka
Czech Quartet violist Herold seems to take a great deal of time over the D-F# interval in b.56. On closer examination, this is revealed to be more akin to an aural illusion arising from the context. His supporting bass here has remarkable width in tone, as if he is ‘making space’ for the meeting of viola and cello on the same pitch in b.57 (beat 1). (The slowly oscillating vibrato contributes to this ‘widening’). These moments of voice (and role) exchange are among the most directly experienced facets of playing quartets: there is also something deeply embodied about the tension with which those all-too-brief meetings then ‘peel’ away. These bars are also distinguished by their sense of swing. Despite the time taken over the interval, the viola’s arrival note (F#) in b.56 is clipped, and is thus somewhat de-emphasised. At the end of the bar, then, it is as if he is accounting for the first violin’s trajectory, while acknowledging the ‘stepping-stone’ quality of the cadential progression his part makes together with the cello, as it ‘swoops underneath’ once more.
This moment can be traced even further back, to the switch of roles b.49, where the viola takes on the ‘load bearing’ responsibility while the cello shadows it a third above. Quartet players habitually make adjustments to tone and resonance in these situations: the viola ‘takes on’ qualities of the larger instrument by significantly slowing the bow, and adopting a different manner in underpinning what goes on above. It is like taking the tiller on a large ship, compared to a small boat: gestures become slower moving, ‘rounder’, and more committed (once they get started). Conversely, the cello appropriates the more flexible, pliant tone conventionally associated with inner parts, and even a more enthusiastically ‘mediating’ character. An inner part has to be especially sensitive to ‘switching teams’ in the middle of a phrase, in a way that is less true of a bass function (b.49 - 56 (beat 2)).
