#74: Phrase boundary de-emphasis
Section 8: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.96, iv. Vivace, ma non troppo
A particularly difficult transition for us to grasp was between b.47-52, when hard-edged martial gestures give way to delicate playfulness. This is a good example of the ostensibly less ‘structural’ outlook characteristic of the Czech Quartet’s generation, and of the idea that playing across phrase boundaries was an available option, if not exactly a norm. In this quicker movement we often found ourselves drawing attention to such moments of transition — surely because the Czechs’ handling of them seems so unusual and marked, from our perspective — and this resulted in a sense of conscious manipulation that was far more subtle in the original. As in #72, we regularly found ourselves having to ‘do more’ than we expected, if details were to be audible on record. On some occasions, however, the situation was entirely reversed, and our gestures sounded much more explicit, less continuous, and more consciously ‘made’. I have included two of our attempts here, to illustrate how finely this moment was balanced, and how our versions approximated the character of the original without ever capturing the true details of its grammar – especially in the final quaver of b.50.
