#75: Tensions within synchronised ensemble
Section 8: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.96, iv. Vivace, ma non troppo
In #22 we saw how treating asynchrony as ‘allowable’ in principle also changes the character of playing that is closely synchronised. Two examples following in quick succession – between b.155-171; and b.179-198 – build on this point.
The first is easier to grasp, because its unfolding tensions develop progressively. First violinist Hoffmann presents new (hymn-like) material (b.155) in a flowing tempo that seems to ‘come out of’ the preceding music. That tempo is quickly undermined by next entry, however: it is as though second violinist Suk starts ‘holding’ his colleague, challenging him to resist the easy ‘flow’ he has already set up. The two-way valve concept is essential here, because at no point are these voices perceptibly ‘asynchronous’; yet in terms of their attitude towards the material they pull in different directions. This is not so keenly felt outside the ensemble, but we experienced it viscerally ‘from within’. To make this passage work, every moment had to risk being ‘un-together’. In this process of mutual persuasion, the ‘valve’ was working very hard.
Adopting this mindset generates tensions within the voices that are impossible to quantify, but its qualities were made audible by noting their absence in our early versions. They were not simply performing particular tempo ‘strategies’, then, but seemed to be adopting much more ‘whole’ personae: dispositions, in other words, towards both the musical material and one another. The potential for asynchrony is so important here because no risk-reward framework based around the normative value of synchronisation would consider this disposition a worthwhile gamble. With different rules, different possibilities are opened.
The second passage b.179-198 presents an easily neglected but important combination: irregular swing executed in very close synchronisation. (Their swing does not map onto the notated hairpins; indeed we had to work hard to avoid our collective variations falling into simplistic four-bar patterns). On the basis of this example, it seems plausible that much of the Czech Quartet’s attention (and rehearsal) over the years of their collaboration was devoted to developing the ability to play expressively and irregularly — but in precisely the same way, and at the same time. This skill is rarely practiced either by ‘mainstream’ modern players or by (‘radical’) early recording specialists — clearly, for different reasons. Such grey areas are casualties of polemical argument, and the vocabulary of ‘devices’. In particular, they fall into the gaps generated by an insufficiently flexible understanding of ‘togetherness’ in musical performance.
This section was brutally revealing of our comparative lack of synthesis. We were simply not familiar enough with the general convention (skill?) described above, for the particular details to be executed sufficiently implicitly — and indeed ‘together’. Relatedly, we often lacked their sense of forward motion, and were liable to break the music into overly ‘straight’ units. We attempted to capture their rhythmic fluctuations, but it may be that trying hard to be fluid in this respect was our key mistake. As in #17, saturation of agency meant that we unintentionally fell into simplistic habits (including imposing small, unintentional pauses every 4 bars). These habits were not pre-ordained decisions, but seemed to ‘fall out’ of the faulty assumptions upon which our attempts were built. As before, our ‘big beats’ (i.e. ‘hypermetrical structure’) felt fundamentally different to those of the Czech Quartet. Ours were strangely regular, despite the overly conspicuous variation: they were too ‘given’, too regulative. Their variation seemed to be generated more ‘internally’, as though it was coming from ‘within’ the notes themselves.
