#76: Preparation and completion: dovetails revisited
Section 8: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.96, iv. Vivace, ma non troppo
In b.179-198 Florian violist Anna perceptively traced some of the stylistic contrast to the preparation and completion of phrases. From a performer’s perspective, the idea of preparation – especially when it involves the breath – is a usefully embodied explanation of the way in which ‘structural’ phrasing generally emphasises separation between perceptually salient units. This is paradigmatically on the level of the phrase, but it can work at either a smaller or larger scale.*
She noticed the Czech Quartet’s uncanny ability to elide gestures of completion into gestures of preparation: in the passage above, for example, they ‘prepare’ the phrase ahead while they are still in the process of completing the preceding material. This is subtly different from simply playing ‘across’ a boundary without a hint of relaxation or acknowledgement: we felt that they did both, but that the two are dovetailed rather than distinguished. (We were more inclined, by contrast, to devote separate gestures to each of those tasks). This is not offered as a theoretical or explanatory model, but as a good example of a ‘performer’s understanding’: a useful generalisation that is ultimately aimed at uniqueness.
*For the purposes of this observation, it is worth resisting the urge to split the idea of preparation into parameters (like dynamic and tempo).
