The private lives of string quartets

[Guest]

Interesting discussion on Music Matters about the new film A Late Quartet:

This weekend A Late Quartet, a film written and directed by Israeli-American Yaron Zilberman, opens in the UK. Starring Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Mark Ivanir it tells the story of the fictional Fugue Quartet who are thrown into crisis after 25 years performing together when their cellist and father figure Peter (played by Walken) announces his catastrophic diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. As the quartet faces its future without him tensions rise and the player’s personal relationships are severely tested.

Tom is joined by Eugene Drucker, violinist in the Emerson Quartet whose own cellist leaves this year after three decades together, and Laura Samuel co-founder of the Belcea Quartet, to review the film and discuss the unique nature of life in a string quartet.

A fascinating subject, the truth often stranger than any fiction. I didn't realise the Amadeus got separate cars to separate hotels. Rostislav Dubinsky's account of his years as founder member of the Borodins in post-Stalinist Russia is terrifying in places. There's a cryptic reference to the private lives of the Quartetto Italiano in "An Equal Music" which I've not seen mentioned elsewhere.

Is anyone aware of any other published quartet "biographies"?


It's on Sky Box Office right now.

[aeolium]

I'll try and listen to the Music Matters programme as it is an interesting subject (I don't think I'll bother with the film). I'd like to know more about the Quartetto Italiano who I think were together for 30 years until Farulli's illness eventually led to a break-up - the allmusic short biography mentions that they were 'mentored' by Furtwängler for a short period in the early 1950s. The Lindsays I think were quite often given to musing on radio or TV about the human dynamics of the quartet. It would be interesting to compare quartets which have retained the same players over a long period - like the Endellion - with those which over time have completely altered their personnel, like the Allegri.

[Sydney Grew]

The viola player is as a rule the most musical of the four (take Mozart); the second violin can often be a put-upon personality with a sense of inferiority; the first violin is usually something of a show-off; and the violoncellist ploughs his own furrow.

[Bryn]

Surely, any such programme would be greatly enhanced by the participation of Paul Robertson?

[Richard Tarleton]

Surely, any such programme would be greatly enhanced by the participation of Paul Robertson?

The Medici were briefly mentioned in the discussion on Music Matters - I was left wanting to know more.

[kernelbogey]

I'm tempted to start a new thread about the film A Late Quartet which I've just seen, in view of the title of this thread which has a different emphasis - but here goes anyway.

I think it's a good film and worth seeing. It recounts the impact on a quartet of the cellist discovering that he has a wasting disease. It descends for a time into Hollywoodesque melodrama, which might not be to everyone's taste, but it also makes moving use of Beethoven Op 131 and their preparations for its performance. Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent and Christopher Walken too - the other leads were not known to me.

I found the concluding part of the film moving and that this made up for the central melodrama. It takes an interesting line with the personal dynamics of the players.

Not being a string player I found the filming of the actors apparently playing their instruments filmed in a convincing manner, though experts will no doubt be able find fault in the fingering and bowing! I hope some may choose to see it and comment.

Edit: Philip French's Observer review is more eloquent than my bare summary.

[kernelbogey]

Bumping this up in case anyone sees the film A Late Quartet this weekend.

[bluestateprommer]

Is anyone aware of any other published quartet "biographies"?

Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri String Quartet wrote a book sometime back, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony, which I'll admit that I haven't read, but this came to mind in light of RT's question above, since I'd remembered hearing about it. This is the page from Amazon.co.uk:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0374527008/sr=1-1/qid=1365993931/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1365993931&seller=&sr=1-1

Regarding the film A Late Quartet, I saw it late last year. For any of you who are inclined to see it, be warned that the plot is fairly predictable, with more than dollops of soap opera and melodrama. But upon further reflection, at least IMHO, I was reminded of the late great Roger Ebert's statement, to the effect that:

"American films are about plot. French films are about people."

In other words, what's really more important about A Late Quartet are the tensions between the characters, rather than the plot mechanisms as such. And even though the plot twists are fairly predictable, in retrospect, upon close inspection of the plot, the seeds were clearly planted years beforehand, and just needed something to make all the latent tensions explode. The diagnosis of Christopher Walken's cellist character with incipient Parkinson's is obviously that something that leads to things spiraling out of control in the course of the movie.

Speaking more as a movie critic than anything, if you know Christopher Walken's general reputation for playing crazy or whacked-out character types in movies, it's refreshing to see him as the "good guy" of the story, not having to play any OTT characterizations, but simply being the real heart and conscience of the fictional Fugue String Quartet. Also, in a nice twist, his character's late wife is played in a sort of "dream sequence" by no less than Anne Sofie von Otter. You can even see fictitious classical albums that feature the Fugue Quartet musicians and ASvO in younger appearance. ASvO lip-synches to her own recording of "Mariettas Lied" from Die Tote Stadt in that "dream sequence".

Visually, the cinematography is gorgeous and really crisp. NYC comes off more than a bit sanitized in this film, but as a native New Yorker, I didn't completely mind :) . Plus, it looks as though the film really was entirely shot in NYC and environs, as opposed to the trend a few decades back of shooting in Toronto and having that pretend to be NYC.

One other cute touch is that in the course of the movie, one character who takes on a bit of behind-the-scenes importance is a character named Nina Lee, who in the movie is the cellist in a fictitious piano trio led by Wallace Shawn. The idea is that Walken's character, Peter Mitchell, would like Nina Lee to be his replacement in the Fugue Quartet. In real life, as it turns out, Nina Lee is the actual cellist of the Brentano String Quartet, whose recording of LvB op. 131 is used in the movie. It can't be too many classical musicians who can claim to be part of a movie with such high-octane acting talent as Walken, Shawn, Philip Seymour Hoffmann, and Catherine Keener present.

[kernelbogey]

Interesting post, BSP. What did you think of the actress playing the violinist daughter, Alexandra? I spotted in the (enormously long) credits 'dialect coach for Miss Poots'. So I checked her out, and she's British!

[Richard Tarleton]

Yes, many thanks for that BSP. As I said, the only other one I've come across is Rostislav Dubinsky's Stormy Applause.

Ms Poots was the subject of a lengthy profile in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago - an up and coming young actress.

[ardcarp]

be warned that the plot is fairly predictable, with more than dollops of soap opera and melodrama

Oh dear. Can we expect a BBC1 series (Policemen's wives' G-strings?) hosted by Gareth Malone with feisty females of the false eyelash/nails brigade discussing the merits of the Grosse Fuge as an ending to Op 130?

[Stanley Stewart]

Thank you RT and bsp - I've ordered "Indivisible by Four", order confirmed.

During the interminable spell "Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime..." (Richard II, Act V, Sc I), I sought solace by revisiting "Married to the Amadeus - Life With A String Quartet" (1998) by Muriel Nissel (wife of second violinist, Siegmund Nissel) and it truly personifies the meaning of total commitment in so many ways.
A joy, too, to rediscover the memoirs of Gerald Moore, "Am I Too Loud" (1966, Penguin edition). Warm in praise and sharp in his observations. Memories, too, of scraping together 7/6d for an Annexe ticket at his Farewell Tribute, 1967, at RFH; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria De Los Angeles and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; followed by LP and CD in 1987. Of course, he would only have been 68, middle-aged by today's standards!

[Richard Tarleton]

And thank you, Stanley, for the Muriel Nissel mention - duly ordered, lots of bargain offers on Amazon.

[Dave2002]

Thank you RT and bsp - I've ordered "Indivisible by Four", order confirmed.

During the interminable spell when "shivering pines did clime the day"

... presumably a reference to recent weather. Not quite a quotation from Richard II I believe. Maybe a Morecombe and Wise approach to Shakespeare, similar to the rendition of a piano concerto in front of Andrew Previn, though this time with words.

[Don Petter]

A fascinating subject, the truth often stranger than any fiction. I didn't realise the Amadeus got separate cars to separate hotels.

When the Smetana Quartet used to visit the UK in the seventies it seemed to be very much on a shoestring and they had to arrange their own transport.

After a concert in about 1976 at Stevenage (where the hall manager was an old school friend of mine) two members went off to catch a train back to London, while we took Lubomir Kostecky and Milan Skampa back there to their hotel in our first car, a little Vauxhall Chevette. They nursed their instruments, rather than entrusting them to the vestigial boot, which was probably wise since their value was probably several times that of the car!

They were genial companions, but spoke virtually no English, so the conversation consisted mainly of one of us mentioning a chamber work by name ('Dvorak, Quintet Opus 97', etc), followed by approving nods and exclamations of remembered pleasure from the others.