The private lives of string quartets

[amateur51]

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.

Lovely story, Don Petter - many thanks

[Stanley Stewart]

#14 Thanks, Dave 2002 I've amended the quotation in #12. Perhaps more Danny Kaye in "The Court Jester" tongue- twisters..."The vessel with the pestle..." than Morecamble & Wise!

[salymap]

#14 Thanks, Dave 2002 I've amended the quotation in #12. Perhaps more Danny Kaye in "The Court Jester" tongue- twisters..."The vessel with the pestle..." than Morecamble & Wise!

Oh dear, now the Chalice from the Palace will chase the Flagon with the Dragon until I play the film again.
One of those memorable scenes - thank you Stanley

[Stanley Stewart]

Right on, saly, thanks. Didn't think anyone would remember. Some people will always associate "We'll always have Paris" with Bogey and Bergman in "Casablanca" (1942) but we'll always have Danny Kaye from a few years later in "Up In Arms" to "White Christmas" and "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" in the 50s. Decidedly off-thread but happy memories, too.

In mitigation, perhaps I should add that I've also been reading "My Life And Music" by Artur Schnabel, (pub 1970) which I picked up in a charity shop for £1 a few years ago. Pt 1, Twelve autobiographical talks given by AS in 1945 to an audience of music students at the University of Chicago. Pt 2, Lectures , Reflections on Music, which he gave at Manchester University, all combining his experience, wit and wisdom . Foreword by Sir Robert Mayer and intro by Edward Crankshaw.

[bluestateprommer]

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!

For kb, I thought that IP was fine, as were the actors on the whole. She certainly does an American accent passably well, which can be tricky in both directions for actors/actresses from one side of the pond to cross over, accent-wise, to the other side.

BTW, Andrew Watkinson of the Endellion Quartet weighed in on the film, in a Guardian interview with Laura Barnett:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/apr/16/violinist-view-late-quartet

Years earlier, back in 2004, another Guardian article, by David Waterman, also of the Endellion Quartet, took on the philosophical question of the dynamics of a string quartet, with a brief allusion to the the worst recent real-life case of a string quartet in dysfunction, the Audubon Quartet:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/jan/17/classicalmusicandopera1

[Dave2002]

#14 Thanks, Dave 2002 I've amended the quotation in #12. Perhaps more Danny Kaye in "The Court Jester" tongue- twisters..."The vessel with the pestle..." than Morecamble & Wise!

Moving swiftly on from "all the right notes right playing I'm — not in necessarily but order the right"
we encounter Stravinsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Court_Jester - worth reading that one!

See also http://dagsrule.com/pestle.html though copyright considerations have probably blocked the video.

This video probably works, though - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zHBN45fbo8

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks again to bluestateprommer for the Indivisible by Four tip - I read it last week on holiday, an enchanting and uplifting book. Highly recommended.

[Richard Tarleton]

"Married to the Amadeus" by Muriel Nissel, on the other hand, I found a very dull read [pace Stanley, above ]. It appears to be privately published, and badly in need of an editor if only to clear up the exclamation marks. I found myself speed-reading large chunks on her civil service career (she had a distinguished career on her own account), family holidays and doing up their suburban house. A book fit only for the grandchildren.

At times it slips into quite remarkable banality. Norbert Brainin is described as " at the same time very full of himself and of his own ideas, and bombastic, already resembling and often behaving outrageously like Mr Toad". A footnote informs us that "Mr Toad is a character in The Wind in the Willows, a children's book by Kenneth Grahame. He is portrayed as being very full of himself, but he was befriended and well liked by the other animal characters in the book".

Nadia Boulanger, perhaps the greatest musical pedagogue of the twentieth century (of whom Copland said "Nadia Boulanger knew everything there was to know about music; she knew the oldest and the latest music, pre-Bach and post-Stravinsky. All technical know-how was at her fingertips: harmonic transposition, the figured bass, score reading, organ registration, instrumental techniques, structural analyses, the school fugue and the free fugue, the Greek modes and Gregorian chant...") is described as follows [they all meet at Dartington]: "...and the musicologist and teacher, Nadia Boulanger - spinsterish with her long grey hair framing her face, austere as she peered through her glasses, but immensely lively and brimming over with musical knowledge and advice". This would probably have served equally as well as a description of Imogen Holst who was also present.....

[Sir Velo]

I take your point but isn't it refreshing not to have something which smacks of sycophantic hagiography for a change. And, come to mention it, Norbert Brainin could have been born to play Mr Toad at a panto coming your way.

[richardfinegold]

Interesting discussion on Music Matters about the new film A Late 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.

I just read Dubinsky's book yesterday. It is incredible that people could live and work under such a system. How difficult it must have been to maintain cohesiveness in the Borodin Quartet when two of the members were committed Party Members.

[Ariosto]

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.

And you personally know quartet members, and have been present at professional quartet rehearsals? I suppose we should come to expect such generalisations which in my opinion are far from the truth.

P S Mozart also played the violin.

[pastoralguy]

My favourite definition of a string quartet is a good violinist, a bad violinist, a failed violinist and someone who hates ALL violinists...!

[Richard Tarleton]

The film A Late Quartet (see OP) is showing tonight at 11.00 on BBC2.

[Pianorak]

The film A Late Quartet (see OP) is showing tonight at 11.00 on BBC2.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03y73xl According to this it starts at 21:00 - but who knows.

[Richard Tarleton]

Curious - acc. to Radio Times and the Sky planner it's at 11.00 (23.00).....so check!