The programme explained that the quartet was unusual both in that the four members account for four countries between them and in that they were all established musicians before coming together in this quartet. The programme did not explain how they came to meet, but I would have thought that there were pluses and minuses to a late start. Minus in that one does not grow up together in the quite the same way. Plus in that one is bringing more to the party. Who knows? Are there dating agencies which exist to bring together wannabee quartettists?
It was dark by the time that we got to Cavendish Square and the only bench that we know outside the by then closed enclosure was occupied by two bright young things busy with bottle and fags, so we were reduced to taking our picnic propped up against the enclosure. But we managed.
Picnic followed by what turned out to be an excellent program: Haydn Op.64, No.5; Shostakovitch Op.68; and, Beethoven Op.59, No.2. In the right order too, at least for me. Classical style & restraint, Russian emotion to follow, wrapped up with commanding heights.
More or less full house, the only snag being that the chap in front of us, out with his young lady, did not appear to want to be there at all and could not sit still, to the point where his young lady was trying to quieten him down. A nuisance as his head was in my eye line for the quartet on the stage.
Row G was good on this occasion, near enough for the four parts to still have their individual voices but not so near that one was distracted by trivia.
But not so entranced that I did not find time to wonder how important being able to see the action was. There was a time when I would have maintained that the music was all and the musicians were almost irrelevant. But since then there have been at least two bits of new information. The first came from dipping into Rosen on piano playing (last mentioned at reference 3), where he makes much of the physicality of playing the piano, with a good part of the body playing a part. He also says that a concert pianist may take more time to get the right seat than he spends with the tuner to get the right sound. Seating arrangements are important. The second came from talk somewhere of mirror neurons, with the idea being that when you see someone doing something, a good part of the corresponding parts of your own motor apparatus is activated and some part of what you feel about that someone comes from echoes, as it were, from your own body. So taking both points, seeing the musician or musicians in action may be an important element of a live performance. Something which people used to the physical exhibitionism of rock stars on stage would presumably take for granted and wonder why I am making such a meal of the point. Presumably the reason why people like to see the keyboard at a piano concert. Perhaps all the more important to a musician than a non-musician: a violinist watching another violinist would perhaps get twitches and tinglings in the arms and fingers while a non-musician would not, not having been wired up for the purpose. But would this add or subtract to the quality of the experience?
There is also the consideration that one can only be doing one thing at a time, so one cannot be mirror neuron'ing all four players of a quartet at once. One cannot move one hand in two directions at once, so one would have to take the players one at a time. Perhaps all we actually have here is another case of a little knowledge being dangerous.
All that said, I find a lot of filming of concerts rather irritating. The cameraman and the producer, with their continual change of shot, panning and zooming around, are intruding their view of what is going on on me. A view which might well include shots of unsuspecting members of the audience which caught their eye for one reason or another. So, by way of example, I much prefer the radio version of carol services to the television version.
Out to a fairly quiet London Town, fairly quiet that is for a Friday night. The only bit of busy in the whole evening was a great crowd pushing onto the north bound train at Victoria. We did not even get any bright young things piling out to sample the night life of Epsom - which one usually does of a Friday evening.
Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Michelangelo+quartet.
Reference 2: http://www.michelangelostringquartet.com/cms/.
Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/cuarteto-casals.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment