Guarneri Quartet 10/31/2008

University of Chicago Mandel Hall
October 31, 2008

Kodaly String Quartet No. 2, op 10
Mozart String Quartet in d minor, K 421
Dvorak String Quartet in F Major, op 96 “American”

The Guarneri Quartet has been playing together for 44 years, and is finally going to retire in 2009. I had never before had the opportunity to hear this group live, and this chance looked to be my last. Before arriving at the concert, I was nervous, as I sometimes am, about what I was going to hear. As usual, I was nervous that my high expectation for supreme greatness might not be met. In our culture of recordings doctored and spliced to perfection, one can sometimes end up with a less than real idea about how a performer or group will sound in person. I was also nervous, as I often have been, to hear great musicians who are in the sunset time of their careers. As a player gets older, the music inside of them does not change, only its ability to get out. The idea that I might be sitting in a room with one of the greatest musicians of my lifetime and that he or she might not be able to play for me all that they once could because of the natural decay of the human body makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable and anxious. So it was with trepidation, but with excitement, too, that I sat down to hear this concert.

I think a lot about music, and I think a lot about how to talk about music. But I truly feel that there is no way that I could put the quality of the music I heard that night into any kind of writing which would do it justice. So I will just tell. The ensemble of the group was unreal. It was as if they could think each others thoughts. After 44 years of playing together, they matched each other, rather than each other’s sounds or strokes. By this, I mean that they matched each other on the inside, and then probably did negligible physical matching, so that the impetus for each color, dynamic, articulation, and character came from a completely unified and utterly organic place. I first noticed this when I watched the violins play together. It was so together and so matched, yet so not artificial or manufactured. Sometimes in chamber music, we find ourselves playing from a slightly mechanical perspective for the sake of unity—so that “we all do the same.” These violinists played in a way that was so seamlessly matched that it made every other attempt I had ever seen at matching look like a joke. And yet, there was absolutely nothing mechanical to it. Every single note was felt and committed to personally on a individual basis within the group. Never before had I ever heard anything like it.

Never before had I experienced such a unified commitment to line and to interpretation from a quartet, and I have heard some extremely fine quartets. Because of that, the Guarneri Quartet played like one very exquisite and refined instrument. Their performance of the Dvorak “American” quartet was especially wonderful. Never before in my life had I felt any kind of meaningful connection with that piece, but the Guarneri Quartet played it in such a way that I will never forget it.

Although Arnold Steinhardt’s bow arm is no longer smooth the way I know it once was, the music was still all there. The sound, phrasing, commitment and character still all came through boldly and beautifully. I hope I never forget the way the quartet sounded that night, and someday I will tell my students that I heard them live, when I myself was just a student.