Music of Today - Purcell Room

To the Purcell Room for a free concert of four string quartets by friends of New York based Anna Clyne, who is composer-in-residence everywhere right now. It was all very pleasant and post-minimalist, or whatever they are calling stuff that actually sounds like music now. The sound was excellent, because the Purcell is the smallest of the concert halls and very well-proportioned. Any hi-fi that sounded that good would be very good indeed.

What struck me this time was the interaction between the players. There wasn’t any. Occasionally the second violinist would glance at the first, as much, I suspect as to make sure he wasn’t going to poke her in the eye with his bow while fidgeting in his seat. The viola player kept her eyes on the score all the way through all the pieces. The closest they came to interaction was at the start, when whoever had to play notes at the same time would make slightly exaggerated nods or gestures to indicate they were about to start.

All very different from jazz, flamenco, or rock, where one of them will play a note or a chord, and the others will pile in on the next beat. Because they can feel when the next beat is due and know they are all wanted - or that they have to wait until some other event. They look at each other, and listen to each other. On the rare occasions they have to play together, they do so with uncanny accuracy - or at least the pros do.

They can do this because they have absorbed the style of music they are playing into their bodies: they have musical reflexes. They know the repertoire as well, but most of it is a physical understanding of the music.

Bach wrote a different cantata for ears week for two years or so when he was at Leipzig. His band got one rehearsal during the week, and then played it that Sunday. A modern conductor will take days to rehearse a Bach cantata, and that will build on more days of thinking about the piece and listening to other recordings. How did Bach’s band do it? Because they only played Baroque music. There wasn’t anything else. Baroque music has as many conventions as jazz, and as many licks. Composers stole phrases from each other all day. The instrumentalists could sight-read as well as any of today's players, but because it was all in one style, they could read and interpret it much faster than even a virtuoso today. They would not need to think about it, because it was the only way to play. A modern player has to load up different ways of playing for each change of genre, and sometimes, of conductor. They have to work against muscle memory, whereas the players in Bach’s band could rely on it.

The sight-reading skills of today’s classical instrumentalists are considerable, and it’s why they don’t need to pay attention to what the others are doing, except to check their cue for entry after a short break.

I find the sense that the players are listening and reacting adds something intimate to the performance. One is watching other people co-operate, work together. Too much sight-reading of material that is more than a little arbitrary and the performance can seem like four people co-ordinating independent actions. But it’s a consequence of the genre.