Last evening I heard a beautiful reflective conversation between two violins, a viola and a cello. The conversation spoke of the greatest joy and the most profound sorrow, both almost indistinguishable from each other.
The conversation was among the members of the world renown Emerson Quartet. Throughout the concert, my mind kept returning to the artistry of a great conversation, because that’s what a string quartet is, a conversation among the instruments. The program was two of Beethoven’s late quartets that are enormously difficult to play with sounds ranging from the softest, most delicate in some movements, to rough and strident chords in others. There were passages so fast and frantic you could almost not see their fingers moving on the strings and other passages so soft and slow you were not sure there was still a sound in the auditorium.
I heard their playing as a conversation because when one instrument introduced a phrase or theme, another voice reflected back a more in-depth statement of that theme, perhaps in a different register or with embellishment, but still recognizable as the same theme. It was as though the viola might be saying to the first violin, “This is the meaning I took from what you just said.” In other passages, the voices of the instruments blended, seeming to have reached a common understanding.
As the music intensified the players leaned toward each other, just as we lean in when we're concentrating on what a friend is telling us. They watched each other, checking to see the right moment to enter the conversation. They even breathed together. At the beginning of a movement, you could see the first violin breathe in before his bow struck the string; the others breathing in concert with him, so that first note from all four instruments was simultaneous.
One of the most beautiful moments was at the end of a piece when all four bows quit moving, but the sound was still in the room. The musicians did not move, and the audience did not even breathe, wanting that last chord to stay in the air as long as possible.
The music did not originate from their instruments. As beautiful as they are, they were only the carrier. The music came from meaning deep inside each player, in much the same way that the meaning in an authentic conversation arises from deep within each individual speaker. Whether we agree or not, we know that the other is speaking his or her truth.
Even when the voices of the instruments were frantic and gruff, as they are in places in the Beethoven quartets, the players maintained eye contact and continued to listen to each other carefully. We should all listen to a Beethoven string quartet before we start a conversation so that we can hold that ideal conversation in our minds as we to talk together. If we could only engage in our too often rancorous public discussions with the intent to listen and reflect back what we heard. If that happened, then each speaker, feeling listened to, might have less need to raise the volume or increase the hostility. We might even find moments in which our voices could blend.
The poet, John O’Donohue, said, “Music is what language would love to be if it could.”