The cellist in my string quartet informed me today that she doesn't want to play with us any more. Our group has been together for nearly three years, and we know pretty much everything about each other and share a common love of all the music we play - if there was something one of us didn't like, we wouldn't even think about getting the music - there was a lot of consideration in our relationship with each other. They were amongst my closest friends, and our rehearsals on a Wednesday afternoon were just about the highlight of my week.

Consequently I've been very upset today (my dad wouldn't let me drive home because I was in tears and couldn't actually see where I was going...) and it seriously does feel like the end of an era. I read an article about a year ago about how being in a string quartet is like being married - and it really did feel just like a divorce. (Not that I'd know what a divorce feels like... but still...)

My brother has kindly agreed to step in to fill her place for our next concert, but after that I think the group will fold.

I suppose it doesn't matter too much - I'm in a jazz quartet, and an electric string quartet, and a string octet and a string sextet - but this group was the one that had been around the longest...

Has anyone else ever experienced breakup of a chamber group like this? I'd be interested to know what your feelings were!

I should probably mention this - I'm not getting at her, she has an absolute right to leave if she wants to!

Sorry to hear that Cheeble.

I found out not that long ago that John Todd has left the Coull String Quartet as their Cellist, I think to go and be head of strings at the Birmingham conservatoire. He was a super chap whom everyone loved - I think he used to be principal cellist at the LSO. Given the combination of his personality, ability, and friendship with the other members, and the fact that this is their livelihood, I imagine they must have been feeling something like you feel, perhaps even worse. But if you google them down (I can't now remember where) you will see that they have adopted a new very likeable and able cellist, and carry on. I suppose musicians are no more immune to the transitions of life than anyone else - it is how you approach these challenges which will determine how much happiness you can muster. If you have 3/4 of a quartet in place, it would seem more logical to hunt through your local orchestras etc. for a new cellist and rebuild in that way, than to all disband and join different groups. I suppose the blunt bottom line is that until you find a cellist who wants to play with you, you're not going to be in a quartet- unless one of you takes up cello!

Happy hunting,

David

QUOTE (cheeble @ Oct 10 2004, 05:12 PM)

The cellist in my string quartet informed me today that she doesn't want to play with us any more. Our group has been together for nearly three years, and we know pretty much everything about each other and share a common love of all the music we play - if there was something one of us didn't like, we wouldn't even think about getting the music - there was a lot of consideration in our relationship with each other. They were amongst my closest friends, and our rehearsals on a Wednesday afternoon were just about the highlight of my week.

I sympathise very much with your situation. You have such an enormous range of music for the string quartet that (IMO, at least) it is likely to be the most rewarding of your interesting groups.

I would expect you to be able to recruit a 'cellist to replace the one who is leaving. It may depend on what other requirements you have for a member of your groups. In our area, as I have mentioned before, there are lots of very good 'cellists, but I meet mainly the adult players. You will presumably need someone with a free Wednesday afternoon.

I believe there is something of a repertoire for two violins and viola. I shall look up Dvorak Terzetto on Google and post again if that turns out to be for those instruments.

QUOTE

Has anyone else ever experienced breakup of a chamber group like this? I'd be interested to know what your feelings were!

I had something akin to that experience this year. Some players who were adult beginners with the orchestra now known as DA CAPO (conducted by my wife, who posts under that name) had formed a woodwind quartet, and when I started playing the horn again, after a layoff because of my teeth, they invited me to join them. There is a wide repertoire for the standard wind quintet but, of course, it was all new to the others. After about six months, the oboist announced that she was leaving, which creates some difficulty as most oboists of similar level of experience to hers make a much worse sound, so we have yet to find a replacement. My main reaction was that she might have left because of me. I have played much more chamber music than any of the others and had been pointing out the problems that I could hear in our playing. My style of rehearsing and coaching is rather intensive - if the group needs to sort something out, I like to work at it until there is some improvement - but some people find this pace of working a strain. The others are more affected by her departure than I am, because I do lots more music elsewhere than they do, but they have all been very kind about it, downplaying the possibility of me being the reason. I remain in some doubt.

The Dvorak Terzetto in C major, Op 74, is for two violins and viola. I don't know it, but he had written lots of very good music by the time he got to Op 74 (if numbering is chronological).

Thanks for all your advice! I was later informed that the second violinist and viola refuse to play without the cellist (even though I've found a number of people willing to play with us) so I'm going to resign myself to being groupless for the moment, I think. *sigh*

Oh well! I'll get together some fellow violins and violas and do the Dvorak Terzetto, which I must say sounds very intriguing.

QUOTE (cheeble @ Oct 11 2004, 09:08 PM)

Thanks for all your advice! I was later informed that the second violinist and viola refuse to play without the cellist (even though I've found a number of people willing to play with us) so I'm going to resign myself to being groupless for the moment, I think. *sigh* Oh well! I'll get together some fellow violins and violas and do the Dvorak Terzetto, which I must say sounds very intriguing.

As the group has broken up, you have lots of ad hoc possibilities. Mozart wrote two duos for violin and viola and Bartok 44 duos for two violins. If you know a horn player and a very good pianist you could play the trios of Brahms and Lennox Berkeley. If you are near a good music library, have a look for unusual combinations.

I'm about to start playing the Brahms with some fellow students at school - a friend of mine is a horn player... and I've just started learning the piano part, which is extemely difficult, but I like a challenge!

QUOTE (cheeble @ Oct 13 2004, 11:09 AM)

I'm about to start playing the Brahms with some fellow students at school - a friend of mine is a horn player... and I've just started learning the piano part, which is extemely difficult, but I like a challenge!

Wow! when you've cracked that, you'll be able to lay down three tracks and record the whole thing!

lol I can try... it's going very sloooowly at the moment... but it's really good fun!

QUOTE (cheeble @ Oct 19 2004, 07:45 PM)

lol I can try... it's going very sloooowly at the moment... but it's really good fun!

Re Brahms Horn Trio: the easiest movement for the piano must be the Adagio mesto, and it's seriously gorgeous (and gorgeously serious too, now I think of it - I would have put a smilie here if I could have found one to show rapture). The first movement comes next, though the bars with compound against simple and no first beat are difficult to get together. The scherzo and the finale both have fiendish bits, especially the last phrase of the finale first subject, with its two octave jump for the left hand. The saving point is that it is worth all the effort.