The Magic of Mozart

November 27, 2008 at 6:49 AM

Tonight topped off a week full of rehearsals and a concert - Quartet Night! One of my favorite nights of the week. I finally convinced the guys to warm up with a scale two weeks ago. Tonight we did a 2-octave G-Major (C-Minor was voted down). Then I had us do it with a twist - playing it in thirds - with the violins starting, and the cellist and I starting two notes later. They have never tried this before and were surprised with how it sounded. There is something very musical about playing scales this way. My teacher would be proud - converting others to the beauty of scales ;-)

After warming up, we started on Mozart's quartet K421. We have been studying it for several weeks now. Up until tonight, rehearsals have all been about learning the notes, rhythms, dynamics and studying how our parts interact with each other. Tonight, it started to become magical. The end of each movement had us smiling at each other in satisfaction. Our notes blended, our dynamics changing as if played by one person, and our tempo much more consistent with each other; even when one or another of us started to "rush" a bit with the cellist pulling us back in line. (What is it with cellists and being the "human metronome" anyway?)

The Allegro movement has some technical challenges for the "inner voices". There is a challenging section for the 2nd violinist rhythmically. The cellist helped him out by emphasizing the beats. There is also a spot where the violist (me) carries the melody which has some tricky shifts. We studied the score and each others parts to work how the parts interacted in a few spots. Key change! Oooops! It took our first violinist a measure or two to notice. However, even this movement, with all its challenges is starting to sound more musical.

After break, the cellist's daughter joined us on viola to play a Mozart Quintet. She normally plays violin, but will play viola (or "sub" on violin) with us on occasion. She plays in 1st violin section at PYP (Portland Youth Philharmonic), and is very talented. It is always fun playing with her! I found myself watching how she was able to easily vibrate on the C-string with her 1st finger in 1st position, taking a few mental notes for myself to apply in practice later.

So, with her tonight, we played the first of the Mozart Quintets. I never played this one before, so sight reading time for me again. It was 2 measures in the Adagio movement that had me scratching my head, causing us to have a few "do-overs" while I figured out the ryhthm. I asked everyone to stop for a moment to let me mark out the beats and figure out how to sub-divide those measures. Once I did that, and listened to the 1st violinist play his similar part, the light-bulb turned on. "Ahhhhhhh! I get it!". We resumed again without any major blunders, and a few very musical moments.

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