#42: Teams and tensions

Section 6: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.96, ii: Lento

The common grouping of the two inner parts in this movement meant that we sometimes treated them as a single instrument: as a team, rather in the manner of a rhythm section, although with the viola usually acting as the main pivot.

This clean, abstract designation of roles misses the fact that the pairs are never passively linked together, for they also retain a vital flexibility to push against one another. This may seem like a paradoxical aspect of the accompanying role, but we found that it was actually the tension between these two musicians’ subtle comings-and-goings, which created a truly connected quality among the pair. A useful mental image for this was a magnet: its opposing poles are inseparable in principle, but force is derived from the difference between them. It may also be significant that this metaphor, like so many others on which we drew, also invokes the idea of physical resistance.