quality:correction
Interpretation

"For an individual, the problems of interpretation are challenging enough", writes Waterman, "but for a quartet grappling with some of the most profound, intimate and heartfelt compositions in the music literature, the communal nature of decision-making is often more testing than the decisions themselves."

Quartet lesson on YouTube – Daniel Epstein teaching the Schumann piano quartet at Manhattan School of Music (Picture: The Music Lesson by Jan Vermeer)

The problem of finding agreement on musical issues is complicated by the fact that each player is playing a different part, that may appear to demand dynamics or gestures contrary to those of other parts in the same passage. Sometimes these differences are even specified in the score – for example, where cross-dynamics are indicated, with one instrument crescendoing while another is getting softer.

One of the issues that must be settled in rehearsal is who leads the ensemble at each point of the piece. Normally, the first violin leads the ensemble. By leading, this means that the violinist indicates the start of each movement and their tempos by a gesture with her head or bowing hand. However, there are passages that require other instruments to lead. For example, John Dalley, second violinist of the Guarneri Quartet, says, "We'll often ask to lead in pizzicato passages. A cellist's preparatory motion for pizzicato is larger and slower than that of a violinist."

Players discuss issues of interpretation in rehearsal; but often, in mid-performance, players do things spontaneously, requiring the other players to respond in real time. "After twenty years in the Quartet, I'm happily surprised on occasion to find myself totally wrong about what I think a player will do, or how he'll react in a particular passage", says violist Michael Tree.