An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  "Won't he mind rehearsing with us when he's not going to be playing in the concert?" asks Piers.

  "He's a buddy," says Billy. "He'll do it to help out, and for the heck of it, and on condition that I don't outgrowl him in the Scherzo, and for a few drinks afterwards. A good few," adds Billy.

  "That sounds fine, Billy," says Julia. "Thank you, everyone."

  "I'm an extra in the Philharmonia tomorrow night, so I'll be meeting him," continues Billy. "Should I ask him if he's willing and when he'll be free?" : ,

  Everyone nods.

  "Shall I turn the pages for you?" I ask Julia.

  "That's all right, thanks, Michael, I'm not using the music, so it'll be distracting to have it up here. But would you keep my score on your lap and follow it so that if we stop in the middle of a movement, you can point out the place where we want to start from again?" r

  "You're sure you don't want the music?" I ask.

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  "Quite sure. I know it so well. I hope we're going to run through it without interruption the first time through. Let's plan to do that - if it's all right by everyone."

  Piers raises his eyebrows. Her statement is more than a request. We string players are used to communicating among ourselves while playing, and are happiest giving all the leads and cues, leaving anyone else to fend for themselves - especially if, as in this piece, the three strings form a curve with the pianist tucked almost invisibly behind.

  "Well, all right, that's fine by us," says Piers graciously enough, though I know he's not delighted to accept directions from an outsider.

  I glance down at the score. I see lots of rests in the piano part, and am worried about Julia's re-entries. By going through without stopping at least the first time around, perhaps she can sense the rhythm better.

  "Is this OK?" asks Piers, beating time: "TUM-mmmumtata-tatata-TUM? "

  "Seems a bit slow to me," says Billy. "But what do you think, Julia? It's your phrase."

  "It's allegro vivace - so a bit more vivace, perhaps?" says Julia, demonstrating what she wants on the piano by way of tempo.

  Piers nods. "Right. I'll give one upbeat. Ready?"

  I look at Julia, my heart pounding. She appears relaxed, alert, her eyes on the other players, not on either the keyboard or the score. Now I see why it is so crucial for her to have learned the piece - and not just her own part - by heart.

  While her fingers draw music from the keys, her eyes move from Piers to Billy with the alertness of someone reading from the page. Their fingers, their bows, their breaths give her her cues. At the beginning, where all the

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  double-bass would have uttered would have been a low continuous undemarcated growl, this is what she would have had to do anyway. But elsewhere I can see how much harder she has to work in its absence. And the visual cues that she would have got from the fingers of the bass player . . . but it is pointless to speculate about all this, when I feel that I am on a tightrope over a chasm listening to a bird rising from below and singing high above me, higher and higher: an odd image for a piece named after a fish.

  In her solo theme, she dots a couple of quavers that are often played undotted. I imagine this is a variant reading, but Helen looks up rather sharply.

  "Repeat?" asks Julia as they approach the first point of decision.

  "Straight on!" says Piers exultantly.

  They get through the first movement. "Get through", in fact, is unfair; they play it wonderfully. But I can hardly enjoy its beauty for my tension. At some places where I do not expect it, Julia takes the lead, so as not to be forced to follow intricate cues; at others, she looks down at her hands, and I cannot see at all how she manages to remain in sync with the others. When they get to the final twelve-note chord - eleven sans bass

  - that mirrors the twelve-note chord at the beginning of the movement, my left hand, resting on the score, is trembling.

  "Should we skip all the repeats?" asks Piers. H

  "Except in the Scherzo," says Billy. c1

  After determining the tempo, they play the Andante; there are a few problems, but not enough to make them grind to a halt. Then comes the third movement, the Scherzo, and a complete impasse.

  The problem lies in the very first phrase. Piers and

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  Helen have three presto quavers followed by a downbeat crotchet, on which everyone else crashes in.

  They try it again and again, but it is never exactly coordinated. There is no point in rushing through as before. The problem needs to be resolved. Julia, I can tell, is getting more and more distraught, the others more and more puzzled. Since she has been playing so well before, the problem cannot be one of musical ability.

  "It's always difficult to play with a new group the first time," says Billy.

  "Let's take a five-minute break," suggests Piers. "I need a cigarette."

  "Is it OK to smoke in here?" asks Billy.

  "Why not? Oh well, perhaps I'd better go outside."

  "I'm going to stretch my legs," says Helen in a somewhat preoccupied manner. "Coming?"

  "Sure," says Billy. "Good idea. Sure."

  "I'll hang around here," I say.

  Julia says nothing. She seems to have sunk into a world of her own, to be remote from me, from all of us.

  My own anxieties melt away. Left to ourselves, I say: "Are you wearing a hearing aid?"

  "Yes; in one ear. It did help at the beginning, but it began to get to me, Michael, the way it distorted the pitch. I couldn't adjust it without giving myself away, so I just turned it off after the first movement. Then in the second movement I found I wasn't coping too well, so when I came to a rest I turned it on again. Now it's got me completely confused. I'm sure, if there was a doublebass ..."

  "That won't solve the problem at the beginning of the Scherzo," I say quietly. "Or wherever that phrase occurs."

  "That's true. Perhaps I'll just have to come clean ..."

  "Don't do that for the moment. Don't even think

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  about it. It won't help with this, and it'll open up a whole new can of worms. Just relax."

  Julia smiles, but sadly. "That's like saying, 'Don't think of a giraffe.' It's guaranteed to have the opposite effect."

  "And you mustn't mind Helen."

  "I don't."

  "Look, Julia, if you're getting your cues from the tempo and the upbeat - that is, visual cues - maybe you should simply take out your hearing aid. I don't see how you have time to react to the sound anyway, especially if it's distorted.'

  "Maybe." Julia sounds completely unconvinced by this advice from someone who cannot begin to understand what she can and can't hear.

  I kiss her. "Here. Try it with me. You've nothing to lose." I take out my violin, tighten the bow quickly and, without bothering to tune up properly, give her the beat, nod my head a couple of times and play the first phrase.

  After a few tries it works - or at least works much better than it has so far.

  Julia does not smile. She simply says: "Any other suggestions?"

  "Yes. In the Andante, where everyone else is playing six notes per bar and you're playing three notes for every one of theirs, you're slowing things down quite a bit. Everyone else was trying to push it along, but for once, you weren't following them with your eyes."

  "Well, I was leading," says Julia.

  "From behind." I laugh, and she laughs too. "Here, try it with me," I suggest, taking up the bow again; and we do.

  "That's good," says Piers.

  I jump, and then Julia too is startled. I didn't notice him coming back in.

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  "Just carry on," says Piers.

  "Left your lighter behind?" I ask, annoyed.

  "Something like that," says Piers evenly as he goes out.

  The rehearsal continues when everyone returns. They play straight through the Scherzo without crisis, and follow through with the fourth and f
ifth movements.

  At the end, Piers says: "That was good, that was good. But somehow, you know, I think I'd prefer to keep the detailed work for a rehearsal with a bass player. So let's call it a day with the Trout. I hope you don't mind, Julia. The quartet needs to go through a couple of pieces now, and we're a bit pressed for time. When Billy gets some dates from Ben Flath - assuming he's willing in the first place - I'll be in touch with everyone about the next rehearsal. I don't think I have your phone number," he says, turning to Julia.

  "Could you fax me?" asks Julia. "The phone ruins my concentration when I'm practising - which is much of the time these days."

  "Don't you have an answering machine?" asks Piers.

  "A fax would be better," says Julia with a calm nod, and she gives him her number.

  : ,-:-. ...... . ;, 4.21 -

  Piers lives on Westbourne Park Road, at the edges of gentrification, in a basement flat consisting of a single room. The ceiling is high for a basement - which, given Piers's own height, is a good thing. Above him is a travel agent which advertises for the most part cheap tours to Portugal; on one side of the travel agent is a take-away pizza place, on the other a newsagent. Opposite is a massive tower block, and close by is a brown-bricked housing estate.

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  Having asked me over for a drink, he now opens a bottle of red wine. He is hospitable, but looks troubled. It is the day after the rehearsal.

  "You get a bit of late light on that wall in the summer," he says.

  "Aren't we facing north?" I ask.

  "Sort of," says Piers absently. "I bought this from an artist." Then, following my train of thought he adds: "You're right, it's a bit odd. It comes from that direction for a few minutes at sunset in high summer. Maybe it's reflected off something. Lovely reddish patch. Last year the newsagent chained a huge metal bin to the railings, and that's reduced it. It's annoying."

  "Why don't you talk to him?"

  "I have. He says that people have started stealing the newspapers and magazines deposited outside his door, and he's had no choice but to do what he's done. I'm sure I should follow it up, ask him at least to move it outside my line of light, but. . ." Piers shrugs. "You know what I want to talk to.you about?"

  "No, I thought this was just a date! . . . Yes, I do. I'm pretty sure I do."

  Piers nods. "Tell me, I don't understand it. What exactly is the matter with Julia? She's a wonderful player, she's so, well, musical in her playing; you know what I mean. It's a real pleasure to play with her, but we're all puzzled . . . We're not freaked out or anything, but, well, can you explain that problem with the opening of the Scherzo? Is it just a tic that happens sometimes?"

  I take a sip of my wine. "It got solved, didn't it?"

  "Yes," says Piers warily.

  "I guarantee that when Ben Flath joins us, most of the other problems will disappear."

  "Us?" says Piers with a smile.

  "You, to be exact." ;

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  Perhaps Piers notices the tinge of regret. At any rate, I am floored by his next remark.

  "I want you to play the violin in the Trout."

  "No!"

  The word escapes from me involuntarily, but it patently means "Yes!"

  Piers is tapping a slim silver lighter with the index finger of his right hand. "I meant that," he says.

  "But you love it, Piers," I exclaim, recalling what took place when Nicholas Spare maligned the Trout.

  "What exactly happened in the interval?" asks Piers, thus avoiding a response.

  "The interval?"

  "Well, you know, when we went out of the room."

  I shrug. "Oh, we just played a little, tried out some of the difficult bits with a slightly different approach ..."

  "There was something there," says Piers quietly. After a while he says: "Look, don't mind my asking you this, but -"

  "Ask away."

  "You're not worried that you won't be able to do it? Don't get me wrong. What I mean is, you know, playing in the register you usually do ..."

  "Do you mean, can I handle the squeal variation in the fourth movement?"

  Piers nods, a bit embarrassed. "Yes, that, and other bits too. It's so exposed."

  "I'll manage," I say, unoffended. "I've played it before

  - at college. It was ages ago, but it should come back to me. But look, Piers, I know you'd love to play the Trout. Are you sure you want to be so generous?"

  "I'm not being generous," says Piers in rather a prickly tone. "It's a piece that tends to be done brilliantly or to fall completely flat. And the real interplay is between the violin and the piano. At the moment, I may as well tell

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  you, it'll be a relief not to do it. I've got a lot on my plate

  - too much. And I assume that if the Musikverein can accept one change of player, they can accept two."

  "What precisely do you have on your plate?" I ask with a smile.

  "Oh," says Piers vaguely, "this and that." )

  "And the other?" I say without thinking.

  "What?"

  "Sorry - sorry - just something that came into my head. An automatic response. Forget it." ; , ,-

  "You're a strange fellow, Michael."

  "Well?" vf

  "Well, what?" •••...

  "What else do you have on your plate?"

  "I'm doing the Sinfonia Concertante with St Martin-inthe-Fields, and I've got a solo concert coming up just after Vienna, and there's this Bach thing, which you and the others seem to be determined on."

  "And you're not?"

  Piers spreads his hands. "I'm only just beginning to feel as if it hasn't been foisted on me. Last night, for some reason, I was practising it at two in the morning. It's peculiarly addictive."

  "Your neighbours would probably choose another word."

  "What neighbours?" says Piers with a slightly twisted smile. "I don't have neighbours in this burrow. That's a travel agency above our heads."

  "Yes, of course."

  "At any rate," says Piers, "it's not the first time - as you know - that I've felt at odds with my colleagues, or partners, or cohorts or whatever you are. There must be a word for it."

  "Co-quarts?"

  Piers continues, not so much unamused by my remark

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  r

  as oblivious to it: "It's the weirdest thing, a quartet. I don't know what to compare it to. A marriage? a firm? a platoon under fire? a self-regarding, self-destructive priesthood? It has so many different tensions mixed in with its pleasures."

  I pour both of us some more wine from his bottle.

  "I don't think I really knew what pain was involved in all this," he says, half to himself. "First Alex; then that whole thing with Tobias. Every few years something shattering happens - and is bound to happen."

  "Alex was before my time," I say, trying to avoid discussing what affected all four of us when Tobias was in charge of Piers's soul.

  "The one good thing about that monster of a tower block is the morning light that reflects off it from about eleven o'clock," says Piers. "This place would be even dingier without it."

  I nod, and say nothing.

  "It was the light in Venice, you know," says Piers, almost to himself. "We spent a month there. At first it gave him dreadful headaches, then they suddenly stopped and he began to love it. It was just a few days afterwards that we had our great idea of forming the quartet. Alex had it, actually." He looks down at the lighter again, then says, as if impatient with himself, "Why am I going on about that?"

  "I wonder if the Maggiore will continue even when we've all disappeared one by one," I say. "After we're grizzled and distinguished, of course."

  "I hope so," says Piers. "A dozen years isn't all that long in the life of a quartet, I suppose, though it sometimes feels like a century. Well, the Takâcs has two new members, the Borodin's only got its original cello left, the Juilliard's got none of its ori
ginal members. But they're still what they are."

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  > "Like George Washington's hatchet?" I suggest. -, Piers frowns, waiting for an explanation. s "It's changed its head twice and its handle three times, but it's still his hatchet."

  "Ah, yes, I see ... Oh, and another thing: you remember about the Beethoven quintet, and your wanting to play first violin?"

  "It's not likely I'd have forgotten, is it?" I say guardedly.

  "I suppose not. Well, I've been considering things. Or, rather, re-considering them. I don't want the kind of tensions that arose when Alex and I alternated between being first and second violin."

  "No. I agree."

  "But you might find being second violin all the time a bit oppressive. Or frustrating." Piers takes a sip and glances at me, making this into a question.

  "I don't, actually," I say, wondering if I truly believe it. "It's, well, it's a different instrument from the first. It's a sort of chameleon, shifting from tune to accompaniment and back again. It's more - well, I find it interesting." I suppose, after all, I do believe it on the whole.

  "But you did want to play first fiddle in that string quintet?" presses Piers.

  "That was for a particular reason, Piers, and I told you so. That quintet means something quite specific to me."

  "Well," says Piers, "my question is simply this: would you consider, would you want to, would you mind playing first violin or the only violin when we don't play strictly as a quartet?" Noticing my look of surprise, he continues: "For instance, in a string sextet or a flute quartet or a clarinet quintet or something of that nature."

  "Piers," I say, quite astonished, "this wine is going to your head. Or have you been seeing a shrink?"

  "Neither, I assure you," says Piers a bit coldly.

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  "Well, I certainly wouldn't mind, and I could consider it, but I'm not sure I want to."

  "That's rather a complicated answer, and a bit contradictory."

  "I'm sure it is. What I mean is this - and it's something you touched on yourself. It's not just for the two of us to decide this sort of thing. Billy and Helen won't like it. They felt unsettled by you and Alex alternating. And in anything like a string quintet or a string sextet it's bound to have the same effect on them."

  "And in something like a flute quartet? Or a piano quintet - like the Trout?"