‘I’m not infallible, Mel. Yes, I may have heard them. I may even recognise their playing, but that doesn’t mean I’d know them if they walked in here this minute and bought us a drink.’
‘And do the personnel change much?’
‘In some groups, yes. Others stay together forever. The same four guys played in the Amadeus for forty years and the Guarneri weren’t far behind. Their cellist retired, but the others carried on. Four people coming together to play music can’t predict what life will throw at them. Someone gets ill or dies and the others have to decide whether to call it a day or look for a replacement.’
‘And is it blindingly obvious when someone new comes in?’
‘To me? I can usually hear the difference in a recording of the same piece. To the players I’m sure there are major adjustments.’
‘And some resentment, no doubt,’ he said, confiding yet another worry that had been gnawing away at his confidence. ‘I don’t particularly relish being the new boy. Comparisons are going to be made. I wouldn’t wish to ape the playing of the previous incumbent just to make the process easy for the others. I doubt if it’s possible, anyway.’
‘They’ll understand,’ Dolores said. ‘Everything I’ve heard about string quartets and the way they work suggests that there’s debate going on all the time in rehearsal. And sometimes in performance. I don’t need to tell you this. You’ve played in ensembles.’
‘Filling in isn’t the same as taking over for someone who has left,’ Mel said. ‘The two people I’ve met are formidable characters in their different ways. They’re not going to give me an easy ride.’
‘Would you want one?’
‘An easy ride?’ He smiled. ‘Of course not.’
Then his phone beeped.
‘D’you mind if I take this?’
‘Feel free.’
‘Mr. Farran?’ Mel tensed. The voice was Ivan’s, the same Beechamesque tone as if he was speaking to an audience. ‘We spoke before, about the quartet.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’d like to arrange an opportunity for you to play with us.’
‘In concert?’
‘No, in more of a soirée situation, a private house, with the three of us and possibly our manager.’
‘Where is this?’
‘We will send a car, as before. Would next Sunday afternoon suit you?’
‘I suppose.’ His brain was racing. He almost forgot to ask the basic question: ‘What are we playing?’
‘Are you familiar with Beethoven’s Opus 131?’
He took a deep breath. The Quartet in C sharp minor is one of the most challenging in the repertoire, a forty minute masterpiece. He’d have five days to prepare. ‘I wouldn’t say familiar. I’ve played it.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ Ivan said. ‘Be sure to bring your best instrument. We need to hear the sound.’
‘Is this an audition, then?’
‘Don’t think of it as such. Treat it as an afternoon of making music. The car will pick you up at two. Do you eat smoked salmon?’
‘When I get the chance, yes.’
‘We’ll have some for tea. Oh, and there’s no need to dress up this time. Come in your weekend attire, whatever that may be.’ This was Ivan at his most human. Apparently deciding he’d gone overboard, he abruptly ended the call.
‘I’m about to find out if this is genuine,’ Mel told Dolores. ‘Sunday afternoon, Beethoven Opus 131. In at the deep end.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Think of it as – ’
‘An afternoon of making music?’
‘Exactly.’
6
An afternoon of making music?
Some chance.
Mel wasn’t treating this lightly. He was about to be put to the test. Each waking hour must be devoted to preparing the piece, learning the seven movements passage by passage in readiness to respond to the other instruments, letting the viola speak, sing, inspire, transform, in harmony with the rest. And of course the difficulty was not being able to predict how the others would interpret their parts. The preparation you can do in isolation is limited.
For encouragement he kept telling himself that this wouldn’t be a memory test like a solo performance. Quartet-playing is almost always from the sheet. They’d have the score in front of them with the composer’s markings.
Opus 131 is said to have been Beethoven’s favourite of all his string quartets. It is also said to be the ultimate in difficulty, in places almost beyond comprehension. Enough to make a nervous player take up drumming.
Yet more than once Mel had filled in for a quartet when the violist had become ill between final rehearsal and concert. He’d gone in cold and performed well enough to get through. Nobody had thrown anything.
Surely these people would make allowance.
Or would they? Ivan was the sort who expected perfection, gritting his teeth at anything less. Cat would treat any false note as hilarious. Hard to say which would be less mortifying. The great unknown was the mysterious third member, the second violin, who hadn’t shown any interest yet. Mel tried to put all three out of his mind and steep himself in the work, but he knew in his heart that the personalities in a quartet are fundamental to its performance.
By Saturday he was up with the piece, as well prepared as anyone could expect to be. Sunday morning he went through it twice without fluffing a note. He drank a large black espresso, packed the instrument in its case and started looking out of the window for the black Mercedes.
But it never arrived.
Instead, around ten past two, a red convertible with the roof down rattled the Fingis Street window frames. The driver – not the man he’d met before – got out, gave the house a long look and decided against all appearance to the contrary it must be correct.
Mel saved him the trouble of ringing the doorbell. ‘It’s me you’re picking up, I think. Mel Farran.’
‘Good man. Set to go, then?’ There was none of the deference of the previous chauffeur. This guy looked and behaved as if he owned the Aston Martin. ‘I’m Doug, of Douglas Christmas Management.’
Pause for thought. ‘You manage the quartet?’
‘Try to – on their more agreeable days. Hop in. We’re running late.’
‘I need my instrument.’
The driver flashed his whitened teeth. ‘Of course.’ He took a key from his pocket, pointed it at the car and the boot lid opened.
‘Thanks,’ Mel said, ‘but I’d rather keep it by me.’
‘You fiddle players are all the same. Treat them like newborn babies.’
They left Fingis Street behind, roaring through West London, the sound exaggerated by the roof being down. Mel kept the case containing his baby between his knees, deciding this gave more protection in case of a collision. Conversation would have been difficult anyway, and was rendered impossible by rock music at high volume. Doug wasn’t a Radio Three man.
Somewhere west of Acton they joined the North Circular and stayed with it as far as Friern Barnet, at which point Mel gave up trying to track the route. Soon they were travelling into an area lush with greenery and golf courses. A right turn, a private road, an electronic gate and they moved up a red-tiled drive and stopped outside a residence like the backdrop to a Gainsborough portrait. Mel shed all doubts about the quartet earning six-figure salaries.
‘Whose place is this?’ he asked when the engine was switched off.
‘Mine, actually. The talent, as I call them, will tell you I’m an extortionist, but that’s their little game. In my position you have to have a reasonable lifestyle or people don’t believe you’re good at what you do.’
‘Is this where we’re playing?’ All week he’d pictured four upright chairs in someone’s living room with the other furniture pushed to the walls.
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Are the others inside?’
‘And getting stroppy by now.’ Doug marched to the front door, opened it and shouted, ‘We mad
e it, musos.’
Mel followed, his knuckles turning white around the handle of his viola case.
The Georgian front of the house was no preparation for the interior, an open-plan conversion, a monument to the possibilities of the rolled steel joist, with several stone pillars where solid walls once stood. The spaces were defined in a conventional way, dining area, kitchen, office, library and a couple of lounges. At the far end three people waited, already seated with stands in front of them in what was evidently the music space. A fourth chair had been put out for the newcomer. Mel spotted Cat first, not unlike Britannia on an old penny coin, her cello leaning against her thigh. She raised her bow.
‘Glad you made it, kiddo.’
Ivan was opposite her, checking his watch. His weekend casuals were a three-piece suit and striped tie.
‘My fault we’re a trifle late,’ Doug said. ‘Couldn’t find the street and ended up on the Hammersmith Flyover.’
Mel was looking at the one musician he hadn’t already met, a guy more his own age, with brown hair to his shoulders and dressed in a black shirt and red corduroy trousers, but unwilling, it seemed, to make eye contact.
Doug made the introduction.
‘Good to meet you,’ Mel said to Anthony and could have saved his breath. The second violin showed no intention of shaking hands or offering any kind of greeting.
Now Doug took a step back. ‘I’m going to make myself scarce, people. I’m an unrewarding audience, as you know. Take the hot seat, Mel. They’re on pins to know if you’ll fit in.’
Thanks for that boost to my confidence, Mel thought.
Cat called out as Doug was leaving, ‘Keep your thieving hands off the sandwiches, boyo. I’ve counted them.’
Heart pumping faster at the ordeal to come, Mel removed his viola and bow from the case and joined the quartet.
‘You did tell him on the phone it’s Beethoven’s Opus 133?’ Cat said to Ivan.
Mel’s jaw dropped. ‘I heard 131.’
‘Joke,’ she said. ‘You’ll get used to me, sunshine. We may be tough nuts, but we’re not asking you to tangle with the Grosse Fuge, not before the first break.’
‘Can we be serious?’ Ivan said. ‘Mr. Farran is our guest for the afternoon. Let’s treat him with respect.’
‘No need for that,’ Mel was quick to tell them. ‘I’d rather be informal.’
‘Me, too,’ Cat said. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I meant –’
‘Relax, my pet. You’re one of us.’
Ivan gave her a sharp glance. ‘Don’t be premature. Nothing is decided.’ To Mel, he said with a twitch of the lips that was the nearest he would get to cordiality, ‘Ready?’
‘Of course.’
‘We won’t treat this as a rehearsal, because it isn’t. We’ll play the whole quartet as we would if you were our regular violist. No one is expecting a miracle. You’ll be adjusting to our tempo and voicing just as we will respond to yours. When infelicities occur – ’
‘Don’t you love that?’ Cat broke in. ‘ “When infelicities occur.” He means when someone plays a bum note.’
‘We’ll make allowance,’ Ivan said. ‘After all, we’re human.’
‘Some of us,’ Cat murmured. She was doing her best to take the stress out of the situation, even if Ivan didn’t care for it.
As for Anthony, he remained expressionless, as if he’d heard all this before.
‘Shall we tune the instruments?’ Ivan said. ‘And by the way, because of the length of the piece and the room temperature it’s to be expected that they’ll go out of tune before the end. No matter.’
‘We’ll wing it, bossy boots,’ Cat said. ‘We always do.’
Ivan lifted the violin to his chin and played a note that acted on Mel’s nerves like a thousand volts.
Get a grip, he told himself. You prepared for this all week.
He raised his viola, waited for a lead from the cello, tried the note several times, gave a small twist to the fine tuner, was satisfied, nodded, took a deep breath and waited.
Anthony had come to life and looked a different man tuning his violin. Cat drew her bow several times more across the cello strings and winked. They tried a few chords in the C sharp minor key.
Then it got serious.
The opening movement of Opus 131 is majestic, yet with a sense of foreboding. Beethoven’s first mark says ‘Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo’ and presents an immediate test for the first violin. Ivan sounded the first dramatic bars expressing the anguish that mirrored Mel’s state of mind. And as Anthony took up the fugal theme on a single up-bow it was apparent how seamlessly the two blended. This was playing of rare quality. The second violin might be a social misfit, but he was a fine musician.
Poised for his entrance in bar nine, Mel knew it had to be spot on. The score called for him to join the playing of the others at precisely the same bow speed. There was no hiding.
His timing was right. He conquered his nerves, launched into the piece and played the crescendo in bar eleven in the knowledge that he needed to top the two violins with the complete fugue subject, a theme that is heard in various guises throughout. A lift of Ivan’s right eyebrow signalled satisfaction. Under way and making music as requested.
Now was the moment for the fourth voice, Cat’s cello, and she supplied a strong, sonorous note in no danger of being drowned by the others. With all four instruments in play, the harmonics came under scrutiny and to Mel’s ear blended well. Even while straining to concentrate he felt lifted by the company he was in. They were spectacularly good. Ivan was a skilful leader, setting the tempo, making way when necessary, yet filling in the harmony with precisely the right strength when required.
Towards the middle of the first movement the violins speak to each other with the last six notes of the fugue motif and then viola and cello take up the dialogue in one of the loveliest passages in the entire quartet repertoire. An immense test, and Mel was equal to it, removing everything from his mind except the purity of the sound. His eyes didn’t meet Cat’s, yet he felt an emotional affinity with her that only musicians could appreciate.
It was a seminal moment. Performing with such gifted artists was uplifting, however mismatched they were as personalities. I want to be part of this, he thought. I want it more than I ever suspected.
So as movement succeeded movement, he felt buoyed up by the quality of the playing, growing in belief, inspired to new heights. In the jarring transition from the breakneck speed of the scherzo to the poignant adagio of the sixth movement, the viola takes centre stage. All those hours of practice gave him the confidence to play this heart-rending passage from memory, his bowing prolonging the intensity at slow tempo without sacrificing the sense of motion.
The fireworks of Beethoven’s seventh and final movement have a huge impact after this. Four instruments in unison from the jolt of the first note on a downward stroke into a rapid pounding rhythm played right at the frog of the bow will startle any audience. With no one else present, not even Douglas, there were only the four musicians to thrill to the vitality of the music, the culmination of all that had gone before. Spells of ferocious playing were separated by those gorgeous lyrical oases. Excited, energised, the quartet performed the finale relentlessly until its sudden, challenging stop.
No one spoke.
After a piece of such range and power, mere words seem crass.
Some seconds passed before Ivan tapped his stand several times with the bow, a gesture of satisfaction. Cat nodded her agreement. Anthony had slumped again, a puppet with slack strings.
At a loss as to how to behave with these people he’d joined intimately through the music but hardly at all as companions, Mel propped the viola in the angle of his lap and waited. He’d raised his level of playing beyond anything he’d achieved before. He was emotionally drained.
Finally, Cat spoke. ‘Don’t know about you dudes, but that was good enough for me.’ She turned to Anthony. ‘What d
o you say?’
‘I’m easy.’
‘We know that, honey, but what about the playing?’
‘I said – I’m easy.’
Cat turned to Ivan. ‘We can take that as affirmative – I think. What’s your opinion?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of the combo.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t use that expression.’
‘Here we go again,’ she said. ‘Forty minutes of bliss with Beethoven and it doesn’t take ten seconds to start another spat.’
‘It’s unseemly.’
‘Give me strength. What do you want us to be known as – the Ivan Bogdanov Players?’
‘Now you’re being offensive.’
‘It would be, stuck with a name like yours.’ She raised a hand. ‘All right, that was out of order. Sometimes you drive me to it. Back to my question: do we have a future together? I think we do, and Anthony is easy – which coming from him is as good as a twenty-one-gun salute. Are you up for it?’
Ivan sniffed. ‘Allowing that Mr. Farran was my suggestion in the first place, I give my consent, but with reservations.’
‘What’s your problem?’ Cat said.
Mel was increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Should I go outside while you discuss this?’
‘For the love of Mike, no,’ Cat said. ‘We’re talking about reviving the quartet and everyone deserves a say.’
‘Then we’d better bring in Douglas,’ Ivan said.
‘He can go bark at the moon. He’ll take his twenty percent whatever we decide. And if we’re down to a trio he’ll want twenty-five. What’s eating you, Ivan?’
‘I’m going to propose we agree to a trial period of, say, three months. If, for some reason, it doesn’t work as well as we hope, we can review it then.’
‘Why? When you and I started there was no trial period or the rest of us would have kicked you out for sure.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I mean the first bit – no trial period. I like equality. If Mel is joining us, he won’t want second-class status.’
‘Perhaps we should ask him.’
And that was how Mel found himself in the hot seat. He cleared his throat and said, ‘If you’re serious about inviting me in, I’d like to know more about you.’
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