{"id":880,"date":"2008-03-27T00:43:36","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T07:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/27\/living-with-janacek\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:50:13","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:50:13","slug":"living-with-janacek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/27\/living-with-janacek\/","title":{"rendered":"living with janacek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday my quartet (the Arnica Quartet<\/a>) played an early Mozart quartet (the G major, K. 157) and the great second string quartet of Leos Janacek, subtitled Intimate Letters<\/em>. The concert was on a series presented by the OHSU Foundation, and took place in the acoustically and visually lovely OHSU Auditorium up on Marquam Hill.<\/p>\n

The concert went very well, and was also well received (which is not always a guaranteed combination). It was also a fun concert to play.<\/p>\n

While it might come as a surprise to many non-musicians, performing often not fun for a majority of the time for many of us.<\/p>\n

It’s hard not to be self-critical during the act of performing, even though it’s not a good idea.<\/p>\n

When you’re reacting to something that’s just happened, you’re just as likely to screw up what’s about to happen.<\/p>\n

Great performers have perfected the Zen-like act of being in the moment – they’re doing what they need to do to execute, and have the long line in mind, but mostly they’re just in the zone, at that infinitely small point of time we call the present, for the duration of the performance.<\/p>\n

So it seemed like we were all pretty much in the zone for this performance, and that made it fun. There were no recriminations afterwards, no “would-a, could-a, should-a”, just a nice afterglow of a job well-done.<\/p>\n

It is especially gratifying when you’re performing a piece which is so complex and demanding as the Janacek. Extremes of tempo, dynamic, and range are the norm in Janacek’s music. His phrasings largely mirror the speech patterns of the Czech language, and his portrayal of a decade-long love affair between two people who were separated by nearly 40 years of age verges on cin\u00c3\u00a9ma v\u00c3\u00a9rit\u00c3\u00a9<\/em> in its freshness and detail.<\/p>\n

What is so interesting and compelling about what Janacek sets down for posterity in this quartet, namely his love for the young Kamila, is his earnestness and sincerity. Remember, he was nearly 80 years old when he wrote this piece in 1928 – he did not have the stumbling block of ego and brashness that a young suitor would. He had reached an age where he could lay his cards on the table without fear of embarrassment. A frank statement of his feelings would suffice.<\/p>\n

And so he gave Kamila (and us) a remarkable document of the love of a man which was vital beyond his years for a woman he had no hope of marrying or attaining. Kamila was a woman who served as Janacek’s muse for the last two decades of his life, and sparked a period of remarkable fecundity, including such great masterpieces as his operas The Cunning Little Vixen<\/em> and The Makropulos Affair<\/em>, the First string quartet The Kreutzer Sonata<\/em>, the wind sextet Ml\u00c3\u00a1d\u00c3\u00ad <\/em>(Youth), and of course, the Second string quartet.<\/p>\n

What a great gift it has been to live inside the mind of this great composer who so fearlessly poured out his heart through and in his music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday my quartet (the Arnica Quartet) played an early Mozart quartet (the G major, K. 157) and the great second string quartet of Leos Janacek, subtitled Intimate Letters. The concert was on a series presented by the OHSU Foundation, and took place in the acoustically and visually lovely OHSU Auditorium up on Marquam Hill. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,136,115],"tags":[733],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-chamber-music","category-music","tag-leos-janacek"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-ec","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":820,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/01\/janacek-in-like-a-lion\/","url_meta":{"origin":880,"position":0},"title":"janacek, in like a lion","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"March arrived today, and it came in like its proverbial lion, with rain and hail squalls and gusting winds. We headed down to NW Portland to have our first rehearsal of Janacek's String Quartet No.2 \"Intimate Letters\" with the Arnica Quartet. What a piece the Janacek is! For those of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/10\/pacific-quartet-concert-impressions\/","url_meta":{"origin":880,"position":1},"title":"pacifica quartet concert impressions","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night I was able to attend the second of two concerts by the Pacifica Quartet at Portland State University's Lincoln Hall. It was a wonderful program (if a bit conservative) that showed what a wonderful young quartet the Pacifica has become. The program began with Mozart's \"Dissonant\" Quartet, Kv.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"pacifica.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/pacifica.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":908,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/02\/continuing-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":880,"position":2},"title":"continuing education","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, thanks to the generosity of Chamber Music Northwest, my string quartet [the Arnica Quartet] got the opportunity to get a two-hour coaching with an internationally-renowned chamber musician - Steven Tenenbom of the Orion Quartet and Opus One piano quartet.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a great experience for us to get some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/13\/its-almost-quartet-season-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":880,"position":3},"title":"it’s almost quartet season again…","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We just had an Arnica Quartet dinner meeting the other night to nail down a couple of concert dates and also our repertoire for the coming season. We've got two concerts lined up so far for the Fall, the first a noon concert at Pacific University on October 3rd, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"oregon\"","block_context":{"text":"oregon","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/tag\/oregon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":186,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/01\/31\/arnica-quartet-spring-concert-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":880,"position":4},"title":"arnica quartet spring concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Arnica Quartet will present a concert at the new OHSU Center for Health and Healing [directions] in the South Waterfront district on Wednesday, March 14th at 7:00 p.m. We'll be performing the string quartet of Claude Debussy and Beethoven's Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18 no. 6. This concert\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":170,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/01\/14\/arnica-quartet-spring-concert\/","url_meta":{"origin":880,"position":5},"title":"arnica quartet spring concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Arnica Quartet will be playing a concert (a short 1 hour concert) in the lobby of the new OHSU building (at the bottom of the famous \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctram\u00e2\u20ac\u2122) in the South Waterfront district on Wednesday, March 14th. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be presenting the Debussy quartet and Beethoven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Op. 18 no. 6. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}