Nourishment
Today my wife and I got together with two good friends and spent the afternoon sight-reading 3 of Beethoven’s op. 18 quartets. It’s now 11:30pm and I’m having trouble sleeping because I’m just too happy and excited to do anything about it.
I happen to love each of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets, and since there are quartets from each of the major periods of his compositional life, they trace a fascinating and inspiring trajectory of emotional immediacy and the need to invent and push boundaries for the sake of capturing increasingly complex and imperishable human emotions.
And I’m now thinking about op. 18 no 6 in B flat major and sections of his uncommonly playful scherzo are playing over and over through my head. This movement is Beethoven’s gregarious sense of humor on full display, creating utter chaos on the listener’s rhythmic expectations via tied notes, syncopations, cross rhythms, and sforzando accents on unexpected beats.
It was wildly difficult trying to sight-read through it, how I would imagine it would feel to ride a mechanical bull. On it’s own the cello’s part looks straight forward enough, but right from the get go the parts of the two violins obscure the downbeat and almost seem like they are purposefully trying to buck you off your line.
When we tried reading through it a second time, I felt like I was able to lock my part into place and suddenly it felt more like a wild dance than riding a wild bull. It was exhilarating, enjoying the moment while simultaneously counting like crazy to keep my part locked in.
My friends and my wife are truly great players (and great sight-readers) and for me it was essentially a peak experience. I spent the afternoon playing with killer players, joking and enjoying the music as it unfolded and reacting to their spur of the moment musical choices. Not a concert date in sight or a whiff of concern or stress, just making music for the sake of enjoyment, like 4 people putting together an enormous, sonic jigsaw puzzle, feeling that satisfaction of the parts clicking together.
If you’re reading this because you’ve started learning the cello, I want you to know that quiet, unpublicized moments like this one today are so valuable. And nourishing.
I’m telling you this because for me it has been an unexpected perk of deciding to learn to play cello. I had no idea what it would mean to me to be able to come together and make music with others just for its own sake.
The way I’m feeling right now, I would happily trade a dozen years of hard work and thousands of hours of practice to be able to have afternoons like these.