Питер Ловси - The Tooth Tattoo

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 do 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?’