The Vanbrugh String Quartet is celebrating 21 years on the road . Witnessing their camaraderie, it's easy to see how they've survived, writes Arminta Wallace
I've come to Cork on a sunny autumn day to meet the RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quartet. I follow the directions I've been given and arrive at a tall house in a quiet terrace. Geraniums bask in pots in the garden; below, at my back, the city is spread out like a map. It's an oddly tranquil moment: especially since, though I don't yet know it, for the next hour and three-quarters I'm going to be plunged into the company of four musicians whose professional expertise is outdone only by their enthusiasm. I will, in short, stray into a blizzard of anecdotes, analysis, quick-fire repartee and impressive energy.
But then, string quartets do seem to defy the laws of physics. The internal dynamic of a quartet - the relationship between the one and the four - is one of the most fascinating aspects of classical music. On the way to Cork I selected one of the most recent Vanbrugh CDs, Quartet Classics, and listened to them play the glorious rondo from Haydn's Quartet in C major, Op 33 no 3. The ensemble playing is so sharp you could cut yourself on it. The quartet celebrates its 21st anniversary this year, and they seem to have developed the ability to merge into a single, eight-armed musical organism.
Yet here I am, having lunch with four quite distinct individuals whose various interests and personalities are obvious, even to a slightly dazed stranger. Gregory Ellis, violinist, is passionate about bringing music to everyone, everywhere in Ireland. Christopher Marwood, cellist, is fascinated by new music and contemporary composers, and is deeply involved in the programming of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry. Keith Pascoe, violinist and Boccherini expert, who has a wicked sense of humour and a great recipe for chicken curry. The viola player, Simon Aspell, doesn't say much - but his face says a lot.
How, I wonder, do classical string quartets get together? And, more to the point, perhaps, stay together? "We three," says Ellis, indicating everybody except Pascoe, "had just finished studying in the Royal Academy of Music in London, and were offered a scholarship to study chamber music. I had played with Simon, and he had played with Chris, so I called them and we rehearsed, and it seemed to click. We were only together a matter of months when this job as RTÉ's resident quartet came up in Ireland. There were 14 quartets from all over the place, four from Britain, but we just hit the right note on the right day, and got it."
In retrospect it seems almost arbitrary - musical pot luck. But the fact that the quartet has had just one personnel change in more than a decade - Pascoe replacing violinist Elizabeth Charleson in 1998 - suggests that, from the very beginning, a subtle selection process has been at work, weaving two carefully balanced strands, one musical, the other personal, into the quartet. "You take a chance, obviously, when you're so young," Ellis says. "Bouncing around, rubbing off corners, working in depth together."
When they first came to Cork, they probably saw more of each other than of their friends and families, he says. "We were travelling for about five months of the year at that time. And we used to rehearse until the cows came home. Instead of the standard three-hour rehearsal that we try to stick to now, we'd rehearse for 4½ hours sometimes - and still be fighting at the end of it. It's something that you do when you're young and mad. But we all seemed to get on as people." There is a snort of laughter from the other side of the room. "What happened?" Pascoe asks, and they all chuckle as one.
The establishment of a Cork-based RTÉ quartet took place in 1959, after a concerted campaign and a petition signed by 3,000 Cork citizens. When the Vanbrughs took over the position in 1986, their contract required them to play six concerts in Dublin and six in Cork. "And then," says Marwood, "there was this wonderfully vague clause. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was something like 'up to 12 concerts elsewhere in the country'. So we sort of made it our business to make that a major part of the contract. Taking music around Ireland became more important than perhaps was intended."
A visit from the Vanbrughs has, over the past 21 years, constituted the highlight of many a musical year in every county in Ireland, and for their part, the members of the quartet have acquired a formidable collection of memories. There was the gig in Westport, one of the first they ever played, where people turned up armed with the score of the Beethoven quartet they were to perform. There was the castle in Sligo where they played Bartók - and a nun in the front row sat with her fingers in her ears all the way through. There was a concert in Cork prison, where the presence of a female member of the quartet prompted a great deal of nudging and shuffling among the audience. "We played Mozart," says Ellis. "We explained to them that he was down and out at this point in his life; he had no money; he was ill. They really identified with that. And they listened. By the end of it you could hear a pin drop. That was really moving, because they were led out after the concert, and waved goodbye from behind bars."
To cope with such diverse musical situations, a chamber ensemble needs to be unusually flexible in its approach - a challenge the Vanbrughs appear to relish. They are, after all, named after Sir John Vanbrugh, a 17th-century Renaissance man. The architect who designed Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, he was also a notable playwright, director of the Royal Academy of Music in Handel's day, and a high-ranking soldier. "We chose the name because it sounds European," says Ellis. "It's Flemish for 'bridge', which is appropriate for stringed instruments and also as a metaphor for music in the wider sense. We've never specialised in any period."
That said, the quartet has garnered huge praise for two recent recordings of music by Luigi Boccherini on the Hyperion label. Pascoe, the Boccherini buff, launches into a lively account of his discovery of an autograph manuscript by Haydn in the British Library, an arrangement for quartet of Boccherini's string quintets. It's a fantastic find, and he tells his musical detective story with relish. But what about the others? Are they big fans of Boccherini, too? Aspell pulls a face. Ellis smiles. "Well, we're being convinced that it really is a different voice: the same period as Haydn, but not Viennese music. There are Spanish tinges in it, and it's under-recorded, under-played, under-valued generally." "Thanks," retorts Pascoe, "to the Viennese mafia." "So," Marwood wants to know, "how many of his quintets have we done?" Four, comes the reply. "Oh, good - only another 120 to go."
By way of celebrating its 21 years on the road, the Vanbrughs are about to embark on a series of tours around the country. "We've tried to mark this 21st anniversary by summing up a bit what we've been doing over the years," Marwood explains. "In the first concert we're just doing three quartets that we love playing - Beethoven, Schubert and Shostakovich. For the second one we're doing more Schubert, plus Steve Reich's Different Trains." The final series of concerts will feature three new commissions from Irish composers - Ronan Guilfoyle, Deirdre Gribbin and Seoirse Bodley - and, in the second half of the programme, Schubert's string quintet in C major, featuring guest cellist Ralph Kirshbaum. "The apotheosis of chamber music," Ellis says. "Something like that," agrees Marwood, tucking into a second helping of curry.
Over the years the quartet has premiered new works by, among other Irish composers, Gerald Barry, John Kinsella, Jane O'Leary, Ian Wilson, Raymond Deane and Donnacha Dennehy. What's it like, when you get a new piece into your hand for the first time? "You open it up and look for black," says Pascoe. "You go, 'Oh my God, black everywhere - that's going to take us forever, and it's going to sound terrible'. Other pieces are like Mondrian paintings: blank spaces everywhere and a few impeccable markings. So you think, 'Hmm. This is okay'." "And then," puts in Marwood, "you notice the metronome mark." The parts for the three new pieces are, he adds after a moment, in his bag. They're hot off the compositional presses, and he's going to hand them out to the others today. A little close for comfort, seeing as they'll be touring these works two months from now? "Oh, well," says Pascoe. "It's always been like that. Apparently the soloist for the Beethoven violin concerto had to sight-read it at the first performance." Laughter ripples around the table. "Apparently," he adds, with perfect comic timing, "it sounded like Shostakovich." This time the laughter explodes in a merry crescendo.
A balanced tension between individual and group seems to be at the heart of successful chamber music. In his novel An Equal Music, Vikram Seth explored the internal politics of the quartet in almost forensic detail, painting a picture of neurotic, introspective, self-obsessed people who are regarded, even by other professional musicians, as a bit "out there". An accurate picture, or literary exaggeration? "Well," says Ellis, "it is a distinct part of the profession. There's no doubt about that. And self-obsessed? Off the platform, maybe.
"But on the platform, when you're totally committed to something - as you have to be in a string quartet - and you're playing your best, your self is gone. All the neurosis and tensions of rehearsal can, and sometimes do, spill over. But when it works well, it's just the music. It sounds like a romantic notion but it's really practical. It conquers nerves and it gets over the foibles of four individual personalities and all the stuff that goes with rehearsing. It's the power of the music, really, which makes all the other stuff worthwhile."
Strings on tour
The RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quartet begins a series of three nationwide tours to celebrate its 21st anniversary this month. From Thursday until Sunday, it will tour a programme of Beethoven (Op 18 No 4 in C minor), Shostakovich (String Quartet No 3 in F major, Op 73) and Schubert (No 14 in D minor, Death and the Maiden) to Cork, Killarney, Boyle and Dublin. From November 1st to 8th, it will play Schubert (No 12 in C minor, Quartettsatz, and No 12 in A minor, Rosamunde) and Steve Reich (Different Trains) in Waterford, Sligo, Dublin and Cork. And from November 28th to December 2nd, it will be joined by the cellist Ralph Kirshbaum for Schubert's string quintet in C major, as well as giving the premieres of three newly-commissioned works by Ronan Guilfoyle, Deirdre Gribbin and Seoirse Bodley in Galway, Cork, Bray and Dublin.
