Four’s Company:
Life in A Quartet
By Ian Chant |
Corigliano Quartet. L to R: Amy Sue Barston, cello; Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin; Lina Bahn, violin; Melia Watras, viola. |
Melia Watras and Michael Jinsoo Lim have been playing together as one half of the
Corigliano Quartet for 12 years. They’ve also been married for 16 years. But you wouldn’t
know it to walk in on a practice with the quartet: there is no hand holding, no wistful
glances cast over violin strings. “We don’t act married in the quartet,” says Watras.
The all-business attitude towards one’s spouse may seem strange to someone on the
outside looking in, but it’s a key to keeping the quartet running like a well-oiled
machine. “When we’re working in the group, we are all equals,” says Lim.
A sense of equanimity is key to the functioning of any small, tightly knit group,
but especially so in a quartet like Corigliano, which Watras describes as “four strong
voices that care passionately about making music.” As anyone who has ever watched a
Sunday morning political roundtable can tell you, four strong voices discussing something
passionately is the sort of thing that can turn ugly in short order.
So how do the members of a quartet make beautiful music on stage and off for years on
end? “Generally, the way decisions are made in an orchestra is there’s one boss and what
he says goes. In a quartet, there are four equal voices. And that can be better, and it
can be worse,” says Lim, who compares the decision-making process within the group to
‘controlled anarchy.’ “The only way it can work is if everyone respects each other.”
When she compares the atmosphere of a quartet to that of working in an orchestra,
Watras doesn’t mince words. “The money is usually not as good. The hours are much, much
longer. And the possibility of problems is much greater.” Not exactly the sort of job
description anyone is likely to jump on, is it? She also makes clear that the drama
portrayed on stage in Opus is no less realistic than real-life horror stories she’s heard
from colleagues (and playwright Michael Hollinger cites the eerie similarities between
Opus’ interpersonal drama and what happened in the Audubon String Quartet when they fired
their first violinist).
“All of this could happen,” says Watras. “We’ve been lucky enough that none of it has
happened to us.” But if life as part of a quartet has the potential to be so emotionally
draining and so professionally volatile, then why do people choose it over an often more
stable and almost always less nerve-wracking career in an orchestra?
The answer is simple: With high risk comes high reward. While being part of a quartet
is more demanding, it also lends musicians more of a sense of ownership. While it can be
frustrating, it can also be transcendent. “When you’re performing with a quartet, you’re
outside of yourself,” says Watras. “You become part of a whole that is greater than the
sum of the parts.” Lim concurs. “There are a lot of difficulties, but when it works, there
is nothing like it. You are being pushed to a higher level by your colleagues, and that
is an incredible feeling.”
