As I listened to the quintet, I could hear the first violin speak and the second respond. The piano offered a faint sense of support for these instruments, while the viola sat silent and the cellist waited to embellish the intimate conversation.
Following notes on a page, the chamber musician is not entirely free to choose the topics they discuss, but each understands that they must maintain their individual voice, while at the same time respond to their fellow musicians without the aid of a conductor.
For the chamber music ensemble, success depends on something analogous to the art of good conversation: moving beyond the casual exchange to engage in purposeful dialogue where each voice maintains its individual importance and together they reach the highest of goals: in this case, beautiful music.The same could be said about the small community of voices that came together, for a second year, to bring us the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington.
A Little Vibrato