Master Class!

I am sitting and watching the first SQA master class of the year. These sessions are always so engaging. All the students have to play their Haydn quartet in front of everyone else (including the rest of the students, the faculty and the staff). Once they are done, the Arianna Quartet gives them feedback and pointers on how they should perform the piece.

A particularly telling comment was made today by one of the faculty. He told the students that there is a false assumption of sorts involving playing Haydn; people immediately assume that it is easy. But just because the notes and lines are easy to play by yourself, it doesn't mean it is easy to put into the context of the string quartet, and this is especially the case with Haydn. All the parts have to be together, portraying the same character at the same volume (and so on). If one person is even a little bit off, the whole piece starts to fall apart "like a house of cards."

Anyway, here's some pics...