The string quartet takes residence: class, community, curricula

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A very warm welcome to this keynote note in the diversity and the British String Quartette Symposium.

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My name is Venkatraman and I'm delighted to be chairing this very topic, a highly relevant session today.

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The keynote will be delivered to us by Professor Laura Tonbridge. Professor is Nori's professor of music at Oxford University.

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Her research has concentrated on German romanticism with a particular interest in reception through criticism, performance and composition.

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She has thought and written extensively about musical genres, particularly those that try to straddle the lines between private and public and

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between amateur and professional incarnations in their socio artistic contexts.

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Since October 2019, Laura has been the recipient of a three major research fellowship from the Liverpool Trust for a new project,

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a social and sonic history of the string quartette, and we're all looking forward to the outcome of that.

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She will speak to us today on early string quartette residencies at academic institutions.

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Nora will speak for about 45 minutes, after which we will take questions.

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So please post your questions on the YouTube live chat.

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Her talk to us today is entitled The String Quartette Takes Residence Class Community Curricula Open to Laura.

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Thank you very much. I hope that you can see my screen and that I can get started.

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And thanks to Victor for the very kind introduction and for hosting this session and also to my

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colleague Joanna Bullivant and Samantha Dittman for inviting me to be part of this wonderful project.

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There are two things I should warn you about before I start next Netflix style.

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One is that there is one instance of strong language. And secondly, there's quite a lot of 70s fashion and the images you're about to see.

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Anyway, I'll begin. A respectable university these days.

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As a resident chamber ensemble or at least a working relationship with an outside string,

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quartette declared The Guardian's music critic Gerald Lerner in November 1969.

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And I should say we're going to hear a lot from Lahner this afternoon. He was the Guardian music critic from 1965.

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Before that, he was a lecturer in German at the University of Manchester. A music critic for the North, I should say.

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Some 45 years later,

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composer Christopher Fox reflected that by the 1970s and his self respecting British University Music Department had a string quartette in residence.

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There might be a subtle distinction to be made between a respectable university and a self respecting university,

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but both phrases suggest that a resident string quartette signals something about an institution standing and aspiration.

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But I'd like to do this afternoon is to consider what those qualities were,

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as I think they might inflect our discussion of the question of the British string quartette today,

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particularly in regard to how ensembles and universities tackle issues of diversity.

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My focus will remain historical, selecting a couple of examples from the seeming heyday of Quartette residences in the late 1960s and 70s,

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which happened to coincide with the so-called new universities. Allow me to ask alongside what a quarter some residents for what A is for?

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I'd also like to raise the question of what constitutes diversity.

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It will become clear, I think, that while education and access to culture are concerns shared across the decades,

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whereas now attention might be paid primarily to gender, race and ableism.

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In the 1970s, quartettes in residence, pretty much all white and male were concerned with class community engagement,

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the north south divide and extending repertoire beyond the classical canon.

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I'm not going to argue simply because I can't argue that those issues have since been resolved,

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instead, I want to make sure that we keep them in the mix. The idea of a quartette in residence is often associated with American

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universities and conservatives and with chamber music festivals such as Marlboro.

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However, there had been quarters in a British music department since the 1920s under the aegis of the ever energetic musician and education,

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is Sawford Davies, newly appointed as professor of music at University College Aberystwyth and as chairman of the National Council of Music for Wales.

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Now these two images show both a portrait of British British music scene in 1988.

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I've circled Davies and read his next Ebonie to sprout with the long beard.

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You have the splendidly moustached Elgar, Stanford and so on.

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And then you have Samuel Teleco on the back row and gazing off into the distance, Ethel Smyth,

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who we heard about this morning, the other image you have of him and the signals that after having been Professor Davies,

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they went and worked extensively for the BBC on their music appreciation programmes, in particular cigarette cars with his image.

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I can't imagine having cigarette cards today, but also cigarettes with images of music professors on them.

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The idea was soon picked up elsewhere by the late 1960s, Edinburgh and Cardiff had associations with professional quartettes,

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which did some coaching and gave regular concert series,

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while Birmingham had its own quartette made up of two university lecturers, one from the physics department and two professional musicians.

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The renowned Amadeus Quartette began a residency at the University of York in 1967.

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They were to spend three weeks there every time, giving two concerts at York and two elsewhere in the North for a generous annual

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salary of six thousand pounds provided by a grant from Granada Television,

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and the university paid their living expenses.

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While it was acknowledged that this was a coup for the university and for concert goers in the region, the immediate benefits and felt not by Granada.

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It was said and not by the university or the general public, but by the Amadeus Quartette,

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so far as they were concerned, it was a chance for them to learn and rehearse repertoire.

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Although they gave some individual lessons,

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they were said to be sceptical that a string quartette good enough for them to coach could be found in a university music department.

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Jared Loughner reported one senses a slight local resentment that they asked the students to pay for their tuition,

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that they go home on the weekends to see the families naturally enough, and that their concerns have become not only so popular in the university,

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but also so fashionable in the town that tickets have to be rationed and defended by an overwhelmed administrative staff.

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One of the composers on staff, David Blake, was quoted as saying that while the residency was working well,

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he was disappointed that their predominantly classical programmes, so little relation to what composing is about these days.

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While the Omidyar's had some quartettes by Britain to pitch and Bartok and as we have a Florida shooting this morning,

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also from the composer he was talking about in their repertoire, they were Siba sorry, they were wary of taking anything on the public.

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Want to produce the Amadeus as a world class ensemble whose presence alone would be of benefit to York.

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However, he concluded his article was something of a call to arms.

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But another university praying for a similar fairy godmother act might consider whether a young chamber ensemble with its destiny not yet charted,

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would suit its needs better. One that will coach will play through experimental student works and will involve itself

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in amateur musical activities would not be as great as a quartette of the Amadeus.

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But it could someday become one. A reply came from George Pratt, director of music at the University of CU,

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you wrote to the editor explaining that they had just hired a young quartette who would be in residence from October.

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The position was sponsored by nine thousand pound grant from the Liverpool Trust,

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split over three years rather than six thousand pounds per annum enjoyed by the end of the year.

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It would allow for young string players to study with Alexandrea.

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Moskovsky had been second violin with a Hungarian string quartette and was now teaching at the Royal Manchester College of Music,

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one of the forerunners at the RNC in. Explained.

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There will be research students aiming to have acquired a high standard of play and a reputation sufficient

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enough for them to be able to earn a living as a quartette when their three year term appeal is ended.

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They're certainly not as great a quartette as the amateurs, though, were share, Mr. Lanas hopes that they could one day become one,

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but there, as yet humble status makes it possible to ask that they should take an active part in a relatively amateur music making.

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They will lead the string sections of the university orchestra,

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take on a limited amount of individual teaching to an undergraduate string players and play chamber music to and with amateur instrumentalists.

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Pratt hopes that the scheme may produce another Ramadans.

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Meanwhile, we have a stimulus from your chamber music within the university and through the adult Education Department,

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and later, I hope, three invitations to play outside the university.

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This young quartette can gain both experience for themselves and also offer something to music in the Midlands.

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This is quite a different approach to a quartette presidency, to previous schemes in Britain.

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It was designed to create a new quartette from young musicians rather than to hire an existing ensemble.

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In so doing, it recognised the need for a new quartette to have time to learn how to be a quartette,

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which means not just learning repertoire, but how to play together and how to craft their own sound well.

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The pedagogic element of the residency through coaching by Moskovsky outside of a conservatoire was more in line with continental,

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European or Soviets mentoring models, groups in which tradition dominated international competitions and concert programmes.

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Yet the scheme also hoped to embed the quartette in the university as performers and teachers and in the wider community.

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As such, it reflected the set up of the university as a whole, which is worth a brief digression here.

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After the Second World War, there was a recommendation that more provincial colleges,

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which previously had been overseen by Oxford or Cambridge or the University of London, should be allowed to confer their own degrees.

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While industrial cities such as Manchester and Birmingham had founded universities in the 19th century, the so-called red bricks,

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the potteries had lacked the financial muscle and political influence to do so until the foundation of the University of North Staffordshire in 1949.

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Its first principle was Lord Lindsay, a philosopher who'd been master of Balliol College and vice chancellor of Oxford University.

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Jill was deeply committed to education for the working classes and as you put it

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in a lecture to North Staffordshire Workers Educational Association in 1925,

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advocated for, quote, a people's university. When an opportunity came to buy a hole from the Sneyd family, the Reverend Thomas Harwood,

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vicar of Australia and leader of the Labour Group on Stoke City Council,

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encouraged them to bid for it, which allow them to build a university campus in a green site away from the city.

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University of Kiel was granted a full charter in 1960 to.

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Lord Lindsay believes that, quote at the end of education is a better understanding of the society in which we live.

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He argued that specialist, an expert knowledge, needs to be balanced with a wide outlook,

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and general understanding is that if we are going to try and keep a democratic country and maintain understanding of one another,

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we have to send out people from our universities who can do the technical stuff and who at the same

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time have an understanding of political and social problems and the values that lie behind them.

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Nancy died a decade before the university opened,

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but his ideas formed the basis for its curriculum and this was shaped differently to those of Oxbridge or the red bricks.

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Instead of concentrating on one subject or two closely related ones, all students took a foundation year that incorporated arts,

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sciences and social sciences before deciding to concentrate on two subjects and some subsidiary ones.

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Music was introduced subsidiary subject on the undergraduate curriculum in nineteen sixty five.

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There have been a music director at the university, you already mentioned George Pratt overseeing musical activities on campus since 1958.

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He might not have had the modern brutalist architecture of other universities built in the 1960s,

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the plate glass universities of Sussex as East Anglia, Warwick Kent and Lancaster,

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but they shared Linzess generalist principles and the notion that by all being together on

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a residential campus outside of an attractive regional town rather than the large city,

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they might foster close pedagogical and social context as well as better pastoral care.

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These issues were coming to the fore as the nature of university provision was changing across the country.

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Student numbers were rapidly increasing, along with a number of universities at the start of the Second World War.

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Only two percent of the British population went to university in 1939.

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There were 50000 students in 21 universities. By 1961, numbers more than doubled to one hundred thirteen thousand.

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Students are more willing to travel to universities rather than to stay local, which is one reason why Campus University succeeded.

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What they studied was also changing. In the 1930s, half the undergraduate student population took up subjects.

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The post-war expansion of the universities and the degree subjects they offered shifted that to science and technology law.

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Is this an accountancy? To the extent that in 2009 only 11 percent of students were taking degrees in the humanities?

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Stefan Collini and what are the universities for?

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Observes that the 1960s and 70s are exceptional in the history of undergraduate provision in the United Kingdom.

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They were the first and last decade in which Britain tried to sustain a substantial,

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still rigorously selective, wholly state funded system of high quality, undergraduate centred universities.

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There remained a strongly paternalistic side of the universities, if they were beacons of culture,

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as Kathleen said, they shone light on a very particular aspect of its.

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A report on the foundation year Akeel published in 1968 acknowledged that lindsy deliberately

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limited the scope to Western culture by adopting the phrase the heritage of European civilisation.

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It is thus no criticism of the cause that emissions can be detected with ease.

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But if there is any intention to include in the course of discussion of contemporary problems,

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it's hard to see how to justify the neglect of the political and economic roles of the USA and the USSR.

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The influence on 20th century thought of Marx and Freud and a psychological basis of nationalism and racial prejudice.

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Where does the string quartette fit in here? How does that address contemporary problems?

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The appointment of a group of young musicians would learn to work together and share the growing

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expertise of students would seem in line with the community ethos and civilising process.

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There's little doubt the majority of a string quartette repertoire typically represents the rich European heritage more

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than anything is tempting to see the appointment of the quartette in residence as representing the taste of luxury.

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That editor of the Times educational supplement Walta James,

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thought every university should be able to offer in an article supporting the use of private funds to raise funds for higher education institutions,

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where he mentioned a city based on sponsorship of the Amadeus residency at York.

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The Bernstine connexion also points to something beyond the elite university.

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As founder of Granada Television, Bernstine had made a case for the cultural strength and coherence of the north of England.

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And James acknowledged that some areas, for example, York had a strong tradition of local benefaction.

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If a quartette were to enhance music in the Midlands, it needs to tap into civic pride that those areas had access to artists of the highest quality.

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You could compete with those performing in London, which had access to so many international musicians that residencies were not as vital.

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The difficulty of finding adequate candidates meant that Appetiser posted

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quartette quotation residence for two years before finding suitable musicians.

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Eventually,

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he appointed four students in the Royal Academy of Music who were already playing together as a quartette and have been coached by Sidney Griller.

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His own quartette had been in residence at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1949 1961.

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Greene, the King. They change their name in homage to the founder of the new university home, calling themselves the Lindsy Quartette.

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Jared Loughner, he had hoped some university would take up the gauntlet of taking a young quartette

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on Gedeh Review to the inaugural concert by the Lindsey Quartette in November 1968.

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They played high school, setting seventy seven No. One but second quarter.

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And Beethoven's Opus 59. Number three, it was Falana, an encouraging event.

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While nerves seemed to affect the first half, Billings's grew showed in the second.

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When they have the technical security to take risks, they could become an exciting string quartette, he said.

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You can explain the arrangement with the university.

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Each player was employed as a research fellow with an annual salary of around a thousand pounds, which is about thirteen thousand today.

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It's worth noting that they had to be called research fellows to fit in the university system,

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and I assume for the funding and early manifestation of the practise as research agenda.

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In this context, it meant that the quarter had been rehearsing and having tuition for Moskovsky for over a year before they made their debut.

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Pratt was quoted as saying that there was an altruistic aspect to the set up,

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which is that we can enable a young quartette to stay together without having to work on the back desks of some orchestra as well.

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The scheme bore fruit.

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The Lindsays, going to third place of the International String Quartette competition in Vienna, Belgium, in 1969, with Lonn explaining, quote,

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It was the youngest quartette in the competition and its success against state sponsored competition

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from elsewhere was largely the result of enlightened arrangement of the Enlightenment arrangement.

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To kill the reference to state sponsored competition presumably refers to the Soviet Union.

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And as I'll come to you later, there was some intriguing quartette, diplomacy taking place during these years.

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But perhaps most striking Islamised description of the arrangement,

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Acuil as enlightened a term that again positions the presence and nurturing of a quartette

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within a university environment as being indicative of a deliberate educational strategy.

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Proj was concerned that after the leadership fellowships had ended, the Lindsays will be set adrift,

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condemned to endlessly playing the music club circuit to make ends meet at the university Senate.

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Vote to the presidency should be extended for a further two years.

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The first London concerts in 1970 were welcomed by the critics, with Edward Greenfield conveying their rough edges with most wit.

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If Ken, motorists sometimes describe a car as hairy energy and responsiveness,

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the quality is rather the smooth efficiency, then the lenses make an attractive Harry quartette.

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As you'll see from this next slide, reminiscences from students, Aqeel, while volunteers were in residents,

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range from the deeply appreciative through to acknowledgements that they realised what an opportunity their presence was only after they graduated.

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So we go from remembering the boxes they used to soundproof the hole they rehearsed in.

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And Peter Cropper being a resident tutor. Through to feeling privileged to have witnessed them at the start of a great career,

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then to someone who was completely unaware of them because at the time she preferred the Grateful Dead and then came

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to them later and saw themselves as being fortunate to have gotten what they were wearing on the farewell tour.

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And then finally, sadly, I didn't appreciate the Lenzi quartette much during my time,

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Akeel, but has learnt through their daughter to appreciate the music.

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It was soon recognised that Lindsay's vision of a civilised community of 800 students at CU was being eroded, a student numbers increased.

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By 1972, there were two thousand two hundred students enrolled and no plans to expand to 3000.

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Some chose or had to live off campus or forsook the student union in favour of staying in their residential halls.

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Hopes for engagement with local communities was also harder to achieve than originally envisioned.

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The Times reported that the geographical isolation of CU is a cause of prejudices both within and outside the university.

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If you ask someone in the potteries just three miles away about kill,

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a likely answer would be they live in that country house on the hill, surrounded by a high wall.

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I don't know what they do all day. We only see them once a year when they come into Stoke-On-Trent on floats, waving flags.

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Yeah, during the time Akeel, the lenses encountered another local institution news director would transform their attitude to community engagement,

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cellist Bernard Greg Smith and his recently published memoirs recalled a rehearsal for a concert at the

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old Victoria Theatre in Stoke-On-Trent in 1969 and 1970 when they met Peter Cheesman for the first time.

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We arrived at the theatre, complete with our usual trappings of suits, white shirts, shiny shoes, and began to rehearse and try out the space.

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This was tricky, it being a veteran around a Shakespearean theatre when no one in the audience was very far away,

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something quite new to us and rather intimidating. We didn't see how it could work.

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The idea of playing to the audience behind you is very peculiar. An actor is much more mobile and can swivel to confront the audience behind.

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We learnt from Peter Cheesman that we should relax and forget that worry.

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The intimacy provided from being closely surrounded outweighed that small problem.

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But when Cheeseman's are intended to for the forthcoming concert, you roared with laughter.

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You shout it from the back, you can't wear those penguin outfits.

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This is an evening of music and we allow these people who are coming up, potters, miners, the shopkeepers, they want to be happy.

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You've got to appear natural, normal and communicative, not dressed like unapproachable nuns.

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One of us said, but we're here to play. I asked, what are you going to say?

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He said, scrutinising this as we came where players outtalking tokers, you can't just play.

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You've got to open your bloody mouth. This isn't the thing with Moho.

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Peter, Croppa, the most vociferous amongst us, picked up the gauntlet, according to Greg Smith,

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abandon the tail jackets and bow ties and Croppa became adept at introducing the pieces they were going to play.

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Now, if I can, I'd like to show a clip from 1977, which shows the lindsy quartettes in action at the Old Vic,

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and I think this involves me stopping sharing my screen and hopefully we'll be able to access this video.

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Online. It lasts about five minutes, but I think it is worth watching, I'm nervous.

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This week begins a concert in Stoke that features the fallen musicians who make up the Linzey string quartette.

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They're a very remarkable group of players. This quartette not only for their musical ability,

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but also because one of their aims is to break down the mystique which still surrounds chamber music,

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even to some people who seem to enjoy opera or romantic symphonies.

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Peter Cheeseman's Victoria Theatre in Stoke the Lind's, has been doing an entire Beethoven cycle this season in a specially informal atmosphere.

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The Omnibus Film Unit spent some time with them last January to prepare this portrait of the lindsy quartette at work.

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We found that really a university was a marvellous basis on which to build a quartette.

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It gives you a chance to not consciously mould yourselves,

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but just purely by being together for the number of hours that a university position will allow you to do,

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because you definitely need time to mould for people's way of thinking and way of playing.

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Beethoven was commissioned by Congress, mostly like three quartettes.

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Fifty nine, I think the slight movement of 59 one is just out of this world, just fantastic.

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That's the great thing about it.

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I mean, you imagine most people doing the same thing for 20, 30, 40 years, playing the same music time and time again.

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But we've only done it for nine years now. I still every time I and I still find something new every time.

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This. Mean.

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I'm not saying that this is the only time it should be, I think they should be every possibility.

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I mean, I like dressing up for certain occasions, but when you see people in tails on a platform, say,

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50 yards away from you, you tend to think of them as purely machines that are producing a sound that you want to hear.

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We're trying to break that down with these particular countries, provide people with something to drink and try and show them that we are,

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in fact, human beings with the same sort of feelings that they have. And I think this doesn't often come across.

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And. And.

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Thank you.

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The vic was one of several theatres in the round, established in the 1960s and 70s, picking up on Steven Joseph's work as Scarboro in the mid 50s.

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Indeed, Joseph worked with Cheesman in Stoke. Others include the Everyman in Liverpool, the Octagon in Bolton Kopit Theatre in London, the first,

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which apparently was association round since in London since the Great Fire, the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

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Amongst his royal exchange. It was a political aspect in allowing audiences to engage with actors more dynamically, literally from every angle.

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It was matched in Cheeseman's case to a commitment to putting on plays about local subjects and engaging with the surrounding community.

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The way the Lindsays talk about their performances in the clip suggests a similar impulse to break down the mystique,

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which still surrounds chamber music through showing that rather than being killing machines, we are, in fact, human beings.

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The court has extended the practise of playing in the round of other venues,

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one contributor to the Cheal oral history project recalls them rearranging the assembly room of the prestigious benzyl festival.

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Subsequent association was shuffled through the residents of the university in the mid 70s and the long

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running annual festival in the student theatre of Sheffield's Crucible had been playing around as well.

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I continue to visit Stoke after affiliation with Chelate ended and as I had in Sheffield and later Manchester, I built up a long following.

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Guardians on this show, the chickens are called. It wasn't exactly an avalanche of classical concerts in Middle Staffordshire in the 1980s.

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This was the only music that I got to hear performed locally. I was so lucky through the lenses.

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I first had the beacons of the canon. Again, that word beacon is coming up again.

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Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Shostakovich and Croppa hosted workshops and gave talks before it was standard.

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There was nothing distant or Olympian about the way the quartette played or indeed dressed proper,

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was incapable of formality and will open Tosha sandals with socks and crumpled shirts.

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The plane was earthy, passionate at times lacking a cool perfection, but always utterly exhilarating cropper.

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And the lenses were hugely important internationally, but especially precious to us living in the Midlands and the north of England.

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I can corroborate Higgens account from my own experience of going to concerts by the Lindsays while I was growing up in Manchester,

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though that city generally had more going on musically.

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The concerts in the music department than housed in an old cinema on the road held a special place in the calendar and tickets were coveted.

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The audience is a concert series by the Lindsays were probably made up mostly by middle class residents of Stoke Sheffield in Manchester.

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Doctors, teachers and university lecturers. But they could indeed introduce not only students,

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but also local young people to the classics and their more informal dress and spoken introductions

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as well as they're playing some venues made their concerts somewhat less foreboding than the whole.

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I'm intrigued, though, by Higgins inclusion in her canon alongside Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven, Shostakovich,

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that indicates a shift in reception that had a lot to do with my next example of a string quartette in residence, the Fitzwilliam.

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The Fitzwilliam quartette took their name from the Cambridge College, where they met in 1968 after graduation in 1971,

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they joined the University of York as quartette in residence while studying with Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music.

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They were learning on the job, so to speak, even more so than the Lindsays,

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who graduated from the studying with Greller at the academy when they arrived to kill.

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Relative use of these quartettes in terms of the players themselves and how recently the group had formed was acknowledged by critics,

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in some ways this enhanced their suitability for a position within a university as perhaps of the scheme.

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They could ask them to do more on campus than an established touring group.

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Moreover, a quartet's usefulness could impact the kind of repertoire they played and perhaps also what and how they were expected to play.

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And generally, 1972, Brian Newbold reported the. York is the latest university to have acquired a resident string quartette,

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not an established group with a ready made reputation, but a young team just finding its feet as an ensemble.

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The Fitzwilliam Quartette is already being bold in its choice of programmes during its first academic session.

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Last night's concert to the Lyons Concert Hall did not look tame on paper.

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Inevitably, they were failures in its execution. But it was not a major hurdle that brought these aspirants down.

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One of the shadows in the brooding quartette points out in his memoirs that British critics always have.

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But in their reviews, they never outright in their praise.

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Newbold went on to list the shortcomings of the renditions of Beethoven's Third Rasmusson quartette and the Mendelssohn F minor quartette Opus 80,

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while conceding that the Mendelssohn was an enjoyable revival of an underplayed work

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and that the performance of Shostakovich six quartette was careful and pleasing,

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it concluded for the time being, there is any way more pleasure to be had from half formed interpretations by a

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youthful quartette than from wrong-headed or tired ones by an overworked star group.

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You might have been alluding here to the famous long established Amadeus Quartette

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who was mentioned have been the previous quartette and residents of New York.

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If it's William's willingness to include some underplayed Mendleson might have been part of the bold programming to which Newbold referred,

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so too might have been the Shostakovich is quartettes,

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another Guardian reviewer noted trouble that less than half the speed is less than half the reality of his symphonies.

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In fact, love has traced the shifting reception of Shostakovich symphonies in Britain and notes of

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the performance of the first quartette at the Edinburgh Festival in 1962 by the Burdine,

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Allegri and English quartette with a turning point. But it still took some time for them to feature regularly.

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The ambitious repertoire of the Fitzwilliam quartette was recognised repeatedly in early

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reviews Jared Loughner observed at a concert given during Yorke's new Music Week in July 1973.

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It was a difficult programme for young quartette to undertake, not that an older one would have approached it.

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It began with David Blake's second quartette and ended with Sebastian Vulpes.

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Second quarter quartette in between.

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Came Shostakovich's 13th quarter, which Lerner acknowledged that Williams had memorably introduced to this country a few months previously,

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David Blake was the best enforcer, both composers, both, in fact, Cambridge graduates working in academia.

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Blake, who I mentioned earlier, commented about the Omidyar's quartette that it was a shame they wouldn't play

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new works was a founder member of the University of York's Department of Music,

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and Forbes had just joined the University of Surrey. In other words, they represented the new universities.

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Composers constituted the whole music faculty at York Market at amongst British University departments

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Will Robin has written about how the role of new music ensembles within American universities,

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enabling staff and student composers to have their pieces workshopped and perform within an academic environment.

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quartettes might not be music specialists, but they could be chorales to play some within a university setting,

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which reveals something about the perception both the string quartette repertoire and what

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the function of the quartette as a genre and as an ensemble is within the institution.

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Diversity can reside in the repertoire that's played as is evident in the concert programmes and roundtables at the symposium.

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In comparison to Blake and Forbes, Shostakovich might seem mainstream, however, as mentioned in the early 1970s,

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his quartettes were not that well known in Britain, and the composer still needs to find advocates to give premiers outside of what was then the USSR.

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Shostakovich was in London in November 1972 for a festival of Russian and

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Soviet music and agreed to visit New York as biographer Laurel Faithful said,

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to help the young members of the Fitzwilliam quartette refine their interpretation of its 13th quartette.

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Violist Alan George recalls that they were on a crusade to perform Shostakovich's music,

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having realised that the 13th quarter had yet to be performed in Britain and that they were surprised that the composer should have taken

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such interest in a relatively inexperienced group until they realised that distressingly conscious of his age and his precarious health,

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you must have felt reassured to know that this old man's music could live and thrive in young hands.

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The relationship the musicians forged meant the Shostakovich sent them his next to his last quartettes when the barraging quartette

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were prevented from by illness from giving the British premiere of Shostakovich's 14th quartette at the opera festival the first.

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Williams performed it at the Haraga Festival. Instead.

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They received an invitation to visit Shostakovich in his dacha to work together on half a dozen of his quartettes.

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But the composer died before they could do so. This Williams went on to become authoritative interpreter and Shostakovich.

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They made the first complete recording of the quartettes and recently rerecorded them.

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That's an interesting question here about the Cold War reception of Shostakovich and about the musical

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relationships between Soviet musicians who promoted his music and the British groups who also played it.

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That I can't really go into here, though I will flag cellist of the borrowing quartette Buntine.

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Berlinski, whose comment was Shostakovich's and other Russian quartettes are particularly difficult for non Russian players to interpret.

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The British presence in Britain as performers and coaches was key to a performance practise for this repertoire being developed.

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On another practical level, the inability of Soviet string quartettes to fulfil their engagements in Britain,

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whether because of illness or because of the fear they would defect to the West,

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gave British court has the premiere as a son works, as we've seen with the civilians, and thereby encourage them to be performed.

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Incidentally, a quartette being unable to leave the Soviet Union was said by Bernard Smith

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to be the reason that the LINDSY quartette were first summoned to Sheffield.

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They stood in for a concert at the last minute and struck up a relationship with Professor Basil Main,

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who appointed them as quartette in residence there and took them with him to Manchester.

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There's also a sense in which young cadets based in residence at the university, supported by the institution and a salary,

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were willing to take a risk on unchallenging repertoire or at least repertoire that an audience might not like.

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The Fitzwilliam Court moved on to a residence at the University of Warwick and have more recently returned to their alma mater,

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taking up residence in Cambridge. As I mentioned, the Lindsays moved from Kiel to Sheffield and then to Manchester before retiring in 2005.

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Both court has built up a loyal following amongst local audiences,

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and there is a great deal of community building that can be achieved through such long term relationships.

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There is a tension here between the initial aims of the residences and what came to pass,

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the Lindsays, as discussed, were appointed Acuil as research fellows. In essence, they were students learning the trade as performers and teachers.

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Well, the University of Khiel had a relatively small student body. A quartette might not seem out of reach of anyone on campus.

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A student numbers increased, however, for people playing classical music in a hall that could accommodate an ever

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diminishing proportion of the university population seemed less accessible,

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especially as the quartette built up a loyal following. The community that's so important to chamber music is, by nature, exclusive.

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The longevity of the 10 years of such quartette residencies was part of their strength.

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Yet as they stayed in post, they became a silver haired as the season ticket holders.

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A crucial element of Gerald Llanos call to arms for a young chamber ensemble with its destiny not yet charted, has forgotten.

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The Lindsays may not have been exactly the same as the Amadeus Quartette in residence, but in some respects they did become like them.

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Sarah Ahmed, in the conclusion to being included, racism and diversity and institutional life,

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observes that we realise much about institutional life through what she calls failures of residents.

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Are the correct categories in which we are immersed in styles of life become explicit when you do not quite inhabit them,

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as we consider the role of Quartet's speaking from within inhabiting a university system.

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It's vital that we keep caution in mind. Thanks very much.

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Thank you very much, Laura, for this hugely rich and very stimulating paper,

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I will give a quick response that will hopefully lead us into the questions.

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And I'm sure there are many questions on the chat function already.

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And you are in wonderfully introduced many of many of the critical discussions of this symposium.

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I think and I would like to start with Sarum, its words that you gave to us,

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that at the very end, particularly this idea that you do not quite inhabit something.

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Right, because that particular phrase and what she's talking about that points the

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finger at our consistent failure to address diversity because we perpetuate the,

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as she calls it, categories in which we are immersed in styles of life by persistently trying to inhabit them,

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00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:52,900
trying to make sense of them, trying to make them our own.

384
00:42:52,900 --> 00:42:57,640
So your investigation of the string quartette residences at the British universities between the

385
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:04,630
60s and throws into relief the sort of sharp irony of what they are actually trying to achieve.

386
00:43:04,630 --> 00:43:13,720
And I really enjoyed the sort of tension that comes through on so many levels that if we just sort of put bullet points to them,

387
00:43:13,720 --> 00:43:18,850
they they wanted to achieve a community engagement through art or an artistic practise.

388
00:43:18,850 --> 00:43:28,450
Amateur music making and engagement through that amateur music making, tapping into civic pride was part of civic pride, was part of that.

389
00:43:28,450 --> 00:43:38,770
But then they also wanted to live a culture and civilisation. And that sort of word keeps coming through that as a sort of red line.

390
00:43:38,770 --> 00:43:43,840
And obviously it's criticised as well, but it's very much part of the narrative.

391
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:49,240
So the obvious question becomes why have a string quartette in residence?

392
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:56,350
Isn't that what is sort of establishing many of these tensions? The string quartette itself is is a very expensive medium.

393
00:43:56,350 --> 00:44:04,810
To train each person individually has spent a lot of money training before they get to the point of being a string quartette.

394
00:44:04,810 --> 00:44:10,930
The string quartette as a genre has a sort of self professed ideology of being music for connoisseurs.

395
00:44:10,930 --> 00:44:17,620
Going back to the late 18th, early 19th century, the string quartette, certainly by the 60s and 70s,

396
00:44:17,620 --> 00:44:24,370
has got these cultural association with, you know, what he wonderfully called the effing Wigmore Hall.

397
00:44:24,370 --> 00:44:31,540
So why have a residency of a string quartette? Why not choose to have the residency of a brass quartette,

398
00:44:31,540 --> 00:44:42,490
get composers to compose contemporary music for them and sort of weave the community engagement and an introduction of a particular

399
00:44:42,490 --> 00:44:50,050
kind of culture that they obviously want to introduce around a medium that may be much more familiar to the local audiences.

400
00:44:50,050 --> 00:44:58,930
So that's sort of the tension that really sits in here. And I would claim that the civilising project itself undermines that.

401
00:44:58,930 --> 00:45:03,160
That is inherent in the string quartette and in the choice of the string quartette undermines

402
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:09,160
the very idea of diversity as it establishes automatically a hierarchy of cultures,

403
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:15,760
of lifestyles and of people. And that, of course, has a long heritage, as we all know.

404
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:21,340
But in music, it was particularly modelled in the mid to late 19th century.

405
00:45:21,340 --> 00:45:25,900
We only need to think of L.A. schools that you take along to the recital so

406
00:45:25,900 --> 00:45:31,600
that you truly understand and you could truly learn what this child is about.

407
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,640
Rove's entire project programme notes.

408
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:45,460
And then then the dictionary has nothing else in mind, really, but that civilising into an understanding of something higher than where you came from.

409
00:45:45,460 --> 00:45:52,360
And what your paper has highlighted for me is the sort of fascinating reluctance to let go of some of that,

410
00:45:52,360 --> 00:46:00,220
even even at the point in the 60s to 80s, when society has been through a lot of upheaval.

411
00:46:00,220 --> 00:46:01,810
That's something that's being held onto.

412
00:46:01,810 --> 00:46:08,740
There's a fascinating reluctance to let go of boundaries around art, around education, and with that around genres,

413
00:46:08,740 --> 00:46:19,150
there's a reluctance to let go of certain cultural values and of particular ideologies that are deeply steeped in hierarchies.

414
00:46:19,150 --> 00:46:23,110
That is, of course, a question of the particular historical point,

415
00:46:23,110 --> 00:46:28,120
as well as the sort of looking back to to the scholars that are still relatively

416
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:35,140
fresh and the desire to establish a culture of authority and let's face it,

417
00:46:35,140 --> 00:46:43,480
to prove to oneself that one is really a civilised nation, despite everything that has gone before.

418
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:49,030
Which makes it interesting that the string quartette has a strong Germanic heritage as well, of course.

419
00:46:49,030 --> 00:46:53,190
And we have to take into account when we are now thinking about this from our.

420
00:46:53,190 --> 00:47:00,600
Point of view that we haven't had any waves of feminism, let alone any particular race theory at that point.

421
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:09,360
So the battle is not we are fighting today are obviously quite different, whereas the battles they fought were largely Eurocentric.

422
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:20,730
And we can see the sort of critique of the Eurocentrism just about creeping in there by suggesting that we need to expand to the US and the USSR.

423
00:47:20,730 --> 00:47:29,230
And it's very class centric or middle class centric education and middle class centric.

424
00:47:29,230 --> 00:47:37,030
So our battles today are different ones, and the question this raises very aptly, I think for the for the symposium and the many sessions to come,

425
00:47:37,030 --> 00:47:44,380
is are to really is thinking about the string cost that still useful and relevant today?

426
00:47:44,380 --> 00:47:54,220
How do we deal with a string quartette and heritage? And B is thinking about the idea of residences, residences, useful,

427
00:47:54,220 --> 00:48:04,060
and the residences perhaps offer up a sort of much more immediate solution in that they relate very neatly to

428
00:48:04,060 --> 00:48:13,030
the practise based research that is on a on a strong trajectory at the moment and that can have new currency.

429
00:48:13,030 --> 00:48:18,700
And it was interesting that they were actually the Lindsays were enrolled as a research fellows.

430
00:48:18,700 --> 00:48:23,830
And that's something that I would love to hear more details about how exactly that was defined.

431
00:48:23,830 --> 00:48:30,580
But so if we take that forward, there's lots of large potential for projects that can start with with composition,

432
00:48:30,580 --> 00:48:39,970
as David Blaggard suggested in the 1960s, of playing within the round of sort of breaking particular traditions and models.

433
00:48:39,970 --> 00:48:47,530
Now, what about the string quartette? The string quartette, of course, has got the tension implicit in itself that that from its inception,

434
00:48:47,530 --> 00:48:55,390
it was it came with the rhetoric of being for connoisseurs and early rhetoric that was nevertheless imposed by

435
00:48:55,390 --> 00:49:03,850
critics and then adopted by composers and performers as a way of establishing themselves within a new market system,

436
00:49:03,850 --> 00:49:15,670
as sort of a new intellectual, refined virtuosity on the concert platform that formed a counterpart to a different kind of virtuosity.

437
00:49:15,670 --> 00:49:21,190
But I think what's perhaps more interesting is if we think about its other history, its social history,

438
00:49:21,190 --> 00:49:29,080
the social history where it was made by players to be played for players and for the strong idea of

439
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:36,100
having social interaction and social engagement with each other rather than witnessing it second hand.

440
00:49:36,100 --> 00:49:44,080
So that interaction is part of its social social history. It has its exclusive elements to it, of course, as well.

441
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:46,600
But maybe that's a sort of key to helping us today.

442
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:55,240
Think, think, think, think about how we can remodel this genre in this particular type of music making.

443
00:49:55,240 --> 00:50:02,560
Again, it's the idea of in the round that is the first step of breaking down some of those boundaries.

444
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:08,830
But I would claim that this needs to extend to a much more narrow question of genre definitions,

445
00:50:08,830 --> 00:50:15,280
genre boundaries and the concomitant modes of its performance.

446
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:23,050
One example that I like in that context is of fifth string quartette, the Rosa Parks quartette,

447
00:50:23,050 --> 00:50:26,950
where he does actually get an even bigger audience involved by asking them to clap.

448
00:50:26,950 --> 00:50:34,750
So in the round is properly expanded. It's properly extended out in that everyone who is sitting in the round or standing

449
00:50:34,750 --> 00:50:41,100
in the round does start to actively participate rather than witnessing it.

450
00:50:41,100 --> 00:50:47,670
But the Christian political question becomes, how do we shed our habit of just wanting to fight,

451
00:50:47,670 --> 00:50:55,590
wanting to belong, and how do we instead gain enough of a critical distance?

452
00:50:55,590 --> 00:51:01,740
And with that, of course, comes the question, how do we do this in particular within academia, within an institution,

453
00:51:01,740 --> 00:51:10,610
within institutions that are founded on the civilising project that have that civilising project written into them.

454
00:51:10,610 --> 00:51:18,230
So in that sense, I think your paper has opened up an array of wonderful political considerations that I hope will

455
00:51:18,230 --> 00:51:24,530
be taken up over the next couple of days about the interactions of genre and its associations,

456
00:51:24,530 --> 00:51:34,340
institution and education, audiences and diversity or critical considerations that I believe will be really explored, particularly tonight.

457
00:51:34,340 --> 00:51:39,410
I'm looking forward to the session of String quartettes written by younger people in the

458
00:51:39,410 --> 00:51:45,590
community and also by the debate about writing the challenges of writing for string quartette.

459
00:51:45,590 --> 00:51:51,420
And today that that composers face. So I want to wrap up, though,

460
00:51:51,420 --> 00:52:01,800
by coming back briefly to the wonderful Granada television clip of the Lindsays and ask you whether you can elaborate a little bit more

461
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:11,640
on this question of modes of engagement and stepping into a diversity realm beyond repertoire and through that most of engagement.

462
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:26,100
And what struck me as particularly interesting watching that clip was that while the television station in itself heralds a sort of era of diversity,

463
00:52:26,100 --> 00:52:30,570
of branching out, having a television station for the north, the television itself, of course,

464
00:52:30,570 --> 00:52:38,790
making the concert much more visible and making the working process that they are documenting in this particular clip much more visible to a much,

465
00:52:38,790 --> 00:52:48,570
much wider audience. At the same time, the filming techniques that they use, in my opinion, were incredibly demarcating.

466
00:52:48,570 --> 00:52:54,960
Whenever we had the musicians, we had the instruments. We didn't actually have people interacting with each other.

467
00:52:54,960 --> 00:53:01,740
The people's interaction was replaced by the mystique of the sound that interacts with each other.

468
00:53:01,740 --> 00:53:07,350
And often we saw just their hands on the instrument rather than them looking at each other and and,

469
00:53:07,350 --> 00:53:15,930
you know, having some kind of enjoyable social experience. And then we are cutting to the bar where people are mixing and mingling and drinking.

470
00:53:15,930 --> 00:53:23,610
But that's a different set. So it was interesting to me to see that Granada seems to have not thought this

471
00:53:23,610 --> 00:53:28,740
through to its logical conclusion and all the boundaries are actually upheld.

472
00:53:28,740 --> 00:53:34,350
And what it amounts to in the end is we are introducing you to this mystique.

473
00:53:34,350 --> 00:53:40,470
We are elevating you were civilising you by giving you an insight into this whole mystique so that

474
00:53:40,470 --> 00:53:47,250
I would I would love to sort of pass over back to you with that wonderful television clip in mind.

475
00:53:47,250 --> 00:53:52,830
Thank you very much. And thanks for all the points you've raised, because it's so much to try and deal with here.

476
00:53:52,830 --> 00:53:55,320
And I'm not going to reach any kind of great conclusion.

477
00:53:55,320 --> 00:54:01,470
But actually, that whole thing of actually what the quartette means, how we can use it within this setting, I think is really fascinating.

478
00:54:01,470 --> 00:54:09,360
The clip, you're right, it does still privilege the musical experience as being a very special thing and trying to convey that.

479
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:15,120
It does remind me of when you see plays, films of the 1970s and the sort of interesting camerawork.

480
00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:17,340
And I was trying to imagine.

481
00:54:17,340 --> 00:54:23,550
So they had footage of the audience, but then they must have done separate sessions, I guess, so they could do the close ups,

482
00:54:23,550 --> 00:54:31,800
which actually, having looked at a fair amount of string quartette, footage now is relatively rare to get those kind of close ups.

483
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:40,500
And there is I think it's BBC rather than Granada. This particular clip. But some of we are bringing culture to an unusual environment.

484
00:54:40,500 --> 00:54:46,320
I'm going to show that these are relatively young men going off in the car of snakes

485
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:54,950
past and that there is a kind of youthful enterprise to this that is attractive.

486
00:54:54,950 --> 00:55:01,730
How do you talk to the man in the street as the BBC was famously struggled to work with?

487
00:55:01,730 --> 00:55:06,620
Then actually, we are now going to take this into your home, through the medium, the television,

488
00:55:06,620 --> 00:55:13,550
and suggest to you that you two could go and it will be OK because you can get your point at the end of your orangeade.

489
00:55:13,550 --> 00:55:20,150
So it's doing a lot of work work within a very small section. But what's interesting is the amount of space it gives to the music and the

490
00:55:20,150 --> 00:55:24,780
fact that it's Beethoven and that it actually has a sense of giving the whole.

491
00:55:24,780 --> 00:55:32,070
And as the movement, the citizens of performance there and the special qualities of performance,

492
00:55:32,070 --> 00:55:37,710
so it's doing the same kind of institutional work that I think a lot of these residences are also doing, which is both.

493
00:55:37,710 --> 00:55:42,930
We want to educate you. We want to allow you to appreciate this music.

494
00:55:42,930 --> 00:55:48,780
But we're also going to prove to you that it is still very hierarchical and these musicians are special people.

495
00:55:48,780 --> 00:55:57,730
It's interesting, they don't show the quartette talking to the audience, which they do regularly, but it is all just about the performance on stage.

496
00:55:57,730 --> 00:56:00,400
Yeah, it's almost like it wants to hold on to this mystique, right,

497
00:56:00,400 --> 00:56:07,480
this Nereus artist who is in that space and and takes on a sort of a superior role or

498
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:12,370
a different way of communicating something very universal and and and value of it.

499
00:56:12,370 --> 00:56:19,480
Right. Yeah. And those problems still linger with any project that tries to go and take classical music out into alternative venues.

500
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,960
This is not so much that people don't like going to those venues.

501
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:29,260
Everyone still behaves as if they're in a concert hall and they silent and don't want to click the glasses or anything else.

502
00:56:29,260 --> 00:56:38,500
And so there still is tension is happening. And how much information did you find on how the modes of engagement worked within the residency?

503
00:56:38,500 --> 00:56:46,870
So how much community work did the string quartettes do and when they were working with the students and what type of work that they do with them?

504
00:56:46,870 --> 00:56:52,780
I haven't found out enough about that yet. It's one of the limitations of Pandemic's that I have been able to get into the archives.

505
00:56:52,780 --> 00:56:58,720
Either of the leaders seem to know more about the kind of the criteria for the fellowships,

506
00:56:58,720 --> 00:57:03,760
but also actually details of whatever details remain of programmes and activities.

507
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:08,530
So I have kind of Second-Hand reports, but nothing systematic here.

508
00:57:08,530 --> 00:57:14,050
Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that. So fingers crossed that this would happen because that would be fascinating to see

509
00:57:14,050 --> 00:57:17,800
how the amateur engagement or the community engagement in particular actually works.

510
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:26,410
You know, what are they taking out? And and is the boundaries around that civilising process broken in any way in those processes?

511
00:57:26,410 --> 00:57:31,810
And we have got some questions coming in. And the first question you have is from Joanna.

512
00:57:31,810 --> 00:57:36,700
I read it out to you. My father in law was raised in a working class Nottingham household and later got a degree and

513
00:57:36,700 --> 00:57:43,900
doctorate in adult hood and worked in Cumbria in the 80s concerts for a tiny Cumbrian music society.

514
00:57:43,900 --> 00:57:51,730
I wondered if you think the string quartette is important not just for university students at 18, but for adult or to didacticism?

515
00:57:51,730 --> 00:57:54,520
Great question that. Yes, a great question. Yes.

516
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:59,440
I mean, there's a whole culture of the music societies and quartettes going out to in some ways you think,

517
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,470
well, how nested why is that on the concert circuit?

518
00:58:02,470 --> 00:58:07,810
But actually it's a really important part, both of music appreciation, didacticism and community building.

519
00:58:07,810 --> 00:58:11,260
And the idea of having an event within a village hall or whatever it is,

520
00:58:11,260 --> 00:58:17,440
is something that still exists not quite as vividly, but I think is still present.

521
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:22,240
Certainly talking to quartettes, the idea that you still end up going to some quite minor venues,

522
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:25,180
you would think from a sort of academic musicological perspective,

523
00:58:25,180 --> 00:58:36,220
but actually have very important both for the quartettes getting experience, but also for people to have the opportunity to hear live concerts.

524
00:58:36,220 --> 00:58:44,260
I mean, quartettes are expensive to train, but they're not as expensive as having a symphony orchestra or a larger ensemble.

525
00:58:44,260 --> 00:58:48,820
So it's not not the cheapest way of getting music. But actually they they don't get terribly well paid.

526
00:58:48,820 --> 00:58:57,870
And it is a relatively economical getting hold of like musicians. And thank you.

527
00:58:57,870 --> 00:59:03,180
Florian cheating has also he I think he's picking up on similar points to what I raised,

528
00:59:03,180 --> 00:59:07,110
I was struck, he says that the Lindsays turned their backs on the audience in the clip.

529
00:59:07,110 --> 00:59:11,990
In so doing, they seem to socially produce a space thick with hierarchies and hierarchies.

530
00:59:11,990 --> 00:59:17,370
Yeah, this is a relaxed, inclusive atmosphere. On the other, it's exclusive.

531
00:59:17,370 --> 00:59:24,090
They are turned towards an imaginary centre of culture. Those further away are less involved in the social production of space,

532
00:59:24,090 --> 00:59:27,870
given the Februaries largely contemporaneous with the time period you're looking into.

533
00:59:27,870 --> 00:59:33,720
You go along with such a Marxist analysis and for how useful do you think it might be?

534
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:39,240
Oh yeah, why not? But actually,

535
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:46,350
there's an interesting culture of what's grown up around the Chinese and it comes out in the in the discussion with the quartette with us.

536
00:59:46,350 --> 00:59:52,170
I mean, we don't want to play because we have our backs to the audience. And it's interesting that they haven't found.

537
00:59:52,170 --> 01:00:03,810
A way to show that differently in the way that it's filmed, but also talking to regulars, to court concerts, that sense of overhearing,

538
01:00:03,810 --> 01:00:13,740
of being a part of the process of the interiority of the musical experience is a lot of what people are attracted to.

539
01:00:13,740 --> 01:00:23,810
So, yes, it is deeply hierarchal and you can read it in that sense in terms of space and different layers within it.

540
01:00:23,810 --> 01:00:30,470
And it is complicated. I need to do more to work out exactly what's going on in the in the ground, because in some ways,

541
01:00:30,470 --> 01:00:36,450
if you go to somewhere like the Crucible, you can sort of see in much more.

542
01:00:36,450 --> 01:00:39,410
It doesn't feel so much as if people look at the facts to you.

543
01:00:39,410 --> 01:00:44,830
But obviously it can also mean that they can't move, as they say, like actors can't get out of the way.

544
01:00:44,830 --> 01:00:48,560
And it's an interesting question that, isn't it?

545
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:51,350
Because, of course, that's sort of started to happen in symphonic halls as well.

546
01:00:51,350 --> 01:00:56,570
I mean, the one in Cologne, as for many decades now, has that in the round set up.

547
01:00:56,570 --> 01:00:58,490
The family in Hamburg has that set up.

548
01:00:58,490 --> 01:01:07,850
So and other large ensembles are sort of using that idea of looking in and off of a type of voyeurism that comes with it.

549
01:01:07,850 --> 01:01:12,740
And but I do wonder where the ideology comes from and whether if you take the

550
01:01:12,740 --> 01:01:16,830
string quartette to people who have never witnessed the string quartette,

551
01:01:16,830 --> 01:01:23,270
not read about it and not listen to recordings of it and come with fewer preconceptions,

552
01:01:23,270 --> 01:01:29,810
whether that would be the mystique that they want and the comparison with, you know,

553
01:01:29,810 --> 01:01:34,580
with jazz performance is always a little sad, but is nonetheless quite a useful one to visualise it.

554
01:01:34,580 --> 01:01:41,990
Right. Because are we expecting the same kind of voyeurism where we aren't really infiltrating it there?

555
01:01:41,990 --> 01:01:45,770
Why are we finding it in the string quartette? Where does that come from? Yeah,

556
01:01:45,770 --> 01:01:53,330
but there's also that it goes back again to the idea that people can also be practitioners of German music as amateurs and so go to see professionals.

557
01:01:53,330 --> 01:01:56,390
And then actually in a sense of going and looking in,

558
01:01:56,390 --> 01:02:02,030
that's not so dissimilar from if you go to somebody's home and are sitting on the sofa or somebody else playing string quartettes peculiar situation.

559
01:02:02,030 --> 01:02:06,140
But I mean, it's something that is part of that culture of music making.

560
01:02:06,140 --> 01:02:09,620
And so that's sort of I wonder I'm not sure I'm convinced by this,

561
01:02:09,620 --> 01:02:19,040
but whether that is a sort of a the way the amateur musicians can sort of interact and in some ways be on the same page,

562
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:22,820
overlook the same page as the professionals in the centre. I'm not sure.

563
01:02:22,820 --> 01:02:24,470
Mhm.

564
01:02:24,470 --> 01:02:32,400
Yeah, so the the interaction becomes a sort of more metaphorical one in the moment and then it's taken out and now becomes the moment of interaction.

565
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:38,390
Yeah, yeah. We we don't really get away with the interaction with the ideology then though, don't we,

566
01:02:38,390 --> 01:02:49,610
because they they presumably they know a lot of the time re-enact the same expressivity at home in the same and loads of performance.

567
01:02:49,610 --> 01:02:56,680
Yes. No, I mean this is a both bringing into these groups but also then who is refused

568
01:02:56,680 --> 01:03:00,620
submissions and maybe nobody would ever think of it in terms of refusal of admissions.

569
01:03:00,620 --> 01:03:05,040
But it does is naturally selecting the.

570
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:12,960
Thank you, and I'll just look at the chart with the matter of why the string quartette at the ensemble of residence,

571
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:19,980
is it the fact that it has just an exclusive history? So is it about making the best music accessible?

572
01:03:19,980 --> 01:03:23,970
So we're coming back to the Marxism idea here.

573
01:03:23,970 --> 01:03:30,240
I think that I think there is an element of that and is interesting thinking about the canonical status of the String Quartette repertoire,

574
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:32,260
which I think is fairly unassailable in lots of ways.

575
01:03:32,260 --> 01:03:37,170
There are some people on the fringes, but it's very much to do with the predominantly ostrer German canon.

576
01:03:37,170 --> 01:03:42,390
But obviously there are other people within the and cutting the kind there as well.

577
01:03:42,390 --> 01:03:53,040
And it is interesting that it is so associated with that heritage. However much it gets expanded and diversified is still that idea of being cool.

578
01:03:53,040 --> 01:04:03,400
And I think there is something to be said that that's one reason why it has been within a university setting,

579
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:07,140
doesn't mean it doesn't still have a place within a university setting that it can.

580
01:04:07,140 --> 01:04:11,100
Is then also interesting as the raises the question, but why not another type of ensemble?

581
01:04:11,100 --> 01:04:14,280
There is something about that idea for people playing equally,

582
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:26,590
which I think the ideology surrounding that and the canonical repertoire means that the culture has a really special place and thank you and.

583
01:04:26,590 --> 01:04:34,270
At the moment, I can't see another question. Please put your post your questions so that we can feed them through to Laura.

584
01:04:34,270 --> 01:04:42,280
One other question I had was this interesting tension about the North and the potentially more cosmopolitan south

585
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:48,670
that seemed to be a sort of bit of rhetoric of metropolitan isn't being mapped onto the island and then the north.

586
01:04:48,670 --> 01:04:54,490
And and then the interesting choice that nevertheless the Lindsay quoted when it is chosen,

587
01:04:54,490 --> 01:04:59,740
is picked from one of the London conservatoire and is transplanted.

588
01:04:59,740 --> 01:05:06,790
So, you know, what is the the ideology there or what is happening there?

589
01:05:06,790 --> 01:05:15,190
It's interesting that almost all of the I mean, residents of turning around in Liverpool, Fitzwilliams.

590
01:05:15,190 --> 01:05:21,130
Lyndsey's are all London Sabata trained and some of them, and then it ends up Surrell Quarterly.

591
01:05:21,130 --> 01:05:24,160
I mentioned this morning, I think study with the Fitzwilliam.

592
01:05:24,160 --> 01:05:31,510
I mean, you get into that kind of genealogy of string quartettes where they both studied with each other and then go on some positions.

593
01:05:31,510 --> 01:05:40,360
And it's partly because they're the Sydney griller of the Academy, who's a renowned chamber music coach and violinist himself,

594
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:44,110
who's been at the critical time, which is very successful in the mid century.

595
01:05:44,110 --> 01:05:50,770
And so it's just a self-perpetuating idea that actually, if you want to be a to learn how to play quartettes,

596
01:05:50,770 --> 01:05:58,450
those are the places that you go to and that changes that shift when you start getting people like Chris Rolands at the RNC.

597
01:05:58,450 --> 01:06:03,760
And that becomes sort of different centres of gravity in terms of what kind of music coaching is happening.

598
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:10,810
But certainly in this particular period, is the academy primarily slightly less than music,

599
01:06:10,810 --> 01:06:18,100
which seemed to attract people who are interested in playing quartette repertoire and becoming quartettes?

600
01:06:18,100 --> 01:06:22,570
And I think a large part of this also has to do with the idea of how you become a quartette as a professional quartette,

601
01:06:22,570 --> 01:06:30,910
that it does entail a great deal of study of repertoire, but also crucially, how the ensemble comes to work together.

602
01:06:30,910 --> 01:06:34,960
I mean, this is you you've sort of put your finger on one of the sort of difficulties again there, don't you?

603
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:41,500
Because there is a sort of sense if one play devil's advocate, where one could look at this entire programme and say, wonderful,

604
01:06:41,500 --> 01:06:43,480
this gave the highly trained,

605
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:51,610
very elitist education and trained players a wonderful sort of sounding board where they could go and try new repertoire.

606
01:06:51,610 --> 01:06:58,480
Right. Play it quite badly until they played it five times and then they can go and take it to the real audience who properly appreciates it.

607
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:01,390
Right. So it's a sort of dangerous out there.

608
01:07:01,390 --> 01:07:10,450
And I found that interesting in the tension that they like to have the young quartette that is itself being trained,

609
01:07:10,450 --> 01:07:15,910
but they also like to use the North as its training ground.

610
01:07:15,910 --> 01:07:19,360
Is that is that a difficulty? How do you reconcile that?

611
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:27,310
And have you found anything where they are not just using it in terms of learning new repertoire and bringing you, you know,

612
01:07:27,310 --> 01:07:31,720
trying out new and difficult repertoire such as the Shostakovich, for example,

613
01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:37,840
and also delivering or developing new ways of delivering the performing.

614
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:41,560
You did mention that they started talking to them and that was a new thing.

615
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:46,510
They had to do verbal introductions and. But does it go beyond that?

616
01:07:46,510 --> 01:07:53,070
Are they gaining something else from that and reading and try it around?

617
01:07:53,070 --> 01:07:58,380
I think there's a lot to be said for the audiences that build up around these groups,

618
01:07:58,380 --> 01:08:05,700
which are fiercely loyal and is partly, but they're also making music themselves.

619
01:08:05,700 --> 01:08:11,730
But it's also that they actually really care and invest both emotionally and sometimes financially in these groups.

620
01:08:11,730 --> 01:08:17,750
There's a great sort of civic pride and a protectiveness of them, a.

621
01:08:17,750 --> 01:08:25,820
I wonder whether you can say that actually, yes, this experimentation, a willingness to try new things and open mindedness there,

622
01:08:25,820 --> 01:08:32,370
rather than just expecting the latest Clipse offering from off the continent whose time it happens to be in London.

623
01:08:32,370 --> 01:08:40,390
But actually the idea of supporting a team, if you will, which I think is important without wanting to.

624
01:08:40,390 --> 01:08:44,950
Suggests that there's any reason why the people of Manchester or Stoeckle Sheffield should not have

625
01:08:44,950 --> 01:08:50,440
as fine an appreciation of Quartette repertoire and playing as anyone anywhere else in the country.

626
01:08:50,440 --> 01:08:56,020
But I think so it's interesting in terms of who travels and what kinds of practises get built around it,

627
01:08:56,020 --> 01:08:59,980
but also an idea of what the function of culture is,

628
01:08:59,980 --> 01:09:07,270
that if you look at the industrial cities and the importance of having access to culture is really pronounced,

629
01:09:07,270 --> 01:09:13,960
and that has a lot to do with actually introducing it to people. The people do need to be educated and you can't just assume that people know things.

630
01:09:13,960 --> 01:09:20,350
And I think that's a great strength of the musical cultures within those kind of cities.

631
01:09:20,350 --> 01:09:23,620
And it's one reason why these quartettes get the reputation that they do,

632
01:09:23,620 --> 01:09:27,700
because actually, if they hadn't had the opportunity of playing, of being tested,

633
01:09:27,700 --> 01:09:36,160
of having to talk to people in the audience after the in the interval in the bar of actually trying to engage and explain what they do,

634
01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:41,830
then that can only enrich the kinds of ways they present themselves wherever.

635
01:09:41,830 --> 01:09:50,290
It's interesting saying in that clip, when I think it's the viola players, as I sometimes I quite enjoyed playing up,

636
01:09:50,290 --> 01:09:54,450
dressing up for concerts, but actually I also quite enjoy these more informal sessions.

637
01:09:54,450 --> 01:09:57,220
Sometimes it's much easier for them to be in a more formal session because they

638
01:09:57,220 --> 01:10:01,990
don't have to engage is much harder to do that kind of audience engagement,

639
01:10:01,990 --> 01:10:06,570
particularly if you're primarily a performer and haven't thought about talking to people.

640
01:10:06,570 --> 01:10:16,580
In that way, yeah, I hope that's something that has changed in today's education system.

641
01:10:16,580 --> 01:10:22,710
Yeah, it's interesting that that the development of a civic pride that you point to there and the idea of a protectiveness

642
01:10:22,710 --> 01:10:28,140
and that I think that parallels that you do that with supporting a team is is a really interesting one.

643
01:10:28,140 --> 01:10:36,750
And I wonder, does it do you get a sense of reading the first hand account of people who are starting to support

644
01:10:36,750 --> 01:10:44,490
these groups and that they see themselves as sort of more globally connected through this as well?

645
01:10:44,490 --> 01:10:51,090
Is there something that sort of goes beyond your Jewishness or is there more of a sort of national rhetoric?

646
01:10:51,090 --> 01:11:00,990
And in of having these Home-Grown String quartettes that start to tour the country and and that you have helped to promote,

647
01:11:00,990 --> 01:11:06,030
that you have helped to to bring to where they get to?

648
01:11:06,030 --> 01:11:08,880
I think you can go every every way.

649
01:11:08,880 --> 01:11:16,620
That can be pride in the fact that the quartette who you've watched over the years has ended up winning an international prise.

650
01:11:16,620 --> 01:11:20,110
And it's a kind of we have them first. We understand the best mentality, too.

651
01:11:20,110 --> 01:11:22,500
But there's also, I think,

652
01:11:22,500 --> 01:11:30,450
a large part of China music is about we want to keep these groups for ourselves and don't necessarily want to share them with people.

653
01:11:30,450 --> 01:11:34,560
So I think there is an interesting tension between wanting to have a local base

654
01:11:34,560 --> 01:11:38,940
and then having the international reputation and the hardness of the touring life,

655
01:11:38,940 --> 01:11:45,630
as well as a sort of certain routine and returning to places which can be quite reassuring and knowing that there are

656
01:11:45,630 --> 01:11:51,570
supportive audiences and that you will get an audience is something that can also be really important for groups group.

657
01:11:51,570 --> 01:11:55,740
So I'm not necessarily sure it's true, but of sort of nationalism.

658
01:11:55,740 --> 01:12:04,620
I think this is something where regionalism can really play a strong role in terms of thinking about how groups are received.

659
01:12:04,620 --> 01:12:12,930
Thank you. Alexander Douglas has just posted a question. He would like you to talk a little bit more about the function of listening as opposed

660
01:12:12,930 --> 01:12:22,570
to hearing in these settings with the quartette step out into these new environments.

661
01:12:22,570 --> 01:12:27,110
There's a lot that could be said about the difference between listening and hearing, I suppose.

662
01:12:27,110 --> 01:12:33,590
If we think of the conventional black tie concert experience and how we think of in a very stereotypical way,

663
01:12:33,590 --> 01:12:41,270
of course, that there's an idea of a dedicated, attentive listener that has come about through the 19th century and is still the primary

664
01:12:41,270 --> 01:12:49,190
way in which we think about how we should consume quartettes in the concert hall.

665
01:12:49,190 --> 01:12:52,380
In terms of hearing quartettes, it's difficult.

666
01:12:52,380 --> 01:12:58,550
I mean, if we think of quartettes as background music and they still can be very much coded in class terms as involving black tie and everything else,

667
01:12:58,550 --> 01:13:03,470
and we're thinking must be kind of receptions and quartettes obviously also have

668
01:13:03,470 --> 01:13:08,900
a part to play that is a different kind of less attentive background listening,

669
01:13:08,900 --> 01:13:15,110
which you might think of more as overhearing, if you mean actually because I've mentioned overhearing,

670
01:13:15,110 --> 01:13:20,270
there's that sense of being part of quite a private musical experience in performance,

671
01:13:20,270 --> 01:13:24,290
which I think as we keep on using the word ideology of the string quartette is

672
01:13:24,290 --> 01:13:27,920
actually quite fundamental to the idea of how folk people make music together.

673
01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:35,840
And being able to have access to that overhearing is something that I think is something that is really valued within the quartette context,

674
01:13:35,840 --> 01:13:41,770
although it's not a word that gets used very often. Thank you.

675
01:13:41,770 --> 01:13:47,770
Maybe we can finish with a final few words, what is your sense then?

676
01:13:47,770 --> 01:13:54,280
This idea of residences, of course, is something that is there with us that we still do in institutions across the country.

677
01:13:54,280 --> 01:13:58,750
How do you think that has changed the purpose of these residences?

678
01:13:58,750 --> 01:14:02,380
Has it changed or how do you think it should change?

679
01:14:02,380 --> 01:14:07,940
What do you think their role and function can be today in our changed landscape?

680
01:14:07,940 --> 01:14:12,230
I think actually the kinds of things that they do and that they should be doing are very similar to what

681
01:14:12,230 --> 01:14:18,580
was being done in the late 60s and 70s in terms of having a sense of supporting music making on campus.

682
01:14:18,580 --> 01:14:29,030
However, that's defined and interacting with composers in the creation of new music staff and students teaching students,

683
01:14:29,030 --> 01:14:34,790
but also what now is called outreach activities actually now has much more to do with

684
01:14:34,790 --> 01:14:41,470
going into schools and accessing people at the primary school level particularly,

685
01:14:41,470 --> 01:14:47,480
but more than anything else. And that's a result of changes in the music education system and the fact that we don't have the same kind of

686
01:14:47,480 --> 01:14:54,560
music provision that was around in the 70s and 80s for people to actually learn instruments in the first place.

687
01:14:54,560 --> 01:14:59,720
So I think that is actually feeding through from school education,

688
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:03,710
through university system means that the function of the quartette in residence is change as the

689
01:15:03,710 --> 01:15:09,470
most substantial thing I can think of in terms of thinking about community building and building,

690
01:15:09,470 --> 01:15:20,780
sort a technical and historical musical awareness and knowledge, then that's something that still quartettes and residences do quite extensively.

691
01:15:20,780 --> 01:15:27,530
One thing that I think has become more true in recent years and was less true once the audiences got in so much that they say they were very,

692
01:15:27,530 --> 01:15:33,920
very long time. And that did change. As I sort of mentioned at the end of my paper, the way that the court has worked within the institution,

693
01:15:33,920 --> 01:15:36,860
because there was a history that people knew them very well.

694
01:15:36,860 --> 01:15:42,980
There were certain things they weren't as willing to do when they were touring a lot as opposed to when they first started out.

695
01:15:42,980 --> 01:15:47,990
Now, a lot of young quartettes will be in residence for three years or so.

696
01:15:47,990 --> 01:15:50,570
And so that goes back in some ways to the original scheme.

697
01:15:50,570 --> 01:15:58,370
Q Which is is the chance for a quartette to build their own reputation in a supportive environment where they can experiment,

698
01:15:58,370 --> 01:16:06,770
but they can also just study. And that's something that I think is could be lurking in some of the residences which

699
01:16:06,770 --> 01:16:11,450
are here to have actually that support a foundation on which to build a reputation,

700
01:16:11,450 --> 01:16:15,950
I think is something where residences and universities are still really important, which,

701
01:16:15,950 --> 01:16:20,210
of course, is a wonderful thing for the quartette of Hollywood, which is a chamber group.

702
01:16:20,210 --> 01:16:26,150
It is. It's the thing that makes it slightly more difficult to think of the places,

703
01:16:26,150 --> 01:16:31,160
the local communities of the residences, not just as a sort of trial ground, right?

704
01:16:31,160 --> 01:16:38,000
Yeah, the football team is never going to leave, but the quartettes might get to the point where they come back maybe once a year,

705
01:16:38,000 --> 01:16:44,330
if that, you know, so they they they leave their hands behind in a certain way and in some way.

706
01:16:44,330 --> 01:16:52,910
It seems that these residencies are designed to train someone who is going to go and leave there, their fans and their loyal followers.

707
01:16:52,910 --> 01:17:01,610
Like most students, it's a very similar process. But yes, it does change and it changes the constitution of the community around the group.

708
01:17:01,610 --> 01:17:08,300
And there's obviously things that are lost with that. But in some ways, it could also be a sort of healthy learning process.

709
01:17:08,300 --> 01:17:12,560
Yeah, thank you. I think you've spoken to the sustainability of the residents.

710
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:22,560
Is there a lot, a little bit to the psyche that has been through that we are going back to to something that was originally envisaged?

711
01:17:22,560 --> 01:17:37,780
And do we have any further questions? Giving it a few seconds to see whether anything else is coming through.

712
01:17:37,780 --> 01:17:43,660
Otherwise, I think we should probably say a huge thank you to Laura for this really fascinating,

713
01:17:43,660 --> 01:17:52,040
stimulating paper, which I think has an old Tom Hyde has written that you haven't answered his question yet.

714
01:17:52,040 --> 01:17:57,490
Shall I read the oh, can you say something about the sustainability of these residences when Scott had left?

715
01:17:57,490 --> 01:18:04,270
Did they automatically get replaced by another quartette? It varies a lot, certainly amongst the.

716
01:18:04,270 --> 01:18:13,660
Yes, but are a place by the cattle down. The Fitzwilliam, I think were replaced by the Surrell, but I'd have to check it other places.

717
01:18:13,660 --> 01:18:17,020
Sometimes it's a bit of a agap quite often.

718
01:18:17,020 --> 01:18:22,120
Now universities have applied for sort of short term contracts for these groups rather than something that's just a rolling.

719
01:18:22,120 --> 01:18:26,740
There will be a residency and it varies according to institutions.

720
01:18:26,740 --> 01:18:35,710
And the question of how could such maintain relationships with the institutions that they've left is also an interesting one,

721
01:18:35,710 --> 01:18:38,620
because usually what if there is another quartette in residence,

722
01:18:38,620 --> 01:18:46,570
then that tends to supplant the opportunity to return, but it's not impossible for that to happen and for them to continue with.

723
01:18:46,570 --> 01:18:50,890
Building connexions with the communities I worked with as amateurs or whatever,

724
01:18:50,890 --> 01:18:56,350
so it's difficult and is also something where the funding becomes critical in

725
01:18:56,350 --> 01:19:00,610
terms of finding other foundations that will support it or even more rarely,

726
01:19:00,610 --> 01:19:07,390
funding institutions that will support it themselves. And of course, it raises interesting questions then about the reception from the audience.

727
01:19:07,390 --> 01:19:11,710
Right. Is there scepticism when a new group comes in and a sort of sense of loss that

728
01:19:11,710 --> 01:19:15,640
the one that you have established that relationship with and who you have

729
01:19:15,640 --> 01:19:27,040
seen grow is is the party or is is it built up in such a way that actually it's the excitement off of the new quartette as well as the new repertoire?

730
01:19:27,040 --> 01:19:30,190
That was the tension that we've had? One more question come through.

731
01:19:30,190 --> 01:19:37,450
And John Whittle writes, I'm interested in the aspect of the ensemble building and audience then then growing great with them,

732
01:19:37,450 --> 01:19:43,360
maybe a wide issue across music making with choirs, including amateurs.

733
01:19:43,360 --> 01:19:47,830
Yes. No, it is a is an interesting issue, an important one.

734
01:19:47,830 --> 01:19:51,670
And I think actually one thing that really struck me when I've done work on the 1920s is that

735
01:19:51,670 --> 01:19:55,450
people already then are complaining about the graveyard's haired audience for classical music.

736
01:19:55,450 --> 01:20:00,400
So I think there's a time of life thing where people actually have the time and the money to spend

737
01:20:00,400 --> 01:20:05,180
on going to subscription concerts that they don't have when they're earlier in their careers,

738
01:20:05,180 --> 01:20:08,410
were raising families or whatever.

739
01:20:08,410 --> 01:20:14,890
So I think in some ways, yes, it is a concern and it is something where you always think that you are wanting to attract younger audiences.

740
01:20:14,890 --> 01:20:20,920
But there does seem to be a kind of consistent turn to certain kinds of conversations

741
01:20:20,920 --> 01:20:28,510
with people at certain stages of their lives in terms of the audiences,

742
01:20:28,510 --> 01:20:37,570
in terms of musicians. But sharing with the audience is, of course, that's a very deep way of creating a bond with a particular audience or community.

743
01:20:37,570 --> 01:20:42,310
And there's a lot to be gained from that in terms of those long term relationships.

744
01:20:42,310 --> 01:20:48,820
And with a quartette in particular, it doesn't mean that you really do get a sense of how the ensemble matures and changes with changes in personnel.

745
01:20:48,820 --> 01:20:55,360
And all of that is so very hard to predict what will happen in terms of how that all works out.

746
01:20:55,360 --> 01:21:00,850
And so I think it's something where, as with almost all of these topics, you can argue it either way, pluses and minuses.

747
01:21:00,850 --> 01:21:06,730
And I think it's something that is worth being aware of, not being afraid of that ageing population,

748
01:21:06,730 --> 01:21:15,760
because I think actually that still is a major contribution, hopefully will remain a major concentration of audiences and people who appreciate them.

749
01:21:15,760 --> 01:21:22,180
I wonder on that note, to what degree is the rhetoric of the sort of child prodigy comes into it?

750
01:21:22,180 --> 01:21:26,710
Is there a sense that actually this renewal through residencies where you always have the young group,

751
01:21:26,710 --> 01:21:33,100
is something that is coveted by by particular audiences and particularly by audiences

752
01:21:33,100 --> 01:21:40,330
who don't have maybe the sort of wealth of five concert halls in their city,

753
01:21:40,330 --> 01:21:48,850
but that there's a sort of sense of seeing the new thing, seeing the the exciting thing in the very unusual thing in that youth.

754
01:21:48,850 --> 01:21:59,290
Because, of course, what strikes me is the discrepancy between the older audiences, if it is a time of life thing and the youth of these groups,

755
01:21:59,290 --> 01:22:04,210
if they're coming straight after their degree and moving into one of these residencies, certainly today,

756
01:22:04,210 --> 01:22:13,520
they often do what you know, what is the dynamic in that divide and what relationship does that inspire?

757
01:22:13,520 --> 01:22:17,990
I think relationships of patronage can be very important in this instance in terms of adopting

758
01:22:17,990 --> 01:22:23,810
a young group and seeing how they mature and the excitement of that and seeing what happens.

759
01:22:23,810 --> 01:22:28,880
And you can see that a lot in the histories of quartettes, where they started out as a young group, they start to get appreciated.

760
01:22:28,880 --> 01:22:34,460
Somebody then loans them instruments. That takes them on to another level. They win a competition that takes them on.

761
01:22:34,460 --> 01:22:38,480
So there's that sense of support, which I think can be very important.

762
01:22:38,480 --> 01:22:47,750
It takes a while to become an established quartette. I don't I can't think of any kind of real prodigy quartette that just tends not to happen.

763
01:22:47,750 --> 01:22:52,520
There is a sense in which it is about the group working together on the whole,

764
01:22:52,520 --> 01:23:00,500
rather than the kind of virtuosity from the idea myself, you know, you certainly don't don't have them in their teens.

765
01:23:00,500 --> 01:23:05,930
But but this is a similar thing, right, that you have the quartette in the fifties and the quartette in his late 20s.

766
01:23:05,930 --> 01:23:14,120
And I think that, you know, within that world, the one in their late 20s are the wunderkind and eclipse.

767
01:23:14,120 --> 01:23:17,630
Yeah, that's. But yes, this a slightly different idea of what youth means.

768
01:23:17,630 --> 01:23:23,150
But I mean, that's quite often the case. Yeah. Thank you.

769
01:23:23,150 --> 01:23:26,900
And of course, the idea of patronage, if that plays into that,

770
01:23:26,900 --> 01:23:34,340
becomes another way perhaps of inhabiting those worlds in the same way that you were sort of drawing those networks between

771
01:23:34,340 --> 01:23:43,070
what people come and spectate and look in on and then take home and re-enact possibly through the acts of patronage,

772
01:23:43,070 --> 01:23:50,720
that there may be similar senses of identification with what is happening in artistically that.

773
01:23:50,720 --> 01:23:58,920
Yeah, very interesting. And. I cannot see any further questions at the moment, we have five minutes to four.

774
01:23:58,920 --> 01:24:04,260
I think we are going to say a huge thank you to Laura for really stimulating paper that I think

775
01:24:04,260 --> 01:24:11,070
has set up the symposium really very nicely and lots of the strands that you brought out.

776
01:24:11,070 --> 01:24:19,290
We keep coming back over the next session. Thank you very much to everyone for attending and listening.

777
01:24:19,290 --> 01:25:00,068
And we hope to see you in the next sessions.