Old-School Chamber Music

We stared at an empty coach’s chair. It was unusual, said the other three, for Felix Galimir to be late. So we brushed up a few passages, alternating playing with talking, voicing questions tinged with nervous anticipation. The cellist asked if we thought our coach would hear the entire Haydn quartet or just the first movement. The first violinist reminded us that we were going to get yelled at, no matter what we played. I wondered aloud if someone that old really “yelled.” We began to play another passage.

As if on cue, the door to the adjoining bathroom burst open, and along with the sound of running water, we experienced a verbal barrage: “No! Why so short and picky, the sixteenth notes? I cannot hear the second violin! And you, cello, you must really play here!” Evidently our coaching had begun on time.

Over the next few years, I witnessed the full range of emotion from our coach, whom we addressed as “Mr. Galimir,” but who was known among us by his last name alone. Though he was 86 when he began working with us, he remained a firebrand. He jumped into the air and roared, crouched low and whispered, stomped around like a big game hunter, and at every moment seemed much larger than any of us, though the opposite was the case. Happily married, music was still his first love, and to play her with less than total dedication was to slap her in the face. To play sloppily, even with deep feeling, spoke to a lack of dedication in the practice room and earned the same scorn. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Felix Galimir was sincerely loved, for every chamber musician at Curtis had his or her own version of the man’s rusty-door-hinge Viennese accent.

In music, as in sports, an “old-school” coach demands results and brooks no excuses. As we had never experienced coaching like Mr. Galimir’s, the first few weeks of the year discouraged our quartet. But without realizing it, we were taking big steps forward. The knowledge that we had to perform for such discerning ears each week actually freed us from endless discussion and pointed us in the direction of progress through playing. Music, not English, became our first language during rehearsal, and the true test of any theory was its worthiness in performance.
Of these practical considerations, the one most important to Mr. Galimir was balance. We were usually able to recognize the melodic line and to let it be heard. But woe to the group who achieved this at the expense of vitality in the other voices! As the second violinist in our quartet, I bore the brunt of many assaults when I failed to play up to the others’ dynamic level. Since the second violin, from the audience’s point of view, sits behind the first violin, I often had to produce more sound than the first in order to give the illusion of equality. In this, I was a slow learner. In our quartet’s sessions, Mr. Galimir’s repeated voicing of “Not enough second violin!” was a constant refrain.

During one coaching session in Curtis Hall, we were concentrating on Beethoven’s “Harp” quartet, Opus 74. Near the end of the first movement, the first violin explodes into an extended passage of diminished arpeggios. The second violin adds a singing melody, increasing the tension, and at the exact point when the arpeggios finally resolve into the home key of E flat, this melody must soar. As Galimir’s favorite role was that of second violin, this was a special moment, and he was not happy with what we did with it.

To the first violin, who seemed to be hitting all the notes: “Soovin! Your arpeggios…I cannot hear a thing, it is a jumble! Please accent the first note of every four.” We played again, a loud foot stomp interrupting us.

“You don’t understand. Accent only the first note of every four!” Again we played the passage, and Soovin etched the requested notes into the string. Was this not what was wanted?

“NO! Am I going deaf, or can I simply not hear…the first of every four!” This time, we could not even hear ourselves above Soovin’s “first of every four”, since he blasted them with an articulation I did not think possible. I expected satisfaction from our coach, but I had forgotten one thing.

“Wait, wait, wait! Where is the melody in the second violin?” After a moment of angry silence, even Galimir realized that he had set me an impossible task and broke into a chuckle.

Quiet moments were rare, but they struck with maximum force. Once, after listening to us play the slow movement from Mozart’s G-minor viola quintet, he remained motionless in his chair, eyes closed—and then finally, with obvious effort, opening. “You must play this…when I go.”

“When you go where?”

“When I go.”

There were no other comments. Was this coaching? For the rest of my life I may never remember what else Mr. Galimir said about the piece, but I will be unable to play it without investing all that I have.