Communal Tunes

Mather’s Chamber Music Program seeks to teach students the fundamentals of chamber music. As with all classical forms, part of this training is technical: a professional musician from the Boston area serves as a coach. However, Mather also offers teambuilding activities, largely geared at understanding musician body language, as a key part of learning the art of chamber music. How can group dynamics training improve the quality of music written hundreds of years ago?

For Na’Ama Lion, tutor and director of the Mather House Chamber Music Program, these unconventional forms of practice are necessary for the mutual dependence in chamber groups. “Sometimes groups will practice without music, using clapping exercises to practice taking turns to lead [the melody, as in performance],” she says. Some groups have gone as far as sitting in circles, facing away from each other, and practicing cues. “They can actually sense when each other is going to start [or respond to the cue].”

While orchestras and other large music groups enable individuals to be a part of a powerful, unified soundscape, in them only solos give individual musicians free reign of expression. Chamber music is a unique combination of both: it allows a musician to play with peers without sacrificing a personal interpretation of the piece. These aspects together create intimate dynamics of musical expression not possible in solos and large ensembles.

CHAMBER CLAUS

“It’s a beautiful thing,” says musician Daniel Stepner. “When four people come together because they’re inspired by a piece of music, even if there are differences in levels of accomplishment, there’s a special focus to it.” The disparate talents of each musician come together to create a variegated and interpretive whole.

Stepner is a world-renowned musician who has performed and recorded as concertmaster in a number of orchestras, such as the Boston Baroque, as well as in chamber music groups. Currently, he’s the first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet at Brandeis University and a preceptor in music at Harvard who teaches Music 187r: “Chamber Music Performance.” We’re talking in the office he shares with Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Music Professor Robert D. Levin, surrounded by stacks of sheet music, a clock with a face adorned with musical notes, and a grand piano. Stepner’s white beard, friendly eyes, and round spectacles are unmistakably Santa-esque.

His passion for chamber music, which is for many the most democratic and inclusive form of classical music, fits well with his St. Nick appearance. “It’s a medium between playing as a soloist and a subordinate role in a large ensemble,” he says. The musician gets the best of a large group’s power and the creativity present in any solo.

SELF-CONDUCTING

Chamber music, a formally unique kind of classical music, was first popularized in the 1600s as a way for groups of 10 or fewer musicians to play together intimately. Groups can be composed of various different instruments but typically include piano, string instruments, flute, and bassoon. Common ensembles include string quartets (two violins, viola, and cello), piano trios, and instrumental duos.

The primary difference between chamber music and other classical forms is the lack of a conductor. Unlike the orchestral setup, in which a single person controls the group’s musical interpretation, chamber music groups are self-directed. They rely on each other’s understanding of the entire piece and on spontaneous coordination with other members.

Ryan A. Murphy ’14, who is enrolled in the Harvard/New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) Joint Program, tells me about the student experience of playing and training in chamber groups. His bright, blue eyes light up as he speaks.

“Chamber music is great because it requires active participation and collaboration between individual musicians in order to make successful performances and interpretations,” says Murphy. Active participation is not only facilitated but also necessitated by the lack of a conductor. Thus, the horizontal relationships intrinsic to chamber music are part of what Murphy appreciates about the form.

This difference also makes chamber music risky. “With that many people, something might go wrong,” he says. “There is just so much diversity in individual interpretation.” Individual interpretation has to be coordinated to create a coherent overall sound. In ensembles, members need to stay synchronized with each other; the larger the ensemble, the more difficult it is to play cohesively.

TEAM GAME

Cohesion comes easily with a conductor. And in large ensembles, like orchestras, the conductor is necessary to unite many diverse timbres into a single voice. “The intimate collaboration [experienced in chamber music] is impossible between individuals in a full-sized orchestra, which is why the conductor is there: to keep everyone together and provide them with musical direction,” Murphy says.

Although it allows musicians to be part of a powerful voice, playing in an orchestra has its cost: musicians may feel that they are submitting to a kind of anonymity, even a loss of individual expression in the music they’re playing.

“In orchestras, everyone’s important, but it is almost total submission to the orchestra conductor. It’s not that you don’t contribute to it but no one person shines, except in solos,” Murphy says. “For the most part, everyone contributes to a single interpretation.”

The authoritarian role of the conductor in large-scale orchestras may be mitigated by the input from musicians on the interpretation of choice, but the leader has ultimate control. “I mean, it’s a wonderful thing, playing in an orchestra, but it’s a bit of a dictatorial situation. It’s so centralized,” says Stepner.

Chamber music, on the other hand, “is like a democracy … It’s up to the group to decide what nuances and depths to play the music.” says Lion. Classical music tends to be the strange example of an art that does not put a premium on individual creative expression—the goal is just to stick to the conductor’s interpretation of the piece. In large orchestras, interpretive credit goes to the conductor and the musicians just try to be faithful to the material at hand. Chamber music enlivens the material for musicians seeking their own take on a given work.

The final product of chamber music done right requires a dynamic balance between the thoughts of each musician. “You really have to have a strong, cohesive interpretation and a sense of the group … That’s one of the reasons why you don’t play with a leader because you are really collaborating equally with other musicians,” says Murphy. Because each team member takes responsibility of the group’s success, each individual shares the role of the leader.

By fostering a team environment, chamber music groups develop a unified vision while maintaining individual dynamics. Lion calls this product “a conversation through music.” It is largely unplanned, then, and constantly evolving.

SEEING THE WHOLE

By playing in chamber music groups, musicians have the opportunity to hone their musical intuition and gain a more comprehensive understanding of the music. “In a quartet … [you have] to have a really good understanding of what’s going on in all four parts of the music,” says Murphy. The musician becomes acquainted with the piece as a whole.

In that process, each musician comes away with their own understanding. “For every one feature [in a piece], there are possibly 20 ways to interpret it. So, one person’s interpretation isn’t necessarily the same as another’s,” says Stepner. “One of the challenges and joys of chamber music is balancing negotiating and assertiveness. It’s about sacrifice, but it’s also about fun.”

This openness is evident in both performance and practice. “In class, students will make suggestions as to how to play a certain part,” says Stepner. “Sometimes I make snap judgements, but then we try it out—on principle, I try everything out—and often it works and we include it in the performance.” Collaboration leads to experimentation. Greater musical comprehension and more creative freedom make chamber music a particularly valuable learning experience at the student level.

MODERN SPIRIT

It’s appropriate to the point of its form that chamber music generates a sense of community. Jennifer Huang, President of the Harvard Law School (HLS) Chamber Music Society, claims that chamber music creates an especially emotional experience for players. The HLS Chamber Music Society has 14 active chamber music groups that Huang organizes herself. She shows me the spreadsheet of all the members with details like instruments each musician plays and his or her previous experience. “We collaborate with the Medical School and Business School chamber music societies with charity events as well,” she says. “After all, it’s called the ‘music of friends’.”

This social aspect can be as important as the musical end result. “A lot of people would say that chamber music is the most fun part about being a musician,” Murphy says. “Through how [other musicians] play the music, you can get to know more about them as people.”

Stepner has also observed how chamber music can bring musicians together. “A lot of the time, student [musicians] will somehow find each other and form ad hoc music groups. There’s a real community of musicians here. It’s really quite fascinating.”

What makes chamber music different is not simply an aesthetic component, then, but a social one as well. It is this singular meshing of social equality and aesthetic freedom that draws students and professors to this kind of classical music. It is the modern spirit of one the West’s oldest and most hallowed arts.

—Staff writer Vivian W. Leung can be reached at vivianleung@college.harvard.edu.