Futuristic and human

With the Marmen Quartet’s debut recording of Ligeti and Bartók coming out this month, violinist Laia Valentin Braun discusses the complexities of learning Ligeti’s language, and explains why audiences respond so well to its combination of futurism and humanity

What are the challenges of playing this music?

Ligeti’s Second Quartet is probably the hardest thing we’ve ever had to learn, technically. It’s notated extremely precisely and is highly virtuosic. There are many very fast passages, and extreme dynamics, from quadruple pianissimo to quadruple forte, switching quickly. It requires a huge knowledge of your instrument to be able to execute all these instructions. In the end, it should sound extremely atmospheric and simple. All these details should result in an experience that is human and natural.

The First and Second Quartets are very different. In the First, Ligeti seems to be looking back to Bartók and the Hungarian tradition, so it has many folk music influences and rhythms. In the Second, he looks to the future, and doesn’t give you much to hold on to with which you’re familiar. 

All three works on our album are related and there is an arc that connects them, but they’re also incredibly different in sound. We have to use different costumes for each one. I hope we chose correctly and that we got to the deep musical core of each work, to make them come alive.

What was your process in recording the works?

Sinéad and I joined the quartet around the same time, and Johannes and Bryony had already played Ligeti’s First Quartet quite extensively, so we had to learn it very quickly, to be convincing, performing it straight away. The more intellectual part of the process came later on. When it came to the recording, we deconstructed it as a group and put it back together. 

The Second Quartet was new to all of us, in a musical language that none of us had studied together. We had to work hard individually and then go through it together slowly, accepting that the process is time-consuming. We would take a passage and play it maybe a fifth under tempo. We would start with just two of us playing, because it’s so difficult to listen actively to four parts at the same time. 

We often rehearse like this, playing in pairs or different combinations, slowly working the tempo up, but with Ligeti we had to take it to the extreme and go much slower, note by note, to see how things line up. You don’t have have anything to hold on to. In a Haydn quartet, you’re familiar with the harmonic language and structure – he usually writes in four-bar phrases, which you understand. With Ligeti, we didn’t speak the language yet, and we had to learn it by going very, very slowly through the score together. 

How much flexibility does Ligeti allow with his writing?

In the Second, he writes many instructions. It seems like he’s controlling you in every bit of execution, but how you actually execute those instructions is still up to you. For example, he might write a very high note for the two violins, triple forte, and say ‘as a shriek’, but he doesn’t tell you how to put the bow on the string, or use your left hand. That’s still up to the musician. I don’t think that the secondary information (such as dynamics and markings, rather than actual notes and structure) limits the amount of the expression the musician is allowed, though. It’s just a different way of guiding the musician through a simple score. 

What does it feel like to perform this music?

We performed all these pieces a lot in the season prior to recording them. Ligeti’s Second Quartet is extremely physical and exhausting. In one of the movements he marks that you should lose all the hair on your bow after playing it. That’s a hint as to how far the musician has to go to express this music. His First Quartet and Bartók’s Fourth are more rooted in folk, but they also have intense moments. The challenge is more to remember that when the composers write fortissimo, in a rhythm, it clearly comes from folk tradition, and fortissimo in that context doesn’t mean going all out. These rhythms should dance. This is a different for fortissimo in Ligeti’s Second Quartet, where he writes fortissimo as a shriek.

What sort of reaction do you get from audiences to Ligeti?

We sometimes hear from promoters, ‘Oh, we’re not sure audiences are going to like that.’ But whenever we have played this music, the audience has loved it. The First Quartet is so approachable – more so than a late Beethoven quartet – because the images and musical ideas are so strong. It’s written as one movement, but there are variations which have very clear characters, moving quickly between them. It’s entertaining and theatrical, with extreme dynamics, and all easily understandable. The Second Quartet is more challenging, but its five movements are quite short and all have clear characters and sounds. It’s colourful and diverse, and the audience response has always been very good. At the end, people often say, ‘I didn’t expect I would like this as much as I did.’ But I’m not surprised that people like it because it’s such good music and the ideas are so strong and clear.

What were your ideas behind the CD design?

As this is our debut album, we wanted to make every aspect of the CD as attractive and convincing as possible, so we put a lot of thought and love into the artwork. We chose the location carefully, and the photographer, Joe Cornish, who photographs landscapes. The photograph was taken at Abbot’s Cliff sound mirror in Kent. These huge sound mirrors were built in the Second World War as an analogue way of hearing enemy aircraft approaching, amplifying the sound. We thought it was a striking image: the wild coastline juxtaposed with this man-made brutalist construction. We feel this contrast in the music. It sounds so forward-looking and futuristic, but is really expressing nature and humanity. There is folk music in Bartók and Ligeti, and very human emotions, even in Ligeti’s Second Quartet, which seems so avant garde. We wanted this clash – or union – of a man-made future with nature. 

What do you learn about life in a string quartet?

As a concept, the string quartet never ceases to challenge and satisfy you. The fact that you’re working so intensely and closely with three other people, on such repertoire, is unique. It creates wonderful moments on both human and musical levels. You learn that you don’t have to solve everything. Problems should be resolved, obviously, but you don’t need to have definite answers to all the questions. 

You’re sharing most of your time with four other people who are not your partners or family. You learn to listen, and to embrace and embody other people’s ideas, even though they might not be yours – to try them out and see how that feels. One needs to be extremely open, trusting and respectful. 

The beautiful thing about string quartets is that we can go so deeply into the detail of the music during the rehearsal process, finding the core of why we want to play a certain note a certain way. This can become extremely ridiculous – we can sometimes spend three hours on two bars or even one note, as if it’s existential. Obviously, it’s not – in the end, it’s music.

We try to navigate all the components of string quartet life around our core values of love, trust and respect. It’s not always easy, but those are our goals.

What’s next for the quartet?

It’s such a privilege to record with BIS, and we are very happy that our second album, of Ravel, Debussy and Takemitsu, is already recorded and will come out next year. After the amazing repertoire on this debut disc, we’re looking forward to a different musical language, demonstrating that we are versatile and committed to each musical language.