Tokyo String Quartet – The Four Musketeers of Music

To watch four men fueled by a deep commitment to chamber music perform with intense conviction and emotion was awe-inspiring and evoked internally hidden feelings to physically manifest. An ensemble comprising solely of string instruments, with one member wielding a cello, two members wielding violins and another member wielding a viola, the strokes, down-bow and up-bow, were moving in an orchestrated manner to produce melodies dictated by particular paces. At certain points, the melody being played was in allegro (fast) or adagio (slow) or in some other tempo. The passion infused into the music can easily be seen from the swaying motion of their bodies.

Nowadays, choreographed music videos rid the accompanying background music of its “authenticity” because these videos cannot capture the true feelings experienced by the singers / musicians at the time of composition. Formerly a cello player, I was intrigued at the quality of the music due to the long duration of the pieces before any rosin was applied to the bows to maintain the coarse horse hairs’ firm grips on the strings of the instruments. I did not question the tuning of the instruments, for usually high temperatures are the main cause of the strings becoming out of tune in a smaller interval of time. Although the music reminded me of the scenarios in Looney Tunes cartoons in which Elmer Fudd would creep towards Bugs Bunny, visual animations would have distracted audience members from the “audial” roller coaster ride they can only be understood through rhythm and tempo, not by flashy lights or unreal situations seen in contemporary music videos. Being born in a generation that does not appreciate music the way older generations do, this event exposed me to the clearly-evident distinct difference between the “young people’s” perception and the “old people’s” perception of chamber music.