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.