David and Art - Just One String Quartet

I like introducing people to art they don't know about. That's part of the reason I have music going in my office-I'm always hoping someone will say "Wow, who's that?" or "What's this music all about?"

The one person I have the most trouble introducing new art to is me-especially long or complicated pieces like a symphony.

I've discovered that being on an airplane is a pretty good time to do this. Many times, when I'm flying someplace, I like to give a careful listen to a piece of music that I've not listened to closely before. I like to put in the earbuds and get out a notebook and think about how I would describe this piece, and what do I notice about it. I actually write down my thoughts and try to describe the impact it's having on me as I listen. A few years ago, I did this with Charles Ives' Second Symphony, and it really opened up that piece of music for me.

Recently, I was flying to somewhere and I listened to a piece that I had never listened to before, it really impressed me. It was Claude Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor. The only one he ever wrote. In one way a string quartet is a string quartet-two violins, a viola, and a cello But in their book Music in History, The Evolution of an Art, Howard McKinney and W.R. Anderson call Debussy "one of music's great liberators from the shackles of traditions that had become outworn," and it's true you wouldn't mistake his one string quartet for one of Joseph Haydn's 68.

As the first movement begins there's a little tugging back and forth on a potential melody line between the four instruments. Then a violin takes it for a couple of measures, then passes it over to the cello. [All the while the others stew in a rhythmically bubbling pot.

Then the four are working together, almost like they're trying to build a ladder to climb. Step by step they feel for a rhythmic phrase that works and when they find it, they ride it for a while. But suddenly, falling patterns of notes like rain intrudes before a melody line comes to the foreground again. You start thinking it's the rhythmic interplay between the four instruments that makes this piece work so well.

Then up a little, pulling and pushing, then the rain-like descending lines but now with an ominous rumbling low. It feels like all they've built has collapsed and they're trying to decide whether they want to go on. Then they start pulling familiar lines out of the rubble and you're riding up again as they play together.

And then it ends, suddenly content and well-pleased with where it's ended up. And that's just the first movement. Let's talk about this piece a little more next week.

RECENT EPISODES OF DAVID AND ART

David and Art - Remembering a Critic

On today’s David and Art, host David Smith looks back at the life and work of a longtime art critic whose writing helped bring clarity to the modern art world, and offered readers a closer look at the artists behind it.

David and Art - Art and National Identity, Part 2

Ideas about national identity don’t just show up in politics—they show up in art and architecture, too. Today on David and Art, host David Smith continues that conversation.

David and Art - "Art and National Identity"

David Smith gives some insight as to how nations use are and architecture to define who they are.

David and Art - "The Art of a Seapower"

Art doesn't just reflect history - it can shape how we see ourselves.

David and Art - “The Theater and the University”

College campuses are places for discovery, and not all of it happens in a classroom. Today on David and Art, host David Smith looks at the role theater can play in a university education.

David and Art - John Cale

Today on David and Art, host David Smith traces the unusual path of a musician whose work helped bridge classical experimentation and rock and roll.

David and Art - A Little Global Perspective

On today's David and Art, David Smith connects Art and History through paintings that reveal how Europe followed the American Civil War, in real time.

David and Art - Open Mic Night

On today’s David and Art, host David Smith takes us inside a jazz club in New York’s West Village for a look at what happens when musicians who’ve never met share a stage—and what that kind of collaboration can teach us.

David and Art - The Artists and the President

Continuing his exploration of the problematic background behind Lynden B. Johnson's White House Arts festival, here's David Smith with this weeks installment of David and Art.

David and Art - When the Art World Came to washington

Despite his advocacy for the arts, Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure in the White House also brought political friction to the creative consciousness of 1960's America. With this week's edition of David and Art, here's David Smith.