• the first violin and viola stand next to each other facing the audience, then turn sideways to face each other in the higher octave.

It did not work because it was too stiff and static. It did not really add any emotion or intention except their acknowledging each other.

• the first violin and viola walk towards each other from the sides before the stage, meet in the middle, then walk away from each other, still facing each other.
  We liked that they gravitated towards each other, but the meeting in the middle was awkward and we rejected it because of the practical reason that it looked pretty ridiculous for them to shuffle back.

• the first violin and viola walk towards each other, standing still as they meet in the higher octave, then continue walking, drifting apart

This was much more natural for sure, but it was still not what we were looking for because they would walk away alone when the music is together until the end of the phrase.

This search brought us that we were looking for something special from five bars before number 70. We tried what happened if the players would turn around each other, like a dance, before they would finish their phrase walking away facing each other - which meant to walk backwards!

The dance-like turn turned out to give the specialty we were looking for. It became a very intimate moment where two individuals met and for a moment they think that they will be together, but then they have to leave, filled with sadness.

A nice touch with the lighting was that, having the spotlight on the cello and violin and viola from the dark, meeting in the middle, the dance-like turn was in the spotlight as well, before they disappeared in the dark again.

The spotlight would switch to the piano once he took over the quarter notes, in the hall where we had the option to install the light. The first violin would always have her own light, not being able to connect until number 74, where the other players would join her in her melody, it seemed nice to us if the first violinist would walk to them so they could play the music together. The lights would become one and they would play the appassionato together as a big cry for help, speaking to each other.

3.2.a Internal process

Emerging from the grand ending of the Prelude, the long G major chord, the Fugue starts with a very lonely melody by the first violin, starting on the note g and using all notes of the doric scale.

Shostakovich carefully ends the first violin’s last note of the Prelude before the rest of the ensemble, in order to prepare to start the Fugue attacca.

The main theme of the Fugue is a melody in a 4/4 measure, starting on the second beat – something that should not be overlooked. The composer writes Adagio at the top of the score.

3.2b External  process

Maar de mens blijft ook altijd alleen,

op een eindeloze zoektocht

naar zijn eigen geluk, naar zingeving.

We wandelen langs elkaar heen

en vinden nooit hetzelfde pad.

For us it was important to really feel the search and the loneliness in the beginning. We wanted to make a visible distance. For our first performance (finals of Grote Kamermuziekprijs in the Jurriaanse Zaal, de Doelen), we were thinking of using standing dim lights. We would be on a stage in the dark, and with every entrance of the theme, the player would turn his or her light on. The light should be white and cold, to make the atmosphere very uncomfortable. During the piece, we could turn the lights off and on, depending on the part, and we would also change the colour and the intensity. For example, starting with a very small, white light (so in the beginning the audience would only see the face and maybe a bit of the instrument of the player) growing stronger gradually until the climax in 32, where the strings’ lights would turn off suddenly, and then the light would grow warmer when the sourdines come back on and the music gets more expressive, with the warmest colour being on the a flat major chord in the strings, before dying out until the end. This all should be composed very carefully to prevent it from becoming a light show. It should only set an atmosphere, and it should not take the attention to the lights instead of the music. However, in the competition we had to shorten our programme, so we chose to do the fourth movement instead of the second.

In our performance in the Nieuwe Kerk, we had no opportunities with light, but more opportunities with the stage. Instead of a fixed high stage on one side of the hall, we chose to put the stage in the middle of the church, so we could move in different directions (image 3.3). The audience was around us, so we could actually go near them. In the roughly sketched plan of the Nieuwe Kerk below you can see our set-up of the stage and audience. The stage in the middle allowed us to use the entire space of the Nieuwe Kerk.

We also wanted to create a special atmosphere, as in our plan with the standing lights, but we had not opportunity to have darkness in the church.

We thought it would be exciting to literally look for our own way and looked at the possibilities of walking while playing. The division of the audience created four paths between them, one at every corner of the stage. Not knowing yet if it would be possible to play in that way, we knew we wanted to make four (rather five, but the piano is not flexible in movement) different directions to go: the strings would go in the walking paths between the audience (see the picture). This would make it clear that everybody had his or her own search and we would never be on the same track, as in the score. Also, the fact that we were standing in the audience and so far apart would create an uncomfort and lonely atmosphere for ourselves and for the audience.

As can be seen in table 3.1, the main theme of the fugue is played entirely 15 times, in which the melody is never played by two instruments at the same time, and 2 times it is shorter but clearly the same material.

The first moment the first violin starts playing is terrifying for the player: to start such a fragile melody without having the comfort of making a nice sound. It is muted and pianissimo, the softest it gets in this piano quintet. The searching aspect of the notes as described before, the fact that it starts on the second beat and that the theme is never played by more than one person, made us think of loneliness. We wanted the score to be connected with something we and our generation could relate to, and thought of the search to ones personality in a world where we are bombed with opinions, pictures, movies, lots of philosophies who say to be right, social media, etc. It is difficult for young people to find their own identity in today’s society.
This been said, we felt like the theme was picturing this search, and because we would always play it alone, we were passing each other, but never connecting (hence the poem). From big number 16 until 23 the theme is played in all instruments, notice how Shostakovich puts the instruments in high-low order, but with the cello before the viola; another sign that he likes to use the viola as a bass and the cello as the more melodic instrument.
All first entrances are in pianissimo, then the tension starts to grow, mutes go off and dynamics go up from rehearsal number 22. From number 24, where first violin and cello play the subject and countersubject, the viola and second violin play the searching motive as accompaniment, but are trying to find the melody. The second violin joins the first violin the upbeat to a bar before 25, and this marks the first time that two instruments play the same, in this case in a canon duet with the piano, accompanied by the viola and cello. The ensemble seems connected for once and sounds nostalgic, but only for three bars, until the piano starts the searching eight note motive again and violins go opposite ways chromatically. The viola plays the contrasubject in forte espressivo, and the music develops in the different instruments until it reaches fortissimo, octave jumps in the piano, eighth note chromatical triplets, punctuated rhythms (number 30) with very dissonant chords in the strings, climaxing in an empty beat on number 32, right before the piano starts a theme that reminds us of the first movement. The cello takes over solo, the music calms down and we arrive in big number 32 with a pedal octave g in the cello, and the violins playing the theme con sordino in piano. It feels like the battle has been fought, but we have only fallen deeper and we are still searching for our way. Cello and viola join, and a beautiful trio of second violin, viola and cello make us feel special by their solo that leads up to the a flat major chord a bar before 37. Here, we feel lonely and slightly nostalgic, when the piano plays the theme soft and very low, and the violin plays the downgoing searching motive and the contrasubject. We hear fragments of the original theme and contrasubject until suddenly we modulate to A major in 41, where we here the cello playing his solo from the first movement with the string accompaniment. But it has only part of the power it had in the Prelude. It makes us look back and feel the struggle we have had since then. It makes us feel melancholic. From here, the piano plays the searching motive and strings make the atmosphere with long notes, it dies out.  

3.1 Main theme of the Fugue

3.2 Counter subject of the Fugue

3.2 Fugue

We noticed that every option would bring a difficulty and no one was perfect. After trying them all several times and letting one of the ensemble members observe, we decided to take the third option: that the first violinist would walk away during the last chord of the Prelude. In this case we would stick to Shostakovich’ score where the first violinist ends the last note before the other strings to prepare for the Fugue and be able to start attacca. We had to practice the walk, especially because the stage included stairs as we found out. We trusted that the first violinist would take enough attention that the others could walk away silently in the character at their time. It worked out quite well, but some directions of a director could improve it even more.

The second problem was the ensemble playing. We had to practice a couple of times to play so far apart and it turned out to be a very good exercise for the ear and for trust that became easier every time, but never comfortable - as the music should be.

All individual entrances would be played in the separate positions, before searching for each other. When the music would grow, we would turn and look for each other. When actually playing together, we would make sure that we would also be closer and at the big climax we were all on stage. To prevent it from being a movement show, we decided not to go back in our paths when playing the first theme again, also because the music was in a different atmosphere after all we had been through in the first part of the fugue. Then we would also be together during the nostalgic flashback of the Prelude theme, which was a nice memory of the first movement.

The theme (image 3.1) starts hesitating: g – a – rest. It tries to get further: g – a – b flat – rest. It plays around the notes of the scale before returning to g.

As written before, the first violin plays the first version of the theme. This time it is pianissimo and it is muted, making it very silent and fragile.

The second entrance is by the second violin, starting on d, while the first violin plays the contra-subject (image 3.2), a more lyrical melody, ending in searching eight notes that lead to another motive, different every time.

3.2b External process

De vraag blijft onbeantwoord.
De  mensen, ze lijken op beesten.

Ze dansen en feesten door elkaar heen.

Iedereen schreeuwt,

het kabaal is oorverdovend.

Je doet mee,

ondertussen vergetend waar te staan,

wat je doet

wie je bent.

The Scherzo follows attacca after the Fugue. It was a blunt wake up, from the morendo chords at the end of the second movement to the forte marcato in the third. Where the Fugue creates atmosphere with the searching melodies (see next chapter), the Scherzo does it mainly rhythmical and dynamical. We thought the music to be stronger when not adding any choreography, but we thought of some extras:

• Standing completely still to emphasize the imprisonment

When watching videos of us standing completely still, we saw it was strange and we noticed that in our interpretation the Scherzo should be inviting to come along and then it made more sense to look more happy and jolly.

• Having extra lighting with lots of colours and changes to create chaos

We tried this in de Jurriaanse Zaal in de Doelen. It turned out to create a disco effect, which we unfortunately did not record on video because it looked quite funny, but it was rather distracting and it made the whole performance laughable rather than something to take seriously. In the end we chose to have a combination of many colours.

3.3 Scherzo

3.2a Internal process

Written in B major and having the title ‘scherzo’, the third movement seems to be a happy and positive piece of music.

It starts with the strings playing B major chords in marcato quarter notes: quite happy sounding at first, but we thought them also to be heavy and forced. The piano plays a walking bass and the melody, as if he is dancing on the string players’ heads. This theme will recur many times, with solo parts in between. The constant factor is the quarter notes: in the entire Scherzo, there is always someone playing on the beat. Shostakovich wrote the rhythms very vertical - which of course can be chosen to be played vertical per beat or more per bar, as a waltz. The latter would be of our opinion, to play it as a waltz, but a scary waltz and if wooden dolls or skeletons were dancing the waltz.
At rehearsal number 50, the piano becomes a maniac, playing the same motif without paying any attention to the bar or the string players, who play uncomfortable, extreme one-bar crescendos.

At rehearsal number 53, attention is being called by a tutti hemiola, followed by a solo in violin and afterwards viola in mezzo piano. A tutti crescendo ends in strings going crazy and piano breaking his strings in a very loud, but uncomfortable motif (we cannot really call it a melody).

At 61, first and second violin are forging a plan in secret, walking on their toes, before piano and violin share a duet which reminds of those dolls that move as if they are wooden (rehearsal number 62).

Last variation is at 63, where the upper strings play the rhythmical chords in pizzicato, and the piano and cello have a drunk, chromatic canon.

After the searching and lonely Fugue, this Scherzo is a big contrast. In the Fugue, players are hardly playing together in motive or rhythm when in the Scherzo, there is a lot of unisono in rhythm and a lot of playing together. It is actually difficult to do something else. When questioning how to put this into our interpretation in the context of finding a person’s identity, we thought of the mass, how everybody tries to fit in when looking for his own path and then on the way gets dragged along with others, not knowing if it is their thing and not knowing where it will end. This is a process everybody will experience, to go with the group and not knowing who you are. We can also think of Shostakovich in his position, ‘dancing’ like the government wanted him to, but with a double meaning.

When we were trying this, we noticed two major problems: the distance was making it very difficult to hear each other and to play together, and the transition from the prelude to the fugue without breaking tension by ‘taking positions’. For this problem, we tried different options:

• First violinist walks away after the last chord of the Prelude died out, rest of the ensemble stays

This kept the tension of the last chord, but there was an awkward bit of walking away that took all attention and this could cause tension and concentration to drop.

• All strings take their new positions before the Fugue starts

Looks very staged, takes away all concentration.

• First violinist walks away during last chord

It keeps the attacca and the tension, but there is danger that if it is not done delicately that it breaks the tension. Also, when should the other strings go?

• First violinist starts the Fugue while walking away from the ensemble

Keeps the attacca, but is very difficult to play and it might not give enough silence and

concentration to the theme.

3.1b External process

De vereende krachten van mens en natuur

scheppen de tijd, de geschiedenis

en ons algehele bestaan,

onze daadkracht

en onze vurige wil te zijn.

In trying to create something impressive, we thought of different things for the beginning. Our first idea was to separate piano and strings, because they are quite different in material in the beginning. We were thinking of a real physical separation: placing the string players at the other end of the hall, or even – possible in the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague – under the stage. Then, of course, we realised it would be very difficult to play together in this way, and looking closer, we saw that the material was actually not that clearly separated between strings and piano as we thought. Despite the fact that it would have been really cool for the audience to see a pianist alone on stage, playing his opening and then hearing a string group from a complete different place, we decided that it would not do justice to the score to play this way; the string section comes from the opening of the piano and then the piano joins the strings after a couple of bars. We tried some different positions around the piano, but the best option, musically, to play together and to look and feel strong, was in the ‘classical’ piano quintet setting. Because we were standing , it was already more fierce and we created an even more special connection, together and with the music, by playing by heart (which was already necessary for the next movements). The absence of stands creates a special space in the ensemble, and in the process you make the music even more your own, which leads to a stronger performance. Despite the different voices and melodies we wanted to keep a unity within the movement, and we would keep the same position until the end of the Prelude, sometimes standing more straight, sometimes moving a bit, depending on the material of the music. The Fuga would follow attacca on the Prelude.

Chapter 3: The Piano Quintet

3.1a Internal process

“An introductory piece of music, most commonly an orchestral opening to an act of an opera, the first movement of a suite, or a piece preceding a fugue.” This is the definition of the word ‘Prelude’ in the Oxford Dictionary. The prelude is both an opening to the quintet and a piece preceding a fugue. The grand opening could even be called ‘orchestral’.

The Prelude starts with a majestic g minor chord, the key of the piece, in the piano, made even bigger by the low octave g’s as a grace note (which is not so graceful). It sets the tone for the movement, maybe even for the entire piece. The piano part continues Lento pesante with multiple lines at the same time – long notes, syncopes and held sixteenths –, reaching both the high and low registers of the instrument. The g minor key gives a feeling of sadness, even though the material sounds majestic. The word nostalgic comes to mind. The piano introduction ends with a climactic scale down full with accents, to invite the strings to start. Full of power, they enter, and yet again the g minor chord is the start of the phrase. This time the cello has the big solo, and the violins and viola create the chords, which might be slightly odd as the cello would serve as a bass in chords in the string quartet most of the time. In this case, Shostakovich wrote the viola part as the bass and the violins play their chord notes quite close on the viola register, which makes the chords in some way very warm, despite the fact that it is again g minor with a sad feeling and a majestic melody. The chords are long but forte and there is a lot of tension between the chords and the melody. It is important to make sure that the sixteenth notes do not rush as the phrase will get less majestic and weaker in strength.

The piano enters half way the cello solo, and the introduction of the Prelude ends with a picardian third in G major full of hope, followed by a general pause.

Those first sixteen bars, as already said before, create the introduction of the quintet, it feels. We would even describe it as the creation of earth, or a birth, to put it in a context of a story that was to be made.

After the general pause, we zoom in on the more intimate and individual sounds of the instruments at the poco più mosso at rehearsal number three. The piano starts with a single dancing melody in 3/8 measure in his right hand, accompanied by short, arpeggio-like eight notes in his left and a soft second voice in the middle register of the viola, resulting in a string section four bars before rehearsal number seven that, through elegant scale motives in the higher registers of the violins, prepares for the violin solo from number seven. The violin solo, accompanied by a bass in the piano that could be interpreted as pizzicato from a double bass and chords in alternating sixteenths in the right hand, starts at a high note, coming back and then reaching for an ever higher note before it really comes back and starts a duet with the cello, still with the same accompaniment, at rehearsal number eight. The melodies have a chromatic character, going from g to g flat to g – g flat – f – g flat etc., it seems as if Shostakovich is indecisive whether he wants major or minor. The duet concludes finally with a dominant D major chord before it comes back in tonica g minor. Here, at rehearsal number nine, the piano has the same short eighth notes, but now a chord per one or two bars, forming a more staccato and vertical bass than the dancing type in rehearsal number three. The viola plays his melody on top of this, being a lot more dramatic than the previous one. Instead of staying in the piano register (dynamically) and having no specifications, the viola starts piano espressivo with a crescendo up to forte in seven bars, before it makes a decrescendo in two bars to piano in rehearsal number nine. The strings start a canon, again the indecisive chromatic motives return and from big number eleven the string quartet builds up with these to the big climax of the first movement: the lento in number twelve. With the same majestic chords as heard in the beginning, but bigger, the piano plays an upgoing scale and fragments of the opening melody while the strings play alternating thirds in sixteenths, espressivo tenuto! The sound is big and dramatic, the event showed its real nature, especially from big number thirteen, where the piano plays the opening melody in a very high register, and the strings play very long, fortississimo chords. So, the majestic passage between twelve and thirteen covers all registers, when the passage from thirteen has no real bass until the theme lands in number fourteen, in a canon between piano, violins and viola and cello. The syncopation comes back and the string motive in number thirteen comes back in the piano on fifteen. To end all the drama, the piece ends with a very long g in the strings, and… a picardian third in the piano: G major!

3.4b  External process

Onvermijdelijk is het vallen in een pikzwart gat.

Er is slechts de pijn van isolatie.

De wanhopige zoektocht naar zingeving

verstikt en beklemt.

The basic idea based on our interpretation was: the first violin represents the lonely person, lost in total obscurity, desperate and scared. The cello is the steady bass and his main object is to support and guide the lonely person, but there is a big space between them: the low, short and steady pizzicato quarters is a big contrast to the high, legato and pleading melody of the first violin. To reinforce the idea of abandonment and to make the audience feel ‘lost’ and disorientated just like our our lonely person, we thought it would work well to place the cello on the center of the stage, initially drawing attention when he plays the first two quarter notes alone, and in the third beat when the first violin enters to let her stand behind the audience in the back, invisible for most audience members. Not only is the lonely feeling then reinforced, there is also real space between the base and the high melody. The first violin would then slowly approach the stage, looking where to go. Being in the back of the hall, she would have to find a way to approach the stage slowly, or else the quiet and introverted mood would be ruined, something similar as we also faced in the Fugue. We worked on the walking so it would not interrupt the melodic line and have her slow down her walking movements so it was one subtle gesture. We also had to adjust the walk to the stage according to the size of the hall we were going to play in.
During our choreography brainstorm session, we felt that the moment when the viola shortly joins the first violin in the melody is musically so touching that we should highlight it with movement as well. We tried a few options before finding the choreography that we thought fit best to this moment in the story, having the violin and viola in front of the stage:

3.4 Intermezzo

3.4a Internal process

Let us take a look at the score of the Intermezzo. It starts with just the cello, playing pizzicato quarter notes for 28 bars, until the piano takes over. Above this steady, uninterruptible bass, the first violin plays a fragile, lonely and searching melody, again a big contrast to the Scherzo. We would think of the individual as being totally lost after going with the happy group, ending up even deeper and lonelier than in the Fugue.

In this performance, we saw the first violin as the major character in this movement. The melody represents the individual, looking where she/he can go.
In rehearsal number 69,  our main character meets the viola , who joins in for a short moment until the three string players all stop in rehearsal number 70. At this point, the piano takes over the steady bass, but in a high register, with two high, chromatic lines in canon in the right hand. In reaction to this, our main character tries to join in an even higher register, seemingly confused. rehearsal number 71).

At rehearsal number 74, the first violin has a short recitativo, which ends in a crescendo. Almost like an answer, the other four players start and create a warm bath of rich, close harmonies; the quarter notes (in this case eighth notes with eighth note rests) in the low register of the piano and accompanying chords in the viola and cello. The first violinist plays the same melody as in the beginning (but now it is less fragile, because of the espressivo and the accompaniment) and the second violinist, who has not played a note until then, plays a supporting second voice to the melody. After a long crescendo molto that builds and stretches in tension,everything comes together in the Appassionato at rehearsal number 75 which sounds as a desperate and very passionate cry in fortissimo, with accents on every note. The cello and viola are paired and the first and second violin respond in between with different rhythms, adding to the build up to the big climax where all voices join in together at 76, with più fortissimo and the highest notes, before it drops in register and dynamics.

After 77, the violins share the two high, thin, chromatic lines the piano played in 70, but here they start one after the other, creating painful dissonant intervals.

Afterwards, the second violin and lower strings form the quarter note accompaniment to the piano, who plays the melody in the lowest registers, before the first violinist has a last attempt or question from 79.

3.1 Prelude

3.3 Stage plan and choreography for the performance in the Nieuwe Kerk, Den Haag