Artworks: The Art of Strings

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Artworks is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Mar Arts Endowment Fund.

The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts.

The E.T.

& Robert E. Rocklin Fund.

The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in Memory of Ruth Marder.

ANNOUNCER: This is Morgan State, Maryland's Public Urban Research University.

Develop life-long professional skills in a diverse academic community anchored in tradition and transforming for tomorrow.

Morgan State, growing the future, leading the world.

ICKES: Ms. Anderson, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free.

(crowd cheering).

When God gave us this wonderful outdoors and the sun, the moon, and the stars, he made no distinction of race or creed or color.

(crowd cheering).

♪ ♪ DR. RANDOLPH: Black people have been composers, they have been string players, woodwind players, brass players, percussion players, across many genres, including classical music.

The thing that makes this situation appear to be rare, that is to say a Black string quartet, is the fact that opportunities were not available for people of the African Diaspora in the classical world 60, 70, 80 years ago.

Did the elite, world-class musicians exist?

Yes, they did.

In fact, I, I, I remember a story, um, it was regarding Marian Anderson and how, um, so many doors were closed to her because she was a Black woman.

Even here in D.C., the Daughters of the American Revolution would not allow her to concertize in Constitution Hall because she was Black.

And, of course, when Eleanor Roosevelt heard about this, um, she arranged the famous concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939, and, um, 75,000 people were in attendance there.

Now, keep in mind World War II was happening in Europe, so I don't know what was happening at the Vatican that day, that Easter Sunday, 1939, so it is very possible that she had the largest audience anywhere in the world on that Easter Sunday.

The situation is better now, but this is why historically, you did not see people of the African Diaspora in symphony orchestras, um, playing in chamber ensembles, in opera, because the opportunities were not made available to them.

♪ ♪ CLARKE: I was playing music, I would say, when I was about four.

I think before I started school and, I could read music before I could read English.

DR. RANDOLPH: Music is a required study in the Randolph house.

We see it as important as math, as important as English, social sciences, natural sciences, music.

CLARKE: I'm just used to the energy that we have and everything meshing together.

We know each other so well, our personalities, we just...

When you know people that well, it's just like you automatically mesh, especially when you grow up in the same house.

COLE: It has it's pros and cons, I'll be honest.

More pros than cons, definitely.

I mean, you know, our dad having his doctoral degree in music composition.

If we come home and, or he comes home from work and he hears us play individually or as a group and something isn't right, he'll stop us and say, "Oh, cello and viola, can you play this?"

Or, "Violins, can you play this?"

So, that's definitely helpful.

In the moment, it might not feel great.

HARPER: Playing as a family is pretty fun obviously because they're like, you're playing with all your friends, really and, yeah, it's just really fun to do.

ELLIOT: Like, a lot of people will see us and be like, "Oh, that's so great."

You know, "You play with your family."

You know, "Y'all must get along great."

You know, people say a lot of that stuff, and I guess, like, if you compare our sibling relationships to some sibling relationships, you could say that, like, we get along great.

Um, but there is definitely conflict.

Especially, like, when we're all together.

In the rehearsals, more so than the-the performances, but in the rehearsals, like, there's definitely conflict.

Because there's just, there's different personalities, there's strong personalities.

Strong personalities that all have the goal of making some great music.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (applause).

HARPER: Now, I go to orchestra concerts or whatever, wherever I'm going, and I see a Black person on a string instrument, it still is a little bit of, like, a surprise to me because it's still not necessarily commonplace.

COLE: You know, growing up, a lot of people would see all four of us play together, and that was just a norm for us.

You know, like, I don't remember a time when I didn't play cello, so it was so integral to my identity, and people would talk to my mom and dad and say that, you know, you have to make sure they continue to play throughout their life.

It's so important because we don't see this.

ELLIOT: As far as the violin goes, well, I mean, I was in a, a Black DC youth orchestra program, but when it comes to like the schools that I was going to, the, the students didn't really know too much about Black people playing the violin.

Like it wasn't, it was not very, it, it was kind of unheard of.

I think it was last year me, Clarke and my mom went to New Orleans, and me and Clarke got an opportunity to street perform down there.

And New Orleans is like, you know, music is, they respect music a lot, just everywhere you go.

It was just, just great singers, great guitar players, great just sax players, clarinet players, like everything.

I was kind of nervous to go out there and play 'cause I was like, you know, I don't know if they gonna like this 'cause we ain't out here playing the blues, you know what I'm saying?

Like, we were playing classical at the time.

So we ended up playing, and people loved it.

And then, I learned about Congo Square and what Congo Square was.

So, I started doing some more some research once I got home.

And I realized that like back in the day, like the violin was extremely common for slaves to be playing.

The advertisements they had in the paper for runaway slaves.

When they described the slaves, they either played the violin very well or like, they make violins.

And I was kind of shocked when I saw it because, like my whole life, I had grown up thinking like violin was more like a White instrument type of thing.

The original Black Americans were playing the violin.

It was real enlightening and empowering, and it really made me think about my legacy as a Black violinist.

CLARKE: In terms of Black musicians and our legacy, just in general I think it just comes back to being authentic to yourself.

I've grown to love classical music.

I think when I was younger, it was more so like, oh, this is beautiful, but I don't know what it means.

But as I've grown and developed as a person, like I've literally gotten emotional connections to certain pieces of music, especially as a Black person.

Like classical music is not one the music that we typically have emotional connection to.

DR. RUDOLPH: Well, I tell you, strings have been around in, uh, different forms for centuries.

In fact, um, my son was playing a cello trying one out, um, that was a mid-18th-century instrument, that is to say circa 1750.

So the instruments have been around a long time, and string quartet music has evolved over the years from the Haydn Quartets all the way up to the quartets of, say, Béla Bartók.

The quartet, for me, is my favorite chamber ensemble.

And when my first daughter was born, I said, "Yeah, we're gonna put her on violin."

And then, when Elliot was born, he wanted to be like Clarke.

So he said, "Okay, I'm going to play the violin."

And then, when I found out that my wife was pregnant with twins, I said, "That's it, string quartet."

So we put, um, my daughter Harper on viola and my son Cole on the cello.

And that's how that came about.

And it was a bit selfish, but it was for my love of the string quartet.

The next works that will be performed will be performed by the entire quartet.

The first piece that they will perform is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," which translates to "A Little Night Music."

This is a serenade that was originally written for two violins, a viola, a cello, and a bass.

But you now hear it performed very frequently with a full orchestra.

It was written in 1787, 4 years before Mozart's untimely death at just 35 years old.

This piece, when you hear it, you will recognize it.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (overlapping chatter).

ELLIOT: I think my role, not just in the quartet, but like in the family as well, it's definitely like mediator slash peacekeeper.

We'll be rehearsing, and then my dad'll come down, and then he'll also get involved.

My dad has also a very strong personality.

DR. RUDOLPH: The technique of playing an instrument is very difficult.

So the, technical studies are of paramount importance.

ELLIOT: Playing together, now, it's a form of bonding, in a way, without speaking.

'Cause with the quartet, everybody has to play their part.

Even if you have the melody, the melody is still part of the whole.

Being able to be in a quartet, and know that your part is extremely important, but it's not more important than any other member of the group kind of realigns me.

So if I had any pride or ego, I realized that if I bring that pride or ego into this piece and I play too loud or I do something trying to show off when I'm not supposed to be doing it, it's gonna ruin the whole piece.

If I come into the piece with humility, like let's say I'm playing first violin and I have the melody, instead of thinking how can the second violin, viola, and cello serve me and back me up, how can I serve the piece as a whole?

CLARKE: String quartet is two violins, a viola, and a cello.

Um, I would say we perform a lot of baroque and classical music.

I would say that, you know, the first violin definitely stands out the most, and then it just goes in order of second violin, viola, and cello.

COLE: You have to play in tune, and you have to play the rhythms that were written on the page.

Once you get that, then you can make music out of it.

Nowadays, with AI, you can get a robot that plays in tune and plays the, you know, even more perfect rhythms than we can play, than humans can play.

Um, so to take that to the next level is adding that emotional and spiritual aspect to it.

And once you infuse that into the music, then it becomes a living thing rather than just, you know, notations on paper.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ HARPER: I think playing an instrument in this time is like especially important 'cause it can just teach you so much about yourself and about others that technology cannot.

With the advancement of technology, comes the increased convenience for everybody, right?

But I think that with an instrument, it is so much deeper than just like learning how to play an instrument or learning how to play notes.

It's like you learn so many other things through it.

Like leadership qualities, discipline, all these kind of things.

You learn about yourself, what kind of person you are, what you can like, make better, or what you can kind of purge.

I feel like you can't learn all of that through just like technology in general.

CLARKE: We just need to expand in terms of what this generation wants.

Especially as a Black person, like we, classical music is not one of the music that we typically have emotional connection to, but you know, we have emotional connections just in general to jazz, to hip hop, things like that.

So if we're able to bring that same type of emotional high to other music, 'cause even when we were playing at the Kennedy Center, De La Soul kept complimenting us saying, you guys sound so good.

And we're like, "No, like, this is y'all show, we're just here to, like, add, you know, a little extra to it."

♪ ♪ They've never heard their music in that context.

They've heard their recording over and over and over again.

But with the strings added to it, it just added a whole new level and took their song to a new level, a whole new interpretation.

And the audience clearly loved it.

So I think in terms of legacy, like putting ourselves in situations where we can use our instrument and use our group as a tool to show the sides of music that we have never really experienced before or to take songs that we traditionally love as a culture and put something else on it to make people just think of it in an entirely different way.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (applause).

(applause).

REPORTER: Nation's most impressive Easter demonstration, 75,000 massed before Lincoln Memorial to hear Marian Anderson, colored contralto, make her capital debut at the Great Emancipator shrine refusal of the DAR to let her use their hall, found a countrywide controversy with this great gathering as the climax.

The singer was invited by Secretary of the Interior Ickes, who attends with Secretary of the Treasury, Morgenthau.

Spectators include Supreme Court Justice Black, New York Senator Robert Wagner, and a host of notables, here to listen to the voice acclaimed by many as the finest in a century.

♪ ANDERSON: My country 'tis of thee ♪ ♪ Sweet land of liberty ♪ ♪ For thee, we sing ♪ ♪ Land where my fathers died ♪ ♪ Land of our pilgrim's pride ♪ ♪ From every mountainside ♪ ♪ Let freedom ring ♪ (applause).

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Artworks is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Mar Arts Endowment Fund.

The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts.

The E.T.

& Robert E. Rocklin Fund.

The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in Memory of Ruth Marder.

ANNOUNCER: This is Morgan State, Maryland's Public Urban Research University.

Develop life-long professional skills in a diverse academic community anchored in tradition and transforming for tomorrow.

Morgan State, growing the future, leading the world.