Making Beautiful Music . . . And Maybe Changing the World, As Well

Ruben Rengel does not remember a time he did not play violin. That’s because he started at age 2, on a 1/16th-size instrument. It’s 14 years later, now, and he plays with aplomb and beauty (but unusual style, holding the violin under his chin rather than his jaw, the way his teacher does and tells him not to). He is from Venezuela’s famous El Sistema, the Chavez government-supported program teaching thousands of children to play classical music. And change the world, too. Now Rengel is among the young string players at Hotchkiss School’s Portals, a very competitive three-week chamber music program for gifted adolescents from all over the world. Here they study and perform with the Portals faculty and with members of the Brentano, the Miro and the Ying quartets. This morning, Rengel’s foursome is being coached on the first movement of Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 20, No. 4 in D Major. Mark Steinberg, the theatrical and entertaining founder and first violinist of the Brentano, is working with Rengel, playing second violin; Cherry Yeung, 15, from Hong Kong, first violin; David Ryu, 16, from Harrington Park, NJ, cello; and Puneeth Guruprasad, 15, from Philadelphia, viola. This is a charming and sweet bunch of kids in flip flops and shorts, bearing large burdens like precious instruments and high hopes. Steinberg begins with a few words on vibrato, phrasing and dynamics. But it’s not the mechanics of playing he’s there to talk about, it’s the heart of making music. He’s out to reach their souls. “What does allegro di molto mean?” he asks after the quartet’s first runthrough. Silence. No one wants responsibility for a wobbly answer. Hesitantly, Rengel volunteers: “It’s not only about speed.” “Lively,” Yeung adds. “Yes,” Steinberg says, dancing in the tiny space of practice room 14. “Take the weight out of this, so it can flow, so it can have a lift to it.” Now these are players who have counted beats for lots of years, and here Steinberg is talking about ignoring those tyrannical marks on the page. “Forget that it’s in three-quarter,” Steinberg says. “It’s one beat to the bar.” And then think of stringing bars together. Steinberg is waltzing. “Play so I am inspired to dance with happiness,” he says. “Stop following each other and dance together. Trust each other. Let’s all dance together.” He likes what he is hearing now as they work through small sections of the movement. Steinberg is reminded, briefly, of fishing with his grandfather and catching weeds, not trout, but he lets that idea go for more concrete counseling: less vibrato, so that it sounds like Haydn; up-bows and down-bows don’t have to sound the same, they are different like breathing in and breathing out; the music is in the long notes; whisper that phrase; don’t lock up your body. “We don’t want the Haydn robot,” he says. And, most memorably, “scoop up the beat before it has a chance to fall on the ground.” And so it went. “Beautiful playing,” he tells his students. “This is a totally different sound.” And it was. Portals continues through July 20 with performances by visiting quartets, faculty members and students. For information, go to the Compass Calendar or www.hotchkiss.org/arts or call 860-435-3775.