In tune from the first note

The Callino Quartet, a young Irish ensemble winning hearts at home and abroad, talk to Michael Dervan

Put two musicians together to play something, and there's one near- certainty: they'll argue. Not in any unpleasant sense, but there will be a lively cut and thrust over how the piece should be played, from the most basic issues of tempo to the most arcane subtleties of phrasing.

It is really quite remarkable, then, that the most frequently encountered of chamber ensembles (and the one carrying the highest prestige, too) should be the string quartet. After all, it requires consensus among four individuals, and offers the obvious possibility of a split vote on issues that have to be resolved by democratic means. Yet string trios and piano trios, not to mention wind or brass quintets, are extremely thin on the ground by comparison with quartets.

It really takes something special, in human as well as musical terns, for a string quartet to get off the ground. And in the case of the Callino Quartet, it took an accident or two of fate as well. The likelihood of the members meeting up for chamber music while they were students in Ireland was pretty slim; two were based in Cork, one in Dublin, and one in Enniskerry. But they did all end up studying at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, where cellist Sarah McMahon played in a string trio with viola player Samantha Hutchins, in a piano trio with the Callino's leader, violinist Ioana Petcu-Colan, and in a non-Callino string quartet with the Callino's second violinist, Sarah Sexton.

Yet, although all four players were active in chamber music at RAM, it took a project in Ireland to bring them together for the purpose of working as a string quartet. That project was the series of master-classes which are run annually as part of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. And so it was that, in the summer of 1999, they made their début, four players without a group name, in the festival concert which showcases the achievements of young musicians who have been through the complex and sometimes mystifying experience of the West Cork master-classes. (I say "mystifying" because the young players work under a number of tutors, who don't necessarily agree among themselves on how any particular piece of music should be played.)

The rest, as they say, is history. The concert performance was received with astonishment and acclaim. Every encouragement was offered to the foursome to make the investments and sacrifices that would enable them to stay together as a quartet. They've been invited back to the West Cork festival for the last three years, and the festival's manager, Ruud Kuper, organised a tour in the Netherlands (there's another one coming up in November). They were proposed for a residency at Trinity College Dublin, which, sadly, has never materialised). They became the first ensemble to be embraced by the Music Network's Young Musicwide scheme (which offers Music Network as a sort of surrogate management agent and adviser) and are also involved with Musicwide International (which promotes Irish performers abroad).

Last October, they gave a début recital at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the single concert which gave them all the greatest kick as performers, seated together on a stage that they'd all played on so many times in other formations. And in June, in their first foray into international competitions, they were awarded a special prize for their performance of Haydn at the Borciani Competition at Reggio Emilia in Italy.

All four players were in their mid-teens before it became clear to them that music was going to be their way of life. Petcu-Colan, whose parents are both professional musicians, got off to the earliest start. But when she was given a violin at the age of three, "I thrashed it, just whacked everybody over the head with it", and had a detour to the piano before returning to the violin. Later on, she was cautious about committing to music "because I always wanted to make sure I was doing it for myself and not because I was being pushed that way or steered that way".

Involvement with what was then known as the Junior National Youth Orchestra - it's now called the National Youth Orchestra (under-18s) - seems to have played a central role in cementing the place of music in the young players' lives. Not that the experience was without problems, as they sometimes found themselves chasing the notes in pieces they hadn't quite mastered. They quickly learned how to fake, so that their errors wouldn't stand out. But the involvement with making the sound that comes out of a symphony orchestra, and the sense of music as a communal activity, seem to have been particularly important experiences.

"I think I figured out early on that part of my love of music was experienced through the interaction with other people," says Sexton. "I wasn't one for solitude, up in my room practising. Most of the things that I've discovered about music and the violin, and everything surrounding it, has been through the interaction with other people."

She gets a warm chorus of agreement when she says this, even from Petcu-Colan, who says that she did spend a lot of time on solo repertoire, and really only became involved in chamber music after moving to London.

"Other people make you play better anyway," adds Sexton. "They expand your expectations of yourself. I think we all do that to each other. We all discuss different ideas, and open our minds to different ways of approaching things."

The initial success in Bantry seems to have come as a surprise to the group. None of them really had any inkling of how their playing was going to be received.

"I certainly didn't," says Petcu-Colan. "I personally didn't have that much experience of chamber music. I didn't know exactly what to expect. I didn't know, is this normal, is this terrible, is this great? I know I enjoyed it. I know I really loved it. And for myself, it was fantastic. But from the outside, I had no idea."

"We had a wonderful week," says McMahon. "We loved working on the piece, and really enjoyed the concert. But we were all taken aback by the enthusiasm and response of the audience."

The teachers had been very encouraging, says Sexton. But, of course, that's what you expect from your teachers. "We had only been playing together for a few weeks, and therefore we felt couldn't be near what was needed. We didn't have the experience, or the knowledge. But somehow we seem to have bypassed a lot of the difficulties. It just worked. And we weren't really aware of that at the time. There was so much else that we needed to improve, and so many things we needed to work on, that we didn't really notice the things that came easily."

"It's been pointed out to us since," says Petcu-Colan. "You lucky bunch, we've been told, you don't know what you've got."

But, of course, among themselves, they're more concerned about the things they need to learn. "The balance of give and take in a quartet," says McMahon, "is a constant learning curve, just being able to step outside it, hear it with different ears, and to trust each other, and allow things to come through, even though you want to rush forward yourself. Learning that, we're just constantly instructing each other. Psychologically, as well, it's very interesting for us to feed off each other, learn more about each other."

"Everything we do," says Sexton, "just makes for such close relationships. Everything is so intense, in our struggle to do things the best possible way. Even the slightest nuance can be quite difficult - to try and create that in the overall sphere, so that it sounds natural between four people. In things like dynamics and the feeling of a phrase, to make it natural,and happen the same way between four people, can actually start off feeling quite unnatural. We feel ourselves changing all the time. Every month we feel differently as a group to the month before. And we are aware that a lot of things are coming more naturally to us now."

"We've got in tune with each other," says Petcu-Colan, "not just from an intonation point of view. Spending so much time together as four people as well, we're bound to be different. Great, we're all friends, and we get on well together. But we're obviously different people. It's just getting to the point now, where a lot of intuition has come into play from the time we've spent together."

Things that once had to be specified, she explains, no longer need to be said. They've now reached the point where they're able to anticipate key aspects of each other's responses in areas where lots of discussion was once necessary.

BUT, of course, as musicians playing together, they do still argue. About intonation, for instance, where, they say with a laugh - and their conversation together is punctuated by lots of loud laughter - things get resolved "slowly and painfully". But they're also learning when to leave well enough alone, to wait and see, and let certain things work themselves out.

"It always works out," says Hutchins. "We can argue a point and then go, OK, we're not talking about it any more. But then, in the concert, we always choose the same thing."

This is a good description of the sort of mind-reading that's essential to the art of the string quartet. And the thing that's most surprised them about working together as an ensemble also seems like a good omen for the future. There's never been a concert where they haven't enjoyed performing.

Well, there is the time they played the Wolfgang Rihm test piece at the competition in Italy. But then that's another story altogether.

The Callino String Quartet play a programme of Haydn, Ravel and Beethoven at the new Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray on Thursday; at the Abbey Centre, Ballyshannon, Saturday, and at Donamon Castle, Co Roscommon, Sunday. Next Monday, they give the première of Raymond Deane's Equali at the Coach House in Dublin Castle, with works by Haydn and Beethoven. For information, tel: 01-6719429.