Family and relationships

Interviewer: Your quartet has been together for twenty-six years. What's the secret? Marta: People expect me to say we're best friends, and we're not. We don't go on holiday together, and two of us barely agree about anything outside music. What keeps us going is a rule our first violinist brought in after a dreadful tour in our second year: nothing personal is said in the rehearsal room. If I think Paul's phrasing is sentimental, I say the phrase is sentimental, not that he is. It sounds cold, but it's what lets us be brutally honest for six hours and still like each other. Interviewer: Have you ever thought of leaving? Marta: Once, when an orchestra offered me a principal's job. Better money, a pension, no more airports. I turned it down within a week, and I'd love to tell you it was loyalty. Honestly, I think I was frightened of becoming one of ten cellos. In a quartet, everyone hears my mistakes. I've grown oddly attached to that.