The struggle: Dvorak's String Quartet in G Major, movement 1

At UF, I am in a string quartet with three of the loveliest human beings I know: Duan, Jaime and Ted. Last semester, we were grouped together by our professor to play Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, and wow, was that a challenge. That piece pushed us to explore raw emotion and all that is ugly in the world. Now, I have to clarify something. The piece itself is absolutely beautiful and a masterpiece of darkness; it is not one bit ugly. The emotion that it conjured up, however, was deep and, to some extent, evil. That quartet was a huge work to take on and I think because of how well we handled it, our professor decided to challenge us even more.

This semester, he assigned us Antonin Dvorak's String Quartet in G Major. First off, this quartet couldn't be any more different than the Shosty quartet we played last semester, but it definitely came with its own challenges. This quartet is clean and rhythmic and bright. The first movement at least, is almost 90% related to technical ability and precise delivery of what is written on the page. And for those who are reading this who aren't musicians, believe it or not, "just playing" what's on the page is sometimes a lot harder than it seems. 

Earlier this week, my quartet performed the first movement of the quartet with pretty decent success. We held everything together and had some strong musical moments. But for me, I want to work more on finding emotion in the piece. Yes, it's written in a happy key and has lively rhythms, but it also has its own moments of heartbreak that foreshadow the later movements of the quartet. So, with that being said, here is our performance from Monday! Please let me know what you think; any feedback is helpful. :-)