I've just finished reading Vikram Seth's *An Equal Music* and for me it
was one of those books the finishing of which makes me feel like after
a permanent parting from good friends.  I love the music they love (and
wish I could play it).  I read w/ an outsider's interest the interpersonal
problems they have playing with each other.  I was fascinated by the
accounts of some of the members' quests for new instruments, taking them
to a violin maker and also to an auction, at which one of the players,
having fallen in love w/ a particular violin bids it up not only beyond
its expected price but his own ability to buy.  The episode almost rivals
in intensity the "love interest" between the point of view character and
the woman he had abruptly left when they were students in Vienna and who
surfaces again in the Green Room after one of their concerts.  The romance
between the lovers as they drink in the splendors of Venice is tenderly
depicted, down to their choice of gifts for each other.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the Beethoven Trio, Opus 1, No. 3, in c
minor, which I learned from the book had been rearranged by LvB for
string quintet, the arrival of the CD of which from Musica Bona I'm
now eagerly awaiting.  Now I have another question.

The quartet has decided to accept a contract to record Bach's *Art of
the Fugue* and they are running into instrumentation problems.  It seems
the part that the viola is expected to play has some passages that are
too for the normal viola, even when it's tuned down and the violist
believes she will have to acquire a second, larger viola to play those
parts.  Similarly, the second violinist, will need to play some of the
music associated with his instrument on a viola.  I know that there's
at least one arrangement of the work for string quarter by Roy Harris.
Are there others?  Do the players in those arrangements need to switch
instruments as described in the novel I just finished?

Walter Meyer