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The kinship that unites the members of the Quatuor Despax has stood the test of time—20 years, to be exact. Dedicating itself to a wide range of musical genres over the years, the group has kept its momentum going by maintaining its ties to kin, friends and music lovers alike.
For those who may not know them, they are brothers and sisters (two of each) who play the required instruments for a standard string quartet comprised of two violins, a viola and a cello. A recent meeting with them for a conversation left no doubts about the family bond that has served them in their musical quest to further their careers and overcome any hurdles in the process.
“We simply live off our music,” says the group’s second violinist, Jean Despax. “Classical music is great, for sure, but we can do more than that. Being versed in the classical idiom actually allows us to do other things, too.”
This summer, on July 4, the quartet will be in concert, 20 years to the day of its stage debut. For this special occasion, they have programmed works by Tchaikovsky and Boulogne, a.k.a. the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, once nicknamed the Black Mozart.
Anniversary Concert
Photo: Astrid Vdw
“We only discovered him (Boulogne) a few years ago,” says the group’s cellist, Valérie, “and were quite happy about that, his music contributing greatly to our repertoire.” That said, she admits that the Chevalier’s works are not without their own quirks and challenges. His atypical style mirrors in many ways his own life spent learning music in something of an erratic way, as if his own education ran counter to the standards of composers reared in musical families. “He simply did not have access to all that was available to his contemporaries,” notes the cellist. “You see that in his scoring of certain passages, the sequencing of pitches, the fingerings or ways of moving between strings. For the casual ear, it may sound quite beautiful and very classical, but it is only when you play it that you find out how different it is from everything else.”
Mozart’s music, for one, was viewed by some of his contemporaries as very ornate and intricate, even too notey for its own good, leaving Viennese folk often befuddled. Ditto for Beethoven and his symphonies deemed unplayable at the dawning of the 19th century. Would such reactions be telltale signs of musical genius? If that holds true for those mercurial figures, would that also apply to Boulogne?
“Learning how to play Mozart properly is part and parcel of a musician’s training,” says Valérie,“ so we are well acquainted with the hallmarks of his style, which is not the case at all for the music of Saint-Georges. That is what appeals to us so much: it stands out from the crowd.”
Maxime Despax, the quartet’s violist, picks up where his sister left off. “The fact of being able to play a variety of repertoires (classical, baroque and what not) can be a deterrent to going out on a limb and promoting other artists because the public keeps clamouring for Mozart, Haydn and the like. But from our point of view, we really enjoy those opportunities to step away from all of that and offer something off the beaten track—the music of Saint-Georges, for instance. We are even entertaining the idea of performing all of his music for string quartet in concert at some point in the not too distant future. Others do it, so why not us?”
Classically trained
All four studied first at the music conservatory in Gatineau, Que., or Hull as it was once known. Cendrine, the first violinist of the group, headed out first to Montreal to earn a bachelor’s in music at the city’s conservatory. Her sister Valérie arrived last, close on the heels of her two brothers who made the move together. The cellist went one step further, getting a performance degree equivalent to that of a master’s.
“Once having completed our conservatory studies,” says the lead violinist,“Maxime went to Toronto to get his master’s while Valérie spent time at McGill, Jean electing to go to the Conservatoire de Montréal to complete his graduation recital. If our collective musical experience began at the conservatory in Gatineau, it was furthered in Montreal. The trips we made to the summer music school in Orford on two or three occasions were very helpful to our personal development, and we were fortunate enough to meet and work with the New Orford String Quartet. But our first real coach was violinist Calvin Sieb in Gatineau; both he and the Orford Quartet were foundational in our development.”
“He (Sieb, that is) heard us one day at a concert,” Valérie recalls. “He got us together one day and looked us straight in the eye and said: ‘Don’t get married too soon. String quartets are a marriage all their own.’ My father, Emmanuel, was standing next to him and seemed to agree. Sieb was one of the teachers we had who really believed in us, and that is one of the main reasons we decided to go that route. He encouraged us to perform concerts as a quartet and to go with the flow.”
Paying Dues
Violinist Cendrine retells the quartet’s concert debut: “We performed Haydn’s first string quartet under the guidance of our coach, after which I believe we each played one solo piece. We started to build an audience right there and then, which already knew us to a degree for having played locally at the Parish of Notre-Dame de l’Eau-Vive in our hometown. We even put the word out beforehand with a promo blurb that said something like: ‘Come out and see us play a concert of classical music. We can do more than play music for church gatherings.’ We really wanted them to hear us beyond our usual fare for the congregation, and make them really get into chamber music repertoire.
“One of our neighbours in our early years, now 96 years old, told us she really liked coming to our events because she would discover our instruments, which in her view was a way to always learn something new. Audience comments like those are of great interest to performers—even more so when you know they come from people who may be plagued by health and mobility issues. Some of our earliest supporters still follow us, and a few of them even expressed the wish that we play at their funerals, not a rare occurrence by the way. Those are but a few of the reasons why we continue giving concerts in different settings, simply because of that sense of gratitude we have for those who never stopped believing in us.”
According to second violinist Jean, their success also hinges on an ability to play under an array of circumstances ranging from funerals to weddings, special events to series like the Candlelight concerts (mostly in Ottawa), where they dabble into some crossover fare. “Some people actually come from very far to hear us,” says Jean, “because of past experience. That, to me, is a sign of our good standing—one that begins in our community but reaches outwards as well. ”
It was at one event away from home when the quartet was approached by the director of a concert series in Italy, the location being the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church in Montreal where the ensemble held a two-year residence a decade ago. The chance meeting opened the doors, allowing the foursome to embark on its first European tour, and a series of added opportunities and new working agreements.
“We now had our foot in the door in Italy,” says Jean, “and from that we got to know plenty of musicians over there and its festivals, which led to artist exchanges between the two countries, and further travels abroad for us—including France, the native land of my grandparents and their son, my father.”
Early Years
The venue for the July 4 concert, the aforementioned Notre-Dame-de-la-Guadeloupe Church, is right next door to the family home. A most appropriate choice, when you consider that holy house to be the very first space they performed in, besides Saint-Pierre-Chanel Church. Something like coming around full circle, as Cendrine opines. “We played there early on, almost as toddlers. We feel lucky to play our concert in that hall because of its eminently suitable acoustics for a string quartet. And we fall in love with the place all over again at every performance.”
Five years after the death of their father, a guitarist by training who also composed and directed choirs, both brothers and sisters acknowledge him as a role model. “Not only was he the parish choirmaster,” says Cendrine,“but he wrote pieces for us as well. When we told him we played alongside the New Orford Quartet, he asked us one day if he could compose an octet for strings—and he did!”
Their mother, Gaby, Haitian by birth, once played piano, but was forced to give it up for health reasons. Yet she remains active as a music educator, teaching at several first-grade level French-language schools in Ontario. As Cendrine recalls: “She got us all started in music by the time we were three, simply because she wanted to pass on her own musical heritage to us. Both our parents soon discovered we had some potential, our father averring to her wishes.” Jean chimes in and points to the fact that “our mother taught on the second floor of the family home, our father on the ground floor, so very early on in life we would see all these strangers entering the premises and hear them singing scales.”
Further commitments
Photo: Curtis Perry
Aside from their own quartet activities, the siblings are part of the string section of the Orchestre symphonique de Gatineau as well as working in the Ensemble Obiora, a more recent collaboration that came about in August 2021. Brandyn Lewis, a co-founder of this ensemble with Allison Migeon, first approached the quartet to find out what its views were on music for strings. Obiora’s goal was to promote the breadth of literature written for strings, ranging from quartets to larger chamber orchestras.
“When Lewis called us,” says Maxime,“the group was up and running, and he wanted all four of us to be part of it, so we were understandably quite delighted by his proposal. We count our lucky stars, if you will, to have stuck it out for the past 20 years. There were times we thought of going our own separate ways, and some people may wonder why, but we each lead our own lives, with individual takes on things, even occasional divergences in terms of personal priorities. To be honest, we have made quite a few sacrifices for the common cause, but have done so simply because we cannot see our lives without the group, in spite of all the side opportunities offered to us throughout the years. What matters the most is to invest ourselves completely in the music we believe in by promoting the works that endear us, both within and beyond the classics. It’s our way of bearing the family torch. Our father was our first mentor, the one who readied us technically; our mother imparted the love of music on us—so we are indebted to both of them, each in their own way.”
Translation by Marc Chénard
The Despax Quartet will present its anniversary concert on July 4 at 8 p.m., at the Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Guadeloupe in Gatineau, Que., and will later participate in two summer festivals in Ontario, first on July 20 at the Stratford Summer Music and on Aug. 4 at the Festival of the Sound. Also noteworthy is the eighth edition of the Festival L’Art de la musique, founded in 2015 by Cendrine and Valérie Despax, which will be held, as it is every year, in the churches of Gatineau (July 13 to 16). For more details on the activities of the Despax Quartet, visit www.quatuordespax.com
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
