As part of the Castalian String Quartet’s residency, this session will consist of brief presentations by Eric Clarke, Jacob Downs, Laura Tunbridge, and Jennifer Walshe. Our point of departure for discussion is Hans Keller’s ‘Group functioning of a string quartet’, which we will consider in relation to distributed cognition/creativity and improvisation, intimacy, models for unity and disintegration, and how a quartet might be infiltrated by external creative forces.

Keller’s text takes the form of a letter, responding to a questionnaire circulated by sociologist Margaret Phillips about small-group psychology in 1942. It is reproduced in Music and Psychology: From Vienna to London, 1939-52, ed. Christopher Wintle and Alison Garnham (London: Plumbago, 2003), pp. 41-47. We encourage you to read this short text before the session.