“Pitch-perfect.” —People“You won’t be able to quit these characters.” —goopThe addictive novel about four young friends navigating the cutthroat world of classical music and their complex relationships with each other, as ambition, passion, and love intertwine over the course of their lives.Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. They would never have been friends if they hadn’t needed each other. They would … been friends if they hadn’t needed each other. They would never have found each other except for the art which drew them together. They would never have become family without their love for the music, for each other.
Brit is the second violinist, a beautiful and quiet orphan; on the viola is Henry, a prodigy who’s always had it easy; the cellist is Daniel, the oldest and an angry skeptic who sleeps around; and on first violin is Jana, their flinty, resilient leader. Together, they are the Van Ness Quartet. After the group’s youthful, rocky start, they experience devastating failure and wild success, heartbreak and marriage, triumph and loss, betrayal and enduring loyalty. They are always tied to each other – by career, by the intensity of their art, by the secrets they carry, by choosing each other over and over again.
Following these four unforgettable characters, Aja Gabel’s debut novel gives a riveting look into the high-stakes, cutthroat world of musicians, and of lives made in concert. The story of Brit and Henry and Daniel and Jana, The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth.
more
With uncommon clarity and empathy, Aja Gabel brings us inside the passionate, complex, and sometimes cutthroat intimacy that exists among the four members of a string quartet. A wise and powerful novel about love, life, and music. I didn’t want it to end.
This book has some of the best writing about playing music that I’ve ever read. It took me right back to my orchestra days in college: the intense pressure to play perfectly, the jealousy of those who seemed to do that effortlessly, the rush of performing in a group where you’re so attuned to each other that even your breathing synchronizes. But even if you’re not a musician (or former musician), you’ll love this book if you’re into character driven stories that pick apart the subtleties of friendship, love, and artistic life. I highly recommend it!
one really gets into the lives, emotional and physical, of a ensemble string player.
The story is steady and gradual; I wasn’t sucked in, but rather, immersed in the lives of Jana, Brit, Henry, and Daniel. The writing was superb. Not just in the descriptions of music, but the descriptions of life—the tangled emotions of being human. An artful, incredible book. Highly recommended.
Another of my top 10 reads in the first half of 2019: The Ensemble by Aja Gabal. I was swept away by this book, the complex friendships and love within the novel’s starring Quartet that you can almost touch, and the sensitivity to music, to the emotional and physical pain of devoting yourself so thoroughly to something, as well as the book’s incredibly fluid structure and sweeps of memory and time. Breathtaking. Writers: A great book to study for developing friendships and complex relationships between four protagonists, use of time and structure, interiority and backstory, and writing about music and work.
Hard to get through; I didn’t finish it. Felt sad for some of the characters.
A great glimpse into growing up “gifted” and how it affects your whole life. (great music, too)
“The Ensemble” by Aja Gabel explores the complicated world of string quartet members, musicians who not only play music together but whose lives are inextricably bound together. The four musicians, young, innocent, and very talented, meet at school and forge a relationship based on their musical compatibility. Whether or not they like each other is secondary to their ability to blend as a quartet. They spend endless hours every day practicing. All their life decisions are based on where the quartet is performing and what is best for the quartet. This inevitably leads to damaged personal lives and emotionally handicapped personalities.
The quartet’s ability to produce exquisitely beautiful music stands in stark contrast to the members’ damaged emotional lives and their inability to engage in normal love relationships. It really gives one pause to think that such psychologically unsound individuals can produce such beauty. All one needs to do, though, is recall the Romantic poets, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, to know that one doesn’t need to be psychologically sound or emotionally balanced to create great poetry or art or music.
Throughout the book, I kept asking myself why these characters didn’t seek out a good therapist. All you need is therapy, I kept shouting, as if the characters would hear me and begin to take control of their lives. Then I reminded myself that there would be no story if they’d done that. No failed relationships, no sad and lonely cellist or violinist to make grand romantic gestures. No well drawn characters to make us squirm as we read about their latest emotional disasters.
“The Ensemble” will hold you in its grip as you keep waiting for someone to make a change, to leave the quartet, to start a new life. And yet they choose each other over and over and over again until you are shaking with disbelief. And finally, at the end, you understand. Every choice, every single small choice, has great consequences and these characters have chosen to pursue perfection. Unfortunately, perfection is not a quest for the best in ourselves. It is, rather, the pursuit of the worst part of ourselves that tells us we are not worthy and nothing we do is ever good enough. Sadly that is what the members of the Van Ness Quartet have chosen for themselves and their damaged lives bear testimony to that.
The best book I’ve read in several years. Don’t be put off by the music angle. The characters are totally alive and you get to follow them through many years. Don’t miss this one!