THE ENSEMBLE a Debut Novel by Aja Gabel that Strings Along a Chamber Music Quartet for Too Long

THE ENSEMBLE is debut novel about the members of a string quartet.  Unfortunately, the musical metaphors over play the libretto with repetitious refrains.   Some movements soar but it's too often a diminuendo that slackens.  Aga Gabel has strung together a novel with 4 narratives; 2 women & 2 men who form a finely tuned chamber music group.  The two that set the pace are Jana, the leader of the quartet on 1st violin and Daniel, on cello.  The other two are Brit on 2nd violin who underscores the melody & underplays her needs and Henry, the youngest in the group.  Henry is acclaimed prodigy for whom everything seems to come easily.  How the 4 form a into a group is enigmatic and irrelevant.  What's key is how they form a family & how their lives ebb and flow while strumming their bows to create art & harmony.  Together, their tymphony becomes tiresome; an overly rehearsed piece devoid of enchantment.  The group span decades together but the tone becomes one long adagio  lacking nuance.  Their solo acts apart from the group exhibit more virtuosity than the ensemble combined.  Their reliance on one another goes through varying modules & tonal alignments.  They all arrive at the same resounding epiphany crescendo.  The quartet garnered from each other what most people get from their life partners; "consistency, obligation, non-verbal understanding and misunderstanding - a deformed ugly-pretty kind of love and knowledge that what was there wouldn't change, for better or worse."  Gabel has composed an impressive debut but one that would have benefitted with more rests and space between the notes.  Daniel, the oldest, most tempestuous and arguably driven of the group, scored the most reverberating note.  He didn't think it was terrible to get everything you wanted.  He thought it was terrible to not know what you want.