The Guarneri once were new, quick and aggressive - now they are the Old Men, slower trills, more reflective, less able, perhaps; icons to be knocked down and stumbled over by other quartets on the way to their own world-wide fame.

The Guarneri's first violinist, Arnold Steinhardt, has been using the time in hotel rooms and green rooms to keep a diary of life in a professional string quartet. His notes and stories are the basis for his new book, Indivisible by Four, A String Quartet in Search of Harmony.

Reading Steinhardt from my vantage as an avid amateur cellist and chamber music player I sense from the author a certain pride, even haughtiness, about the lesser folk who revolve around the ensemble. A New York taxi driver plays the drums and wants to gig with the quartet members sitting in the back of his cab. They discretely roll their eyeballs. Later, it makes a good story.

What a great and difficult thing these four musicians have accomplished - hundreds of concerts a year, constant travel, recording and teaching, all the while attempting to reach the highest levels of their art. "We were playing the great quartet literature for audiences who knew and loved Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok. There were almost too many masterpieces, each one a universe to explore, for us ever to get bored, and we were constantly challenged by the process of learning music and working together."

It is not easy to work that hard and that together that long. Steinhardt writes:

"...More and more we ate at separate tables in the hotel dining room, each often armed with reading material whereby we would gain entry into a world that excluded the others - I might have a book of E. B. White's essays, David the latest Philip Roth novel or just as easily some action-adventure thriller. Michael might bring Jane Austen or Shakespeare along, often annotating and underlining significant passages, and John was never without a book of challenging crossword puzzles. If I went for a walk, it was alone.... We did not necessarily fly together anymore."

This kind of behavior gave rise to years of false rumors of the Guarneri's imminent breakup. Steinhardt is at pains to explain how the difficult intimacy of making music together is all the intimacy the members of the quartet have needed. Their solo careers, their separate interests - these things have contributed to their astoundingly long-lived career.

There are many riches in this book, stories, jokes, anecdotes, memories. Musicians will enjoy the details -- how music is selected, how rehearsals are conducted (they argue heatedly over how to play the  "dot" over one musical note)  -- and what it feels like moment to moment during a performance.

My favorite part of Indivisible by Four is the final few pages. Steinhardt gets lyrical at last as he describes from the inside how it feels to perform:

"In Albuquerque on June 13, 1997," he recalls, "we play Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' quartet for the last time this season. I feel an extra heaviness in the air before the performance. Perhaps it is the heaviness of our age, the perception of time itself diminishing and pressing in on us. How many more seasons does the Guarneri have ahead; how many more performances of this glorious music?

"We enter stage left, we bow, we take our seats, and we assume our expected roles in the drama that will unfold in the next forty minutes...

"Give a good lead, Arnold. - distinct but soft - so that we can start together and set the stage for Death's words to the Maiden:

"‘Give me your hand, o fair and tender form!
I am your friend; I do not come to punish.'

"In four-part harmony we begin the solemn theme softly. Decent blend. Together. Good. John and Michael now have the moving voices. Watch John's fingers. Eat them, as Sascha Schneider once advised us. We repeat the first eight bars. Not the same, but not too different, either! David's bow floats more this time. Nice. Match that sound...

"...We sleepwalk through it, letting our subconscious do the work. Watch out for that arpeggio in the second half! Ah. At least, better than Jerusalem last week. But they loved us in Jerusalem. We had to play an encore. Will we have to play one here in Albuquerque? Stop it, you idiot. Your mind is wandering. A woman is grappling with Death and you're thinking about encores. All right, all right. Where was I? Oh yes, my triplets..."

There are other books about the Guarneri. Helen Ruttencutter wrote Quartet a book detailing their professional lives. The Art of String Quartet Playing: The Guarneri in Conversation with David Blum is available in paperback. And there is a full-length film that can be rented: "High Fidelity: the Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet." Listen to them live if you can; on a recording if you can't. They are great.

aired Thursday Nov 26 at 9:30 am and Sunday Nov 29 at 10:58am