THE musicians who played in the Macquarie Trio used to liken their ensemble to matrimony. "It's a bit like a marriage partnership," the pianist, Kathryn Selby, said in 1997. "When we do see each other it's a very concentrated and intimate type of experience, so if you don't get along it can turn into a nightmare." Now the nightmare has well and truly begun, a divorce has been drawn up and lawyers are fighting over the settlement. Last month the long-standing trio told its more than 2000 subscribers that the relationship with its sponsor, Macquarie University, was over. However, correspondence from Selby to Macquarie University suggests the trio's demise had less to do with cuts to arts funding than a calamitous personality clash between the trio's members.