Review: Emerson String Quartet

May 5, Virginia Commonwealth University

I’ve always been of two minds about the Emerson String Quartet. In sheer technical prowess, and in the way the four musicians produce a rich and refined ensemble sound out of unmistakably individual voices, no other quartet is the Emerson’s equal. Musically, however, this foursome – violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel – can veer from intensely concentrated performance to matter-of-fact rendition, unpredictably and aggravatingly.

That happened several times during the Emerson’s visit to VCU for the last of this season’s Rennolds Chamber Concerts.

The major piece on this program was Beethoven’s Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, music freighted with autobiography (the composer’s recovery from illness) and spiritually anchored by the “Heilige Dankesang” (“holy song of Thanksgiving”), a noble but expressively elusive hymn tune. The gravity of the piece is relieved by a rather playful second movement and an increasingly dramatic, strongly accented sequence of movements following the hymn. It is music of big personality and a lot of soul.

To my ears, the Emerson’s performance was emotionally dry and strangely reticent in attack and accent – only in the finale did the music-making really catch fire. By way of compensation, the musicians brought out a wealth of dark tone color in the “Heilige Dankesang;” and I doubt I’ll frequently hear four fiddles more finely balanced than these were in the second movement.

Matter-of-factness also characterized the group’s reading of Haydn’s Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2. The Emerson handled the piece’s rhythmic cross-currents with ease, and with zest, and Drucker, playing lead violin, adopted just the right tone of clarity and lyricism. But in this performance, Haydn’s jokes were told with poker faces and his surprises didn’t spring on the ear.

The Emerson has long excelled in Shostakovich, and the group’s reading of the Fifth Quartet (1951) met expectations and then some. The juxtaposition, sometimes the combination, of giddy exhilaration and mortal dread drives much of Shostakovich’s music; but those two qualities stand in especially stark relief in the quartets of the 1950s. This performance rode the music’s mood swings securely and with vivid expressivity.