Three Last Quartets: the Emerson at Tanglewood: Haydn, Bartók, and Schubert, by Larry Wallach

The Emerson String Quartet. Photo Lisa-Marie Mazzucco.

Three Last Quartets: the Emerson at Tanglewood
Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, July 12, 2011
Emerson String Quartet

Haydn, Andante and Minuetto in D minor, op. 103
Bartók, Quartet no. 6
Schubert, Quartet no. 15 in G major, op. 161 (D. 887)

The Emerson Quartet has become our honored eminence grise of chamber ensembles—they have recorded much of the literature (excluding critical 20th-century repertory by Schoenberg and Carter but including the complete Shostakovich) in performances that are regarded as definitive. Their concerts have taken on the aura that I recall experiencing a generation or two ago with the Budapest and then the Guarneri Quartets. The high-mindedness of the string quartet genre performed by the ensemble known to be the best there is induces in audiences a state of meditative reverence that is sustained by beautifully polished, superbly controlled performances. There is even a moral component involved: rather than relegate one performer to a subordinate role (that of second violinists Alexander Schneider or John Dalley) the Emersons are egalitarian: Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker share first and second violin duties. Their textural preferences are for rich, even-voiced sound that easily allows the viola and cello to speak through, and the balances are almost perfectly calibrated to display the endless resourcefulness of the composers.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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