Arts & Events

After more than four decades as one of the world’s premier string quartets, The Emerson String Quartet is disbanding later this year. They have embarked on a farewell tour, and under the auspices of San Francisco Performances they performed Friday, April 14, at Herbst Theatre. The Emerson String Quartet, named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, consists of Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer on violins, Lawrence Dutton on viola, and the cellist, who joined the group in 2013, is Paul Watkins. 

Opening the program on April 14 was a brief but intense Chacony (or Chaconne) by Britain’s 17th century composer Henry Purcell. This G minor work was arranged for strings by Benjamin Britten in 1948 and revised by him in 1963. A ground bass is announced as the work begins, and over this chorded progression the high strings present a series of variations full of invention and emotional power. 

Next on the programs was the String Quartet in G Major by Joseph Haydn, Opus 33, No. 5. When Haydn wrote the Opus 33 quartets he was giving lessons to the wife of Russian Grand Duke Paul, who later became Russia’s Czar Paul II. Haydn dedicated the six Opus 33 quartets to Grand Duke Paul, and it appears that some of these quartets were performed in the presence of the Grand Duke and his wife in Vienna on Christmas day 1781. 

Haydn announced that his Opus 33 quartets were written in “an entirely new and special way.” Exactly what Haydn meant by this is not clear, though he replaced the minuet movements found in his earlier quartets with scherzos, which led to these being called “the scherzi quartets.” In his G Major Quartet, Haydn begins with an unusually fast tempo marked Vivace assai. The opening phrase is first presented pianissimo then gradually becomes louder as it repeats. After this jolly opening movement, there comes a plaintive movement in G minor marked Largo e cantabile. The first violin, here played by Eugene Drucker, soars over a throbbing accompaniment by the other voices. Next comes a Scherzo in G Major which makes great use of silences, both with fermatas and rests. The final movement, marked Allegretto, so impressed Mozart that he modelled the finale to his own Quartet in D minor, K. 421, on the finale of Haydn’s G Major Quartet.  

The next work on the program, appropriately, was Mozart’s Quartet in D minor, K. 421. This was one of six quartets that Mozart dedicated to Haydn after “long and laborious study” of Haydn’s Opus 33 quartets. Completed in June 1783, the D minor quartet of Mozart is the only one of the six in a minor key. The mood here is dark and somber. The Allegro moderato opens with the first violin, here played by Eugene Drucker, performing a falling octave on D, then offering a long and intense melody over unobtrusive accompaniment from the other instruments. A second subject is introduced, but the dark opening theme dominates this movement. In the recapitulation, the cello, here played by Paul Watkins, offers a dark coda of its own. The second movement, marked Andante, offers a gentle opening theme that undergoes considerable development. The third movement, marked Minuetto Allegretto, is full of chromatic intensity until it eases into D Major and, over pizzicato accompaniment, offers a soaring melody from the first violin, here gorgeously played by Eugene Drucker, built on Lombard rhythms (dotted rhythms with the short note coming first). The viola then offers a second treatment before the return of the fierce minuet. The Finale is, as we have noted, modelled on the Finale to Haydn’s G Major Quartet. Set in D minor, it also offers hints of D Major, and this harmonic tension energises the entire Finale. Four variations ensue: the second offering a famous syncopated accompaniment from the second violin, here played by Philip Setzer. The third variation features the viola, here played by Lawrence Dutton, and the fourth eases into D Major. Now Mozart allows the music to rush forward until the whole work ends exactly where it began, with the first violin’s falling octave on D. This reading of Mozart’s dark and somber D minor Quartet was, in the hands of the Emerson String Quartet, nothing short of magisterial. 

After intermission the concluding work on the program was Beethoven’s E minor String Quartet, Opus 59, No. 2. For this work, the Emerson Quartet switched violin roles, giving first violin to Philip Setzer while Eugene Drucker took second violin. One of a set of three quartets Beethoven dedicated to the Russian ambassador to Vienna, Grand Duke Andreas Razumovsky, the E minor Quartet baffled early audiences with its new and adventurous departures from the norm. The two chords that open this quartet recur throughout, at quite different dynamic levels and employed in quite different ways. Themes ensue in fragmented form until there is a massive restatement of the opening theme, which unexpectedly falls into silence. The second movement, marked Molto adagio, was inspired, according to Beethoven’s friend Carl Czerny, by Beethoven “when contemplating the starry sky and thinking of the music of the spheres.” The cello leads the way in this movement; though not all is peaceful, as along the way Beethoven breaks the hushed mood with powerful massed chords. The third movement, marked Allegretto, offers a skittering theme from the viola and, later, a Russian theme suggested by Razumovsky. Beethoven presents the Russian theme in tight-fisted counterpoint that threatens to destroy the theme itself. The fourth and final movement offers a high-spirited dancing theme presented in stuttering phrases as well as bits and pieces of other themes, passed back and forth among all four instruments. A Presto coda brings this highly original quartet to a sudden close. 

The Emerson String Quartet received a standing ovation from the appreciative San Francisco audience, for which Eugene Drucker voiced the quartet’s thanks. He spoke of the bittersweet quality of this moment as the group prepares to disband after more than four decades. By way of introducing the group’s sole encore, Drucker noted the bittersweet quality of Antonín Dvorák’s Cypresses, B. 152-7, Andante con moto. Incidentally, in my review last week of theSasha Cooke-Jason Vieaux recital, I incorrectly credited the encore to Stephen Sondheim. It was, in fact, a song, “Not Everyone Thinks That I’m Beautiful,” by Michael Tilson Thomas channeling his inner Sondheim wannabe.