When it comes to the Emerson String Quartet, too much is never enough.
In a bonus concert to the Friends of Chamber Music’s regular series at Gates Concert Hall, the foursome of formidable talent performed an absorbing program of weighty works spanning the classical, romantic and modern eras.
Slick roads notwithstanding, the quartet played to a sizable crowd, outdoing itself in Dmitri Shostakovich’s large-scale, two-movement String Quartet No. 12 in D flat major.
Plunging full-force into a score that is more akin to a symphony than to chamber music, cellist David Finckel’s wandering atonal line emphatically set the stage for an emotional journey that is as much about suffering as it is about acceptance.
The Moderato movement, especially – which transforms into tuneful tonality after the opening atonal passage – is a study of complex juxtapositions. Not only does Shostakovich evoke glimpses of the musical sensibilities of Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a thoroughly modern setting, but he also superimposes a sense of private spirituality on the political perversity of his time.
Yet with its buoyant pizzicatos resonating beautifully in the hands of violists Lawrence Dutton and violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, the first movement is mere prelude to the dense and dramatic story line of the second movement. Here, after a series of aggressive trills, the violinists created an atmosphere of immediacy in their forceful delivery of a repeated five-note phrase that ultimately dissolved in Finckel’s searing solo passage.
The Emerson opened with Beethoven’s sober and subdued String Quartet in F minor (“Serioso”) – a vigorous, no-frills work, and a complementary programming choice opposite the Shostakovich quartet.
The bold, furious start of the short-lived first movement was delivered in effective contrast to the slow and lyrical opening of the second movement that showcased tightly synchronized passages in the upper strings.
The centerpiece of the program was an explosive and fleet-fingered reading of Johannes Brahms’ String Quartet in B flat major – highlighting Dutton’s sumptuous sound, the piece was a sunny respite between two odes to misery.
Indeed, the quartet’s impassioned music-making is perhaps partly the result of its members leaving just enough room for ambiguity in their musical dialogue to read one another for the spontaneous possibilities of each moment, for a glance or a gesture that beckons a fresh take on a familiar phrase.
The evening closed with a contemplative, if somewhat hurried, reading of J.S. Bach’s “Chorale.”
In tonight’s sold-out concert, the Emerson will perform a wholly different program of works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Shostakovich.
