New Classical Tracks: Emerson String Quartet

It's not easy maintaining a long-term relationship; longevity is the sum of numerous hours, intense energy, and infinite patience. Accomplishing that must be twice as challenging with four people. After nearly 30 years, this ensemble has managed to master a harmonious musical partnership.

One reason the Emerson String Quartet is so successful is that the players continue to look for ways to enrich their musical minds. While they're satisfying their musical curiosity, we benefit too.

On their latest recording, this Grammy Award-winning ensemble explores the string quartets of two great Nordic composers. According to the Emerson discography, this appears to be the first time the group has ventured this far into Northern Europe. Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was a pianist, not a string player, so he didn't write much music for strings. As a mature composer, he completed only one string quartet, a piece filled with drama and intriguing textures. Interestingly enough, these are the reasons critics panned this work when it premiered in 1878. They were uncomfortable with the abrupt transitions caused by the frequent starting and stopping of all the instruments.

Well, that's the way Edvard Grieg wanted it. The composer said he "had a big spiritual battle to fight" while writing this work. That's why this quartet sweeps from soft whispers to torrents of anger. Grieg was struggling to come to terms with an affair his wife supposedly had with his brother as he was writing this piece.

Grieg based this string quartet on a theme he adapted from a previous work. It was his setting of a poem that paralleled his own life. In the poem, "Fiddlers" by Henrik Ibsen, a minstrel chases a water-sprite hoping she will provide him with a magic song that will allow him to woo back his true love. But it's too late; she's already married his brother.

This subtext helps to make the quartet a tangled web of emotion. The Emerson String Quartet pulls it off beautifully in this new recording. After working together so many years, these four musicians, (violinists Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker, violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel), move as one, with a unified sense of pitch and tone and the ability to finish each other's musical phrases.

This recording takes its title, "Intimate Voices," from Jean Sibelius's only mature string quartet. Its Latin title, "Voces Intimae," does suggest the intimacy of music in a chamber setting, but Sibelius intended it to have a deeper meaning. The central slow movement is the heart of this work. Here the composer changes from D minor to the key of F major, which symbolizes a feeling of hope, yet concern. Unlike the Grieg Quartet, with its abrupt stops, Sibelius's string quartet flows gracefully from one idea to another.

The mood is one of uncertainty. Once again, I can tell the members of the Emerson String Quartet need no head nod to signify the change in emotion. It comes in three hushed, out-of-key chords near the end of the slow movement. This mysterious interruption hints at the composer's frame of mind. While writing this work, Sibelius was becoming painfully aware of his own mortality; he had recently undergone a series of surgeries for throat cancer.

In addition to the two string quartets, there's also a smaller piece for strings on this new release. It's by Sibelius's Danish contemporary, Carl Nielsen. It was first played at the funeral of a friend, and 21 years later at Nielsen's own funeral. It opens in the dark key of E flat minor, and ends in a peaceful yet bright, D major key.

The Emerson String Quartet is named for the great American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once said, "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." The Emerson String Quartet has forged its own trail, which is long, adventurous and fulfilling.

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