Discovering New Angles to the String Quartet Haydn—Verdi—Wernick
Thomas May
“America’s deepest explorer of the spiritual immen sities—a seer painting his discoveries in masses with any color that may lie at hand—cosmic, religious, human, even sensuous,” enthused the composer Charles Ives over one of his American heroes, the poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson—and namesake of the Emerson String Quartet. When starting out in 1976 (at a time when the U.S. faced its first election since the Watergate crisis and Richard Nixon’s resignation), the Emersons wanted to look back for inspiration to a nobler moment of American history and optimism. “We chose our name because we liked what Ralph Waldo Emerson stood for,” says Eugene Drucker. Together with fellow violinist Philip Setzer, he cofounded the Emerson String Quartet (which continues the principle of alternating the primarius role to this day). Drucker adds: “We knew he was a great idealist and had a profound effect on many people in the arts and also espoused a lot of good social ideas.” The group, which has gone on to establish itself as a standard-setting ensemble, makes its Pierre Boulez Saal debut with a characteristically invigorating program rich in provocative juxtapositions. They look back to the foundations of the string quartet as we know it with a mature Haydn work that suggests an intriguing counterpart to his sensationally successful “London” symphonies of the same vintage. Over the years, the Emersons have also commissioned new works from an impressive range of composers (Thomas Adès, Kaija Saariaho, Wolfgang Rihm, and Mark-Anthony Turnage among them). This evening, a new score by fellow American Richard Wernick is on the agenda, as is an older discovery: Verdi’s all-too-rarely encountered, sole contribution to the medium. 13
