San Francisco Classical Voice

Two titans of 20th century music composition were on display, almost back to back, at Herbst Hall Wednesday in a fascinating program performed by the estimable Emerson String Quartet: Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker alternating at the first and second violin positions, Lawrence Dutton, viola, and David Finckel, cello. One titan, Béla Bartók, in his Fourth String Quartet from 1928, looked to the future harmonically for his inspiration, and the other, Dmitri Shostakovich, looked to the past for his muse. There was no knockout punch by either, with both quartets providing the emotional content necessary for music to make its mark.

The rest of the program contained a 1928 Lento, from Two Pieces for String Quartet, by this year's centennial honoree, Aaron Copland, and the Adagio second movement from Samuel Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11, performed more frequently in the string orchestra version than in the string quartet version, strangely enough. The program also contained one substantial novelty in the Officium Breve in Memoriam Andreae Szervanszky, Op. 28 (1988–1989), by György Kurtág, whose 15 movements last a brief 12 minutes, revealing the composer's obvious admiration for Anton Webern.

The Shostakovich Quartet barely flirts with atonality in the opening 12-note statement of the cello, but Shostakovich's instinctual conservatism soon prevails. The atonality does appear often enough in the quartet so that Shostakovich felt bound to defend its use by stating, when questioned, that he would use any compositional technique if the need was there. The Emersons gave a superb performance of this work, Beethovenian in scope because of its extraordinary concentration and internally personal expression. No wonder the recent release on CD of the 15 Shostakovich quartets by the Emerson Quartet has evoked so much interest.

The Bartók Fourth String Quartet, written in 1928 and premiered by the illustrious Pro Arte Quartet, is easily understood. It is in arch form: the first and fifth movements mirror each other, both in quick tempo and both in sonata form. The second and fourth movements are scherzos, with the second played extremely quickly and the fourth — a pizzicato movement — played somewhat more slowly. The keystone of the work is the slow movement, with the cello being the proponent of the magical Hungarian mood of the movement.

The Emersons made an incredible foursome, bringing to the Bartók intellectual and technical mastery and illuminating all the color, virtuosity, and mystery the quartet contains. The surprise of the evening was the Kurtág opus. With the exception of Ligeti, his senior by three years, Kurtág is the first Hungarian composer since Bartók and Kodály to be accepted internationally as a master. His admiration of Webern is obvious in the brevity of the movements. The textures are sparse and fragmentary, but he uses these fragments to say a great deal. The mood created by the Emersons was spellbinding.

The Copland Lento is not a major work but served as a good warm-up for the musicians. It uses Copland's well-known harmonies and moods. Obviously the composer, when writing Quiet City some 10 years later, remembered this almost-student work. The remainder of the program consisted of the Barber Adagio, taken at a slightly faster tempo than is usually the case with the string orchestra version. The lack of string weight requires the quartet players to move the bows more rapidly to acquire more volume, hence the livelier tempo. The concert ended with the Polka arranged for quartet from Shostakovich's Age of Gold ballet.

(Stuart Canin, is former Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and of Hollywood film orchestras, and the former Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra.)

©2000 Stuart Canin, all rights reserved