EMERSON QUARTET

l–r Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, Lawrence Dutton and Paul Watkins

JÜRGEN FRANK

struggle comes across as an intensity to the audience. They actually pick up on the negative energy, and feel it as a positive.’

Earlier in 2022, the group began its valedictions with stops in Athens, Madrid, Pisa, Florence and Milan, and at London’s Southbank Centre. Their autumn 2022 farewell tour began in September in Garrison, New York State, and will continue in cities around the US and Canada. In Europe, they will bid adieu to audiences in Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and the Czech Republic. They will then return to New York for their final series with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, followed by concerts in Chicago and Los Angeles.

As with many veteran string players, teaching and mentorship loom large in the quartet’s future. The group is the quartet-in-residence at Stony Brook University (part of the State University of New York), located on the north shore of New York’s Long Island. In 2016 all four were awarded professorships at the institution (in the case of Drucker and Watkins, honorary professorships), and now they plan to continue teaching both individually and as a group at Stony Brook, through the Emerson String Quartet Institute.

In addition to that, Dutton mentions doing masterclasses at violinist Robert McDuffie’s programme in Macon, Georgia (McDuffie Center for Strings). Setzer plans to expand his teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as directing the Shouse Institute, an educational component of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival (in Southfield, Michigan, and for which Watkins serves as artistic director). Watkins already teaches about a dozen students at Yale School of Music, and he mentions a desire to do more conducting. Drucker is music director of the Bach at New Year’s concerts at the Berkshire Bach Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He also writes and composes: ‘I have written two novels, both of which focus quite a lot on music, and am trying to get a third book published. I’ve also composed a number of works for voice and strings, as well as a half-hour suite for string quartet called Series of Twelve (which was premiered in 2018).

‘AT TIMES, WHEN YOU’RE HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE, SOMETIMES THE STRUGGLE COMES ACROSS AS AN INTENSITY TO THE AUDIENCE. THEY FEEL IT AS A POSITIVE’

None of the musicians will miss the pressure and (especially) the travel. As many artists will agree, the details of touring – flight and hotel arrangements, ensuring the instruments’ safety and so on – can be a grind that is a relief when it comes to a halt. Dutton recalls a near miss in Frankfurt in November 1990 – when people were celebrating the reunification of Germany, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. ‘We were trying to get to a concert, but with the highways mobbed with travellers, the trip took six hours, and we arrived about ten minutes before the concert. It was a hard one, with three Beethoven quartets. That was scary.’

The Emersons in 1989: Dutton, Drucker, former cellist David Finckel, and Setzer

VINTAGE PHOTO WERNER NEUMEISTER. BEACH PHOTO LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCO

THE ENSEMBLE’S SEEMINGLY SIMPLE MANTRAS ARE ‘COULD YOU TRY IT?’ AND ‘IT HAS TO BE UNA NIMOUS’

Other unexpected delights reveal the sometimes mundane issues of instrumental mechanics, such as a minor nightmare scenario on the stage of Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the group was playing the Ravel String Quartet. Dutton broke a string. After going backstage, replacing the string and returning to the stage, he broke the same string again before then going out of tune.

He was starting to worry about running out of strings when a luthier friend in the audience rushed in to help, quickly diagnosing that the bridge was somehow cutting into the string, which Dutton describes as ‘a weird kind of equipment failure’.

Watkins also offers a tale of commitment under adverse circumstances, during performances at Tanglewood of the final Shostakovich quartets. At the end of no.15, with its quiet close, he glanced at Setzer, who seemed ever so slightly distracted. Watkins returned to the music, but then noticed a small black object on Setzer’s hand – which was now dripping blood. ‘An enormous horsefly had landed and chomped down on his hand.’

Apart from widespread recognition, world-class instruments, sheer technical prowess, countless hours of practice and rehearsals, and no doubt some luck and advice from peers, what else contributes to the Emersons’ unparalleled success? After all, 47 years is longer than many marriages.

Setzer is the first to mention pivotal points that fuel him and his colleagues. The first is the ensemble’s seemingly simple mantra, ‘Could you try it?’ The first operative word here is ‘could’, indicating a gracious invitation rather than a demand. And ‘try’ indicates a willingness to explore – to seek out, to consider, to investigate – rather than prematurely closing the door on interpretations.

The second guiding principle is, ‘It has to be unanimous.’ Whereas some quartets operate according to decisions made by the majority (and a few are probably closer in structure to a dictatorship), the Emersons decided not to pursue any project without consent and enthusiasm from all. If it doesn’t garner unanimous approval, they scrap it and go on to something else.

The final key to a lasting relationship is a sense of humour, confirmed by all four musicians and by our interviews, which include a good deal of laughter. Setzer relates a priceless story about his father, the violinist Elmer Setzer, who was in the Cleveland Orchestra and in the Symphonia Quartet (1953–66), created at the request of conductor George Szell. Once, speaking at a Catholic school for girls where the quartet was about to perform, Elmer was attempting to characterise the string quartet as a ‘hub or core’ of smaller classical works. The younger Setzer laughs: ‘On this particular morning, after about five hours of sleep, my father looked right at the Mother Superior, sitting in the front row, and proclaimed, “The string quartet is the cub or whore of chamber music.” And of course, the three guys behind him completely lost it.’

Over almost 50 years, stories like this one abound, emphasising the humanity behind the music. With wit, astonishing technique and an adventurous trajectory, the Emersons have made an indelible mark on the musical world. Drucker concludes: ‘Especially in the early phase of the quartet’s career, I did not try to imagine anything beyond the next five years. It would have been too daunting to try to envision a future decades away. There were too many short-term and mid-range decisions to make, too much repertoire to learn, too many travel arrangements to take care of, too many concerts or series in music capitals to plan for. We were caught up in the process of living our lives as professional musicians, simply trying to do the best we could.’

Being named after an eloquent essayist has its pluses, such as a rich array of quotes to choose from to sum up the group’s history and philosophy. It would be a shame not to choose another Emerson gem with which to close: ‘To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.’ As technicians, innovators and human beings, the Emerson Quartet players have proved this maxim to be true.