Emerson Quartet’s Disappointing Farewell

Emerson String Quartet players Paul Watkins, Lawrence Dutton, Philip Setzer, and Eugene Drucker (photograph by Jürgen Frank, courtesy of SFP)

Many readers probably know by now that this is the final season of the Emerson String Quartet, which will disband after a farewell performance in New York this coming October. The ensemble was formed in 1976 and sustained its original membership for about 37 years. The only change in personnel took place in 2013 when cellist Paul Watkins replaced David Finckel. The other three members, violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer and violist Lawrence Dutton have been with the quartet since its founding.

Last night Emerson’s farewell tour took them to Herbst Theatre, where they presented their eighth and final program for San Francisco Performances, which also happened to be the final performance in this season’s Chamber Series. They presented First Viennese School string quartets by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven in chronological order. The program began with an “overture” in the form of a G minor chaconne by Henry Purcell, which Benjamin Britten had scored for string orchestra in 1948 and revised in 1963.

Readers may recall that Emerson last visited Herbst a little less than a year ago on May 6. Their program for that occasion was far less conventional, presenting string quartets by Alexander Borodin, Samuel Barber, and Béla Bartók. Sadly, this was not a particularly satisfying evening for serious listeners with only Bartók receiving a satisfying account under Drucker’s leadership. Last night was not much better, the closest to a high point being Setzer’s leadership of the Beethoven selection, the second (in the key of E minor) of the three Opus 59 “Razumovsky” quartets from the composer’s middle period.

This was the concluding work on the program. Following the chaconne, the first half coupled Haydn’s Hoboken III/41 in G major (the fifth of the quartets published as Opus 33) with Mozart’s K. 421 quartet in D minor, both led by Drucker. These were composed in 1781 and 1783, respectively, while the “Razumovsky” quartets were composed in 1805. He also led the encore selection, the string quartet arrangement of Antonín Dvořák’s song “I Wander Often Past Yonder House” from his Cypresses collection.

This was one of those occasions on which every work performed could provide no end of food for thought, but there was little in the Emerson accounts to stimulate the mind of the attentive listener.