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Tuesday, March 19, 2002

By Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic

The secret of success often is easy to see but difficult to duplicate. And even if you do, you find out aping someone else's greatness is a dead end. The true originality that leads to excellence often simply happens.

So it goes with the Emerson String Quartet. Celebrating its 25th year of existence, the group is finding itself in the desirable position of answering: What's your secret? At Carnegie Music Hall last night, in a Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society concert, the response was easy.

The foursome displayed its characteristic individuality of play, cemented by rock-solid ensemble and deeply weighted phrasing. The four perform with absolute cohesion, allowing each to tinker with timbre and style. Whether it be cellist David Finckel's short but stout bowing, or violist Lawrence Dutton's reactive playing, or violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer focusing on playing the music more than sounding alike, there is something satisfying about Emerson's music-making. Its freedom of artistry boils over to the listener, uncovering aspects of the music you hadn't heard before.

Plus, this may be the healthiest string quartet to reach 25 years. The members get along well, and their sense of humor spilled out into the performance, including their chortling just before taking the stage.

And it's worth repeating -- if a young quartet should mimic any quality of the Emerson, it's this: They play together superbly on every beat. It's the reason the members can take the risks they do.

The concert began with Haydn's Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5, a gem from the early career of the composer who essentially invented the genre. It's predominantly in minor, but its Sturm und Drang quality comes across more like a passing mid-life crisis than any deep turmoil. In fact, the Emerson culled more pleasantness out of it than stress, with several moments of pure blending that gave it just the right galant touch.

It was brilliant programming to follow that work, which ends with a sharp fugue, with Bartok's Quartet No. 3, a work full of dicey counterpoint. Here the abundance of familiarity paid off and the quartet was able to attack Bartok's modernist language with gusto. The music was pungent in their hands.

The real payoff came in the second half, when the Emerson was joined by clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, another artist who has made it big doing things that fit him naturally. The piece was Mozart's exquisite Quintet in A major, K. 581.

Trying to describe the fruits of this partnership borders on untying the Gordian knot. Suffice it to say that Stoltzman, with a sumptuous tone and a hint of vibrato, added a heavenly quality to the real and human sound of the Emerson, transfiguring the beloved work.