Music Reviews : Emerson String Quartet Opens Coleman Series

The 88th season of Coleman Chamber Concerts opened on Sunday in Beckman Auditorium, Caltech, with a program by the Emerson String Quartet that showed not only why the ensemble is among the top draws on today’s chamber circuit but how the group continues to grow.

Haydn’s “Lark” Quartet was treated with energy and bright, incisive tone within the context of an appreciation of how Classical period awareness can enhance playing predicated on practices derived from the Romantic era.

This “Lark” emerged airily light in the corner movements (it’s difficult to recall more precise execution of the flying spiccatos of the finale), with a gorgeously sung slow movement highlighted by first violinist Eugene Drucker’s expressive embellishment of the principal theme on its second appearance.

In their deservedly famous 1988 recording, the Emersons whacked the living daylights out of Bartok’s Fifth Quartet.

On this occasion, their playing of it was no less gripping, but with subtle plays of light and shade and more measured tempos to balance the hectoring drama. The two murmurous “night music” movements were nothing less than hypnotic.

The vast A-minor Quartet of Beethoven, Opus 132, came late for this listener, satisfied and sated by the splendors of Haydn and Bartok. Still, the performers--violinists Philip Setzer and Drucker, violist Lawrence Dutton, cellist David Finckel--offered playing that was both animated and, until its needlessly hectic finale, patiently expository.