23.2.2001 - The Emersons won two Grammys yesterday - Best Classical Album and Best Chamber Music Performance - for their Complete Shostakovich Quartets recording . Apparently Singapore was their last point of performance before they went back to the US for the award ceremony.

Overheard in the lobby during the interval, in front of the merchandise counter where Emerson CDs were being sold: "Are these really that good ?" The speaker was referring to their Schubert String Quintet album (with Rostropovich in second cello, DG 431 792-2) and went on to inquire how many "stars" it received in a certain well-known book of music reviews. Dr Chang Tou Liang, who also overheard the question, ventured a certain probability that it'd get "at least three".

But for the risk of blowing my cover, I'd have interjected and pointed out that aforesaid book of music reviews - I name no names here - has always harboured a curmurdgeonly, even chauvinistic, attitude towards the Emersons and one would do well to rely on a broader sample of opinions insofar as this quartet is concerned. I am, however, in full agreement with Dr Chang's sentiment that the Emersons are as top drawer as any performing quartet today, and I might go so far as to say that this performance looks likely to be one of the high points of the current season, even so early on.

Listeners familiar with the Emerson from their recordings might not have recognized them at first hearing, though - the niggardly acoustics of the concert hall doing no favours for them. Yet, right from the very first notes of the Brahms First String Quartet, the texture of the sound which they projected was that of spaciousness, pushing back the walls of the auditorium and burning through a fog of reverberation.

Picture from the Emerson Quartet Homepage.

What was instantaneously recognizable was their trademark precision and ensemble, all though the development of the first movement, the poetry of the second (as sublime as could be expected), the intermezzo of the third and the vigour of the fourth. In their indomitable manner, they ploughed through the music with razor-sharp incisiveness and attack, going heavily for technical perfection and losing, I felt, just that last bit of beauty of tone in exchange.

By contrast, the renowned Adagio from Barber's String Quartet, Op.11 came as an aural balm after the intricacy of the Brahms. Most of the audience would be more familiar with its orchestral version, but here the original version received a most persuasive reading from the Emerson. This was a blended sonority which not even the four square walls could smother, a surgical quality of control over the progression of dynamics as the music relentlessly built up to its great exegesis, before fading away, a veritable dying fall...

After the break, the Emerson returned with the Beethoven C-sharp minor Quartet, Op.131 - the seven-movement juggernaut to be played straight through without pause. As the introductory page notes, writer Vikram Seth described this work as a "steeplechase-cum-marathon" and rightly so. I am reliably told that this phrase comes from his novel An Equal Music - see sidebar.

The Emerson tackled the Beethoven much in the same way which they took Brahms: breathtaking playing combined with a committed engagement with the character of the music. The pizzicati exchanges left me (quite literally) on the edge of my seat, and the Presto - I'm not saying this lightly - was one of the most brilliant episodes of quartet performance I've ever heard. Hardly the "intermittent contact" complaint one might find in aforementioned music review book.

I'd proffer the explanation that in a very practical sense, the Emerson's unabashedly modern high-flying treatement of the music simply will not go down well with some. On the other hand, if we say that Beethoven did not write his music for players to stick like glue to the literal indications and markings (tempi, dynamics, etc), then players - especially of a different age from which his music was written - should be free to expand on what he penned. It is not every musician who can do this; but the Emersons can, and in spades. That is the very linchpin of their artistry.

The ending of the Beethoven arrived all too soon. Even so, there was no catharsis to be had, not with the inclusion of Shostakovich in the encore (which rather created a buzz around the hall - I look forward to the Emersons playing Bartok and Shostakovich when they visit the next time round).

The queue in the lobby stretched halfway up the staircase landing towards the circle and the quartet members, when they finally emerged for the autograph signing, turned out to very amicable personalities indeed. In particular, if you have the chance, watch cellist David Finckel's art-of-zen signature. It makes for a good anecdote next time you run out of conversation topics during concert intermissions.

WILLIAM BEH is glad he brought his own CD covers along to be signed, seeing as how all the Emerson CDs in the lobby were sold out within minutes of going on sale.

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I was the one who wrote the introductory page [WB: Aha ! Thought so !] and yes, I was the one who included the reference to Vikram Seth's An Equal Music. Having been a quartet player myself (in the distant past, albeit) and an avid reader of good literature, I could not not make the reference to Seth's wonderful novel when I was called upon to write the intro.

An Equal Music is, at its essence, a love story, told in the first person by the second violinist of a quartet. He meets up with his long-lost girlfriend after a bitter parting, only to find that she is now happily married: loving husband, children and all.

Naturally, other complications arise (not just the extra-marital kind) and it is, of course, the drama of the narrator facing down these challenges that form the crux of the story. Far be it for me to give the details here and deprive the pleasure of discovery for those who are going to give this book a read.

Interwoven into this romantic tapestry are exquisite descriptions and references to chamber music, including the Beethoven Op.131. Not since Ishiguro's The Unconsoled (and then only marginally, at that) have I encountered such apt and intelligent use of classical music as a backdrop and a foil for a modern love story. It makes a wonderful gift and surprise for friends who are musicians, too.

This should be required reading for all lovers of good classical (chamber) music. Run, don't walk, down to your nearest bookseller/library - you'd be doing yourself a big favour.