Schumann - String Quartets

Emerson String Quartet

They may not be the best-known works in the chamber repertoire, but Schumann’s three string quartets, written in a remarkable seven-week period in the summer of 1842, are real gems. They are among his first efforts to confront head-on the larger sonata-form structures that, until then, he had largely avoided with his natural preference for small forms: songs and cycles of piano miniatures. Yet they amount to much more than just preparatory work for the miraculous Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet that followed swiftly in their wake. Complete recordings of the set of three quartets are relatively few considering Schumann’s posthumous stature, and any cycle is to be warmly welcomed – all the more so when the performers are the great Emerson String Quartet, here making their debut on the Pentatone label, having long been stars on the Deutsche Grammophon roster.

These recordings, made between May 2018 and January 2019, bear all the Emersons’ trademarks: technical precision, generous tone and unanimity of purpose, coupled with what feels like a new warmth and depth of perception born of many years’ experience. Although they had recorded the third of these quartets before for DG, this is their first survey of the complete set, and it’s a joy from start to finish.

The First Quartet, in A minor, contains obvious nods towards Beethoven in the first movement's slow introduction and sudden burst of life in the transition to the Allegro, in the compact rhythmic drive of the Scherzo, and above all in the gorgeous Adagio with its clear opening reference to the slow movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The concluding Presto starts in positively Mendelssohnian mood, while the sudden intrusion towards the end of bagpipe drones and a moment of pure introspection momentarily recalls Haydn as well as Beethoven’s late Op.132 Quartet before resuming the prevailing happy mood. The Emersons, with all their experience as Beethoven performers, clearly revel in this music, delivering one of the most uplifting performances since the Zehetmair Quartet on ECM (2003), steadier in pacing but also more focused, so that every detail of Schumann's remarkably assured writing can be savoured (he had made a close study of the Mozart and Beethoven quartets before writing these works).

The Second Quartet, in F major, is less recorded than its sister pieces, but listening to the Emersons’ performance you may well wonder why. It has about it a marvellous homeliness, channeling the spirit of Haydn perhaps, but with unmistakably Schumannesque harmonic and textural turns. There’s a marvellously tense, spectral quality to the A flat major Molto più lento episode, all sinister, clouded flats (and a few sharps, too!) in the Andante slow movement, with players producing a slightly sour edge to the sound that sends a chill down the spine. The following Scherzo, with its continual syncopations and upbeat phrasing, does indeed tumble forward as described in Paul Epstein’s exceptionally engaging booklet notes, while the concluding Allegro molto vivace has a deliciously amiable perpetuum mobile feel to it, recalling the light touch of some of Schumann’s finest piano miniatures, here absorbed into an altogether more expanded structure with great skill and panache.

Most touching of all is the Third Quartet, in A major, with its clear references to Schumann’s wife Clara in the first movement’s main subject. The way in which the Andante introduction gently slides into the Allegro proper is one of the great moments in Schumann’s music, and it's managed here with the sort of understatement that only great artistry can bring. Here Schumann is very much his own master, the hesitations, twists and inflections unmistakably marked with his own thumbprint. The Emersons bring a wonderful inwardness to this music, enhancing the feel of the composer communing with his beloved, most of all in the rapt third movement Adagio.

The performance is capped with a deft account of the folk-infused Finale, the tempo held carefully in check but its main theme delightfully sprung and inflected, and the individual episodes (some of which clearly anticipate the Piano Quintet) beautifully characterised. The contained elegance of the Emersons’ playing works wonders in this music, as it does throughout the disc, which deserves to be heard by chamber music lovers everywhere. A timely return for a great ensemble.