On the face of it, this album has got a lot going for it. As ever the Emerson Quartet are a joy to hear and their characteristically warm sound is projected well in Max Willcox’s production. In terms of sheer playing the highlight is without question the scherzo-like “Movement II” of Edgar Meyer’s Quintet, where the violins and viola wispily shadow a double-bass riff very reminiscent of Pickles from “Appalachia Waltz” (Sony, 12/96), Edgar Meyer’s recent bluegrass collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O’Connor.
But this is where the fun stops, sadly. Edgar Meyer may be an inspiring musician for the Emersons to collaborate with, but on hearing this piece you certainly wish he could set his compositional sights a little higher. Despite his obvious feeling for string quartet textures, only the aforementioned “Movement II” suggests something remotely individual and even this is hampered by the composer’s overconscientious adherence to scherzo-and-trio form. When Meyer tries to account for the brevity of his booklet-note by saying that he hopes his piece will be “clear and self-explanatory”, I can only sympathize. If I had composed his String Quintet, I wouldn’t know what to write about it, either.
In contrast, Ned Rorem’s Fourth Quartet is disappointing precisely because its booklet-note seems to promise something more personal. Each of its ten short movements is inspired by Picasso paintings and the Quartet’s centrepiece, “Self Portrait”, is marked in the score “with horror and indifference”. Unlike the Meyer piece, there is no lack of engagement with ideas, but I wish that this could have been more detectable in the music which seems at times to drift on autopilot. The rhetoric of the Fourth Quartet pays homage mainly to Bartok and Berg, but whereas its individual movements are clearly meant to contrast with each other, by the time we reach “Head of a Boy” and “Basket of Flowers”, it already feels as if Rorem’s inspiration has started to dry up.
There are always risks attendant upon commissioning new music and the Emerson Quartet’s initiative is to be commended. But, on the evidence of this disc at least, they should not feel obliged to commission composers who are unwilling to take risks themselves.'