Believing out loud

THE EMERSON QUARTET talks to BILL NEWMAN

<< Continued from page 3

Drucker and Setzer often swop lst and 2nd positions. Drucker sees this purely as an audience reaction in relation to the character of the actual works they are playing as much as who is actually performing what on the night. Finckel is more categorical: 'It is the only way I can perform quartets with players switching. It's natural.' Setzer: 'it's the way we have been playing since our school days 25 years ago.' Finckel afterwards became their youngest recruit: 'The climate was very favourable. I had just been offered 60 or 70 concerts. It was nothing to sneeze at what with the competition, and I had just won the Naumberg Competition. It was up and up from then on, with constant mobility. Great; I have no complaints.'

If the Emerson Quartet have cause to criticise other performances, their criticism of themselves in Setzer's words 'is far beyond that, so much more intense individually and collectively.' Ego amongst artists in their quest for perfection is a prerequisite for success. Finckel: 'What I have against too much ego is to say to yourself 'I'm going to do it this way to the best of my ability to satisfy myself for the rest of my life. If the public likes it and the newspapers like it. Great! If not, there is not a damn thing I can do about it. I mustn't be concerned, but follow my own beacon with my colleagues in most cases, and to hell with what everybody else thinks.' Drucker is even more definite: ' We are also relaxed enough to even take good reviews with a grain of salt, because sometimes critics write about things we didn't think we were doing, or weren't doing. Setzer agrees: 'some of the stupidist reviews ARE the good reviews!' Good agent sponsorship ensures excellent audiences for their performances of accessible 20th Century music teamed mainly with standard repertoire, so they have no doubt of their continued success. And now for Shostakovich!