Barbara Hannigan (soprano), Bertrand Chamayou (piano)Emerson String Quartet
Alpha · ALPHA1000 · 72 minutes
Barbara Hannigan and the Emerson String Quartet bring Schoenberg’s Second Quartet to the center of this program, and that pairing alone is enough to make your ears perk up — her voice threads through the ensemble’s sound with an almost uncanny sense of belonging. The quartet writing here sits right at tonality’s edge, restless and searching, and the Emersons navigate that emotional tightrope with both forensic precision and genuine warmth. Chamayou rounds out the disc with solo piano works that give the whole 72 minutes a satisfying shape, like a late-night conversation that keeps finding new things to say.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 8th September 2023
- Gramophone Magazine — October 2023 — Editor’s Choice
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2023
- International Classical Music Awards — 2024 — Nominated – Assorted Programs
“Much the finest experience comes in Schoenberg’s quartet, where the Emerson Quartet ’s playing masterfully combines forensic technical precision and expressive warmth. And Hannigan’s identif…”
— BBC Music Magazine, December 2023,3 out of 5 stars
Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon · 4236572 · 2 hours 28 minutes
Bartók’s six string quartets are basically his entire inner life compressed into chamber music — furious, tender, percussive, and achingly lyrical all at once, sometimes within the same phrase. The Emerson players dig into that volatility with a ferocity that never tips into mere aggression, keeping the music’s raw emotional logic completely intact. This set swept both the Grammys and the Gramophone Award in 1989, and hearing it, that feels entirely right.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1989 — Recording of the Year
- Grammy Awards — 32nd Awards (1989) — Best Chamber Music Recording
- Grammy Awards — 32nd Awards (1989) — Classical Album of the Year
with Paul Neubauer (viola)Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon · 4778765 · 3 hours 25 minutes
The Dvořák and Brahms quintets sit at the heart of the Romantic chamber repertoire, and hearing them played with this much earned authority is genuinely moving — the Emerson String Quartet brings decades of collective listening into every phrase. Paul Neubauer’s viola adds a warm, singing middle voice that keeps the textures breathing rather than sitting heavy, which matters enormously in music this emotionally dense. The BBC Music Magazine’s five stars aren’t hyperbole; these are readings that make you feel the composers were working through something real.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — August 2010 — Editor’s Choice
- BBC Music Magazine — September 2010 — Chamber Choice
“The Emersons have thought very deeply about this repertoire and their affection and profound experience of this music is evident everywhere…these are interpretations which demand to be heard…”
— BBC Music Magazine, September 2010,5 out of 5 stars
Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon · 4358642 · 64 minutes
Pairing Barber and Ives on a single disc is a genuinely inspired move — both composers were grappling with what American music could sound like, but from completely opposite directions, and hearing them back to back makes each one sound stranger and more fascinating. The Emerson plays Barber’s single quartet with an intensity that really honours the slow movement’s aching, almost unbearable lyricism, while Ives’s second quartet gets all the wild argumentativeness it needs. It won the Grammy for Best Chamber Music Recording in 1993, and listening now, that feels completely right.
Awards:
- Grammy Awards — 36th Awards (1993) — Best Chamber Music Recording
Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon · 4757407 · 5 hours 58 minutes
Shostakovich wrote his fifteen string quartets like a private diary he knew someone might one day read — full of dark humor, grief, and a kind of exhausted defiance that cuts right through you. The Emerson Quartet brings an almost uncomfortably intense focus to all of it, never letting the music settle into mere atmosphere when there’s real anguish underneath. At just under six hours, this is a serious commitment, but the payoff is one of those rare complete sets where you genuinely feel you’ve come to know a composer.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 2000 — Winner – Chamber
- Grammy Awards — 43rd Awards (2000) — Best Chamber Music Recording
- Grammy Awards — 43rd Awards (2000) — Classical Album of the Year
“The Emersons have played Shostakovich all over the world, and this long- pondered intégrale sets the seal on a process that has brought the quartets to the very centre of the repertoire – the…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon · 4632842 · 5 hours 58 minutes
Shostakovich wrote his fifteen string quartets like a secret diary — each one intensely private, full of dark irony and sudden tenderness that he couldn’t always risk saying out loud in other forms. The Emerson String Quartet brings a fierce, almost unsettling clarity to the complete cycle, never smoothing over the music’s raw edges or its moments of bleak wit. It’s a nearly six-hour journey that genuinely earns its Gramophone Award and back-to-back Grammy wins, and you’ll hear something new in it every time you return.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 2000 — Winner – Chamber
- Grammy Awards — 43rd Awards (2000) — Best Chamber Music Recording
- Grammy Awards — 43rd Awards (2000) — Classical Album of the Year
“The Emersons have played Shostakovich all over the world, and this long- pondered intégrale sets the seal on a process that has brought the quartets to the very centre of the repertoire – the…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon · 4777458 · 57 minutes
Few composers reveal themselves as nakedly in counterpoint as Bach does — every voice in these fugues carries weight, argues its case, and belongs exactly where it is. The Emerson Quartet’s playing here is almost frighteningly precise, each line tracked with a clarity that makes the architecture of the music feel almost visible. Gramophone’s mild reservation that it’s all a little too well-behaved is fair, but honestly, sometimes you just want to hear Bach played this beautifully and let the music do the rest.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 16th June 2008
“Perfect playing, superb sound – but Bach shouldn’t be this well tempered… Sonically speaking, the Emersons have never sounded better on disc, yet there’s more to this music than their beautiful,…”
— Gramophone Magazine, August 2008
Emerson String Quartet
Sony · 88725470602 · 61 minutes
The pairing of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence and Schoenberg’s String Sextet feels bolder than it looks on paper — one foot in lush Romantic warmth, the other stepping into early expressionism, and the Emerson play both with the kind of focused intensity that makes the contrast feel inevitable rather than arbitrary. That opening of the Schoenberg is genuinely beautiful here, the players finding a surprising tenderness in those first pages that reminds you just how much late Romanticism Schoenberg was still carrying when he wrote it.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — September 2013 — Editor’s Choice
“Souvenir de Florence’s turbulent opening is immediately gripping, but the resonant recording makes detail hard to hear…the opening pages [of the Schoenberg] are magical, with vibrato and warmth…”
— BBC Music Magazine, September 2013,3 out of 5 stars
