The Haydn Project

In celebration of its 25th anniversary season, the Emerson String Quartet turns its attention to Franz Joseph Haydn with this collection of some of the composer's best-known string quartets. Haydn is the natural choice for such a commemoration -- he established the string quartet as a genre -- and the Emersons, who play here with characteristic precision and intensity, waste no time finding the lyricism, wit, and pure joy in his wonderful music.

The program of seven works is organized chronologically, beginning with the Fifth Quartet from the breakthrough Opus 20, in which the composer first showed the profound artistic potential of the new genre. The following Quartet Op. 33 no. 2, called "The Joke," is the first of several with titles, this one derived from the work's humorous ending without an end. Listeners unfamiliar with its pause-filled finale will simply not know when it has finished. With the second disc, we encounter Haydn's quartets in full maturity, especially Op. 76 no. 2, the "Quinten" or "Fifths" Quartet, where a new experimental spirit can be heard, as well as premonitions of Beethoven, who studied with Haydn.

A third "bonus disc" offers an anthology of samples from the Emerson's extensive recording catalogue -- ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Ives and Shostakovich. Their recording of the complete Shostakovich quartets won a 2001 Grammy Award. Curiously, the Emersons have not often recorded Haydn's quartets. This set, then, is not only a timely tribute to them; it's a crucial addition to their growing collection of superb recordings.