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I admit that I have not heard the Pavel Haas Quartet's recent and celebrated recording of this very program, but though I can imagine making some different interpretive choices I cannot so easily imagine anyone being disappointed with the Emerson Quartet's rendition of this music (some reviews here seem to suggest that my powers of imagination are limited, however). Prokofiev's string quartets are masterpieces, and if they are overshadowed a bit by, say, the Shostakovich quartets in terms of concert life, they certainly don't deserve to be. From the very opening of the first quartet one senses a level of profundity and seriousness not always present in Prokofiev's music, underneath the exciting and easily appreciated surface. This profundity is particularly brought to bear in the Andante finale, which, while melodic and tuneful, exhibits the kind of poignancy and depth that wouldn't be far away from what Shostakovich would achieve (though by wholly different means) in some of his later quartets.
The second quartet, completed in 1942, contains themes based on folk tunes, rhythms and textures (indeed, one of the themes in the finale also appears in Myaskovsky's 23rd symphony) and is, at least on the surface, somewhat expressively simpler. Yet once again, this is an overall serious, thoughtful work (there is no contradiction between enjoyable and profound) - again especially in the masterly finale. Now, the Emersons may have a particular, personal sound, but the performances of the two quartets nevertheless strikes me as totally idiomatic - maybe less bitingly sarcastic, and with slightly mellower (and more polished) edges than some, yet the music makes its intended effect, and the individual contributions are overall simply glorious.
In between the quartets we also get an idiomatic and colorful performance of the Sonata for Two Violins from 1932, its lighter and more playful mood than the preceding quartet creating an excellent contrast. It is certainly not the performance's fault, however, that the work comes across as less convincing than the quartets, but it is hard to deny that this work fails to reach the levels of imagination realized in Prokofiev's best works. Still, in such playful and excellent performances it is hard to feel short-changed, and, given the magnificence of the two quartets, impossible not to recommend this disc enthusiastically.
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