E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rescuing Mendelssohn The Emerson String Quartet, plus Handel and Haydn, and Cervantes at the BSO BY DAVID WEININGER

Having already recorded the complete quartets of such heavy hitters as Bartók, Beethoven, and Shostakovich, the members of the Emerson String Quartet made an unexpected choice for their newest large-scale project. They’ve recorded the complete string quartets of Mendelssohn, in a four-disc set released last month by Deutsche Grammophon, and this Saturday, they begin a two-concert series of the same music at Jordan Hall. (The second concert is scheduled for April 8.) To gauge how surprising a project it is, consider how many foursomes get through distinguished careers without recording any Mendelssohn at all, let alone his entire œuvre.

That’s just one measure of the extent to which so much of Mendelssohn’s music is, in the words of Emerson violinist Eugene Drucker, "underplayed and underrepresented" these days. Aside from a few overplayed chestnuts — the Violin Concerto and the "Italian" Symphony — most of Mendelssohn’s music is out of circulation, an odd fate for a composer who’s nevertheless routinely placed among the greats of the 19th century.

So what’s the source of this strange historical verdict? Part of the blame, Drucker thinks, can be laid at the feet of Richard Wagner. A combination of anti-Semitism and jealousy of the young Mendelssohn’s talents drove Wagner to pigeonhole him as "a superficial, facile, and unprogressive composer," the violinist says. The anti-Semitism may be long gone, but there remains a nagging sense that the music, for all its charm, may be only that: charming and pleasant, but lacking variety, and all cut largely from the same cloth.

It’s true, Drucker admits, that Mendelssohn hewed strongly to the forms of Viennese classicism, and that his music was less influential than that of others of his generation. But, the violinist argues, "you judge a composer not just by the innovation and influence but by the sheer beauty and passion of the music." And he adds that there’s far more variety and progressiveness in Mendelssohn than most people realize. Look at the first two quartets (Opus 12 in E-flat and Opus 13 in A minor), he says, and you find "an astonishing ability to absorb and refract the lessons of late Beethoven." There are striking similarities in mood and texture between Mendelssohn’s Opus 13 and Beethoven’s great Opus 132 A-minor quartet, and the slow movement of Opus 13 has a fugato that parallels that of Beethoven’s Opus 95 "Serioso" quartet.

Beethoven’s influence also shows up, Drucker notes, in Mendelssohn’s use of cyclical forms, in the way that "earlier material reappears in a different guise at the end of the piece. That’s a very Romantic idea, that we undergo changes as a result of listening to what’s come before." This "character development" aspect of music dates back to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and it leaves its mark on the structure of both early quartets.

With the three quartets of Opus 44, Mendelssohn took a more firmly classical approach than in his earlier works. Yet in his final quartet — Opus 80, in F minor — he created an dramatic work of tragic beauty. Written in the aftermath of the death of the composer’s beloved sister Fanny, it is a work with an "inconsolable, brooding quality," Drucker says. "It’s anything but superficial. There’s not much sense of release from the intensity, and there’s no happy ending. The dissonances barely resolve." You can think of it as one of the first great "modern" musical works.

The Emersons did, however, include one familiar piece in the new set: a version of the Octet for Strings recorded with, well, themselves. They did this through a complex process of recording the piece in layers, picking the most important music for the first track, and adding the remainder in a second layer. They used different instruments and seating, all in an effort to simulate the effect of two different groups playing, yet with more stylistic unity than any two different quartets could achieve. (The recording process is captured on an illuminating documentary film that’s included in the CD set.)

Some. of course, may wonder whether this is technology in service to the music or vice versa. One critic has already suggested it’s a device intended to rationalize another recording of a familiar piece. "We realized when we did it that we might get some flak and that some people might think it was gimmicky," Drucker admits. "I don’t really know what to say in response except that the emphasis was on the excitement that the music and the project generated."

The Emerson String Quartet performs Mendelssohn’s first three quartets, Opus 12, Opus 13, and Opus 44 No. 1, this Saturday, February 5, at 8 p.m. at Jordan Hall, as part of the Bank of America Celebrity Series. Tickets are $43 to $53; call (617) 482-6661.

LOVE IN THE AIR? The Handel and Haydn Society offers two "Classical Valentine" concerts next week featuring the "London" and "Paris" symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, respectively. The excellent cellist Pieter Wispelwey will be the soloist in Haydn’s C-major concerto. If you can figure out what’s romantic in that, you’re smarter than us. Performances are Friday February 11 at 8 p.m. and Sunday February 13 at 3 p.m. at Symphony Hall, and tickets are $26 to $60; call (617) 266-3605.

We’re not sure there’s anything romantic about Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos’s BSO program next week either, but it’s got a lot of literary heft. The Spanish maestro celebrates the 400th anniversary of the publication of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote with a rare performance of Manuel de Falla’s El retablo de Maese Pedro ("Master Peter’s Puppet Show"), which draws on said tale. Bob Brown Puppets will be on stage as well. Also on the bill is Richard Strauss’s better-known tone poem on the same subject. Performances are February 10 and 12 at 8 p.m. and February 11 at 1:30 p.m. at Symphony Hall. Tickets are $26 to $105; call (617) 266-1200.