‘Four Rational People’ Documents the Final Performances of the Rock Stars of 21st Century Chamber Music

The four individuals featured in the new documentary “Four Rational People” made up the modest members of the renowned Emerson String Quartet. For nearly 50 years, the group toured the world, mastered difficult classical music pieces, recorded over 30 albums, and won nine Grammy awards—all while staying reasonably humble. To many who loved and were influenced by them, they were known as “The Emersons,” rock stars of the chamber music scene in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.It was Goethe who likened a string quartet to “a conversation between four rational people,” and each of the “Emersons” could be described as such, including violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins. After the pandemic, the foursome announced their disbandment, and the documentary captures their final tour during the 2022-23 season. Valedictory and elegiac, the film serves as a minor-key, touching tribute to the quartet, very much in keeping with its title. Yet those looking for insights into their creative process, longevity, career, and differing personalities will have to look elsewhere as it barely addresses these elements, frequently opting for tasteful remove and bland scene-setting over an exploration of complicated dynamics and career highs and lows.Being in a quartet was once described by a player in another 20th century quartet as living in the “most beautiful prison in the music world.” This penitentiary aspect leads many of them to break up, and yet the Emerson Quartet remained with the same four players for more than thirty years before cellist David Fincke, who is also featured in the doc, left in 2013, with Mr. Watkins handling the instrument’s sonorities thereafter. Their stability and longevity may have something to do with the fact that Eugene and Philip shared “first violin” duties, which the latter describes as having been agreed upon informally when they were students at Juilliard. Apart from this anecdote, though, there is no mention of how pieces were divvied up between the two in the next five decades, not to mention how works were chosen, creative decisions made, and how the group’s music and methods changed over the years. At times, we’re shown short passages of performances and rehearsals during the farewell tour, with these moments offering not just beautiful music but evidence of their sustained talent and glimpses into their democratic working process. Beyond music, the documentary’s most sustained subject is the quartet’s imminent separation and the reasons for it. With three members nearing retirement, aging and exhaustion come up several times, as does routine and repetition, particularly for a group performing over 100 concerts per season. Somehow, talk of the psychologically trying nature of being in a quartet, of the countless hours spent in each other’s company, of the rigorous work being done never results in discussion on intra-group disagreements and tensions and their resolution or easement. It would seem director Tristan Cook never delved further into these musings with a follow-up question or chose not to clatter his hagiographic portrait with discordant tones. He also studiously avoids delving into the impact of all the work, touring, and absence on their private lives, with their wives and children sometimes in scenes but never directly engaged. Contrasting this impersonal approach are some of the documentary’s best segments involving mini-montages of each of their upbringings, the occasional story, and archival footage from their early years, such as their performance of Ravel’s remarkable string quartet in F major in matching light-colored suits. An entertaining account of how they flew on the Concorde from New York to London and back again in one day speaks to the heyday of the record industry and how their initial success coincided with the digital audio boom. Other strong moments see the group teaching—Stony Brook University houses the Emerson String Quartet Institute—with Mr. Cook also interviewing members of young quartets. These scenes and the short sequences focused on the past stand out against the general remoteness, which frequently substitutes cinéma vérité framing, inconsequential behind-the-scenes filler, and conversational chitchat for substantial inquiry. Small clues to their individual personalities intrigue, though none of them emerge as fully distinct and autonomous, perhaps intentionally on the players’ parts, and honed over time, to avoid conflict. As the four play together in the Berkshires, Cleveland, Paris, and elsewhere for the last time, the film’s overall tone is one of subdued sadness and mixed feelings, reinforced by use of select movements of Beethoven’s late string quartets on the soundtrack. The piece they choose for their final performance, though, is Schubert’s string quintet, with David joining them on stage at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. All the understated emotion witnessed in earlier moments comes to bear on the music, and it’s a wondrous sight, or, more precisely, sound. As gorgeous notes radiate from their combined instruments, the four, or rather, five rational people create deep pathos, channeling intersubjectivity, the sublime, and even the irrational.

‘Four Rational People’ Documents the Final Performances of the Rock Stars of 21st Century Chamber Music

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