[Photo courtesy Chamber Music Northwest]
I’ve been ruminating about my experience of watching the Emerson Quartet perform at Carnegie Hall a week ago today. I was telling a friend about the concert, and happened to note to her that the quartet now performs standing up (with the exception of cellist David Finckel, who sits on an elevated platform). She was quite dumbfounded that they had continued with the experiment. I had heard that they were performing this way, but did not know why or for how long they would do so. Lately, I’ve noticed that some younger quartets (those still in music school or just out) have taken up this manner of performing.
My question is this: are quartets meant to perform standing up? Is it still chamber music?