Composed in 1893, Dvorak's American Quintet is the centrepiece of the Emerson String Quartet's triple-disc with viola player Paul Neubauer.
The Emerson's big-boned sound makes heavy weather of the Tenth and Eleventh Quartets, and the dynamics are sometimes brash. Cypresses (B.152) has some stunning moments, though the finest readings are of the valedictory Thirteenth and Fourteenth Quartets, the last strongly Brahmsian.