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Photo Credit: Andrew Eccles

Sunlight streams through the tall glass windows of a rehearsal studio at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, illuminating the battered instrument case holding Lawrence Dutton's 208-year-old Mantegazza. Dutton, the violist of the internationally acclaimed Emerson String Quartet, is here to give a lesson. It's a quiet interlude in a schedule that includes concerts, recording sessions, and the release of the Quartet's latest CD, Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross (Deutsche Grammophon).

This classical masterpiece—think of it as a non-violent depiction of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ—is considered one of Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn's most eloquent works. But to Dutton, the only Christian in the group, it has added significance. "Haydn was a believer," he says. "To realize I'm playing his musical interpretation of some of the most important Scripture is inspiring."

Dutton joined the Emerson String Quartet in 1977, one year after its founding. With six Grammy Awards to its credit and a reputation for high-octane performances at Carnegie Hall and other prestigious stages, this American foursome might be forgiven for coasting. But the group's members—violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, Dutton, and cellist David Finckel—continue to experiment. From the beginning, Drucker and Setzer have alternated the position of first violin, defying longstanding musical practice.

Two years ago, the group collaborated with a theatrical troupe in a multi-media presentation of the anguished last quartet by Shostakovich. And they market their latest musical curiosities in clever ways. A case in point: Their recent concert series at Lincoln Center in New York and Wigmore Hall in London, which explored the parameters of spirituality in music. These days, everything from viewing a magnificent sunset to relaxing at the spa is described as a "spiritual" experience. The Emerson's choices came closer to the mark. Haydn's Seven Last Words, a poignant work written for a Good Friday service at a Spanish cathedral, was the single overtly religious selection. They also played Beethoven's sublime A Minor Quartet, whose wistful slow movement the composer labeled "a hymn of thanksgiving to the Deity" for his recovery from an illness, and Bach's monumental Art of the Fugue, spiritual in the broadest sense of striving for the transcendent. But as Dutton notes, "Bach routinely placed the phrase 'Soli deo Gloria' at the end of his scores—'to God alone be the glory.'"

Bringing God glory in an industry with a "whatever works for you" mindset can be tricky, but Dutton tries. Tall and slender, with a "boy next door" quality despite his graying hair, he avoids proselytizing. Yet his personal freedom of expression sometimes bumps up against current norms of political correctness.

"It's incredible how far people go to try to neutralize everything about God and people's relationships to God," he says. "Even in a little blurb I created [for the liner notes] when we recorded Bach's Art of the Fugue, the words I used got watered down. I had to go back and say, 'Look, I want to say "God," not "the divine," and I want to say "heaven."' Those kinds of changes are just automatic today."

From Zen to Christ
Dutton, on the cusp of 50, grew up on Long Island in a nominally Christian household. Unlike his colleagues, who came from musical families, Dutton's exposure to stringed instruments came through the local public-school system, where he initially played a plastic recorder. At the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and Julliard in Manhattan, he played the electric violin in a rock band while honing the talent that enabled him to join the Emerson Quartet.

He also dabbled in Eastern religions. "There was a big Zen center in Rochester, so I got involved in that," he says. "When I came back to Julliard, I was doing the chanting … searching for something, as we all did in the 1970s."

Ongoing dialogues with a "patient" Christian friend during the 1980s laid the groundwork for Dutton to accept Christ during an outreach event. His wife, violinist Elizabeth Lim Dutton, did the same, and they began attending Bible-study classes together. Today, the couple lives with sons Luke and Jesse in suburban Westchester, where they worship at a Presbyterian church and host a Monday-night Bible study.

Since there are a number of musicians in the congregation, Dutton hopes his church will someday join the regrettable few that perform Haydn's Seven Last Words as part of a Good Friday service. That's the way it was done at the first performance in 1787—the somber music for chamber orchestra was played in between readings of Christ's final utterances and the bishop's commentary.

A devout Catholic, Haydn derived the rhythms of his opening themes from the "rhythms" of the Latin text. Later, he arranged the score for string quartet, a musical form he developed earlier in his career.

The string quartet form has been likened to a conversation among equals. Members hash out their ideas in rehearsal until they achieve a unified artistic concept, bringing their skills and personalities into the process. What happens to this close musical relationship when one player becomes a Christian?

"I try to be more patient, more willing to compromise musical ideas instead of trying to get my way all the time," says Dutton. "But it's a great challenge. I'm still fallen, still sinful."

Some of the changes remain internal. "At different times, I've experimented with trying to actually get into a state of prayer while performing. That's not the best plan necessarily, because you get lost! But there are wonderful moments where, as I'm approaching something difficult or leading the music, I offer it up to God as a gift in honor of Him."

Dutton adds, "I think it has relaxed the way I perform. It's freed me up. I just attempt to glorify God through music, as Bach was doing."

Barbara Jepson writes about classical music for The Wall Street Journal and other publications.

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