Concert Review: Takacs Quartet high stepping in Haydn
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Of the many metaphors used to describe a concert, a horse race is surely among the more unusual. But when the famed Takacs Quartet, formed in Budapest in 1975, took the stage Monday night at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, its members might as well have arrived on a Hungarian Kisberi.
The obvious connection in this Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society concert came first, Haydn's "Rider" Quartet. This work indeed suggests the gallop of a horse in the outer movements, although in the refined reading by the Takacs it sounded more like the elegant dressage of a Lipizzaner Stallion.
The members -- violinists Edward Dusinberre and Karoly Schranz, violist Geraldine Walther and cellist Andras Fejer -- have collectively one of the most distinctive timbres of any major quartet playing today. It is the lightest of tone, as if the notes are suspended from above, captured well in the splendid chordal second movement of the Haydn. The tone of the violinists is not thin, but the quality of a countertenor, resonating in a higher sphere. Actually, at times Mr. Dusinberre sounded like descant above the rest.
These treble shades allowed the quartet to move with agility and offer some compelling effects. In the first movement of Schubert's Quartet No. 15, the four played so quietly yet with integrity, it sounded like they were far in the distance. Little things, such as turns, tremolos, even some accents were like wisps of smoke. While Schubert's opus and Bartok's Quartet No. 1, which preceded it, don't reference trotting, the folk quality of their finales suggest it, and I'd swear the Takacs brought out these qualities on purpose.
Even the cellist took the reins of his wooden steed with a tone as buoyant as a jockey. Indeed, Mr. Fejer's is a marvel, not just for his airy quality, but in his humble phrasing. How he played sotto voce yet still provided the solid underpinning for the quartet is beyond me. In the first movement of the Haydn he phrased like a gust of wind. His treatment of melodies in the Schubert were akin to incandescent filaments, and when he needed to bark, such as in a boisterous pedal point in the Bartok, it jarred because of the contrast.
Rather than end with another equestrian reference, suffice it to say that this quartet offered that most elusive of qualities -- light but not slight.
First Published April 12, 2011 12:00 am
