For the final Friends of Chamber Music performance this fall, we welcomed back the internationally acclaimed and locally beloved Takács Quartet.
This was the group’s 27th appearance for us since their debut in Vancouver on November 9, 1982. While the musicians may have changed, except for founding cellist András Fejér, this string quartet has evolved through the Hungarian tradition of string playing into a tight–knit ensemble that has remained at the peak of its musical powers for some years.
We are lucky that these brilliant musicians are excited to play for us in Vancouver! First violinist Edward Dusinberre, second violinist Harumi Rhodes, violist Richard Jongjae O’Neill, and cellist Fejer (mentioned above), played an evening program that featured ‘Papa’ Joseph Haydn’s elegantly classical String Quartet, Opus 76 No 4, “Sunrise”. This gem was written during the composer’s later period, when he was at the height of his powers. The musicians lavished this music with beauty of tone and tightly balanced interplay, all with a lightly emotional lilt that felt wholly classical and thus in keeping with the spirit of the composer. The Takács Quartet has been lauded for its delightful interpretation of Haydn quartets in recordings and the group brought the same luminous sonic palate to the Playhouse stage.
After a brief pause for applause, the ensemble brought a very different emotional atmosphere to Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No 2. This work was written during the latter part of World War I and its aftermath, and the music bears some aural scars from what the composer experienced and learned during that time. The post-Romantic world is gone, and modernism is the new musical language. This performance was wonderfully precise, yet with a touch of wistful lyricism echoing behind the cool and hot precision of Bartók’s modernist synthesis of sonic elements from which he forged his own musical landscape. So compelling was the Takács performance on Tuesday evening that many appreciative audience members were on their feet applauding as the piece ended.
After the break, the Takács Quartet gave us a powerful reading of Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No 15, D887. This massive, orchestrally structured work is very demanding for the musicians in the group. We last heard it live in a Friends concert early in 2019, and the last time before that was back in 2010. But our guests on Tuesday were up to the challenge. They brought out the tensions, the fragments of song melody, and the blend and balance of instrumental voices mixing force, beauty, and assurance. This was not simply ‘pretty’ Schubert-playing. This was powerful where needed, and skipping lightly when the music needed it. Written in 1826, Schubert’s last string quartet represents a bridge from the classical tradition to the Romantic period in European music. The result of the Takács Quartet’s interpretation of this monumental composition was a standing ovation from our largest audience of the season thus far. Suitably charged up from the music, we walked into the night energized by another magnificent performance from our friends.
We look forward to the first Friends concert by the Goldmund Quartet on Tuesday, January 30, 2024. That will give us a chance to hear a different group play another of Haydn’s Opus 76 quartets, as well as Alexander Borodin’s endlessly Romantic String Quartet No 2, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s stormy Opus 59 No 1, “Razumovsky”. Only a week after that, we will welcome back the Han Finckel Setzer Trio to play Schubert’s pair of delectable piano trios!
