Arts & Events

The venerable Takács Quartet, formed in 1975 in Budapest, is now in its 49th year. Cellist András Fejer is the only current member who formed the original Takács Quartet when all its members were university students. András Fejer is now not only the sole Hungarian in the current Takács Quartet, he is the very heart and soul of this illustrious group. I love Fejer’s consummate musicianship and burnished tone. With the recent announcement of the retirement of the Emerson Quartet, the Takács Quartet is now indisputably the world’s premier string quartet and a worthy Hungarian successor to the renowned Budapest Quartet. Aside from András Fejer on cello, the current Takács Quartet features Edward Duisenberre as 1st violinist, Harumi Rhodes as 2nd violinist, and Richard O’Neill as violist. 

On Sunday, February 25, the Takács Quartet returned to UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall for an afternoon concert beginning at 3:00 PM. Opening the program was the now rarely heard Italian Serenade by Hugo Wolf. Listening to this brief work’s sunny, exuberant mood, one would hardly guess that Hugo Wolf led a tortured life suffering from bi-polar disease and the ravages of syphilis After attempting a failed suicide, Wolf entered a mental institution where he lived for another four years. 

His tuneful Italian Serenade written for string quartet is full of charm and ebullience, all brought off splendidly by the Takács Quartet. 

Next on the program was the String Quartet No. 2 in A minor by Béla Bartök in A minor Written during the First World War, it is a gloomy, pessimistic work, relieved only by the melodic turns, rhythmic patterns, and typical scales of the folksongs Bartök meticulously researched. In this work’s third and final movement, marked Lento, a keening dirge is heard in the violins, recalling a similar keening passage in the middle movement. The work ends on a quiet sense with two plucked pizzicato notes in the viola. While this String Quartet No. 2 is one of my least favorites of Bartök’s string quartets it was here brilliantly rendered by the Takács Quartet. 

After intermission the Takács Quartet returned to perform the last of Franz Scubert’s string quartets, his String Quartet No. 15 in G Major. This work, which many believe is Schubert’s greatest string quartet, is in my opinion simply his most formally complex. To me, however, for all its formal subtleties, it lacks the felicitous melodies for which Schubert is most famous. You don’t come out of his 15th String Quartet humming memorable melodies as you do, for example, in his Der Tod und das Madchen Quartet or his Die Forelle Quintet, or, for that matter, his Rosamunde Quartet.  

What you do get, here in Schubert’s last quartet, on the other hand, is a work abounding in complex themes and rhythmic and harmonic patterns. The opening offers a tension-filled upward leap, which will be often heard again. Then a staccato outburst of six short notes is heard. Next the violin offers an extended tremolo passage based on the staccato outburst, now calm and serene in the major mode. The cello responds to this until the whole ensemble joins in a radiant, even ecstatic, song This song leads into this opening movement’s second theme, of ambiguous mood. As the program notes indicate, “Is it stalking or innocent? Melancholy or optimistic?” Agitated passages ensue, until this movement ends with tremolos and a recall of the opening gesture. 

The second movement begins with what seems a country dance played at half-speed. The slow-ness evokes a certain sadness, perhaps a longing look back at happier times. However, this theme rises into the major mode and becomes more optimistic, at least briefly, until a brief coda closes this movement. The third movement, a Scherzo, beings with skittering music that is agitated and anxiety-filled until the cello introduces a new section with a long-held note. There ensues a radiant song that begins in the cello and is soon joined by the other instruments in an ecstatic outburst of pure song. However, this Scherzo ends abruptly with the return of the movement’s opening music of agitation and anxiety. The fourth and final movement is full of bouncy music that at one moment feels ebullient and another feels nervously agitated almost to the point of being manic. Once again, we have to ask, Is it foreboding or optimistic? The utter complexity of this work makes it almost impossible to tell. In any case, the Takacs Quartet gave a splendid rendition of this final string quartet of Franz Schubert.