Takacs in Carmel
It is possible that there were several musical events in the Carmel area on Sunday, April 15th, 2013. Perhaps that is the reason why the lovely concert hall at Sunset Center was only 25% occupied with an interested audience.
The well-known Takacs String Quartet gave a concert at 3 PM, with music by Haydn, Benjamin Britten, and Ludwig van Beethoven. On the whole I enjoyed this concert a lot.
Joseph Haydn was a great master composer of quartet music. Even Mozart’s quartet works were reviewed by Haydn, and he said that the world will talk about Mozart in the future. The concert opened with Haydn’s quartet Op. 76, Number 4. And I immediately loved the lush sound, and the sparkle with which Haydn needs to be played.
The performers seemed excellent, and I was particularly impressed with the abilities of violinist Edward Dusinberre, and the way he provided leadership for the entire group.
I quickly moved from where my assigned seat was to row M, because there were so many vacant seats. Even in that seat, I wanted to hear more from the viola player, Geraldine Walther, who played with the San Francisco Symphony for so many years. She has a beautiful, mellow sound, and at times I felt that she needed to be heard more.
After the Haydn, the program jumped about 200 years forward with quartet number 4, Op. 94 by Britten. A lot of this music is based on Britten’s Opera “Death in Venice”. Here, too, I wanted to hear more sound from the viola. This was my first time to hear this work, and I did not connect with it upon that first hearing.
The program ended with Beethoven’s masterpiece, the quartet number 14, Op. 131. This work – in my view — established the direction for chamber music in the years after Beethoven died in 1827. The work is totally astounding to me, in terms of the creativity and innovation of its structure. It was beautifully played, and the Cello stood out many times in terms of its contributions. Great interpretation.
Here is the Beethoven String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131, as performed by the Takacs Quartet:
Here is the Tacacs Quartet performing the Schubert String Quartet D.810 mvt.2 “Death and the Maiden” (Older recording, before Ms. Walther joined them)
Tags: Takacs Quartet, Haydn, Britten, Beethoven