Takács Quartet Beethoven String Quartet Cycle Concerts I and II October 8 and 9, 2016 Rackham Auditorium Ann Arbor CONTENT Prologue by Edward Dusinberre 3 Concert I Saturday, October 8, 8:00 pm 13 Concert II Sunday, October 9, 4:00 pm 23 Artists 33 PROLOGUE Excerpt from Beethoven for a Later Age: Living with the String Quartets by Edward Dusinberre No sooner do I play my opening notes That sounds too aggressive, could you in Beethoven’s late string quartet, try a more expressive version? Opus 131, than a man in the first row But now it sounds easy-going — not of London’s Wigmore Hall coughs painful enough. ominously. A teacher once suggested How about the tempo? to me that coughing in an audience is If it’s so slow there’s no sense of line. inspired only by a boring performance. This is just the beginning of a long story. If that is so, this particular verdict But not so fluent that it seems easy- has been reached swiftly. I wonder going. why the man doesn’t escape from his Or the dynamic and type of sound? seat. Perhaps he knows that there Try playing it a bit quieter: inner grief, are no breaks between the seven not explicit. movements of Opus 131— if he gets But not tentative or thin-sounding. up now the ushers may not allow him to re-enter the hall. Hopefully both A Beethoven phrase can make boredom and phlegm will dissipate. seemingly contradictory musical There shouldn’t be anything demands. Dramatic yet understated. especially taxing about the opening Slow but with a sense of direction. A phrase of Opus 131; as first violinist private grief expressed in a hall to 500 of the Takács Quartet I have been people. No wonder that this opening playing Beethoven’s 15th string quartet melody provokes debate: the choices for nearly 20 years. I play the first 12 I make affect my colleagues’ options notes on my own. (Ex.1) The rhythm is when they come to play the same uncomplicated, the tempo comfortably phrase. slow, but even the simplest-looking One after another they join me: phrase is challenging: there are so Károly Schranz (Karcsi), the second many different ways one could play it. violinist and one of two remaining Over the last 20 years I have received original members of the quartet; copious suggestions from my dear Geraldine Walther, in her 10th year colleagues in the quartet. First of all, as our violist; and András Fejér, the how to play the sforzando (sf in the quartet’s cellist since its formation example, below), an instruction to in Budapest in 1975. Unless there is emphasize or attack a particular note? some consistency in our approach Ex.1 3 to this melody, the audience will be and eager to find ways that we could confused as to the overall mood we are improve our playing. trying to convey. And yet Beethoven During the morning’s rehearsal on doesn’t intend the four statements the Wigmore stage, the inevitable of the theme to sound identical. With debate about this opening melody each entrance the phrase descends in focused on the question of tempo and register, beginning in the middle range how that influences the character of of the first violin, moving to the lowest the music. Geri and I worried that we string in the second violin, followed by were playing ever more slowly, and as a the darker sound of the viola and finally result sounded “notey,” an unflattering the resounding bass tone of the cello: term in our rehearsal vocabulary an intensifying of texture and emotion to describe the sense that each evolving from the first violin solo. individual note is too significant — like Even though we play the melody A SENTENCE WHERE EVERY WORD IS with the same basic dynamic shape SPOKEN WITH EQUAL EMPHASIS for no and tempo, each person plays it slightly apparent reason. We were concerned differently: Karcsi’s sforzando contains about losing the audience’s attention the most anguish; Geri’s warm so early in the piece. But for András the sound suggests both sadness and worse crime was to play too fluently, consolation; András’ version is more to sound lightweight or impatient: understated, played with a leaner tone Beethoven often begins a piece with a that brings out an introverted aspect to short slow introduction, but his daring the melody. I can’t judge what I bring choice to extend this idea into a whole to the mix: perhaps I should ask the movement should be embraced fully. bronchial gentleman in the front row. Karcsi stayed out of the fray, offering Although I am sorry that his concert is instead to listen from out in the hall. off to an unpromising start, a persistent Escaping from the stage allowed him to cough is more distracting than a one- judge our playing from the audience’s off event that can be easily dismissed perspective. We played a slower and onstage — a dropped program or a faster version, trying to make each as snippet of commentary that projects convincing as we could. Karcsi would more than the speaker realizes: Nice not be able to compare the options seats we have this evening. fairly if, during the slower version that The combination of cooperation and András favored, I played like a child individual expression that the opening being dragged along on a mandatory of Opus 131 requires is central to the family excursion. challenges and rewards of playing The prior discussion had already in a string quartet. Too many cooks influenced our playing. Now Geri and may spoil the broth but in a quartet I were keen to show that we could satisfying consensus can be achieved combine a faster tempo with enough only when all four players contribute gravitas, while András concentrated on their zesty seasonings to the stew. I moving as smoothly as possible from am fortunate for the last 10 years to one note to the next, demonstrating have shared this endeavor with Karcsi, that thinking in two beats per bar could Geri, and András, always questioning still be accomplished at a slow pace. 4 “There’s not much difference,” rehearsal. Knowing that the vibrant Karcsi reported. “It’s good if our bow acoustics of the Wigmore Hall will speeds stay the same. If one person project the smallest change of timbre suddenly uses more bow we sound or texture to the back of the hall, Karcsi too restless.” In this case reminding experiments with a more transparent each other of the different demands sound — I try to match him. In the of this opening music had served to first row the poor man continues his unify our approach. sporadic spluttering, less appreciative When we return to a Beethoven of the hall’s acoustic properties. quartet, continuing to argue over Performing Opus 131 is always such basic questions of tempo and an adventure. Over the course of character, we can seem like a group seven movements, played without a discovering this music for the first break, Beethoven covers an extreme time. A friend and board member range of emotions, shifting from of the Corcoran Gallery’s chamber one to the other with the minimum music series in Washington, DC once of preparation. However much we invited us to rehearse in his living rehearse, I wonder how it will feel to room. Having only ever heard us play play the fleeting, frenetic scherzo in a concert, he looked stunned at movement after an ethereal slow the end of our rehearsal: ‘Sometimes movement, or whether we will manage you guys sound like you have no idea to create a big enough sound in the what you’re doing.’ But even when ferocious final movement. we engage in a nerve-racking re- Commenting to a friend on the examination on the day of a concert, I startling originality of his late quartets, relish a process that helps to maintain Beethoven explained, “Art demands a sense of immediacy in music we of us that we do not stand still.” have been performing for many Beethoven composed his 16 string years. A concert may benefit from quartets — 17 if one counts the many hours of preparation but the Grosse Fuge, which began its life as most exciting communication occurs the last movement of Opus 130 but when both audience and performers was later published separately as can suspend disbelief and discover Opus 133 — at different stages of his the music afresh. The appearance life. They represent the most diverse of the ghost at the beginning of body of work written in the genre by a Hamlet would be less effective if, in a single composer: the need we feel to whispered aside, the actor reassured revisit our interpretations is inspired the audience that the confrontation in part by the spirit of exploration that had already been played out during an runs through the quartets themselves. earlier matinee performance. Beethoven completed his first six Our performance this evening of the quartets in October 1800, at the age first movement of Opus 131 benefits of 29, and nearly eight years after from the morning discussion. Geri he had moved from his birthplace of enjoys drawing attention to a particular Bonn to Vienna. These first quartets, viola note; now András moves Opus 18, draw on the tradition of forward with more urgency than in our Haydn and Mozart’s quartets but 5 move in startling new directions. Fejér were students at the Franz Liszt Between 1804 and 1806 he composed Academy in Budapest.