Quartet tugs on audience's heartstrings

Author: Hannah Rommer

The Takacs Quartet delighted the Middlebury community last Friday evening with its 19th campus performance since 1994. Playing the works of Debussy, Shostakovich and Brahms, the award-winning quartet delivered a varied program that displayed the talents of its individual players as well as the group's exceptional artistry. Their interpretation of the pieces was convincing and entertaining, and the audience responded with a generous standing ovation after the last chord of the evening was struck.

The program began with Debussy's first and only String Quartet in G minor, opus 10. The first movement served as an excellent introduction to the individual players, as the composition provided each instrument its own solo line as the movement progressed. Second violinist Karoly Schranz played a gorgeous lyrical passage with exceptional clarity and sensitivity, and cellist Andras Fejer delivered a rugged and bold passage, displaying the depth of his instrument. Throughout, first violinist Edward Dusinberre showed much agility and conviction with an overriding, driving melody.

In the second movement, violist Geraldine Walther artfully sustained a hearty but simple melodic motif over the pizzicato counter-melody being played by the other three parts. This theme moved through the violins and cello with beautiful continuity, demonstrating the quartet's surprising consistency and sensitivity to the uniqueness of each instrument. In the third movement, the violist again held the theme - this time a haunting melody accompanied by the other players - which soon grew into a trio with the first and second violins, before finally developing into full quartet orchestration. Throughout the Debussy piece, the members of the quartet impressed the audience with their thorough understanding of the work, often changing character between phrases and even measures with fluidity and dynamism.

The first violinist verbally introduced the Shostakovich String Quartet no. 11 in F minor with an appropriate amount of humor and a few musical examples. The piece, he explained, was written as a musical joke dedicated to a second violinist. It highlights the second violin in the humoresque with a ridiculously mundane passage that is repeated incessantly throughout the movement until the rest of the ensemble seems to "kill it off."

The quartet carried this satire through the entire seven-movement work, spoofing the musical forms of the scherzo, recitative, etude and elegy. The group pulled this off expertly, without allowing the humor to become too overbearing or distracting.

After the intermission, the quartet finished its program with Brahms' String Quartet in A minor, Opus 51 no. 2, a more traditional work that again highlighted the group's exceptional communication and its exciting interpretation of the material. The second movement was particularly impressive as the melody was tossed back and forth between the second violin and viola with striking seamlessness. The fourth movement closed the concert on a robust finale, bringing the audience to its feet.

The concert took place in Mead Chapel, owing to the quartet's huge popularity in recent years. This allowed more people to attend than would have been possible in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall, but the acoustics were disappointing and did not allow much of the finer articulation to be heard throughout the sanctuary.

To hear the Takacs Quartet in any setting is a treat, but the cavernous ceiling of the chapel left one wishing for the more sophisticated engineering of a smaller, better-designed space. Despite the lackluster acoustics, the quartet left the crowd satisfied, impressed and hoping that the Takacs Quartet will be back for their 20th program at Middlebury.