Opus Beethoven
Even for a Grammy Award-winning group, playing all 17 Beethoven quartets in live concert is an act of daring. Takács Quartet likes a challenge.
They were four musicians in a small room, just back from a performance in LosAngeles. Spring had come to Boulder andseemingly gone. Outside, wet snow fellthickly. Inside, water boiled for tea.
“He’s looking at the stars, right?” violistGeraldine Walther said as the ensemble,bows drawn, prepared to play a serenepassage Beethoven supposedly wroteafter a night of stargazing.
Soon the members of the Takács Quartetwould be on the road again: KansasCity, Palo Alto and Philadelphia, then onto Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center andLondon’s Wigmore Hall.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRgh6yozmR0]
But on this day, a Wednesday in lateMarch, the string quartet was hunkereddown in its studio at CU-Boulder’sCollege of Music, working through trickyparts of Dvorak’s Opus No. 105 and Beethoven’sOpus 59, No. 2.
The music started and — stopped.
“My F isn’t right,” said lead violinist EdDusinberre, repositioning for another take.
Sound erupted again.To a visitor’s untrained ears, it allseemed masterful. But the quartetsensed ways to render the masterpiecemore fully, subtly, better.
“Two before the fortissimo, the D-flat…”someone called out after another pause.
“The bowing is good here!” saidcellist András Fejér.
Practice is a constant for the GrammyAward-winning Takács Quartet (pronouncedToh-KATCH), one of the world’sgreat classical string quartets and a fixtureat CU-Boulder since the founding membersdefected to the United States fromCommunist Hungary in the 1980s. Twofounders, Fejér, 60, and violinist KárolySchranz, 64, remain with the group
“If we didn’t rehearse, we’d all show upand play the notes fine,” said Dusinberre,who recently published a memoir of lifewith the group, Beethoven for a Later Age:Living with the String Quartets (Universityof Chicago Press). “That’s a beginning.But there wouldn’t be a consensus.”
Practice is all the more vital when theupcoming season involves performing thecomplete cycle of Beethoven quartets — 17works famed for their emotional intensity,epic contrasts of mood and stupefyingtechnical complexity. Composed from 1799to 1827 — as and after Beethoven wentdeaf — the pieces are hard to play, even forvirtuosos intimate with the scores.
Dusinberre called the cycle “the MountEverest for a string quartet.”
“To focus on it, you kind of have to clearthe boards,” said Walther, 65, who joinedTakács in 2005, after 29 years as principalviolist of the San Francisco Symphony. “It’sa real commitment. Emotionally. Spiritually.Physically. These pieces have drama.”
Said Dusinberre, “There isn’t an easyBeethoven quartet.”
Founded in Budapest in 1975 by GaborTakács-Nagy and three fellow musicstudents — Schranz, Fejér and GáborOrmai — the Takács Quartet came to internationalprominence before the decadewas out, winning first prizes in a series ofmajor European competitions.
Dénes Koromzay, a fellow Hungarianwho taught at CU after retiring from theHungarian String Quartet in 1980, invitedthe group to perform at CU duringits debut North American tour, in 1982.(As accomplished artists, the Takácsmembers had travel privileges not thenafforded to most Hungarians.)
The ensemble found Boulder a congenialplace to focus on music without thedistractions of life under communism.They also found a patron in Denver nativeFay Shwayder, a daughter of the Samsoniteluggage founder with a talent for tennis andpiano and a love for classical music.
In 1986, after subsequent lengthy visitsto Colorado, the original Takács membersand their families defected and settled inBoulder. With initial financial support fromShwayder, who died in 2005, the group hasbeen in residence at CU-Boulder ever since.
In the ensuing three decades, Takács hassolidified its position as one of the world’spremier classical string quartets. The groupperforms about 80 concerts a year, includingdates at some of the world’s mostfamous concert halls.
Nominated for Grammys five times,most recently last year, Takács wonone in 2002, for an album of middleBeethoven quartets. The quartet hasperformed with the actors Meryl Streepand Philip Seymour Hoffman and withthe poet Robert Pinksy. In May thegroup was scheduled to record its 18thalbum at a studio in Wales.
(Over time, the Takács lineup haschanged: Founder Takács-Nagy left in1992, soon succeeded by Dusinberre, then24 and straight out of Juilliard. ViolistRoger Tapping played with Takács for10 years following co-founder Ormai’s1995 death. Walther joined in 2005 afterTapping moved to Juilliard.)
Amid all the rehearsing, performingand globetrotting, the musicians tend toduties on campus, where they are formallyChristoffersen Faculty Fellows. Inaddition to playing 10 sold-out concertseach year, they mentor younger stringquartets also in residence at CU and givelessons to advanced string students.
Beethoven's quartets requirea real commitment. Emotionally. Spiritually.Physically. These pieces have drama.
“Most top university music programshave professional string quartets inresidence, but we’re unusually fortunateto have had the Takács on our faculty formore than three decades,” said RobertShay, dean of the College of Music.“They are unquestionably one of theworld’s finest quartets.”
All four Takács members live in ornear Boulder and rehearse together atthe College of Music. Lately they’ve beenplaying a lot of Beethoven.In its long history, the quartet hasperformed the complete Beethoven cycleseveral times, most recently in Londonin 2009, and recorded all 17 pieces. Andyet playing them to the musicians’ ownsatisfaction is a fearsome endeavor.
This is due partly to the works’ compositionover decades: They manifest thedramatic evolution of Beethoven’s epicpowers and the turbulent feelings of thedeaf genius, who could hear his creationsonly in his imagination.
“It’s like a journey,” said violinist Schranz.“You can go into this composer’s mind.”
Also, there are many ways to interpretthe quartets, none easy to execute, andthere’s the matter of reconciling thevarying interpretations of four mastermusicians. Then there’s the trial of physicallyperforming the music: Playing thefull cycle takes about 12 hours. (Takácsplays them in six two-hour concerts,each with selections from the early,middle and late quartets.)
“Our minds are usually ahead of ourphysical abilities,” said cellist Fejér. “You’reconstantly trying to catch up with whatyou’re hearing in your mind.”
Said violist Walther: “It’s like running amarathon 10 times.”
For the musicians, of course, the Herculeannature of the task is part of its appeal.
“If there were only one way to playthem,” said Dusinberre, “we’d have stoppeda long time ago."
Photosby Keith Saunders (top); Robert Torres