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On Takács Quartet with Marc-Andre Hamelin
ANN ARBOR NEWS
By Susan Isaacs Nisbett, News Special Writer
A concert by the Takács Quartet — violinists Edward Dusinberre and Karoly Schranz, violist Geraldine Walther and cellist Andras Fejer — is a terrific way to conclude a chamber music season, as the University Musical Society did Friday evening at Rackham Auditorium. But, then again, a concert by the Takács is an equally good a way to commence a season or continue it. The group's playing is so alive, so rich and in the moment, it makes you listen with every fiber.
Friday's concert, though, was a 10 on the Takács Scale (which starts where other groups' scales leave off). With exceptionally jaunty and jovial Haydn to start - the String Quartet in G Major, op. 77, No. 1, played with sweetness and merriment - and brilliant Bartok to continue - the String Quartet No. 1, played with a combination of discipline and wild abandon that made for a breathless ride - the first half of the concert could have sent concertgoers happily into the night, fulfilled, and more than that, moved.
But the second half, in which pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin joined the Takács players for the Schumann Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44, only got better. From the very opening of this remarkable work, the five players inhabited the same sound world - not so often the case when piano joins strings. But Hamelin plays inside the string sound, and with a broad tonal palette, and the effect is stunning. You could applaud the group's sweep, the nobility of the playing and the rhythmic excitement they delivered (I had to sit on my hands not to applaud after the highly Hungarian third movement). But above all, it was the second movement, which spoke so eloquently and movingly of the fragility and aching loveliness of life, that will stay with me for a long time.
The Takács and Hamelin are recording the Schumann next month; if they work the same magic in the studio, it will be a recording one will treasure for a long time to come.
