Reviews
Australia 2025 nationwide tour:
Haydn, MillikEN, Beethoven
August 2025
“In a very welcome return to Melbourne, the Takács Quartet reaffirmed itself as probably the best string quartet on the planet.”
Tony Way | The Age
Haydn’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 74, No. 3 was a splendid curtain-raiser, showcasing the group’s burnished, multifaceted tone. Like looking into a gemstone, there were flashes of brilliance but beguiling depths of colour. After revelling in the quick-witted interplay of parts in the first movement, there came a superbly controlled second-movement choral. So ebullient was the finale that the audience burst into applause before the end.
Brisbane-born, Berlin-based composer Cathy Milliken’s Sonnet of an Emigrant after Bertolt Brecht for narrator and string quartet was commissioned for Musica Viva’s 80th anniversary season. In marrying Brecht’s poetry of displacement with fragmented reminiscences of the Viennese modernism with which many musical refugees would have been familiar, Milliken has created an evocative meditation on loss and new beginnings. The empathetic narration by the composer’s sister Angie Milliken alternated between English and German, underlining a loss of belonging.
At the heart of the program was Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3. The vastly different timbres of the first two chords signalled that this would be an engrossing account. Indeed, it riveted listeners for some 30 minutes.
After the initial brilliance of C major, it was hard not to swoon to the ensuing Andante, beautifully underpinned by András Fejér’s cello. A vividly contrasted Menuetto led directly into the fugato finale, taken at breakneck speed and overflowing with energy and excitement.
A generous encore, the second movement of Ravel’s String Quartet, captivated not only with its exquisite elegance but with the most luscious pizzicato anyone could hope to hear this side of the pearly gates.
Such heavenly music making really does put the Takács Quartet in a class of its own.
August 20, 2025
“You hear the Takacs Quartet play and you think to yourself, ‘this can’t be anyone else.’ It’s the tone, the continuity, each individual voice playing and breathing as one that make them the undisputed greatest string quartet in the world.”
Steve Moffatt | Daily Telegraph
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August 18, 2025
“★★★★★”
“Perfect coherence and technical accomplishment set this performance at the pinnacle of the string quartet form.”
Michael Wilson | Limelight Magazine
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August 21, 2025
“the four play with such dazzling synchronicity and attention to detail that the opportunity to hear them premiere an original contemporary work by an Australian composer provided an unforgettable celebration of Musica Viva’s Eightieth year.”
Bill Stephens | Australian Arts Review
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August 18, 2025
“It’s easy to see why the Takács Quartet is considered one of the pre-eminent string quartets on the planet and a regular guest of Music Viva Australia. An appreciative crowd gathered on a wet winter night at the City Recital Hall to witness precision playing, impeccable balance and exuberant musicianship in a program from masters of the genre plus a brand new Australian commission.”
Paul Neeson | Eastside 87.9FM
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August 19, 2025
“And just when we thought the players must be exhausted beyond belief after the incredible Beethoven, as an encore, they charmed with a perfect playing of the 2nd movement from Ravel’s String Quartet. Plunking pizzicato, melodic lines that seemed drawn from heaven itself made this little gift a treasure to savour.”
Alan Holley | classikON
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August 15, 2025
“★★★★★”
“Throughout the evening, the Takács Quartet reminded us of their enduring brilliance. From the dramatic opening of Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in G minor, Op. 74, No. 3 “The Rider” (1793) to Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 59 No. 3 (1808) sandwiching Milliken’s 2025 work. No matter what they perform, they bring energy, emotive subtlety and technical precision.”
Mary Sinanidis | On The House
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Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice June 2025
“With recorded sound that’s at once detailed and atmospheric, this new Hyperion release is pure pleasure in every respect.”
Andrew Farach-Colton | Gramophone Magazine
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For the March 2025 release of
Dvořak & Price Piano Quintets
Janáček and Beethoven at Wigmore hall
March 2025
“[The] Takacs Quartet demonstrated – again – that they really are the best of the very best… [They] brought fervent, tear-stained expression to Janacek’s First Quartet – alternately wry and raw – and positively whirled through Beethoven’s Op.18 No.1. The four players spoke with one perfectly-blended voice in Beethoven’s unison opening gesture, but a bar later their second violin Harumi Rhodes was tearing loose and hurtling the music forward while cellist Andras Fejer disputed drolly from the wings. Once again, they delivered a unanimity that thrives on individualism, and total expressive freedom within the most complex of formal frameworks. You see, fellow humans: it can be done.”
Richard Bratby | Spectator
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May 2025
“When chamber musicians of this caliber are at their best, you can sense the thoughts whip around the ensemble, an extra bit of weight on an accent in the first violin prompting an answering push from the cello. Familiarity breeds excitement, and an old score feels suddenly spontaneous.”
Justin Davidson | Vulture
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May 2025
“What lingered most after the final chord was not just the refinement of the playing, but the sheer vitality the Takács Quartet continues to bring to the stage. They play not like a group looking back, but like musicians still in love with the act of discovery. That sense of urgency, of collective listening and risk-taking, was present in every phrase. Nothing in their performance felt settled or habitual. If anything, it offered a sense of renewal – of chamber music as a living art, and of the quartet’s evolving bond with it.”
For the July 2023 release of
Samuel Taylor-Coleridge Fantasiestücke
and DVORAK Op. 106
September 2023
“The Takács are impressive on this album: every micro-phrase, every note is considered. Their sound draws you in from the first moment. The opening chords and sinuous lines vibrate and thrill on many levels; this is of course to do with their rich and subtle playing but also the fantastic recorded balance.”
Amy Blier-Carruthers | Gramophone Magazine
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August 2023
“This album finds the quartet in excellent shape, with their clarity of idea and warmth of sound as strong as ever.”
Kate Wakeling | BBC Music Magazine
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May 20, 2023
“Classical music doesn’t get much more life-enhancing than this.”
Flora Wilson | The Guardian
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May 18, 2023
“Rich contrasts: a Wigmore Hall evening of dazzling versatility by the Takács Quartet.”
Christopher Sallon | Seen and Heard International
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May 11, 2023
“Even with personnel changes, the Takács Quartet remains one of the greatest chamber string ensembles we have on the world stage.”
Blas Matamoro | Scherzo magazine, Madrid
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For the January 2023 release of quartets by Hough, Dutilleux and Ravel:
August 2, 2023
“This is a magical album.”
Geoff Brown | London Times
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January 24, 2023
“★★★★★”
“This recording is really a joy from start to finish.”
Roger Nichols | BBC Music Magazine
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February 2023
“These are both powerful, brilliantly imagined interpretations, painted in bold, rich colors and shaped with flashing virtuosity.”
Richard Bratby | Gramophone Magazine
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January 5, 2023
“In the Takács’ hands Ainsi la Nuit skips weightlessly from gauzy otherworldliness to coiled-spring punchiness to gossamer delicacy. The precision and rhythmic tautness that allow these quicksilver changes also inform every note of their playing of the Ravel…”
Erica Jeal | The Guardian Recording of the Week
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January 6, 2023
“It [the Hough] is a lovely work, full of wit and panache, that could hardly have more committed, persuasive advocates…as a vehicle for showing off every facet of the Takács players’ technique it [the Dutilleux] couldn’t be more ideal. Every nuance and technical demand is tossed off with aplomb and seeming ease, and yet none of it ever comes across as virtuosity for its own sake; they illuminate and elucidate the musical sense and meaning behind every moment.”
James Longstaffe | Presto Music Recording of the Week
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For the September 2022 release of Haydn’s opp. 42, 77 and 103:
September 9, 2022
“★★★★★”
“One thing is certain about this new recording by the Takács Quartet: you will not hear better string quartet playing anywhere in the world today.”
Misha Donat | BBC Music Magazine
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October 2022
“Being steeped in this music, the Takács respond to it with their customary naturalness and confidence.”
David Threasher | Gramophone Magazine
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September 2022
“★★★★★”
“Impeccable…performances as wonderful and sonorous as you could hope for.”
Dan Cairns | The Sunday Times
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October 2022
“★★★★★”
“Even in the most exuberant passages, in the most intricate webs of superimposed rhythms, the Takács beguile the ear with their incisive phrasing, their consistency, and their sense of detail. Compared with their previous recording (Decca, 1991), this new one seems more dynamic, more intense in its highlighting of the contrapuntal dimension…”
The Diapason Magazine
October 7, 2022
“A year ago we hailed the first album on Hyperion of the ‘altered’ make-up of the Takács Quartet…The album they recorded in 2020, devoted to works by the Mendelssohns – brother and sister – (see our review of 21 October 2021) richly deserved its ‘Joker absolu’ award. What dazzled was the homogeneity of the new team, equally as much as its expressive qualities and the balance between the desks, revealing itself in a sense of freshness, delivering a clear message with well contoured rhythms. We eagerly awaited their second album, announced as being dedicated to Haydn. Here it is, and the result is everything we had wished for…They profile the melodies with a knowing ease that culminates in the third movement and its fugue, with the first violin making light of its extreme heights, filling every moment with creative tension. Op. 77 No 2, dominated by its contrapuntal aspect, is given harmonic warmth and expressive density, and in its superb Andante – a true masterpiece – they achieve a dramatic capacity that is truly breathtaking.”
Jean Lacroix | Crescendo Magazine
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Edinburgh FestivAL
August 15, 2022
“A full hall for a very accomplished quartet.”
Hugh Kerr | Edinburgh Music Review
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August 15, 2022
“They are a class act, if ever there was one, marrying aristocratic elegance and red-blooded energy to everything they play.”
Simon Thompson | Seen and Heard International
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June 7, 2020
“And now one of the world’s greatest string quartets, the Takacs, has taken up the work of Amy Beach (1867-1944). Garrick Ohlsson joins the quartet for Beach’s Piano Quintet in F sharp minor on a sublime recent release on the Hyperion label, easily the most prestigious recording of her music to date.”
David Allen | The New York Times
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November 6, 2019
“★★★★★”
“What endures about the Takács Quartet, year after year, is how equally the four players carry the music.
Erica Jeal | The Guardian
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Takács Quartet & Jeremy Denk, Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center
August 5, 2019
“Excellent performances”
David M. Rice | Classical Source
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Cleveland Chamber Music Society
April 11, 2019
“Takács Quartet shows its strengths...”
Sam Jacobson | Bachtrack
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Takács Quartet and Marc André Hamelin,
Edinburgh Festival
August 11, 2018
“Chamber music royalty...”
Simon Thompson | Bachtrack
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