Takács Quartet eventually finds its groove with Beethoven at the Kennedy Center
The Takács Quartet performed Tuesday night at the Kennedy Center. Photo: C. Downey/WCR
Four Hungarian musicians founded the Takács Quartet fifty years ago, a group that earned worldwide renown. Although only cellist András Fejér remains of the four original members, the group has been in its current formation since 2020. The eminent quartet came to the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater Tuesday night for a mixed program that showed the current lineup has not quite coalesced in every aspect but gave hope that they would.
Back in 2019, with new second violinist Harumi Rhodes one year into her tenure and violist Richard O’Neill not yet in place, the Takács sounded like they were in transition. Since then, Rhodes and longtime first violinist Edward Dusinberre, a couple for some time, got married. The quartet last played on the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Chamber Music Concerts series in January 2024.
The first movement of Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 sounded not quite settled, with intonation disagreements, particularly from Dusinberre. Fejér seemed to recede even more into the background as he approaches his 70th birthday. When the musicians fought less to be heard over one another, as in the movement’s quiet ending, the ensemble sound glistened. The second movement, played with mutes on, felt oddly madcap in the way Dusinberre paced his lead parts.
The strongest results came in the third movement, set in the form of a chaconne to honor the 250th anniversary of Purcell’s death in 1945. Dusinberre floated his high notes with angelic sweetness, and all four players gave poignancy to their cadenza-like solo moments. The concluding C major chords, which grow insistently to overwhelm the end of the piece showed more moments of wayward intonation.
In recent years the Takács has turned to newly commissioned works more, including Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama’s Flow, which they premiered in 2023 and recorded. The work is a wide-ranging examination of the flow of energy, through the universe and through human lives, as the composer described in a poem that accompanies the score.
The first movement opened with barely audible high sounds, almost beyond the human ear, as extended techniques mixed with traditional bowing. A warm ensemble sound prevailed in the second movement, with groaning glissandi and dissonant clashes providing contrast. In the louder sections, there was again some unevenness and stridency. The third movement (“Quark Scherzo”) went full parody, with a main section conjuring a broadly Viennese waltz leading to a Trio section more like a 70s pop song, somewhere between Abba and the Beatles.
The fourth movement featured another unexpected sound, as the musicians applied their bows to the sides of their instruments, producing pitchless whispers “simulating Cosmic Microwave Background radiation,” according to the composer. Pulsating rhythms recalling Indian music rounded out the polystylistic jumble before the popular ballad style returned in the viola, leading to a sunny conclusion in D major. While these disparate parts didn’t feel fully reconciled, the piece proved consistently entertaining through its rapid changes.
In the second half came a Takács specialty, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16, the last major work the composer completed before his death. This relatively brief, fairly comic work is easy to spoil by making too much of it. Unexpectedly, given how the first half had gone, in the Beethoven the four musicians seemed to relax and step back. They reduced their collective sound to an intimately spun closeness, and just like that, the old Takács magic reappeared.
Intonation and ensemble blend coalesced effortlessly from the first movement, growing organically from the sense of a conversation among close friends. The second movement pulsated with delightful energy, not too raucous but playful, especially as Dusinberre’s violin soared into the upper reaches without ever sounding forced.
From the surprise harmonic transition at its opening, the third movement purred with a glowing, ardent tone, just the right mix of slow and singing. The finale struck an appropriately mock-serious tone, balancing the vehemence of the opening question motif (“Muss es sein?”) with the banter of the response (“Es muss sein!”). Fejér, with veteran assurance, placed the little folksy melody that rounds out the work with guileless simplicity, a gesture answered heartily by his colleagues.
Turning to Haydn for an encore, the group gave a fleet, elegant rendition of the contrapuntal Presto finale of String Quartet No. 35, a fizzy conclusion that sent listeners home on a cloud.
Artistic director Jennifer Koh closes out the Fortas series with a complete performance of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin 2 p.m. June 8. kennedy-center.org
