Quartet in F, Op 77 No 1 - Haydn
Quartet No 4 - Bartok
Quartet in C, Op 59 No 3 - Beethoven
The Takacs String Quartet are no strangers to Dublin, nor are any of the works played in last Thursday's recital at IMMA, but a rare excitement was conveyed. These players have an urgency, a vigour and a sense of colour that one does not often find. So whether it was Haydn's good humour or Bartok's violence or Beethoven's tempestuous progress, the Takacs found a corresponding style to bring out the varied expressiveness of the music.
The performance of Op. 77 No. 1, Haydn's last complete string quartet but one, was full of happy touches that made the listener smile with pleasure, and the sound was rich and robust, a delight in itself.
The mixture of extreme sophistication and raw feeling in Bartok's Quartet No. 4 leads to an extraordinary tension. The composer's use of narrow intervals makes both melodies and harmonies the very opposite of ingratiating; but what power is there, and what inventiveness! This performance brought out both the beauty and the savagery of the work, so though it was hard not to think that Bartok must have been passing through some grim episode in his life, the music was paramount.
The big challenge of Beethoven's Op. 59 No. 3 must be the final fugue: too slow, it lacks bite; too fast, it falls apart. The performers played as if their lives depended on it, with mounting urgency, and triumphantly steered between Scylla and Charybolis.
