Tonight at 8 p.m. Spaulding Auditorium will vibrate with music transformed by travel over centuries, across the globe, through antiquated instruments and through the fingers of four amazing musicians.
These musicians, the Takacs Quartet, have won acclaim as one of the most excellent representatives of the traditional Central European quartet.
Edward Dusinberre, violin, Karoly Schranz, violin, Roger Tapping, viola, and Andras Fejer, cello, have honed their individual musical experience to form the unique Takacs style and repertoire.
Four Hungarians formed the quartet at the Budapest Liszt Academy, naming the group after the original first violinist.
Their repertoire includes a range of classical string pieces from Mozart to Schubert, Bartok to contemporary.
However, Tapping seems to have an affinity for Bartok. In an interview with The Dartmouth, Tapping said "there has always been a bit of a speciality [in playing] Bartok's music."
For this concert, they will be playing Haydn Opus 20, No. 4; Bartok 3 and Beethoven Opus 132. Tapping said the Beethoven piece is one of the greatest pieces ever written, and because Beethoven wrote it as a thanksgiving for his return to health, he regarded it as a particularly emotionally important piece.
The Haydn and Bartok Quartets, though of a different tone, are also impressive works. Hayden wrote his piece, subtitled "Zingarese," meaning gypsy, near Bartok's homeland, and he incorporates some traditional themes.
Although the Bartok quartets were written later than the other pieces, they were known at the time for their modern style and sound. Tapping said, however, that the Bartok quartets "mellow with age," and that he feels the quartet has managed to capture that.
"There's much warmth and passion to be enjoyed melodically [in the Bartok]," said Tapping. He said that while listeners and musicians often find Bartok's music forbidding, particularly the melancholy 3rd quartet, he and the other members enjoy the warmth and humanity underneath.
"It starts in a rather melancholy way," said Tapping enthusiastically, "and then you find yourself with mad dances."
During a certain part of the piece, the cello and viola are asked to use the whole bow, a technique which Tapping said suggests inexpert village musicians at a festival.
According to Tapping, much of the apparent violence of Bartok's music could be interpreted as ritualistic, like the masked dances of Hungarian villages.
While he plays, Tapping said that he does not think of specific images but said that when you play Bartok, "you should feel dancey."
Tapping concentrates on feeling the tensions of the pieces. "There's real physical excitement in it," he said.
The quality and intensity of the quartet's interpretations has won recognition in many international and regional competitions, and this week the group received the prestigious Gramophone Award for the Best Chamber Music CD.
After a concert in their adopted home state, Colorado, the Denver Post declared that "the quartet energetically bobbed and swayed their way through the music in an outward manifestation of the artistic unity of their exhilarating interpretation."
Tapping himself feels that the quartet's strength lies in their ability to find ways to make imposing pieces such as the Bartok quartet cycle "more lyrical and more human."
Tapping and Dusinberre have replaced two original members, joining violinist Schranz and cellist Fejer. The youngest member, Dusinberre, joined the group directly from Juliard, an impressive move for a young musician.
After hearing the quartet playing in his home in London, England, Tapping unexpectedly joined the quartet to replace a sick member.
"I loved their playing," Tapping said. "I was thrilled."
Takacs first gained international attention in 1977 with first prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. In the 1980's, the group moved their base to Boulder, Colorado.
"It was a hard decision for my colleagues to leave their home country," said Tapping, but he explained that the quartet found conditions in Soviet Hungary to be "cluttered up with a great deal of bureaucracy."
The four members now serve as associate professors at the University of Colorado in Boulder, offering at least 10 concerts per year and coaching several string quartets.
Tapping said that he has no formal training as a professor because "[in a quartet] you do have to be quite articulate with each other ... so it's not hard to be articulate with others."
Their 1998-99 season began with a tour of all-Haydn concerts at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and will continue through more than 30 American cities.
In previous years, the Central-European natives have performed in several venues throughout Japan, London, Paris, Sydney and New York.
Their programs often focused on the work of classical and romantic composers. In 1994, they added a contemporary quartet written specifically for the group by Bright Sheng, a Chinese-American, to their repertoire.
The Takacs have released several compact discs, most recently a recording of the Bartok quartet cycle, performed at the Freer Gallery in May of 1998.
They next plan to release a Decca/London CD of Viennese masterpieces as well as a series of Beethoven quartets.
Other recordings include several Schubert and Brahms quartets and piano trios; two Mozart string quartets; Chaussons's Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet and a set of Smetana and Borodin.
Though the group has played all of these works dozens of times, Tapping said that they are such "amazing pieces that you never feel that you've leaned them completely."
"They are on the same level as Tolstoy's novels and Rembrandt's paintings -- they have everything in them ... and they are also very difficult."
