{"id":7596,"date":"2012-11-10T23:17:03","date_gmt":"2012-11-11T04:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=7596"},"modified":"2012-11-10T23:17:03","modified_gmt":"2012-11-11T04:17:03","slug":"concert-review-takacs-quartet-and-mark-andre-hamelin-wrap-power-in-beauty-at-koerner-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/11\/10\/concert-review-takacs-quartet-and-mark-andre-hamelin-wrap-power-in-beauty-at-koerner-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Concert review: Tak\u00e1cs Quartet and Mark-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin wrap power in beauty at Koerner Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Tak\u00e1cs Quartet and Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin at Koerner Hall on Saturday night (John Terauds iPhone photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Tak\u00e1cs Quartet spoke softly but wielded a powerful emotional stick at a recital that also included pianist Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin at Koerner Hall on Saturday evening. It made for one of the most satisfying chamber-music experiences of the year.<\/p>\n

The Tak\u00e1cs — violinists Edward Dusinberre and K\u00e1roly Schranz, violist Geraldine Walther and cellist Andr\u00e1s Frej\u00e9r — demonstrated all of the many reasons why it is one of the foremost chamber ensembles on the planet in a programme that paired a work from the 19th century canon with two great works of the mid-20th century.<\/p>\n

Although this might seem like a lopsided programme, it was a great way to show how three very different composers achieved great things with economical means. There wasn’t an extraneous note in any of these three pieces.<\/p>\n

The Quartet itself reflected this trait by almost underplaying the bulk of the programme, showing a near-capacity audience how restraint and discretion are not antithetical to conveying deep emotion in music.<\/p>\n

Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 13<\/em>, D804, — the “Rosamunde” Quartet — was treated with uncommon delicacy, gently laying out the composer’s ideas with utter clarity — a clarity and balance that would return again and again in the evening’s performances.<\/p>\n

Schubert’s constant passages from major to minor, part of what makes his music so interesting, were seamless, unobtrusive.<\/p>\n

The other string quartet on the programme was Benjamin Britten’s first, from 1941, premiered in Los Angeles while the anti-war composer and his partner, tenor Peter Pears, were trying to stay out of the way of World War II.<\/p>\n

The opening movement, which starts with a delicate, plucked cello melody overlaid with ethereal, sustained high notes from the other three players, was magical, the slow Andante movement a study in how quietly a quartet can play while still conveying intensity.<\/p>\n

Where Britten’s music conveys its intensity behind a veil of polite distance, Dmitri Shostakovich’s compositions wear their message on their sleeve.<\/p>\n

The most exceptional performance of the evening was of the Russian composer’s 1940 Piano Quintet<\/em>, interpreted with the help of Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin in his Koerner Hall d\u00e9but.<\/p>\n

The Piano Quintet<\/em> is a 20th century classic, loved by performers and audiences alike. But it rarely gets played like this.<\/p>\n

Hamelin and the Tak\u00e1cs have Shostakovich’s music slightly rounded edges without ever diminishing its alternation of quiet elegy with dance-like energy. Even the loudest passages were played with uncommon elegance by everyone on stage, showing us how Shostakovich’s writing can have a lot of impact while also sounding nothing short of beautiful.<\/p>\n

The five performers could have played the whole work over again, and we all would have happily stayed late to savour the experience.<\/p>\n

John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tak\u00e1cs Quartet spoke softly but wielded a powerful emotional stick at a recital that also included pianist Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin at Koerner Hall on Saturday evening. It made for one of the most satisfying chamber-music experiences of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,10,76,19,36,47,52,57,63],"tags":[6450,570,857,1876,2061,2430,6468,6471,2943,3003,3231],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/11\/takacs.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-1Yw","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7596"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}