An equal temperament
As we welcome the Takács Quartet to the Maestro Arts roster, first violinist Edward Dusinberre reflects on the qualities that have sustained the group’s five decades and looks forward to the next chapter
Is there a Takács identity that has lasted across the quartet’s 51 years?
There is a spirit in the music making that I felt when I joined the quartet in 1993. The players, who were all nearly 18 years older than me, were always arguing about the music – in the best possible way. There has never been a ‘Takács way’ of playing. If anything, our way is always to investigate and to think we could do better. That attitude makes it easier for a new player, which is one aspect of the continuity. Our priority is always to dig deep into the character of the music and what we’re trying to convey, rather than being about our individual personalities. At the same time, I have always felt enough spaciousness to express myself. That’s the ultimate challenge for a quartet: to create something unified and convincing, but in an environment where people feel they have individual voices. We’ve managed to hang on to that over the years.
How have you achieved that balance?
In rehearsals we always try musical ideas and don’t get hung up on talking. Language is unreliable – especially with different languages in the group. Fully committing to someone else’s idea without reservation keeps the process fluid and makes sure everyone feels they have a voice. We’re lucky that we have many concerts so we can tweak things and don’t have to feel that we’re stuck in any one interpretation. Humour is also important. When you work with three other people, it’s a good not to take yourself too seriously, because they have to put up with you not only in the rehearsal room, but also at 6am in the rental car shuttle!
Mihai Marica joins the quartet in September. What made him the right choice to succeed founding cellist András Fejér?
Harumi [Rhodes] and Richard [O’Neill] had played with Mihai before – he’s of their generation and they loved working with him. He’s a wonderful player, humble and curious about music, and delightful to be with. We could all feel the continuity between him and András. He’s Romanian-born, so there is an Eastern European connection with András, who is Hungarian, and Mihai comes from the area of Transylvania where Bartók was born, which is also a nice connection.
How will you manage the change in the group?
For the first rehearsals we’ll take things quite slowly, giving ourselves the space to really hear each other. Our projects next year include the Franck Quintet with Steven Osborne in the UK and Jeremy Denk in the US, and our first recording with Mihai will focus on the music of Gabriela Lena Frank. These are strong projects that will build a unique collective experience between the four of us right away and won’t immediately be compared to what we’ve been doing recently. When I joined, we played Smetana’s From My Life, which the others hadn’t learnt before, which was very liberating for me, and a great relief. The dynamics and the roles we each play will change, of course, so it’s about being cognisant of that, and checking in with everyone every now and again.
It’s also good for us to understand that change can be hard for our audiences. When I first played with the quartet, there were certainly people who were disappointed, but within a year or two, they were happy – or at least they stopped expressing their disappointment! I remember András saying to me after I had a particularly nasty review in my first season, ‘As long as things are good between the four people in the group and the work feels good, that’s all that matters.’ If a group is going to continue, it has to change, to evolve. We embrace the unique qualities that a new player brings.
You’ve commissioned many new works in recent years – what is that experience like?
Harumi has an expertise in commissioning – before she joined the group, she had been involved in about 100 commissions, and she and Richard have ongoing relationships with composers. So we have been in dialogue with various composers, seeing their point of view and watching pieces evolve. That is very different to the sort of commission where you only meet the composer the day before the performance and everything is set by then. This has helped me realise that commissioning can be more of a workshopping experience than I had appreciated. Technology has also made the process much easier. Working with Clarice Assad this year, for example, we recorded a video for her early on in the process, which we could then discuss. That’s wouldn’t have happened 25 years ago. It feels much healthier and closer to theatre, where workshopping is a standard way of operating.
How does your work with composers affect your approach to the canon?
You can be respectful to the score, but also recognise that notation is limited, and try to think beyond it. If the composer were writing now, their instructions might be different. I also now see that if a composer’s marking doesn’t immediately make sense, there might be an alternative explanation than that it’s simply a mistake. For example, when Beethoven writes, ‘To be played with much feeling’, at the beginning of the slow movement of op.59 no.2, is an indication of how strongly he felt strongly about the piece. From my experience with composers, I now consider it conceivable that he wrote it in after an unsatisfactory rehearsal to encourage the players to feel similarly.
Alternatively, a dynamic might look inconsistent – one person is asked to play much quieter than the others, for example – but it could be that the composer was at a rehearsal, didn’t like the balance and tweaked it in the score. We have had that experience with contemporary composers, so why would that not have happened with Beethoven?
How can chamber music stay relevant?
We run our own series here at Colorado University as part of our residency, and we think about this question often. At our Monday evening concerts, the university allows us to offer free tickets to local string programmes, but it’s also important for us that there’s engagement with the students, so we invite them to our stage rehearsal and leave time for them to ask questions. At the last one, we played Beethoven and gave them index cards, asking them to write down what surprised them about the concert. We got some amazing answers. This sort of engagement, at a micro level, is so important. You can’t necessarily measure it at the box office, but we will try to do more of that.
It’s also the responsibility of people who run chamber music series, and we follow their lead. As we tour all over the world, we notice that some series are particularly dynamic and good at bringing in new audiences. They are tuned into the audience experience and try different ways to vary the format. It could be a concert where people are allowed to move around and vocalise, or, for example, the series at Princeton, where they offer a meditation and silence, and there’s no applause. If an organisation reaches out to us and wants to do something unusual, we’re very open.
We also feel responsibility to programme varied and representative repertoire. If we feel helpless about what’s going on in America, we can at least celebrate the multiplicity of artistic voices. We don’t want to be complacent, but neither should we panic. I don’t appreciate it when people complain that chamber music audiences are old. That’s great! It’s wonderful that as people get older, they are drawn to this repertoire. Older people are often completely overlooked in society. It can be a real struggle and if they can come out and have a good time, that’s very meaningful to me. I never think it is something that should alarm us.
The quartet tours all over the world – how do you manage that?
I’ve learnt a lot from András because as a cellist, he has much more stress with the cello than the rest of us. It’s important to be able to roll with the punches. One aspect of this is that you might feel wonderful after a concert, but you try to modify the highs and recognise, ‘I need to play well tomorrow night after a three-hour train journey, so let’s keep level’. Don’t ever despair. For example, on our last tour we were travelling from Rome to Berlin, but the Berlin airport was closed so we ended up getting up at three in the morning to take a six-hour train from Amsterdam to Berlin, which we caught by about 30 seconds. We arrived in time to play the concert, which went very well. You need a certain sort of temperament to be able to do that. You can’t afford to get too stressed out, otherwise you won’t be able to operate.
We’re all good at recognising that sometimes touring life can be a bit rough, and we have some principles. For example, we put in a buffer zone at the beginning and end of a tour for jet lag. And as I’ve got older, I’m better at recognising and taking moments of relaxation when I can. You can find that even at an airport gate, but you have to be mindful of it. Having said all that, I love being on the road. In some ways, life is almost easiest on stage – it’s the other stuff that’s complicated!
The Takács Quartet joins Maestro Arts for worldwide management excluding North and South America. Seldy Cramer remains the quartet’s longtime manager in North and South America. Christa Phelps, who has represented the quartet worldwide (excluding North and South America) since January 1984, is stepping away from artist management, but will continue to manage the group’s European tours until March 2027.
