Musicon / Beethoven / Beethoven String Quartets – Takacs Quartet
-Beethoven String Quartets – Takacs Quartet
Beethoven’s string quartets, well known as belonging to his finest music, especially the late ones, which are also the last complete music he wrote, go beyond the tranquil joy that is the general mark or stamp of Beethoven’s style, as I understand it. They incorporate this joy, they don’t miss it, but bringing it into a kind of meditation that even becomes a lament - even a dancing one!
Have you not listened to these pieces of music carefully, you don’t know Beethoven well. Enjoy all of his quartets in the superb interpretation of the Takács Quartet.
Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982.
Violinist Edward Dusinberre joined the Quartet in 1993 and violist Roger Tapping in 1995. Violist Geraldine Walther replaced Mr. Tapping in summer, 2005. Of the original ensemble, Karoly Schranz and Andras Fejer remain. In 2001 the Takács Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary.
This later scheme of the Takács Quartet recorded Beethoven’s quartets, released by Decca.