Leoš Janáček; Bedřich Smetana - String Quartets (Takács Quartet)

Information

Composer: Leoš Janáček; Bedřich Smetana

• Smetana - String Quartet No. 1 in E minor 'From my life'
• Janáček - String Quartet No. 1 'The Kreutzer Sonata', JW VII/8
• Janáček - String Quartet No. 2 'Intimate letters', JW VII/13

Takács Quartet

    Edward Dusinberre, violin

    Károly Schranz, viola

    Geraldine Walther, cello

    András Fejér, piano

Date: 2015

Label: Hyperion

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Review

It’s never an easy ask, playing Janáček’s string quartets. Then playing them well. Then playing them this well. But the Takács Quartet, being the Takács Quartet, have made it harder for themselves than that, by including Smetana’s First String Quartet as a bonus. Coming so soon after the Pavel Haas Quartet’s benchmark reading of the Smetana (a 2015 Gramophone Award-winner), this is an unfortunately timed release.

But it is a significant one nonetheless, if only because Janáček is clearly the main attraction. It certainly brings out the best in the Takács, who expertly negotiate the music’s paradoxical demands. On the one hand, there’s the illusion of wild, rasping abandon, a willingness to embrace the rough-grained sound world without inhibition. On the other, not a note seems to be out of place. The musicians handle the harsh gear-shifts with flawless rhythmic control, most obviously in the lurching third movement of the First Quartet. It is chiefly their emotional agility, however, that makes this disc so compelling, placing the emphasis where it should be: on the works’ underlying narratives.

What keeps us gripped, in this Kreutzer Sonata, is not just the stranglehold of a jealous husband’s rage but also the sense of sobbing despair – an element underplayed in too many interpretations. Listen to first violinist Edward Dusinberre at the opening of the fourth movement; neither the Pavel Haas nor Talich quartets simulate tears so convincingly. Meanwhile, Intimate Letters gives us far more than a list of tender confessions, namely a reminder of just how violent the Takács can sound. Occasionally I was left wanting even more. The scream of pain at 2'45" into the third movement of Intimate Letters, for example, doesn’t quite lacerate like the Talich’s. Still, in terms of sheer drive, this Janáček competes with the finest.

You’d be hard-pressed to say the same of the Smetana. From the outset, where viola player Geraldine Walther plunges into her solo, this reading never reaches the temperatures of the Pavel Haas Quartet. Not that there isn’t plenty to admire. The Takács fully reflect the work’s autobiographical nature, indulging its moments of poignant introspection. But it’s in the sun-soaked charm of the second movement and the exuberant opening to the fourth that they reveal themselves at their hot headed best.

— Hannah Nepil

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Leoš Janáček (3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, one of the most important exponents of musical nationalism of the 20th century. He studied at the Prague, Leipzig, and Vienna conservatories. His earlier works was influenced by contemporaries such as Dvořák, but later he began to incorporate his studies of national folk music and language to create a highly original synthesis. Janáček's later works, which are his most celebrated, include operas Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen, the Sinfonietta, the Glagolitic Mass, the rhapsody Taras Bulba, two string quartets, and other chamber works.

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Bedřich Smetana (2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. The basic materials from which Smetana fashioned his art, according to Newmarch, were nationalism, realism and romanticism. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Homeland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land.

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The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér. Current members include Edward Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes (violins), Richard O’Neill (viola) and András Fejér (cello). All members are Christoffersen Fellows and Artists in Residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For their CDs on Hyperion and Decca labels, the Quartet has won four Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Presto Music Recording of the Year Award.

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