(Photo: Keith Saunders)The Takacs Quartet. Left to right: Károly Schranz, second violin; Geraldine Walther, viola; András Fejer, cello; Edward Dusinberre, first violin.
In that case, Saturday’s “Live from Carnegie Hall” broadcast is doubly special for Colorado classical music fans. The performance features Boulder’s Takacs Quartet performing Bartok’s first, third and fifth string quartets.
Geffen’s video gives the backstory of Bartok’s first string quartet and explains how it documents the composer’s development in his late 20s.
The first movement carries the influences of Richard Strauss, Debussy and Beethoven. After an odd Viennese waltz in the second movement, the final movement emerges with a sound that’s “something simpler and something smaller scale.”
“It’s very much folk-influenced and what we think of as Bartok,” Geffen observes.
The Bartok quartets have become a calling card for the Takacs Quartet. The group has played all six quartets in countless concerts since releasing them on disc in 1998. Most recently, they played the first Bartok quartet Monday night as part of a performance at Grusin Hall in Boulder.
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