CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Takács Quartet
Part of: Chamber Sessions II
Performers
Takács Quartet
·· Edward Dusinberre, Violin
·· Károly Schranz, Violin
·· Geraldine Walther, Viola
·· András Fejér, Cello
Erika Eckert, Viola
Program
HAYDN String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2, "Fifths"
CARL VINE String Quartet No. 6, "Child's Play" (US Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
MENDELSSOHN String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 87
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.Pre-Concert Talk
Pre-concert talk starts at 6:30 PM in Zankel Hall with Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács Quartet, in conversation with Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Planning, Carnegie Hall.Lead support for the 125 Commissions Project is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Additional funding is provided by members of Carnegie Hall's Composer Club.
At a Glance
JOSEPH HAYDN String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2, “Fifths”
Haydn was at the peak of his compositional powers when he wrote the six Op. 76 quartets in the mid-1790s. Like his late masterpiece The Creation, the Op. 76 quartets are notably adventurous in their thematic material, harmony, texture, and timbre. The D-Minor Quartet takes its nickname, and much of its outgoing character, from the boldly striding open fifths played by the first violin at the beginning of the work.
CARL VINE String Quartet No. 6, “Child’s
Play”
The latest string quartet by Australian composer Carl Vine echoes the playful exuberance that characterizes much of Haydn’s music. Each of the work’s five movements evokes a different activity associated with childhood, a stage of life that Vine sees as imbued with “a sense of fun and limitless potential.”
FELIX MENDELSSOHN String Quintet No. 2
in B-flat Major, Op. 87
The second of Mendelssohn’s two string quintets dates from 1845, two years before the composer’s untimely death. Posthumously published in 1851, the Quintet in B-flat Major blends youthful exuberance and mature passion. Only the comparatively short-winded finale—which Mendelssohn intended to revise but never did—leaves the listener hungry for more.
Bios
Takács Quartet
During the 2017–2018 season, the Takács Quartet performs at Tanglewood with pianist Garrick Ohlsson, appears at the Aspen Music Festival, and tours with pianist Marc-André Hamelin. In addition to its annual series at London’s Wigmore Hall, where the members of the quartet are associate artists, other European engagements include performances in Copenhagen, Vienna, Luxembourg, and Rotterdam, and at the Rheingau and Edinburgh festivals. The quartet also returns to New Zealand and Australia.
The Takács Quartet has an extensive recording repertoire with the Hyperion label; its latest release features Dvořák’s String Quintet, Op. 97 (with violist Lawrence Power), and String Quartet, Op. 105. Future releases include the Dohnányi piano quintets with Marc-André Hamelin, and piano quintets by Elgar and Beach with Garrick Ohlsson. For its records with the Decca label, the quartet has won a Grammy Award, three Gramophone Awards, and three Japanese Record Academy Awards, among other notable prizes.
Known for its innovative programming, the quartet pursues diverse projects that have included regular collaborations with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikás, a 14-city US tour of a music and poetry program with poet Robert Pinsky, and a 2010 collaboration with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and writer David Lawrence Morse on a drama project that explored the composition of Beethoven’s last quartets. In recent years, the quartet has given performances of Philip Roth’s Everyman program, appearing with Meryl Streep at Princeton University in 2014 and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto the following year. The quartet first performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest by Gábor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gábor Ormai, and András Fejér, while all four were students. Violinist Edward Dusinberre joined the quartet in 1993; violist Geraldine Walther joined in 2005.
Erika Eckert
Ms. Eckert has performed throughout the United States as a member of the Eckert-McDonald Duo (with pianist Margaret McDonald). As colleagues at the University of Colorado, the two have had the opportunity to present numerous Colorado premieres, including works by Luis Jorge González, Richard Toensing, Carter Pann, Daniel Kellogg, Chen Yi, and Peter Seabourne.
As co-founder and former violist of the Cavani String Quartet, Ms. Eckert performed in major concert series worldwide and garnered an impressive array of awards, including first prize at the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Award. Ms. Eckert has also appeared as a soloist at the Music in the Mountains and Boulder Bach festivals, and with the Four Seasons Chamber Orchestra, University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and Boulder Chamber Orchestra.
Ms. Eckert sustains a rich career in music education alongside her performance schedule. She has coordinated the chamber music program at the American String Teachers Association international workshops in Australia and Norway, and presented viola master classes at The Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, and Interlochen Arts Academy. Ms. Eckert served for three years as an adjudicator for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts’ (NFAA) Arts Recognition and Talent Search—the exclusive nominating agency for Presidential Scholars in the Arts—and appeared in the Academy Award–nominated documentary about the program, Rehearsing a Dream.