San Francisco Classical Voice

It is interesting to reassess established musical masterworks. The Bartók String Quartets have been considered for more than sixty years -- the Sixth was completed in 1939 -- the twentieth century counterparts to the Beethoven Quartets. Their influence on future composers has been correspondingly profound. The Takács Quartet's survey of the six quartets, beginning Sunday with Nos. 1, 3 and 5 gives music lovers in the Bay Area a fine opportunity to re-hear these modern classics.

In the First and Third Quartets, one is confronted by Bartók's grappling with the search for a clear, personal voice. No. 1 begins with an outpouring of late nineteenth century expressionism, clearly under the shadow of Beethoven. It then moves through allusions to French music, especially the Debussy Quartet, and finds its place finally, with the characteristic repeated note figuration and frequent use of the Hungarian folk tunes that Bartók and Zoltán Kodály were collecting around the 1900s. Unlike Beethoven, who employed Russian themes in the first two quartets, Opus 59, but made them completely subservient to the context and therefore barely recognizable as Russian tunes, Bartók uses Hungarian folk melodies in the First Quartet to call precise attention to themselves. They seem to be introduced into the music, rather than to spring from its inner structure.

This is in marked contrast to the coloristic effects in the Fifth Quartet--the quasi-bird calls in the second and fourth movements. These derive from the repeated notes, semi-tones, and trills that are the smallest motivic building blocks of the composition, making them a more integral part of the work.

From the opening of the expressive fugal subject of the First Quartet, and throughout the concert, the Takács Quartet's long experience with these works was evident. The progressive intensity of the First was effectively rendered, especially in the gradual accelerando at the beginning of the second movement. Energy flagged occasionally, in the tempo changes of the third movement, but the work was brought to a convincing, energetic conclusion in the final three chords, which evoke of the end of Beethoven's Opus 131.

While the First Quartet is discursive, with a loose, somewhat rambling structure, the Third is terse and acerbic, as if Bartók were trying to forge a kind of originality through compression. The individual sections are inspired, but the transitional material seems a bit forced. The performance was assured and poised with the exception of some smudged passages in the coda.

Bartók's Quartets, Nos. 2, 4, 5, and 6, are firmly established musical pinnacles. Numbers 4 and 5 are prime examples of arch form. In the Fifth Quartet, a central, scherzo movement containing three sections is flanked by two slow movements, and at the outer ends an opening Allegro, and a final Allegro vivace -- Presto. The Takács played the work with ferocious energy and passion, but they did not always succeed in carrying the listener from one point to the next clearly and dramatically. Too often, the rhythmic beat was unrestrainedly vertical, the intent of a phrase revealed at its beginning, so that tension had little chance to develop. The central section of the third, scherzo movement suffered at times from the Bulgarian rhythm 3+2+2+3 being run together and thereby giving up its dance implications. The startling A major interruption, con indifferenza at the end of the Finale was wonderful, however, especially the cello meccanico half notes. The ensuing final buildup was powerful both in dynamic and rhythmic thrust, bringing the near-capacity audience to its feet. The Takács will conclude their Bartók cycle on October 3, in UC's Hertz Hall, at 3 PM.

(Paul Hersh is a pianist and violist, and, since 1972, the James D. Robertson Professor of Piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music)

©1999 Paul Hersh, all rights reserved