Music Review from The Columbus Dispatch

FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Published: December 9, 2007
Edition: Home Final
Section: News
Page: 02A

The Takacs String Quartet has become a favorite with local chamber-music aficionados. Though entering its dotage by the life spans of most such ensembles, the foursome, founded in 1975, plays with an energy and cooperative spirit that should be the envy of groups a third its age. Its interpretive powers, of course, are in full flower.

Last night's performance at the Southern Theatre, the Takacs' third appearance in the Chamber Music Columbus concert series, was astonishing in its breadth and boldness -- from Haydn's Quartet in C Major, Op. 74, No. 1, with its brilliant top put on by first violinist Edward Dusinberre, through a ferocious reading of Bartok's Quartet No. 5, culminating in a Brahms Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1 that simmered steadily before boiling at the right moment. The Takacs' Columbus debut in 1992 manifested the group's technical mastery perhaps more than its freedom of expression. Such was not the case in last night's reading of the fifth Bartok quartet; flames burned high.

Reprinted with permission.