Beethoven for a Later Age by Edward Dusinberre, review: 'tantalising'

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Beethoven for a Later Age by Edward Dusinberre, review:

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Sublime: Edward Dusinberre, left, with the Takcs Quartet CREDIT: ELLEN APPEL

By Rupert Christiansen
14 JANUARY 2016 7:00PM

A musicians account of Beethovens quartets reveals the intensity of playing as a four

6
Composed over a quarter of a century and embracing some of his most boldly exploratory and
profoundly felt music, Beethovens 16 string quartets have come to rank among the greatest
achievements of western art. Initially received with awe and bafement, they were described by the
composer as music for a later age the suggestion being that only through the long lens of posterity ab: t
would their aims and structures begin to be understood. And so it has proved: even today, they can still
seem abrasively complex and unapproachably introverted.

Ive marvelled at their genius, on and off, for more than 40 years, ever since I was drawn to them as a
line
pretentious adolescent. And if the sound of a human voice becomes unbearably poignant, I daresay I
shall ask for them on my deathbed their intensity being a summation of what it feels like to be alive.

But I only know them from the outside. In this brief but beguiling book, Edward Dusinberre, rst
ed
violinist of the Takcs Quartet, takes us inside the complexity of these masterpieces elucidating the
history of their creation and explaining, with the minimum of technicality, the challenges they pose to
performers and audience.
hich

eo
y of

Beethoven as imagined by Wesley Merritt CREDIT: WESLEY MERRITT

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Beethoven for a Later Age by Edward Dusinberre, review: 'tantalising'

Focusing each of his seven chapters on a single quartet, Dusinberres analysis of the music includes some
historical context. There are vivid character sketches of the Falstafan Ignaz Schuppanzigh, a violinist
whose virtuosity inspired Beethoven to write some of his most charged and technically difcult string
music, and the dashing Russian Count Razumovsky, who commissioned the Op 59 trilogy.

Beethoven was ready enough to pander to popular taste in search of a quick buck (as the ludicrous
vulgarity of Wellingtons Victory illustrates) but in the string quartets he is communing with himself,
isolated and frustrated by his encroaching deafness.

Nowhere is this more lacerating than in the Grosse Fuge, originally the nale of Op 130, subsequently
extracted as a separate piece to stand alone like some fragmentary torso by Michelangelo, struggling out
of the marble. Dusinberre is terried of the piece; its themes threaten and chase me eroding sanity. At
the other extreme is Heiliger Dankgesang, the rapt hymn of thanksgiving in Op 132, music of a sublimity
in which the players can feel taken out of ourselves, liberated from the connes of individual
personalities. But even a cough in the audience can scupper this.

Dusinberres second, and perhaps more daring, aim is to reveal something of the personal dynamics of
the Takcs Quartet itself, generally ranked as one of the two or three nest quartets active in the world
today. The English-born Dusinberre joined halfway through its existence, replacing the charismatic
Gbor Takcs-Nagy, who founded the group some 40 years ago in Budapest. The original second violinist
and cellist, both male and Hungarian, remain; the current violist, female and American, appeared only in
2005. Since the mid-Eighties, it has been based at the University of Colorado. It gives 100 concerts
annually and spends six months on the road.

These are the bare facts: but to what kind of compatibility can the Takcss success be ascribed? Vikram
Seths novel An Equal Music would have us believe that a string quartet functions somewhere between a
marriage, a rm, a platoon under re, and a self-regarding, self-destructive priesthood. Dusinberre
remains tight-lipped. Although he supercially suggests that the members feed off persistent back-
slapping joviality, there are signs of something else simmering that he wont openly address.

Towards the end of a demanding tour, I felt burdened by how closely bound socially and musically we
were to one another, he admits. He lets slip that they dont sit next to each other on planes, but that the
arrival of a woman in the group meant that they began eating together more often. In order to maintain
an enjoyable working environment we all practise a degree of emotional restraint, ltering our thoughts
and feelings as we gauge what is best left unsaid.

All this is tantalising. Meanwhile, of the ensembles four lives outside music, we learn next to nothing
(Dusinberres wife and son make only cursory appearances). Are there times when they would like to
throttle each other? What subliminal power does Dusinberres primary position as First Violin carry?
Such questions go unanswered.

Something beyond a majority But the operations of a string quartet are certainly not such a simple
show of hands, consensus or matter as one leading and the rest following, or even a democracy.
compromise must be reached if Something beyond a majority show of hands, consensus or
the music is to be given life compromise must be reached if the music is to be given life. Unity of
musical spirit is the goal, and notey is an important concept in
Takcsian lingo: it means that each individual note is too
signicant. Finding a thread both tensile and pliable that leads inevitably from introduction to nale is
the constant challenge, but so, too, is the avoidance of a precision that negates spontaneity: The risk of
losing control lies at the heart of any vivid encounter with one of the later Beethoven quartets,
Dusinberre insists. Everything should happen on the edge.

In rehearsal, the Takcs speak almost entirely in English, it seems is there no collusion between the
Hungarophones? but body language and facial expression count for more than words. Negotiations
over tempo and phrasing can seem chaotic. One observer remarks: You guys sound like you have no
idea what youre doing. The glimpse Dusinberre gives us of their working is fascinating, but the alchemy
that makes the Takcs perform as sublimely as it does remains a mystery.

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Beethoven for a Later Age by Edward Dusinberre, review: 'tantalising' 1/31/16, 12:12 PM

and feelings as we gauge what is best left unsaid.

All this is tantalising. Meanwhile, of the ensembles four lives outside music, we learn next to nothing
(Dusinberres wife and son make only cursory appearances). Are there times when they would like to
throttle each other? What subliminal power does Dusinberres primary position as First Violin carry?
Such questions go unanswered.

Something beyond a majority But the operations of a string quartet are certainly not such a simple
show of hands, consensus or matter as one leading and the rest following, or even a democracy.
compromise must be reached if Something beyond a majority show of hands, consensus or
the music is to be given life compromise must be reached if the music is to be given life. Unity of
musical spirit is the goal, and notey is an important concept in
Takcsian lingo: it means that each individual note is too
signicant. Finding a thread both tensile and pliable that leads inevitably from introduction to nale is
the constant challenge, but so, too, is the avoidance of a precision that negates spontaneity: The risk of
losing control lies at the heart of any vivid encounter with one of the later Beethoven quartets,
Dusinberre insists. Everything should happen on the edge.

In rehearsal, the Takcs speak almost entirely in English, it seems is there no collusion between the
Hungarophones? but body language and facial expression count for more than words. Negotiations
over tempo and phrasing can seem chaotic. One observer remarks: You guys sound like you have no
idea what youre doing. The glimpse Dusinberre gives us of their working is fascinating, but the alchemy
that makes the Takcs perform as sublimely as it does remains a mystery.

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