How Takacs adds a new performer

Three years ago, when we last checked in with the members of the Takacs Quartet, they were preparing to conclude a survey of all the Beethoven string quartets at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall. This month, they are scheduled to play two of those quartets, plus a Shostakovich, as part of the Coleman Concerts at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium -- but with a difference. Violist Roger Tapping has left the group and been replaced by Geraldine Walther, who had been principal violist with the San Francisco Symphony since 1976. Here, Takacs first violinist Edward Dusinberre recalls for the Financial Times the birth of the new Takacs Quartet.

“THANKS for coming!” Geri greets us as we convene in the studio for our second rehearsal since she joined the quartet. Andras Fejer, Karcsi and I have never addressed one another with such wide-eyed enthusiasm. Changing a quartet member is an exciting challenge; everything is up for renegotiation, from the smallest musical details to how we behave in rehearsal.

“No, no. I thank you for coming,” says Andras, bowing elegantly.

“Andras,” says Karcsi, assuming a doleful expression. “You just bowed to Geri. What about us?”

“Don’t take it too personally,” I say. “I’m sure he is thrilled to see us too.”

“I brought food for everyone!” Another innovation -- Geri piles bananas, energy bars and calcium chews in a colorful heap on our grubby studio floor.

Rehearsing is more difficult than playing concerts. During a concert, we cannot stop to try different ideas -- but the presence of people listening in a beautiful space can inspire different phrasing, timing or sound colors. In rehearsal, the question of how to work and toward what end is tricky. Playing exactly in sync is one challenge. While concentrating on matching bow strokes or making the same sort of sound, how can each player retain an individual voice? We try to embrace individual quirks as much as possible. Sounding too consistent can be dull, but differences need to be managed carefully. If actors recite a sentence together but stress different words at different times, the impact will be dulled.

As we start to rehearse with Geri, I am wondering how we can balance the desire to express our ideas with the need to play as much as possible. Joining a string quartet can challenge one’s confidence -- especially in rehearsals, when it can seem as if all we do is criticize one another as we seek to improve our interpretation. As a newcomer to the quartet 14 years ago, I spent sleepless nights in unfamiliar hotel rooms wondering whether a 24-year-old fresh out of Juilliard was up to the task of leading an established group. Geri’s situation is different. She is a superb musician and instrumentalist, with a beautiful sound and more than 30 years of experience. Given the chance, she will absorb and adjust intuitively.

Together we play the first majestic, earthy chord of Beethoven’s Opus 127 quartet.

“What sort of attack do we want?” I ask. “Sometimes we have played a really sharp accent on the front of the note, but it should not be aggressive.”

“But not too washy either,” Andras adds.

“Do it again, will you?” says Geri, interested in our debate but eager for the chance to improve something by playing it several times. We try again. I stop immediately.

“Our vibratos are different.” Vibrato is one of our most valued tools. Placing a finger on a note without extra motion creates a pure, straight sound, but with the finger moving slightly in a rhythm below and back to the note we can make different types of sound. With a very fast vibrato, the sound might be intense or even anxious, whereas a slower, wider vibrato can make it richer and more expansive.

“Half-senza,” says Karcsi, offering one of many peculiar terms in our rehearsal vocabulary.

“Hardly any vibrato,” I explain.

“But enough to keep the sound alive,” says Andras, supplying, as he often does, the qualifier.

We play the chord again and progress to the second note before I interrupt: “Our bow speeds are different.”

Andras takes the tone of someone revisiting an old issue. “My two dear violin colleagues are using a lot of bow. Could you try using more mass?” Lower stringed instruments require more weight in the bow to make a good sound; if the violins waft, it will not sound unified.

“I’m not sure,” I say.

“Sure,” says Karcsi.

“Do it again, will you?” asks Geri.

We start again. The first attack is punchy but not overly aggressive, weighty but with enough bow speed that we don’t press the sound into our instruments. With this new unanimity, our bad tuning now sounds particularly painful. Geri stops. “It’s me!” She’s taking the blame, but Karcsi, Andras and I could just as easily have been the culprits. We have just returned from holiday. Suntans and relaxed demeanors don’t necessarily lead to great quartet-playing, however many years one has been doing it. We tune the chord, adding one note at a time from the bass.

In the first movement of Opus 127, the players pass melodic lines back and forth. As we play, the individual fragments, while expressive, are not adding up to a coherent line. The music is lurching forward or slowing down depending on our personal inclinations. I suggest we play with a metronome to even out tempo differences. I pick up my new toy, a sophisticated machine that promises to mark the tempo more loudly than the previous model. Andras looks skeptically at the bulky and complicated device. I hopefully press a button, already regretting my purchase.

A piercing shout from the box: “ONE AND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR AND....” I grab for the box and hurriedly press another button. “ONE two three, ONE two three, ONE two three... ,” it shouts. The metronome is called Doctor Beat. Karcsi sniggers, Geri laughs. I desperately try to convert the hideous mechanical voice into a simple beat but settle for silence and return my toy to its glossy pouch.

Andras reaches a little smugly for his compact, lightweight and nonvocal metronome.

On site for a run-through

AFTER a three-week rehearsal period, we have traveled to our first concert of the season and assembled our music stands onstage for our preconcert rehearsal.

“OK, how about we play something,” Andras says. As we begin the first movement of the Beethoven, I am excited to hear that our individual sounds are melding better. We play until just before the melody returns -- a transition whose character is elusive.

“It sounds too sleepy here,” I say. “I don’t feel a sense of a story being told. We are getting lost.”

“But Ed, isn’t this dreamy?” Karcsi asks. “I feel like the music should be searching -- not too much drive.” He demonstrates. The phrase sounds whimsical and quietly expressive.

As we begin again, the house lights suddenly dim, revealing inadequate stage lighting. Karcsi looks vexed. A stage manager walks in.

“Is the lighting good now?”

“Not really.” Karcsi shakes his head. “Could you make more light from above?”

“But not too much, otherwise I sweat all over the cello,” says Andras.

“That’s the best I can do,” the stage manager says. “The school had a production of ‘The Sound of Music’ here last week and we haven’t had time to readjust the spots.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I say, on the verge of blowing up, but Andras and Karcsi smirk the problem away and Geri joins them. We will spend the evening trying to decipher our music, but the shared challenge brings us closer together.

“Andras, why don’t you listen from the hall?” I say. We often send someone out to judge the sound and character from the middle of the auditorium. With this changed perspective, different issues crop up. We play the passage again while Andras comfortably situates himself and assumes a professorial air.

“The pacing is good, the sound is nice. Ed, you could articulate your grace notes more. Can I listen to the end of the movement?” We play the last 20 measures, trying to gauge how quietly we can float these last sounds.

Now Andras and I swap places. I listen to the opening of the slow movement of Borodin’s Quartet No. 2. We want to check the character of Karcsi and Geri’s accompaniment and the balance with the cello melody.

“It sounds a bit bumpy, guys. Can you try starting more smoothly?” I ask.

“Yes,” Karcsi answers, then adds: “There is a rubber duck in my bathtub at the hotel. As I lay in the bath last night watching the duck in the waves, I was thinking about this opening.”

The image momentarily halts the flow of the rehearsal, but then Geri and Karcsi play their opening rhythm again with an ideal, gentle lilt. The rubber-duck image might have tapped even more potential, but we are short of time and must work on the first measures of Mozart’s Quartet K. 465, with which we will open the concert. The piece starts with a throbbing repeated tone in the cello. Immediately Karcsi interrupts: “Andras, we’re counting on you.” He assumes the hushed tone of one about to impart words of wisdom. “The way you start this -- well, everything we do comes out of it -- it’s all up to you.”

“If you screw it up, there’s no way we can recover,” I chime in.

Geri shakes her head, laughing. “You guys are bad.”

“Isn’t it nice the way our dear colleagues entertain themselves?” Andras looks at Geri for support, only mildly amused and eager to play the opening before the stage manager opens the hall. He tries again.

“It’s great, Andras, but like a boat sinking in the fog,” says Karcsi. “Maybe you can play clearer.”

“A boat sinking in the fog?” I ask.

Karcsi has the smile of a beguiling 4-year-old. “I don’t mean it badly.”

Andras starts again: He has a gorgeous, dark sound; the mood is mysterious but with a sense of motion.

“Sounds great.” I jump up.

“Geri, I have food for you,” Andras says, reaching into his backpack. As if handling the most delicate porcelain, he brings out a white linen napkin and with a flourish reveals two deluxe muffins.

“That’s nothing,” says Karcsi. “Probably from yesterday’s airline lounge.”

“I have the receipts here,” Andras counters. “From a most superior cafe.”

“Look what I have,” Karcsi says and presents Geri with a jaundiced pastry with a crusty top. “A pina colada muffin from our hotel.”

Geri smiles noncommittally, and as we head for the green room, she pulls out an impressive bunch of bananas.

The first performance

“LADIES and gentlemen of the Takacs Quartet: This is your five-minute call.” We make our way up a gloomy staircase and, after trying several doors, emerge into a cavernous backstage area dimly illuminated by the stage manager’s laptop screen. This is the moment to which we have been building. I think about the opening character of the Mozart and try to imagine performing it very soon.

Although many in the audience know this music, we hope to convey a sense that it is being played for the first time, that we are just as surprised and transported by changes of harmony, character and tempo as were its first performers and listeners. Paradoxically, it is repeated rehearsal that gives us the freedom to surprise ourselves and the audience. I am eager to start.

“Welcome to our series.” An elegantly attired man is addressing the audience. He thanks the concert’s sponsors and gives a long description of the upcoming concert season. “As you know, it is extremely important that we all pay the greatest respect to our performers by turning off all mobile phones. I also, of course, do not exclude other devices such as BlackBerrys, otherwise known as crackberrys” -- he pauses for anticipated but unforthcoming laughter -- “pagers, watch alarms and any other device capable of emitting disturbing electronic noises.”

I am restless. Mobiles and coughing are annoying, but starting the concert with a reprimand is worse. The performers should grab an audience so that the occasional noise can be passed over without its becoming an event.

Feeling fractious as we walk onstage, I decide to lighten the mood. I turn to the audience and say, “You may now turn on your mobile phones.” Much laughter. I congratulate myself, then remember that feeling pleased with oneself onstage is unwise.

Andras starts to play, creating the ideal brooding character, unruffled by his colleagues’ previous jibes. As we play, we look around at one another, gauging our sounds -- how they combine and project. We enjoy the unsettling dissonances of the opening and the way the uncertain, searching quality of the introduction is displaced but never entirely banished by a cheerful main section. As we breathe and move together, I rejoice in the fact that Geri has joined us. Once again we are a quartet.

Toward the end of the first movement, a mobile phone rings.

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Takacs Quartet

Where: Beckman Auditorium, Caltech,

332 S. Michigan Ave., Pasadena

When: 3:30 p.m. March 18

Price: $18 to $32

Contact: (626) 395-4652