Takács Quartet

Since its formation in Budapest in 1975, the Takács Quartet, now based in Boulder (Colorado, USA), has established itself as a benchmark in chamber music performance. Created by four students from the Budapest Academy of Music, violinists Gábor Takács-Nagy and Károly Schranz, violist Gábor Ormai and cellist András Fejér, after several months of rehearsing as a trio without Schranz, the quartet follows in the footsteps of the great Hungarian formations of the genre. The quartet's debut was marked by a string of prizes: First Prize and Critics' Prize at the Évian International String Quartet Competition (France) in 1977, First Prize at the Bordeaux Competition (France) and First Prize at the Budapest Competition in 1978, Gold Medal at the Portsmouth Competition (England) in 1979 and Prize at the Bratislava Competition (Czechoslovakia) in 1981. After a first American tour in 1982, the quartet decided to settle in the U.S. the following year, and in 1986 was offered a residency at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The group, which had also established its reputation on record with the complete Bartók String Quartets and various works by Schumann, Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms and Dvořák for the Hungaroton and then Decca labels, underwent its first change of musician with the departure of its first violinist Gábor Takács-Nagy, replaced in 1993 by Briton Edward Dusinberre. In 1994, Gábor Ormai, who died of cancer on July 7, 1995, was succeeded by another Briton, Roger Tapping. In the early 2000s, the Takács Quartet began work on Beethoven's complete string quartets in three volumes (2002-2005), which proved to be a benchmark, after its second version of Bartók's quartets. Following this, Roger Tapping devotes himself to music education, leaving the post of violist to the American Geraldine Walther, who will remain with the quartet until 2020. The quartet, now signed to the British label Hyperion Records, took up residence at the Southbank Centre and recorded new versions of Schubert's quartets The Maiden and Death and Rosamunde in 2006, then collaborated with pianist Stephen Hough on the Brahms Piano Quintet and Marc-André Hamelin on the Schumann Quintet, as well as recordings of works by Shostakovich, Franck and Dohnányi. A new complete Beethoven Quartet follows in 2017, before Harumi Rhodes takes over as second violin in 2018 and Richard O'Neill as viola in 2020. Cellist András Fejér is then the only original member. In 2023, the Takács Quartet's long discography is extended with recordings of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Ravel and Dutilleux, followed by Schubert's String Quartets opp. 112 & 887 in 2024.

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