On Takács Quartet and Muzsikás

WASHINGTON POST—PERFORMING ARTS

By Joan Rienthaler

For years, Bartók's music has been the subject (some might say, the victim) of obsessive analysis: Is this chord the mashed-together notes of that tune? Does the Fibonacci series really govern his structures? Can any of these subtleties actually be heard and does anyone besides a musicologist care?

The Takács String Quartet, Muzsikás (an ensemble devoted to the preservation and performance of Hungarian folk music) and singer Márta Sebestyén have teamed up for an alternative approach to understanding Bartók, one that's transparent and a whole lot more fun for the rest of us by posing this question: How have folk traditions influenced the music of this folk-obsessed composer.

The two groups collaborated on a high-energy and engaging folk-Bartók crossover program at the Library of Congress on Friday, which had audience members not only tapping their feet during the folk bits, but giggling at abrupt quirks in the Fourth String Quartet. How often have you seen an audience find anything in his quartets amusing? Engrossing, challenging and powerful, certainly. But amusing?

The program was elegantly structured. It began with a group of Hungarian folk pieces, the four members of Muzsikás sawing away as if at a country hoedown, sometimes on conventional strings and sometimes on traditional instruments (recorder, mandolin and a thumped and plucked gardon). By the time the Quartet No. 4 made its appearance, the phrase shapes and textures that Bartók had soaked up from his folk music studies were firmly in the ear. There were dances and songs (sung hauntingly by Sebestyén) interpolated between movements and a seamless handoff from a Muzsikás violin to a Takács violin in the third movement.

Several of Bartók's Violin Duos, his "Sonatina on Themes From Transylvania" and the familiar "Romanian Folk Dances" followed, all interspersed with their relevant folk ancestors and, as the concert went on, the boundaries between folk and classical and between the two performing ensembles became harder to discern. It was superbly done.

Bartók transcribed folk songs from recordings made on wax cylinders in the field, and several of these were played during the evening -- a scratchy and ghostly, but fascinating, message from the past.

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