String Quartet, Bandoneon, Piano, and Voice

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of A440)

This month Yarlung Records released an album to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Takács Quartet; and, while there was a certain amount of confusion as to when the album would be available from Amazon.com, there is now a Web page for purchase of the CD. The title of the album is Takács Assad Labro, indicating that the anniversary was celebrated with “invited guests.” Those guests are vocalist Clarice Assad, who is also a pianist, and bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro. For those that have not been keeping up with the times, the current Takács members are violinists Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, Richard O’Neill on viola, and cellist András Fejér, the only remaining founding member of the ensemble.

The album has seven tracks, none of which involve the string quartet on its own or an “all hands” performance. Three of the compositions are for quartet and bandoneon: “Circles,” by Bryce Dessner, “Meditation No. 1” by Labro himself, and “Clash” by Assad. Assad contributes two other tracks, neither of which involved the quartet. “Luminous” is one of her works for piano and voice in which she accounts for both parts; and “Constellation” was scored for piano and violin and was written for Rhodes. Assad also performs without the quartet (again both piano and voice) in Milton Nascimento’s “Cravo e Canela.” Finally, Rhodes has a solo track performance of Kaija Saariaho’s “Nocturne.”

This makes for a generous scope of diversity in which all of the performers have an opportunity to ply their technical skills. By way of a disclaimer, I should note that I have been following Assad’s work since I first encountered one of her performances here in San Francisco. Since then, she has moved to Chicago; and I have tried as assiduously as possible to keep up with her imaginative inventions and performances. As a result, I approached this new release with unabashed bias and was not disappointed!

The fact is that the diversity of the selections makes overall listening a highly satisfying journey. The producers of the album, J and Helen Schlichting, have contributed an informative booklet, which provides an informative account of both the performers and the selections being performed. Given the extent of that diversity, the album deserves multiple listening experiences, each of which is likely to turn up new insights.