Among the world’s finest string quartets, the beloved Takács returns for two concerts this season, the first a compelling program of new and canonic works. Haydn’s beloved Sunrise quartet is among his late-period gems, and Beethoven’s middle-period E minor quartet from the Op. 59 Razumovsky series opens up new musical horizons as the composer breaks and remakes the rules of musical drama.

Known for lushly orchestrated music of “sheer gorgeousness” (Los Angeles Times), California violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama contributes Flow, a new Cal Performances co-commissioned work, heard here in its world-premiere performance. Speaking of her new piece, Ngwenyama has said, “We, as biological creatures, flow through life. Conversely, the flow of existence is temporarily housed in all living creatures each generation. Everything in nature flows and develops through time. Individual consciousness is a small part of all collectively lived experience. When the Takács Quartet asked me to write them a piece about the natural world, I researched seasonal starling murmurations, black hole collisions, protein music (converting protein sequences or genes to musical notes), Sars-Covid-2 Omicron and ‘Kraken’ variants, peat fields as nature’s gift to carbon reclamation, and Madagascar lemur song and rhythms.”

This performance is made possible, in part, by Françoise Stone.

Takács Quartet Feb 25 concert >