Takcas Earns Coolpoints

Melding word and sound
Friday, October 19, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

He's won acclaim embodying writer Truman Capote. Can he do Philip Roth, too?

If Roth has anything to do with it, the answer is yes. He personally appointed Philip Seymour Hoffman to read three excerpts from his novel "Everyman" for a concert with the renowned Takacs Quartet at Carnegie Hall. The novel details the bodily decay of the eponymous character and ends with his death.

Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the quartet and the idea man behind this unusual program, was the one who asked Roth for his druthers.

"It had to be his call, because it was his material," said Dusinberre. "When he suggested Philip Seymour Hoffman, we thought that would be wonderful, and we were just thrilled that he wanted to do it."

Dusinberre spoke about the program, which is split into two acts: the first alternating the minimalist music of Arvo Part and Philip Glass with Roth's prose; the second consisting of Franz Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartet with Hoffman's reading of the original poem by Matthias Claudius.

Q. You've said in interviews that you were inspired to do this concert when you read Philip Roth's "Everyman" in the summer of 2006. Where were you at the time?

I was in Santa Barbara, where we have a summer residency at the Music Academy of the West. I was also visiting with my grandmother, who was, at that stage, 103. And she's not at all like the main character in the Philip Roth novel, but of course I was thinking about old age from staying with her.

Q. So we hear Philip Roth is a Takacs Quartet fan?

Yes, it's very nice. He comes to our concerts quite regularly, and I think he's a passionate music lover. He's also kind of curious to see what it'll be like.

Q. Are you a fan of his?

Yes. I've read "American Pastoral" and "The Human Stain." For some reason "Everyman" particularly resonated with me. It's a lyrical book. Although it's written in prose, it has a very poetic feel to it. Very exploratory work, very experimental. That's why it seemed like it might be suitable for a performance like this.
Q. How did you come up with the Arvo Part pieces "Psalom" and "Summa" and the Philip Glass work "String Quartet No. 2" from "Company" as good complements to the Roth excerpts?

I thought it made sense to find music that would be contemporary with Roth. So I started to ferret around and listen to stuff. I was looking for something meditative and not too active, but very atmospheric. Of course, I'm aware of Arvo Part, but I didn't know he had written for quartet. So I was kind of pleased to find that he had. The Philip Glass I knew about because I'm a fan of Samuel Beckett's plays. That piece was originally composed as an incidental theater music for a play by Beckett called "Company." And then he published it separately as a quartet afterwards.

Q. Is this music different from what you usually play?

Often when we're playing we're looking for maximum dramatic contrast, maximum variety, widest emotional spectrum. In these pieces, it's almost like you have to be a little bit more detached and have faith that you can build a sort of atmosphere that's going to be powerful without making too much in the way of action. It's almost a more Zen approach.

Q. Was anything particularly challenging in the music program?

The last piece of the first half of the program is actually quite hard to play because you have to play a lot of these artificial harmonics, which have this clear, glossy sound. Two of us have to tune our strings down to a different pitch in order to do it. ...

When the whole group does it, it creates this eerie, disembodied sound, which is what Part was going for.

CONCERT
WHAT: Takacs Quartet with Philip Seymour Hoffman.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
WHERE: Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, Manhattan; 212-247-7800 or carnegiehall.org.
HOW MUCH: $50 to $58.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

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