Boulder – After serving as principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony for 28 years, Geraldine Walther was ready for a career change, but she never expected to get a call asking if she would like to try out with the Takacs Quartet.
After all, this was not just any string quartet. It just happened to be among the most respected such groups in the world – and one of six 2005 finalists for Gramophone magazine’s prestigious record of the year award.
“I really didn’t think twice,” Walther, 55, said. “I knew I wasn’t going to get another phone call like this.”
After a series of auditions ending in December, the Takacs invited her to join the ensemble. She began rehearsals in August, and the ensemble presented its first public concert in its new configuration in Albuquerque on Sunday.
Coloradans will have their first chance to hear this new version of the quartet during a series of four concerts beginning tonight with a program at the Lakewood Cultural Center, featuring works by Debussy and Mozart.
The position came open in August 2004. Roger Tapping, the group’s violist since 1995, announced he was stepping down to accompany his family to Boston, where his wife, cellist Natasha Brofsky, had accepted a position at the New England Conservatory of Music.
The Takacs immediately set about finding a replacement, and the group’s manager, Seldy Cramer, recommended Walther. The agent had seen the violist in action at Music@Menlo and as a concerto soloist with the San Francisco Symphony.
Walther was one of 10 violists who flew to Boulder last fall for tryouts. She spent a day rehearsing with the remaining three members of the quartet, which has been in residence at the University of Colorado since 1983.
“After I came and played with them, I came home and told my husband, ‘That is my job, and nobody else is going to get it.’ I was just determined … I just felt like this had to happen.”
In December, the quartet invited her and two other finalists to perform private concerts. Things didn’t go perfectly, but Walther felt like she and the three other musicians connected and found common ground.
The Takacs thought so too. It invited her to join, announcing her appointment in January.
“It’s a dream come true for me to be in this group, to step into a quartet that is going at the peak of powers like this,” Walter said. “I just love the kind of musicians they are and the kind of people they are, which is so important.”
Edward Dusinberre, the group’s first violinist, said that with Walther’s considerable experience in orchestras and at summer chamber-music festivals, there was no doubt about her skills as a musician.
“But maybe more than that,” he said, “it’s about the personal empathy between people. And she’s just a very wonderful, open, positive person. We felt very relaxed around her and very able to rehearse and work. So, on a personal level, it seemed like she would be a good fit with the quartet.”
Walther’s arrival inevitably will change the sound of the quartet, however subtly. But Dusinberre said it’s way too early to know how.
“What it feels like at the moment is that the sound is surprisingly well blended and warm and rich for someone who is completely new in the group,” he said. “I suspect that by the time we’ve played 20 concerts together that you’re not going to see a huge difference in the group’s sound.”
Any time a chamber ensemble switches personnel, it inevitably disrupts the all-important chemistry that groups spend years honing. Indeed, some groups never recover.
And when a change befalls an ensemble as well known and respected as the Takacs, it sends tremors through the chamber-music world. Presenters, recording labels and critics wonder if the new permutation can be as good as the old one.
“I think, initially, the news of any change is bound to be traumatic,” Dusinberre said. “There is no question. If you work closely with a group to build up something, and then to be faced with a change, at first, it’s a really big shock. And it was for all of us.”
But the Takacs takes comfort in the knowledge it has made two previous personnel changes, and the group has not only persevered but risen to new artistic heights.
In many ways, this transition is easier. Tapping arrived after the heartbreaking death of his predecessor. And Dusinberre had to take over the key leadership position in a quartet – first violin – at age 24 and replace the group’s namesake at the same time.
For Walther, this late-career change means adapting to intensive touring and learning repertoire she has never performed.
“It’s a huge switch, to be quite honest,” she said. “It’s kind of like jumping off the cliff, but it’s kind of like jumping off the cliff into this wonderful, beautiful garden that I’ve always dreamed about being in.”
Arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
Takacs times three
CHAMBER MUSIC|Lakewood Cultural Center, 480 S. Allison Parkway, Lakewood; 7:30 p.m. today|$24 |303-987-7845 or www.lakewood.org.Community Church of the Rockies, 1700 Brodie Ave., Estes Park; 7:30 p.m. Saturday|$20 |970-586-9203 or estesarts.com.
Grusin Music Hall, Imig Music Building, University of Colorado-Boulder; 4 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Monday|SOLD OUT |303-492-8008 or cuconcerts.org.
