Why is one so often surprised by the unpredictable invention and irrepressible energy of Haydn's string quartets?
Perhaps it is the ultimate mark of this composer's genius that these works remain so fresh on every revisiting. So it was when the Takacs Quartet opened its Auckland concert withHaydn's Opus 74 No 3.
The earthy dance of its opening Allegro was a revelation, balancing the almost Slavic drive and infectious humour that permeate the final movement.
But the heart of the work was to be found in the great Largo assai. Here is the same expansiveness and textural ingenuity that one finds in the later Beethoven, and the Takacs players responded with an inexhaustible palette of colours.
At times there was an almost orchestral richness; at others, one was transported by diaphanous tremolos and the graceful lines of Edward Dusinberre's violin.
At the other end of the concert, Beethoven's third Rasumovsky Quartet was a paean to collegiality from the perfectly contoured dialogues of the first movement through to the purposeful chase of the Finale's fugato writing, led by Geraldine Walther's big-voiced viola.
These musicians go beyond the notes on the page. Few quartets would catch, as they did, a spirit of free-wheeling improvisation in the first movement's development section.
Dusinberre introduced the premiere performance of John Psathas' A Cool Wind from the stage, praising the New Zealander's score for making so much of the inherent creative tension between four individual musicians.
The piece's meditative aura and Middle Eastern-ish melodic turns recall Psathas' Abhisheka, but A Cool Wind is less static than the earlier piece, keeping momentum up through the complex weave of four instruments. Folk-like drones and gentle, throbbing clashes lead to a final section stillness that does not sacrifice intensity.
