\n<\/p>\n
ORMAI AND FEJER <\/strong>were teenagers when they decided to form a quartet. In 1973, a year before they entered the fabled Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, they asked Takacs-Nagy to be their first violinist, but they had to content themselves playing trios for the two years it took them to find a second. Takacs-Nagy eventually found Schranz at a soccer match.<\/p>\n Hear Takacs-Nagy and Fejer talk about their education now, and it becomes obvious how lasting its imprint has been. Their teachers \u2014 Andras Mihaly, Ferenc Rados and, intriguingly, Gyorgy Kurtag \u2014 tried to instill a sense of musical morality in their students. \u201cIt was not aimed at chasing mistakes; they were looking for values,\u201d Takacs-Nagy said. \u201cWe knew that behind every bar, every note, there are gold mines, diamond fields.\u201d<\/p>\n Fejer recalled that they \u201cthought we knew, if not everything, most things, and these three wonderful teachers made that confident feeling disappear in a matter of hours.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the last time any one of us thought we knew anything,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Despite the travel difficulties imposed by life behind the Iron Curtain, the Takacs rose quickly, winning a series of competitions. They studied Bartok with Zoltan Szekely, who had premiered the composer\u2019s Second Violin Concerto and still called his old friend Bela. They also found a mentor in Denes Koromzay, who, like Szekely, had played in the legendary Hungarian String Quartet. In time, Takacs-Nagy said, they became more aware of themselves as part of a distinguished national lineage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Takacs offered all the virtues of Central Europe\u2019s string-playing tradition and only occasionally its defects,\u201d Bernard Holland of The New York Times wrote<\/a> after hearing them on their first U.S. tour, in 1982. Other quartets might be more precise, he went on, but with the Takacs, \u201cone felt always in the presence of music.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n