E-Mail This Article to a Friend Talking with the Takács Plus Gennady Rozhdestvensky at the BSO BY DAVID WEININGER

"It’s been extraordinarily challenging and rewarding," says Edward Dusinberre over the phone from Colorado. "We just learned a lot about ourselves as musicians."

Dusinberre is the first-violinist of the Takács Quartet, which comes to Jordan Hall next Sunday for a FleetBoston Celebrity Series concert. He’s talking about recording the complete cycle of the Beethoven quartets, a milestone that numerous accomplished foursomes never reach. The Takács recorded the cycle’s first entry, the middle quartets, in 2002 to wide acclaim, and it has just released the second volume, which comprises the Opus 18 quartets. Both sets evince a warm, robust sound and a decidedly extroverted streak, the mark of a group willing to follow the almost limitless invention of Beethoven’s quartet writing.

Dusinberre explains that making the early quartets the second installment helped the group to avoid seeing them as mere table setters. "It was good to focus on Opus 18 as an entity rather than as the opening of a cycle. They’re often talked about in relation to the late quartets of Haydn and Mozart — usually unfavorably — or the late Beethoven quartets, where they sort of get brownie points for foreshadowing certain things. But looking at them on their own, what struck me was how they relate to a debate that was going on then about whether music should be pleasant to listen to or whether it should probe more deeply." If you forget the past and future that surround Opus 18, the quartets become "a powerful reflection of a very turbulent age."

In addition to its chronology, the Takács’s Beethoven cycle is notable for the fact that the Quartet has had to secure some private funding. "What happened was that our label [Decca] contributes a certain amount of money for the project — less than one-third of the production costs. And at first it looked like this would be very disadvantageous." But they realized that the circumstances could work to their advantage, Dusinberre says, since "we could choose the producer and venue that we wanted and work on the schedule that we wanted. The real plus for us is that this is the most artistic control we’ve ever had over a project." He adds that each supporter receives a short newsletter at the end of each session, and that this offers a perspective that can be "quite different from what you get when you hear the recording as a finished product."

The Boston program, however, won’t include any Beethoven. The first half will start with Haydn’s C-major Quartet Opus 54 No. 2 and end with Bartók’s Fifth Quartet, which the violinist regards as the composer’s most challenging. "The rhythms are complex, it’s technically difficult, and it can seem rather severe. But as we became comfortable with the piece — well, as comfortable as one can be — we started to have more fun with it. We started to enjoy the lyricism that’s there, surprisingly, in some of the very involved passages. Now it has more of a sense of zest, and relishing the rhythms — a gutsy feeling. It’s very exhilarating, and it’s one of those pieces that’s exhausting to play but goes by in a flash on stage." The concert finishes with Dvořák’s Piano Quintet, for which the Takács will be joined by Andreas Haefliger, whom Dusinberre calls "a wonderfully spontaneous pianist, with a full palette of colors in his playing."

Bostonians may remember that the last time the Takács visited the city, it was as part of a program with poet laureate Robert Pinsky, in an evening of music and poetry centered on the theme of love. Dusinberre says the Quartet looks out for offbeat projects that break up the concerts of standard repertoire that form "95 to 98 percent of what we do." The Takács’s current collaboration is with the Hungarian folk group Muzsikás. "We play Bartók and Kodály, and their role is to play improvisations and folk songs to create the atmosphere that both composers came out of. You can hear where those outrageous colors in their chamber music came from. We’ll keep looking for that kind of wacky project, even if it’s just a small part of what we do."

The Takács Quartet plays music of Haydn, Bartók, and Dvořák next Sunday, February 22, at 3 p.m. at Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street in Boston. Tickets are $41 to $51; call (617) 482-6661.

A FEW FROM THE VAULT: Gennady Rozhdestvensky is known for bringing odd repertoire with him on his BSO visits, but next weekend’s concerts — his second set this season — take the cake. They feature little-known works by Glazunov, Prokofiev, Sibelius (the Six Humoresques for Violin and Orchestra, with the composer’s son Alexander as soloist) and Shostakovich (the Suite on Finnish Folk Tunes, which gets its American premiere, and selections from Hypothetically Murdered). Performances are February 19, 20, 21, and 24 at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. Tickets are $26 to $95; call (617) 266-1200.