The Calidore String Quartet undertakes the epic artistic project of performing Beethoven’s entire quartet cycle. These concerts are sold out in person, but Livestream tickets are still available. Livestreams begin at the time of the performance and can be watched for one week. The performances are preceded by “Inside the Quartets” talks by renowned cellist David Finckel, tickets for which are available here: https://musicatmenlo.org/festival/inside-the-quartets
The final chapter of the Beethoven Quartet cycle is its most consequential, summing up the composer as no other program could. In the seven-movement op. 131, we experience the culmination of his structural expansion, in which the composer added a movement to each successive quartet beginning with op. 130. Played without pause, the haunting opening fugue returns in the finale, now defiant, building to the work’s blazing conclusion. And with op. 135, Beethoven looks backward and forward simultaneously, whimsically remembering the classical age and peeking through narrow openings to music of the future.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: THE LATE QUARTETS, OP. 131 & 135
String Quartet in C-sharp minor
String Quartet in F major