Beethoven Quartet Cycle Concert VI

× 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 Opus 131, we experience the culmination of his structural expansion, in which the composer added a movement to each successive quartet, beginning with Opus 130. Played without pause, the haunting opening fugue returns in the finale, now defiant, building to the work’s blazing conclusion. And with Opus 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 (1770-1827)
String Quartet in C-sharp minor, op. 131 (1825-1826)
Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo
Allegro molto vivace
Allegro moderato - Adagio
Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile
Presto
Adagio quasi un poco andante
Allegro

INTERMISSION

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
String Quartet in F major, op. 135 (1826)
Allegretto
Vivace
Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo
Der schwer gefaßte Entschluss: Grave, ma non troppo tratto - Allegro

Calidore String Quartet: Jeffrey Myers, Ryan Meehan, violins; Jeremy Berry, viola; Estelle Choi, cello