Why should Beethoven’s string quartets have come to represent the pinnacle of achievement in western classical music? After all, this is a modest, intimate format involving just four players, better ...

From Beethoven's early quartets to his final masterpiece, the YSO string quartet will explore the evolution of one of ...

In the 1960s my mother put up with a lot of dreadful music. She bought me a trumpet and insisted I play it for an hour every day. She endured my wobbly scales, arpeggios and Al Hirt impersonations ...

For the last two years of his life, Beethoven's world was dark and silent. His health was completely shot. And his emotional state was worse. He'd failed in his relationship with his nephew Karl, and ...

It’s the opening to the slow movement from Quartet No. 16, Opus 135, in which Beethoven wrote in the score, “Must It Be? -- It Must Be!” Each instrument enters one at a time to create a gorgeous ...

Beethoven's three "Razumovsky" string quartets left both their first performers and the public shocked and suspicious. The violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, whose quartet premiered the Opus 59 works, ...

When we finally see the return of concerts, shared experiences by full audiences, everyone together, the moment will be less for fireworks than for thanksgiving. Let us begin, then, with Beethoven as ...

In the lead-up to the Beethoven anniversary year, the Quatuor Ébène gives a complete Beethoven quartet cycle in Tokyo as part ...

The greatness of Beethoven cast a long shadow. It was Brahms whose First Symphony was long delayed by the intensity with which the composer felt “the tramp of such a giant behind you”. And the shadow ...

The Budapest String Quartet has always been my standard-bearer for chamber music. I grew up listening to their recordings, and especially admired not only their gorgeous sound, but also the uncanny ...

Performances in N.Y.C. Advertisement Supported by Beethoven at 250 | Critic’s Notebook The Danish String Quartet presented the composer’s complete quartets over six extraordinary concerts at Alice ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. "Grotesque", "monstrous", "chaotic", "madness"... When audiences ...