“In March 2020, the Danish String Quartet[performed] all 16 of [Beethoven’s] string quartets at New York City’s Lincoln Center. They were slated to repeat the feat in Minnesota that May, but COVID had other ideas,” writes Rob Hubbard in Friday’s (11/5) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “At last, the quartet arrives this week in St. Paul to perform the complete Beethoven cycle over the course of six concerts in seven days…. So why Beethoven and why now? … The four musicians … each cited one of the 16 Beethoven quartets that holds particular resonance for them and for our times.” Violinist Frederik Øland cites Beethoven’s Op. 132 quartet (“one of my father’s favorite pieces… It is sadness within the most radiant light”); cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin speaks about the last movement of the Op. 135 quartet (“the three first notes have the text, ‘must it be’ ”); violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen selects the third movement of Op. 59 No. 1 (“dark and sorrowful, but also incredibly beautiful”); and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard selects the Op. 131 quartet: “the defining moment … is actually the moment where everything stops in the sixth movement…. We are just silent and still together.”
Change font size
