Lincoln Center

Alice Tully Hall
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Beethoven - Quartet in C-sharp minor for Strings, Op. 131 (1825-26)
Beethoven - Quartet in F major for Strings, Op. 135 (1826)

"Ludwig van Beethoven literally changed the course of music—not only how music sounded, but how it was performed, listened to, and used in society. Beethoven’s 16 string quartets, composed in groups corresponding to his early, middle, and late periods, leap from one level of sophistication to the next. They tell the complete story of one of history’s greatest artists, a composer possessed of an inexplicable, cosmic genius whose work continues to transcend the confines of era, style, or nationality.

The Danish String Quartet performs the quartets in the order that Beethoven composed them, between 1798 and 1826. Join us for one of music’s incomparable journeys."


"Cycles of music have been created over time by composers especially drawn to specific genres as vehicles of self-expression and advancing their art. We have distinguished quartet cycles from Haydn and Mozart, from Bartók and Shostakovich, all of which reveal the composers in multi-dimensional views. We have Wagner’s Ring Cycle. From Beethoven, we have his nine symphonies, six piano trios, and ten violin sonatas. But none of these cycles, as great as they are, compare to the Beethoven quartet cycle. In these 16 quartets, Beethoven not only tells his life story, but re-imagines the art of music as no one has ever done. Drawing from music’s distant past, from his present, and even from the future, Beethoven created a body of work that qualifies as true desert-island music. If necessary, one need not hear anything thing else: these quartets say it all, and more."