Concert Takacs Quartet. Beethoven World famous Mariinsky Ballet and Opera Theatre - Opera and Concert Hall
Schedule for Takacs Quartet. Beethoven 2022
Composer: Ludwig Van Beethoven Orchestra: Takacs Quartet
Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
The programme includes works by Beethoven
(Hungarian-American String Quartet)
On the even of his thirtieth birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven risked composing
a string quartet for the first time. Essentially it was based on works by
his older contemporary Joseph Haydn that he had studied and himself copied by
hand. In line with tradition, this debut opus (No 18) contained six
quartets. They were composed starting in 1898, and in 1800 they were
fundamentally rewritten. The composer dedicated them to his benefactor Prince
Lobkowitz. Compared with other works by Beethoven of the time, the style of
the quartets in Opus 18 is conservative: trying his hand at a new and complex
genre, the composer displayed a certain caution. But in this approach to the
sixth quartet he considered it possible to abandon this. In Quartet
No 6 in B Flat Major the courage of the music grows from the
first section to the last. The most original section is the finale, which opens
with a slow, chromatic introduction entitled Melancholy. Mankind was
then not yet familiar with the word “depression”, and sensitive souls easily
found salvation from melancholy in a circle of friends as depicted, in all
probability, by the Lдndler that follows the introduction.
The Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 heralded
Beethoven’s farewell to the genre. It was written in the summer and autumn of
1826 and was dedicated by the composer to his friend Johann Wolfmeier. Unlike
previous quartets, the Quartet in F Major was not commissioned by anyone from
Beethoven, though it was not long before it was performed and published in Paris
and Berlin. The hitherto unknown complexity of Beethoven’s late quartets did not
frighten off musicians, publishers or audiences of the age. After a series
of fantaisie and experimental quartets written for Prince Golitsyn (for each of
which Beethoven received a fee of no more and no less than fifty ducats), the
Quartet in F Major marked a return to a classical view of the genre. The
composition is almost as clear and traditional as the quartets in his debut
Opus 18. Beethoven ascribed an epitaph to the finale of his last
quartet. Writing the first sections of the introduction and the fast section of
the finale, under the notes he wrote a question and its answer: “Should it be
like this? – Yes, it should!”
Written in 1806, Beethoven dedicated the three quartets of Opus 59 to
the Russian Ambassador in Vienna, Count Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky. The
latter was a passionate music lover and consequently took part in performances
of many private performances of the composer’s quartets, playing the second
violin part. Beethoven’s second quartet (following the six quartets of
Opus 18) was initially proclaimed as too difficult, although the first
performers of Opus 59 were musicians from Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s highly feted
quartet. The viola and cello parts were particularly difficult (and simple, too,
as Beethoven himself, who played the violin, preferred to play the viola in
quartet works). Soon, however, Schuppanzigh’s quartet overcame the problems.
Later the musicians entered the service of Count Razumovsky before leaving for
Russia, performing for such music lovers Prince Golitsyn as well as being the
first musicians to perform Beethoven’s late quartets. The quartets dedicated
to Count Razumovsky are titled “Die Russischen”. In the first two,
Beethoven used themes from Russian songs, which he had probably discovered in
the collection by Lvov and Prach in the Count’s library. This is where the
composer’s interest in folklore first appeared. From this point of view,
Quartet Op. 59 No 3 is the least “Russian”, as there
are no Russian themes in it. However, the lengthy introduction, written out of
tonality, and the virtuoso final fugue render it no less attractive.
Anna Bulycheva
Schedule for Takacs Quartet. Beethoven 2022
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