A concert interacting with the audience

The last five quartets and the Grande Fugue were written between 1822 and 1826. "Here, the composer's third style embodies the extreme point of his research, his independence and all his daring inventions. In the very last Quartets, the polyphony is more complex, steeper than ever (to the point - in the case of the Grande Fugue - of seeming more satisfying to read than to hear), and the technical or expressive demands made on the instruments mean that the genre has reached such a degree of emancipation and fulfilment that one can only wonder about its “truth” and the laws of its own musical reality."

 

Selection of movements from the quartets op.18 :

Op.127 1st movement Maestoso-Allegro

Op.130 2nd mvt Presto & 5th mvt Cavatine

Op.131 4th mvt or 5th mvt Presto

Op.132 4th mvt Alla marcia & 5th mvt Allegro appassionato

 

Quartet op.135 Friedensgesang