Borromeo String Quartet conclude their Traversal of the Beethoven Quartets at the Gardner Museum with Nos. 13 – 15, by Michael Miller
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Calderwood Hall
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Borromeo String Quartet
Nicholas Kitchen, Kristopher Tong, violins
Mai Motobuchi, viola
Yeesun Kim, cello
The Complete Beethoven String Quartets, Part V
Ludwig van Beethoven
Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op 132
Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op 131
Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major (with the Große Fuge), Op 130 and 133
For a writer it is almost as daunting to write about Beethoven’s late quartets — which are pretty much the greatest music we have — as it is for musicians to play them. The depth of human experience and height of musical thought they hold is beyond anything else. Experiencing human expression at this level is something like looking straight into the sun: a few seconds can blind one for a few minutes; longer exposure can blind one permanently — or, in relation to the quartets, perhaps substitute the word “change” for “blind.” That is, the sort of change Sophocles’ Oedipus underwent in putting out his eyes and setting out in the wanderings that took him to Colonus. Beethoven in fact depicts this kind of human transformation literally in the third movement of his A Minor quartet. If one listens to Beethoven’s late quartets with attention, it is impossible to be casual about art, life, or illness.

