Episode 27 – String Quartets

John continues exploring the different musical forms that Beethoven mastered, by focusing on a style of music that he came late to, but then transformed; his String Quartets. John will play the piece composed by Beethoven in a year of huge personal trauma, as well as a part of his late String Quartets described at the time as “incomprehensible, like Chinese, a confusion of Babel”, but now considered amongst the pinnacle of Beethoven’s work. Then, John reveals the final complete piece of music that the great composer would write, as his health was dramatically failing; a surprisingly jaunty String Quartet that belied his physical and mental condition. All the Beethoven pieces featured in this podcast are taken from the 90-disc Naxos box set, the Complete Beethoven Edition. You can buy yours by heading to Presto Classical and Europadisc.