Years ago, I attended a faculty recital by the Juilliard Quartet at Alice Tully featuring Bach's Die Kunst der Fugue and couldn't believe how lucky I was to have heard such an incredible performance for any price, let alone for free. I had the same feeling yesterday evening as I heard the Quartet perform two of Beethoven's greatest pieces of music, the Op. 131 in C sharp minor and the Op. 132 in A minor.
I first came to know these pieces through the Guarneri Quartet's recordings and live performances in the 1980's at the Met Museum. I also have Leonard Bernstein's dramatic recording with the string section of the Vienna Philharmonic of the Op. 131, based on an arrangement by his mentor Dmitri Mitropoulos.
As a non-musician, I cannot even begin to describe these quartets' complexity or the extent of the composer's innovations. I can only sit transfixed by the sheer lyrical beauty of Op. 132's third movement, the long section where Beethoven confronted his own death and gave thanks for his recovery from a serious illness. As for the Op. 131, I can do no better than quote the appreciation written by Wagner for the centenary of Beethoven's birth:
“Tis the dance of the whole world itself: wild joy, the wail of pain, love's transport, utmost bliss, grief, frenzy, riot, suffering, the lightning flickers, thunders growl: and above it the stupendous fiddler who bears and bounds it all, who leads it haughtily from whirlwind into whirlwind, to the brink of the abyss - he smiles at himself, for to him this sorcery was the merest play - and night beckons him. His day is done.”
As for the Juilliard Quartet itself, this is a time of great change for a group that originally formed in 1946. After having added Joseph Lin as first violinist only last year, the group is now celebrating its final season with violist Samuel Rhodes who first joined the quartet in 1967.
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