Beethoven 4 Strings: Part V

Show & Culture

Beethoven rarely gave titles to his works. The inscription 'Quartetto Serioso' scribbled in the manuscript of his String Quartet No. 11 is therefore significant. The work is short and of fierce intensity, closer to a dispute than a polite conversation. In contrast, the Belcea Quartet surrounds it with No. 3, an early quartet in which Beethoven was already testing the limits of the genre, and No. 2, known as 'Rasumovsky', whose slow movement seems suspended in time. This concert reveals the breadth of the emotional spectrum that Beethoven was capable of expressing.