Daniel Chong, violin | Ken Hamao, violin | Jessica Bodner, viola | Kee-Hyun Kim, cello
Beethoven String Quartet No. 11 in f minor, Op. 95
- Opus 95 defies simple categorization as a “middle period” work and and can be viewed as a compositional bridge to Beethoven’s Late Period.
- Intensely compact. Extreme emotions are juxtaposed without traditional transitions.
- First Movement: Frenetic desperation, raw emotional contrasts.
- Second Movement: Not truly a “slow” movement. Traumatic exhaustion and loneliness.
- Third Movement returns to wrath and defiance. Upbeats and downbeats are intentionally ambiguous.
- Fourth Movement, Intro: The quartet’s darkest point with intervals suggesting spiritual pleading.
- Fourth Movement, Allegretto Agitato: A tarantella-like dance that “wards off evil spirits by dancing amongst the shadows.”
- Fourth Movement, Coda: Flips the darkness —comical, light, and brilliant —an example of Beethoven’s motto of “joy through suffering”.
About
Parker Quartet
Internationally recognized for their “fearless, yet probingly beautiful” (The Strad) performances, the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet has distinguished itself as…
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“...nothing but drums, cannon and human misery in every form.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven on the 1809 French invasion of Vienna
