Since their creation, Ludwig van Beethoven's string quartets have fascinated and disturbed listeners and performers, lovers and connoisseurs through their free dealings with the norms of the genre and the listener's expectations, as well as through their untamed imagination. With this book, Beethoven's uncompromising path from the quartets op. 18 to his last five string quartets and the "Great Fugue" op. 133 is understandable step by step:

- Peter Gülke reflects on Beethoven's "Music of the Other Time".
- Emil Platen describes the genesis of the last quartets from the first idea to performances to publication on the basis of musical autographs and transcripts, correspondence and conversation books.
- Gerd Indorf treats each quartet on a set of about 100 pages sentence by sentence and presents their ideas and forms in a generally comprehensible form. Time indications are supplemented by minutes / seconds based on the recording of the Leipzig string quartet, so that the explanations are comprehensible even without notes ,
- Matthias Moosdorf, the cellist of the Leipzig String Quartet, comments on the performance practice.
- Peter Korfmacher portrays the most important complete recordings.

A "musical picture noise" offers the attached video-audio DVD with the "Big Fugue". It can not only be heard in the interpretation of the Leipzig String Quartet, but also in moving pictures: its fascinating sound world can be experienced in a new way as video art.

Pages: 154

Language: German

Publisher: Barenreiter