from the Houldsworth Hall ,
Manchester
The Charles Taylor
String Quartet:
Charles Taylor (first violin) ; Sydney Partington
; Paul Cropper (viola) ; Alex Young
(violoncello)
Beethoven's Quartet in A minor is the fourth of the last group of five great string quartets, in which Beethoven surpassed all his previous essays in this form. The bigger part of the work was composed during March-August, 1825, but it was interrupted during the spring owing to severe illness. Many annotators believe that Beethoven's mental and physical anguish is reflected in the music of this quartet. Although it is dangerous to read biographical programmes into a composer's music, to some extent it is justified in this case by the character of the music, which is unmistakably expressive of the composer's mind at that time. Furthermore, we are supported by Beethoven's own inscription on the original MS. at the beginning of the slow movement, which reads : ' Song of thanksgiving to the Deity on recovery from an illness, written in the Lydian mode '.