Arts

'A Late Quartet': Melodrama With A Pounding Musical Heart

Credit courtesy of Entertainment One Films

Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener as the Fugue String Quartet.

By Anastasia Tsioulcas

Originally published on Thu November 8, 2012 8:23 pm

After a quarter century together as one of the world's top chamber music ensembles, the Fugue String Quartet is falling apart at the seams. A generation older than his colleagues, cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) is experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson's, and with his sudden retirement, a morass of long-buried resentments and pain come spewing out of his three younger partners: first violinist Daniel (Mark Ivanir), second violinist Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and violist Juliette (Catherine Keener).

1:38 pm

Wed November 7, 2012

Always A Rose: Elliott Carter Remembered

Credit Michael J. Lutch

Elliott Carter at Tanglewood in 2008 on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz is sitting right behind Carter.

By Lloyd Schwartz

Originally published on Wed November 7, 2012 5:02 pm

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10:13 am

Wed November 7, 2012

Carnegie Hall Live: Belcea Quartet Plays Beethoven Tonight At 8 P.M. ET

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Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

The players in the Belcea Quartet played a series of late Beethoven string quartets at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall.

Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

The Belcea Quartet's violinists Corina Belcea and Axel Schacher, walk onstage just before playing Beethoven's String Quartet in E flat, Op. 127.

Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

Beethoven had left the string quartet behind for a dozen years before writing his Op. 127 quartet. He said he had "new kind of part-writing" where all instruments have independent lines while blending together.

Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

Intimate lighting for intimate music. Just a spotlight on the Belcea Quartet is appropriate for Beethoven's late quartets, which are among his most personal, enigmatic and powerfully forward-thinking pieces.

Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

The Belcea Quartet — violinists Corina Belcea (left) and Axel Schacher, cellist Antoine Lederlin and violist Krzysztof Chorzelski (far right) — plays two of Beethoven's late string quartets at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, Nov. 7, 2012. It was the first concert back in the building after Hurricane Sandy forced Carnegie to close for several days.

Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

The Belcea Quartet at Zankel Hall. They were scheduled for three nights of concerts, but Hurricane Sandy got in the way of one performance. Instead the quartet played a for hurricane victims in a shelter in Brooklyn.

Credit Melanie Burford / NPR

The Belcea Quartet prepares to leaves the stage. They also played Beethoven's enigmatic String Quartet in B flat, Op. 130 at this Zankel Hall performance.

By Tom Huizenga

Originally published on Tue November 13, 2012 3:30 pm

There comes a time in the life of most string quartets when, for better or worse, Beethoven must be confronted. For the acclaimed Belcea Quartet (named after its first violinist Corina Belcea), that time is now. The London-based group, founded at the Royal College of Music in 1994, is thoroughly steeped in Beethoven's 16 string quartets — pieces written throughout the early, middle and late stages of his career in an epic sweep of compositional mastery and imagination.

2:50 pm

Tue November 6, 2012

Elliott Carter, Giant Of American Music, Dies At 103

By Tom Huizenga

Originally published on Tue November 6, 2012 7:08 pm

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Thu November 8, 2012