Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) and the composition of his 16 string quartets: never before has anyone revealed themselves so openly and whoever has truly understood him well are the four members of the French Quator Ebène. After a stellar performance on Sunday evening, August 23, 2026, the ensemble received the Bremer Musikfest-Preis. More than well-deserved!
They achieved the impossible: over six days (two days, a day of rest, two days, a day of rest and two more days) to perform all the string quartets. An experience almost unique to witness. They will not do it that way again, it was hardly ever done before them and they will not be followed up on all too soon. Although, the performance of all Beethoven string quartets within approximately 1 week with Quatuor Ébène was unique in Europe, but not in the world: They performed it in June this year at Suntory Hall in Tokyo (Japan) and next year they are taking it to the United States (Carnegie Hall, New York) – where they will perform the quartets spread over 2 weeks (March 23-25 and April 2-4). At the Philharmonie in Paris, a Beethoven string quartet cycle will also be performed over one week in December this year, shared between Quatuor Ébène and the Belcea Quartet. Everywhere else the cycle is spread over a much longer time (1 or two seasons), as in London, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Bonn and Brussels. Yes, in your own country you can attend Flagey on November 20, 21 and 22 this year still– click here – as an announcement the year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death and to make up for the lost Beethoven year 2020.
Misunderstood to this day?
The sixteen string quartets are all works in themselves; it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a common thread as if they belong together in some way, nor are they individually music for relaxation, simply to enjoy. You MUST listen with attention, you MUST think, you MUST feel. Beethoven opened his deepest inner life in those sometimes breathtakingly impressive string quartets. No matter how closely you study the score, no matter how deeply you as a listener are involved, to this day not everything is understood, at the beginning even not at all by too many people, of what Beethoven expresses in these sometimes so deeply moving charming, then again frightfully choleric overwhelming works. Will the wonder from Bonn ever truly be fully understood?
Six days of absorbing attention overwhelm a jubilant audience
It was an honor, truly!, and a pleasure – more than a pleasure – to be able to be there, the six days in Die Glocke, small hall, of the large complex in Bremen, a city terribly tormented at the end of WWII. Oh yes, partly spared and reportedly by the American pilot of a bomber who could not carry out his orders. Not due to technical, but to conscience issues. He was supposed to flatten the heart of the city, the Grand Market. He knew the city full of beautiful 'Dutch' (actually Flemish) Renaissance monuments from before the war and he dropped the bombs beside them. Yes, there was still much irreparable destruction, but the town hall – intact Renaissance, worth visiting! – and the Dom and a few more churches and buildings and the small neighborhood 'Schnoor' were spared.In that city of the Four Bremen Musicians, with the mighty plane trees along the Wezer river that flows through the city, it was thus six days all about Beethoven, not only in music, but in HIS entire being. The audience, somewhat reserved in itself, went crazy after each quartet, cheering, stamping their feet and could barely stop applauding which it had to or the evening would get too heated… It is not an exaggeration to say that everyone was literally overwhelmed. After the first quartet performed on the opening evening, I let out a sigh: "Ohhhmmm" and I was not alone. A sigh of delightful amazement at an interpretation, if it can even be called interpretation, that you have never heard before, that immediately made you think: "What on earth was going on in that man?" Beethoven indeed. Sometimes you feel deeply in love, then you are terribly angry, nervous, harried only to be overwhelmed again by rich melody and harmony, pure beauty and then again by sadness.
A number of the quartets, particularly those following the gripping, dramatically charged, moving to tears Heiligenstädter Testament, are a musical expression of what he wrote in that farewell to the world – he wanted to commit suicide, terribly tormented, 24/7, day in day out, years on end by a very serious form of tinnitus – in words. Expressed musically, please! Fortunately, it is not all sorrow and unfulfilled love that he makes sing so beautifully, the man could be quite witty and theatrical, and so there is also strong humor in these works that really make you laugh during performance. What a fellow, what a genius! He expresses so much that it will take generations after us before he is fully understood by 100 percent. Sometimes you think: "Oh yes, but I know Beethoven" and then you hear, even if it's the umpteenth time, one of his many masterworks, quartet, sonata, symphony or whatever, and you discover yet another Beethoven, you discover yet other colors in the work you think you know and will never know. That is how it is with the work of true geniuses, composer, scientist, visual artist, author and so on. Look at a painting by Rubens today, again tomorrow and as much as you want. Every time you discover new points of attention even though you think you really know every brushstroke by now.
And so the Quator Ebène made music with full admiration and the greatest respect for Beethoven, the man who is after all a quarter of us. Without his Mechelen grandfather, the world would not have had this gift – Beethoven is truly a gift to mankind. We may in our country carry the man who made it in Vienna with somewhat more healthy chauvinistic pride in our hearts.
A point of doubt that I personally had with the performances, actually two points, were that it was sometimes too fast whereby you could sink into a morass of almost muddying details on the one hand and sometimes, in my feeling, somewhat too sharp aggressively. However far ahead of his time Beethoven was, years, decades, centuries (we're not there yet…), he was not a (hard) rocker, not a metallica guy, not a pop musician. He was of his time just as he was not. He brought together in his way past, present and (distant) future and coupled that to his personal attitude, experiences, unrequited love, political frustrations, insatiable hunger for infinite beauty and what have you, and all of that, really all of that lies especially in his sixteen string quartets, more than in any other of his compositions. They are his train of thought, his intellect, his emotions, his all.
Thank you, dearest Beethoven whom I have admired since my toddler years. Thanks to the four members of the Quator Ebène for offering all these works in a week – what a gift indeed! – and thanks to the Musikfest Bremen for organizing and honoring it with that wonderful Bremer Musikfest-Preis. BRAVO!