Beethoven: String Quartets Nos. 9 + 11 / Grosse Fuge

The Chiaroscuro Quartet (Alina Ibragimova and Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux, violin; Emilie Hörnlund, viola; Claire Thirion, cello) continues its series of recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven's string quartets with three works that mark different stages in his development within this genre. The collection opens with String Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59, No. 3, the last of the three "Razumovsky" quartets. Written in 1806 at the request of Count Andrei Razumovsky, these quartets expanded the scale of the genre far beyond Beethoven's earlier quartets. No. 3 combines an introduction reminiscent of Mozart with a Slavic-tinged Andante and a virtuosic fugal finale.

String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95, the "Quartetto serioso," was composed in 1810 and is designed in a significantly more concentrated and radical manner. The program concludes with the "Grosse Fuge," Op. 133, originally composed as the finale to String Quartet Op. 130. By combining fugue and variation, Beethoven pushes the possibilities of the genre toward an extremely dense and dissonance-rich form. Together, the three works trace the path from the classical quartet tradition to Beethoven's increasingly free and forward-looking musical language.