Quatuor Ébène

Twenty-six years separate Beethoven’s first and thirteenth string quartets: the time of a revolution in the sixteen-string genre. The first attempt of the musician, then aged 29, Opus 18 is inspired by the tomb scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and already gives a measure of the power of his musical imagination . Opus 130 is the ultimate expression of this, at the end of a journey of research and reinvention of classical forms. Its Cavatina, the penultimate movement, is probably one of the most moving pieces ever written. However, critics at the time did not understand the exceptional modernity of the Grande Fugue, and Beethoven was forced to rethink the of his score. This change will be remedied for this concert event by the Quatuor Ébène, specialists in the music of the German composer, which they have performed across six continents. Between the two Beethoven milestones, the French group, whose repertoire crosses jazz, pop and contemporary music, will introduce us to the piece Tetrhappy by R aphaël Merlin. The cellist of the Quartet, now a conductor and composer, was inspired by Charles Mingus’ Self portrait in three colours to deliver a moving testimony of the 21 years spent with Les Ébène and the fascinating dialogue of a life in a quartet.