Taurus Quartet
Lachenmann, Beethoven
In just five years, the Taurus Quartet has built up a rock-solid reputation and an impressive repertoire that brings together classics and more recent works. This enables unusual dialogues, such as this one between Beethoven and Lachenmann. The forerunner to romanticism versus the last great modernist. In its groans, ‘Gran Torso’ magnifies the resistance that goes hand in hand with making music. What initially sounds like a disastrous attempt at interplay rapidly turns into an intense listening experience. In his late period, Beethoven also dared to look beyond the ideal of polished sounds. His String Quartet, Opus 130, and above all the de ‘Grosse Fuge’ were not popular in 1825. With his hesitant sound, Beethoven was far ahead of his time: perhaps he was the Lachenmann of his day…