TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2020 at 8:00 PM - POSTPONED

Coolidge Auditorium

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(tickets available 12/11/2019, beginning at 10 AM)

Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, violins
Geraldine Walther, viola  |  András Fejér, cello

Now in its 45th year, the eminent Takács Quartet holds an undisputed place at the very peak of the profession. Their appearance in our Beethoven festival highlights one of our treasures, a sketch from the composer’s op. 131 quartet in C-sharp minor. "Performing Op. 131 is always an adventure," first violinist Edward Dusinberre has written. "Over the course of seven movements, played without a break, Beethoven covers a range of emotions, shifting from one to the other with a minimum of preparation." For Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven’s music was “exceedingly moving and emotional.” Like her brother Felix, she was an astute student of his compositions. “We were young during Beethoven's last years," she writes in a letter to Felix, “and absorbed his style to a considerable degree.” Nonetheless her string quartet—one of the earliest written by a woman—contains a uniquely individual fantasia-like Romanza, very much a gesture of her own.